the dislike and opposition of the North to the institution of slavery. This is always uppermost and foremost in every complaint. It is only following out the programme suggested by Mr. Calhoun, when he found himself driven from his position upon the Tariff by the spectre of a halter:-that the South could not be united against the North upon the Tariff; that they must abandon that and take up the question of slavery. Since that time no opportunity has been omitted to force the issue of slavery in some form or other, into every national election, and nearly every measure of national legislation. The echoes of the nullification contest on the Tariff had hardly ceased, when the tempest of slavery agitation rose in the South-west. Many excellent people at the North, for the last thirty years, have thought themselves very humane and patriotic, in bemoaning and denouncing the agitation of the subject of slavery. They have bawled themselves hoarse to secure silence; they have denounced their neighbors with a bitterness, surprising to those who are ignorant of its source, for the sake of peace. Dear, simple souls; they did not understand that the one thing their Southern friends most dreaded, was the cessation of this very agitation. While Mr. Calhoun, the great apostle of agitation and secession, in his place in the Senate, was publicly lamenting over, and deprecating the agitation of slavery, he was writing private letters to confidential friends in the South, urging them to "force the issue upon the North." The agitation at length, had taken the form of the "Wilmot Proviso," excluding slavery from the Territories. Mr. Calhoun was loud in his denunciation of the discussion, in Congress and elsewhere at the North. At the same time he wrote to a sympathizing friend in Alabama :3 "I would regard any compromise or adjustment of the proviso, or even its defeat, without meeting the danger in its whole length and breadth, as very unfortunate for us. It would lull us to sleep again, without removing the danger, or materially diminishing it. Thus while publicly denouncing the "Proviso," as an insult to the South, and the source of irritation and bitterness between the two sections, he was carefully nursing it in private as a cherished instrument to embitter and intensify the antagonism between the Northern and

Hon. Percy Walker.

Southern States. The world has yet to learn the consummate duplicity and profound dissimulation of that man who, for more than twenty years, figured so conspicuously in every controversy between the North and the South; to whom more than to any other man we are indebted for the terrible calamity that has at last fallen upon our beloved country.

The leaders of the Southern rebellion say that the people of the North are opposed to their cherished institution of slavery. In a paper called "A declaration of Causes which induced the Secession of South Carolina"-there is but one cause mentioned, and that is the opposition of the North to slavery. And perhaps we may as well here as elsewhere examine the different "counts" of that indictment.

First, it asserts "that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfil their constitutional obligations;" that is, in arresting and returning fugitive slaves. Mr. Holt, of Kentucky, in his "Letter on the pending Revolution," says in reply to this charge: "The census returns show that during the year 1860, the Fugitive Slave Law was executed more faithfully and successfully than it had been during the preceding ten years."4 And it may be asserted without fear of contradiction, that since the adoption of the compromise measures of 1850, there have been more fugitive slaves arrested and returned to their masters, than in all the time previous, since the organization of the Government;-more, let us trust, than there will be for a hundred years to come. Indeed, the South had a fugitive slave law passed precisely as she desired it. In the Senate twentyfour out of the twenty-seven votes given for the Bill on its

4 We cannot resist the temptation to give another quotation from Mr. Holt's letter touching this point: "Kentucky now enjoys for her peculiar institutions, the protection of the Fugitive Slave Law, loyally enforced by the Government; and it is this law, effective in the power of recapture, but infinitely more potent in its moral agency in preventing the escape of slaves, that alone saves the institution in the border States from utter extinction. She cannot carry this law with her into the new Conferderacy. She will virtually have Canada brought to her doors in the form of free States, whose population, released of all moral and constitutional obligations to deliver up fugitive slaves, will stand with open arms, welcoming and inviting them, and defending them, if need be, at the point of the bayonet."

passage, were given by Senators from slave States. It was drawn by a Southern Senator, and passed by Southern votes; and if it was not such a law as they wanted, the fault was their own.

But special complaint is made by Southern leaders of the "Personal Liberty Laws"-as they are called, which have been passed in several of the free States. We cannot speak from personal inspection of those laws in but two or three instances; nor is it necessary to go into a discussion of their peculiar features. The case admits of the simplest solution. If those" Personal Liberty Laws," are constitutional, then it is perfectly competent for the States to enact and enforce them. In doing so, they exercise no power which the Constitution does not secure to them, and infringe no right which it secures to others, and the South has no cause of complaint. If those laws were unconstitutional; if they were really incompatible with the duties of the States under the fundamental law of the land; if they violated rights which the Constitution guaranteed to the slave States, then the only remedy necessary was to bring a case involving them into the Supreme Court of the United States, and let it declare them "null and void ;" and immediately they would become, on the statute books of the several States, of no more force or validity than so much blank paper. Can any reasonable man believe that they have risen in rebellion on account of those laws, when so prompt and easy a remedy was within their reach?

