That profound theologian and philosopher, Bishop Butler, is said to have suggested the idea, that, by possibility, all mankind are mad. Whatever conclusions might be justified by careful speculation upon this point, it seems certain that the main body of a people may become so possessed of ́a delusion, as to approach very nearly to the confines of insanity. The Northern masses, who gave way to the antislavery excitement, acted upon false premises. A madman's conduct is rational enough upon the grounds which prompt his action. A child mounts a stick, and imagines himself on horseback. The range of a madman's fancies becomes circumscribed, or morbidly enlarged, and he lives within his own circle of thought in relations to that alone. He assumes, for instance, that he is a king, and makes use of the best means. at his command to indicate his royal dignity. Under the former inhuman and ignorant mode of treatment practised towards such unhappy patients, he would wrap his tattered blanket around his naked limbs, in guise of a robe of state, and hold up a straw from his pallet for a mimic sceptre. That part of the Northern population, out of whose ignorance and excitable temperament the antislavery agitation was worked up into a wide-spread hallucination, assumed, and was instructed by those who knew better to assume, that negro slavery in the Southern States comprehended all the worst evils and vices of every description of bondage, in every nation and in every age.

It was on this theory that multitudes conceived themselves called upon to spare no pains to extinguish a system of such enormous wrong; and that no human statutes could justly restrain them from the discharge of superior obligations to the "Higher Law." The fault, or misfortune, was, that no real foundation existed for the assumption upon which they proceeded. Of all forms of involuntary restraint, under which one class of human beings is subjected to the control of another class, that exerted by Southern masters and mistresses over their slaves was the mildest and least objection

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able.' The evidence of this fact is complete, from the relations of numerous impartial foreign witnesses; but the negative evidence is still more conclusive; for it is not known that, among the whole four millions of Southern blacks, any one has been found to have complained of grievous wrong from his owner to the armies which have penetrated their country. Indeed, it had always been the practice of Southern families, in their visits to the North, to be attended by their household servants of either sex; and though the fanatics spared no pains to entice them from their masters; and though such was the condition of the law, at the period in question, and the mode of its administration, that freedom, when they were on Northern soil, was really at their own option, the instances were almost unknown of such slaves abandoning the service to which they were accustomed, and to which it may, hence, be assumed, they were attached.

It is equally certain, that the aggregate number of those who were seduced from their homes by the unceasing efforts of the abolitionists, during a series of years, was really inconsiderable. When the troops of the United States took possession of St. Helena, Port Royal, and finally of Beaufort, in South Carolina, early in the war, Northern chaplains wrote home letters, which were published, expressing their surprise that they saw no mulattoes or children of mixed races in that quarter. The statement was grudgingly received by many, who had held up the idea of widely prevalent habits of licentiousness in the Southern States. A little reflection, elevated and instructed by a certain degree of charity, might have led to the conclusion, that where temptations of the kind alluded to had the longest existed, among a Christian people, the social guards would be likely to be the most strict. Allowing for all exceptional cases of the kind, certainly Southern matrons and maids would be far from submitting to the insult implied in any such promiscuous concubinage; and it is well known that white men lost

1 See Webster, 7th March Speech, pamphlet edition, p. 3.

caste at the South, who were notoriously guilty of such a vicious way of life. During the whole progress of the long struggle, even after the President had promulgated his decree of emancipation, and when the armies of the United States had their most widely extended possession of the Southern territory, no symptom of insurrection is known to have manifested itself among the slaves. This fact shows either great indifference to the boon of freedom, on their part, or a singular degree of control exercised over them by their masters; perhaps both.