Again, it is generally admitted that these "Personal Liberty Laws" are based upon the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of "Prigg against the State of Pennsylvania." It was there decided that State officers were not obliged to take any part in executing the United States' law for the recapture of fugitive slaves; but that they might do so, unless prohibited by State legislation. This clearly admitted the right of a State to forbid its officers taking any part in the recapture of fugitive slaves. From this decision originated the "Personal Liberty Laws" in the free States, that have given such offence to the South. The free States, besides forbidding their officers to assist in the execution of the United States law, forbade the use also of their prisons, jails, court-houses, and all other public buildings, for the keeping or trial of fugitive slaves; and

imposed, moreover, heavy fines on those who, under the pretence of recovering a fugitive, should attempt to kidnap any bona fide citizen of the State. The last feature is clearly within the power of any State. And even the leaders who have plunged the people of the South into this rebellion are compelled to admit that these "Personal Liberty Laws" are justified by the decision of the Supreme Court. Indeed, it is difficult to understand how such laws should be condemned by those who carry the doctrine of State Rights to the extreme of nullification and secession.

Another complaint of the Southern leaders-one of the most vociferous, if not the most serious-is that they are not permitted to carry slaves into the free Territories of the United States. They have various high-sounding names for this grievance. They say they "are deprived of their constitutional rights;"-it is "an attempt to reduce them to a degrading inferiority." We reply, if there is any wrong to the South-if there is anything inconsistent with the constitutional duties of the States-in excluding slavery from the Territories of the Union, then the South may blame themselves for it. It was a policy proposed by one of the most eminent of Southern statesmen ;-advocated by Southern members of Congress ;-adopted by Southern votes ;sanctioned by Southern Cabinet members;-approved and executed by Southern Presidents. If these measures have inflicted such intolerable wrong upon the Southern States, it is but just that the South should bear the responsibility. The first instance of such legislation on the part of the general Government was the exclusion of slavery from the Territory northwest of the Ohio river, by the celebrated ordinance of 1787. This measure was proposed to the old Federal Congress, by Mr. Jefferson, in 1784, but was defeated because it then contained no provision for the recovery

5 Mr. Stephens, in his speech above quoted, uses the following language on this point: "I know that in some of these [free] States, their acts [the Personal Liberty Laws] pretend to be based on the principles set forth in the case of Prigg against Pennsylvania. That decision did proclaim the doctrine that the State officers are not bound to carry out the provisions of a law of Congress-that the Federal Government cannot impose duties upon State officials; that they must execute their own laws by their own officers." Evidently, if a State may forbid the service of her officers to the Federal Government, she may forbid also the use of her prisons, court-houses and jails; and the whole principle of the Personal Liberty Laws is affirmed.

of fugitive slaves. In July, 1787, the measure was brought forward again and passed by the votes of Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. This act required some amendment to adapt it to the new form and powers of the Government under the Constitution. Hence an Act was passed, August 7th, 1789, introduced by the following preamble: "Whereas, in order that the Ordinance of the United States in Congress assembled, for the government of the Territory northwest of the river Ohio, may continue to have full effect, it is required that certain provisions should be made so as to adapt the same to the present Constitution of the United States.' This was one of the earliest acts of the first Congress assembled under the Constitution of the United States; and it is worthy of remark that it excluded slavery from every foot of Territory then within the jurisdiction of the general Government. And when we hear it said, by Southern leaders or their Northern sympathizers, that Congress has no constitutional power to exclude slavery from the territories-that it is an infringement of the rights guaranteed to the South, and a violation of the constitutional compact between the States-it may be well to remember that it was a policy initiated by the South, before the adoption of the Constitution; that it passed the old Congress while the convention was in session which framed the Constitution; that immediately after the inauguration of the Government under the Constitution, the act was re-affirmed by Congress; that twenty members of that Congress, including Mr. Madison, were then just fresh from their labors of drawing up the Constitution, and might be presumed to have some knowledge of its meaning; that the Act was approved by Washington, himself the President of the Constitutional Convention, with the advice of such members of

6 This was in the Federal Congress where the vote was taken by States. It will be seen that this ordinance, excluding Slavery from the whole North-west Territory, and, according to recent agitators, inflicting such irreparable injury upon the South, was passed by the votes of five slave States and three free States. Mr. Benton says, it "was pre-eminently the work of the South"-"the South voting unanimously for it, both as States and individual members, while the North had one member against it "-"a circumstance to be remembered and quoted, as showing the South at that time, taking the lead in curtailing and restricting the existence of Slavery." ("Thirty Years' View.") Vol. I. c. xliv.