But no more striking exemplification could be furnished, of that former contentment or quiet state of things, on one side of the Southern line, and of the state of opinion among a certain class of persons, on the other side, than in the "raid” of John Brown. That fanatic imagined that he could stir up an insurrection capable of overthrowing "the slave power," with a force of twenty-one men! But, although with the advantage of a year's residence on the Virginia border, not a slave joined his band. In like manner, during the late war, it was chiefly from plantations abandoned by their proprietors, as the army advanced, that the negroes followed in the rear of its march, more for the sake of precarious relief to their present misery, thus produced, than from any definite idea of civil regeneration. In most cases, the "sudden wrench" from a state of comfortable maintenance to one of helpless independence must have produced an utter confusion of faculties inadequate to the exigencies of their novel condition; and it seems certain, that those who thus perished from helplessness and hopeless ness and want, and the diseases incident to want and despair, are to be reckoned by not a few hundreds of thousands.

It is not necessary to consider the system of negro slavery, in the United States, as one of unmixed good-supposing such a human lot in this world were possible—in order to conceive that it had its alleviations; or that, however repulsive the idea of slavery of any description might be to a white citizen unaccustomed to observe its operation;

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yet, to a negro in the South, the benefits of such a condition far outweighed its drawbacks and disadvantages. To the white citizen, indeed, the grave question at hand presents itself in an aspect raised infinitely above any temporary or personal considerations. By bestowing freedom on the negro, with all the consequences of freedom, the structure of the republic is to be settled upon a different basis from that contemplated by its founders, and upon which it had risen to splendor and renown. Under the administration of the superior race, its future of prosperity and glory might be deduced from the history of the past. If trammelled with the embarrassments inseparable from the mixture in its public affairs of a numerous race, intellectually and physically inferior, the introduction of a new and more formidable source of discord cannot fail to be the consequence. Its action will be disarranged, its progress checked, its position degraded. Immense physical force it may have, for a time, but its moral superiority will be gone. It will fall in the scale of nations, as the most powerful empires have heretofore fallen, and may see its proud preeminence exchanged for the secret, if not the open, derision of the world. Thus, the Chinese Empire, comprising a territory of immense extent, and a population double that of all Europe-distinguished in agricultural pursuits, skilful in those of commerce, ingenious and successful in cultivating many of the curious and most of the more useful arts of life, and inferior to few nations in diplomatic management and tact-is yet at the mercy of single European powers, for want of homogeneity of race, of an all-pervading sentiment of nationality, of the pride and vigor of a people animated by common memories and hopes, of an enlightened patriotism inspired by the elevated promptings of the moral nature, instead of a mere policy dictated by material and often conflicting interests, sym pathies, and passions.

8*

CHAPTER VII.

State of Public Sentiment at the Close of the Year 1849.-California and New Mexico.-Mr. Webster's Speech of March 7th, 1850.-Trimming Politicians.-Sentimental Politicians. -The Church as a Political Engine.-M. Clay's Compromise Resolutions.-Petition for Dissolution of the Union.-Mr. Hale, Mr. Seward, and Mr. Chase vote to receive it.— Washington's Farewell Address.-Mr. Calhoun's Resolutions.-Action of Southern Members of Congress.-Mr. Webster.-The Compromise Measures of 1850.-State Sovereignty. The Fugitive Slave Laws of 1793 and of 1850.-The Missouri Compromise abrogated by the Measures of 1850.

Ar the beginning of the session of Congress, in December, 1849, both the North and the South had become wrought up to the highest pitch of excitement upon the slavery question. In the one section, the embers of the fires which had been kindled by the admission of Texas still remained a body of living coals. Other questions now arising, in regard to California and New Mexico, heaped upon them the fuel for another and a more fervent flame. Warmly as the North entered upon the discussion of this topic, the South, perhaps, even exceeded it in earnestness; for it was regarded in the latter quarter as a test point, which was to settle definitely the equality of their rights in the Union and, as they alleged, their future relation to the republic.

In fact, the Northern mind had become morbidly active on the subject. Various and powerful influences had been for some years at work to produce this effect; if not in express combination with each other, yet tending to the same general end, and conveying the impression of a united effort, in the free States, against even the constitutional guarantees of the slave States, which was very far from being the case.1

"I left the Department of State in May, 1843, and shortly after I learned,