Abolition Proceedings (slavery / Civil War)
Abolition Proceedings
Mr. Treadwell has attempted in this book to settle definitively the whole question, as to the right of abolitionists to labor for the emanicipation of the slaves. He takes up and professes to answer some forty popular objections to the proceedings of the abolitionists. He has done the thing admirably, no doubt, and to the entire satisfaction of his friends. But we are sorry to find that he has mistaken entirely the real question at issue, and paid not the least attention to what we regarrd as the really weighty objections which may be used against abolition proceedings.
Mr. Treadwell proceeds through his whole book, at least so far as we have read it, on the ground that the real question at issue is, Have the northern abolitionists a right to discuss the abstract question of slavery? Now this is a great mistake, and this way of putting the question is absolutely unpardonable. We have a right, as men and as citizens of an indenpendent state to discus any question and all questions which concern any portion of the human race, and all questions which concern any portion of the human race, and to discuss them freely and unreservedly. There is no limitation to this right, except as to the manner of exercising it. In discussing any question whatever, we are bound to show that respect for the opinions and characters of others,we exact from others for our own. Nobody objects to the mere discussion of slavery; and anybody may advocate, in the freest and ablest manner he can, the inalienable right of every man, whether black or white, to be a freeman.
We insist on this point. The abolitionists make no small outery about the right of free discussion; they represent themselves as the champions of free discussion and they take unwearied pains to make it believed that the whole cause of free discussion is involved in the abolition question. Nothing is or can be more disingenuous than this. Abolitionists are in no sense whatever, either in the principle or practice, the champions of free discussion. Their conceptions of free discussion, so far as we can gather them from their publications, are exceedingly narrow and crude. In their estimation free discussion is to denounnce slavery and slave-holders; and opposition to free discussion, is the free expression of one's honest convictions against abolition proceedings. A man who supports them defends the rights of the mind; he who opposes them attacks the rights of the mind. Now this sort of free discussion is altogether too one-sided to suit our taste. It is very much like our pilgrim fathers' respect for the freedom of conscience. Our pilgrim fathers loved freedom of conscience so much, that they took it into their own especial keeping, and spurned the idea of sharing its custody with others.
Moreover, the abolitionists do not, properly speaking, discuss the subject of slavery. Nay, it is not their object to discuss it. Their object is not to enlighten the community on the subject, but to agitate it. Discussion is a calm exercise of the reasoning powers, not the ebullition of passion, nor the ravings of a maddened zeal. To discuss an important question we need not the aid of women and children, but of wise and sober men, men of strong intellects and well informed minds. Discusssion is also best carried on in one's closet, at least where one can keep cool; not in a crowd, where people of all ages and both sexes are brought together, and by the strong appeals of impassioned orators thrown into a state of excitement bordering upon insanity. When men have made up their minds, when the epoch for deliberation has gone by, and that for action has come; when their object is less to convince than it is to rouse, to quicken, to inflame; then proceedings like those of the abolitionists are very appropriate, and it is only then that they are ever adopted. It is perfect folly therefore for the abolitionists to talk about discussion. Any man, with his eyes half open, may see clearly that all this is mere pretence. Action, not discussion, is what they demand. Deeds, not words, are what they contemplate. To agitate the whole community, to inflame all hearts, to collect the whole population into one vast body, and to roll it down on the South to force the planters to emancipate their slaves, this is what they are striving to do. It is the abolition of slavery, not its discussion, they band together for, and it is idle for them to pretend to the contrary.
If any proof of this were wanted, it might be found in their treatment of every man who adopts conclusions different from their own. Do they reason with him? Not they. They denounce him. They rush upon him with the fury of cannibals, and, as far as it depends on them, destroy his character, and make it impossible for him to hold up his head in the community. Do they answer the arguments urged against them? They? Mr.Garrison Stated in a public meeting in this city, that the arguments adduced against the abolitionists had never been answered, and he did not wish to have them answered. Discussion do you call this? Discussion! They know better than to discuss the matter. We are right, say they. God and man are with us. We have a holy cause. Woe, woe, to whosoever opposes us! Mark him, friends of freedom; mark him, friends of the slave; he is a robber, a man-stealer, a murderer, and it requires "a pencil steeped in the midnight blackness of hell" to paint in appropriate colors the foulness of his heart. This is the discussion, is it? The rights of free discussion are invaded, are they, because opposition to this method of treating our brethren is sometimes shown?
Abolitionists are merely discussing the question of slavery, are they? What mean then their thousands of petitions to congress, with their seven hundred thousand singers, a large portion of whom are women and children? What kind of arguments are these? What new light do they throw on the question of slavery? What understanding do they convince? What consience do they persuade? They are merely discussing the question of slavery, are they? What mean then these political movements they are preparing,these interrogations they are addressing to the candidates for office? Take the following from their official publications:
"The candiadtes presented for your choice, will, of course, be nominated either by the whigs or democrats. The most prominent individual of the whig party, and probably their next candidate for the presidency, is a slave-holder, president of that stupendous imposture, the Colonization Society, author of the fatal Missouri 'Compromise,' and of the slavish resolutions against the abolitionists, lately passed by th senate of the United States. On the other hand, the leader of the democratic party, 'the northern president with southern principles,' has deeply insulted this nation, by avowing his determination to veto any bill for the abolition of slavery in the District Of Columbia, which may be passed by a majority of the people, in opposition to the wishes of the slave states.
"No consistent abolitionist can vote for either of these individuals. It does not however follow that he cannot vote for candidates for state offices, or for congress, who may be their friends and supporters. If the candidate before you be honest, capable, and true to your principles, we think you may fairly vote or him, without considering too curiously, whether his success might not have an indirect bearing on the interests of Mr. Clay or Mr. Van Buren. It is a golden maxim, Do the duty that lies nearest thee.' Vote for each man by himself, and on his own merits. If you attempt to make your rule more complicated, so as to includedistant contingencies and consequences, it will be found perplexing and impracticable.
"The independent course in politics, which we have recommended, supposes great prudence, disinterestedness, energy of purpose, and self-control, in those who are to adopt it. May you justify our confidence in you. Do your duty. Come out, in your strength, to the polls. Refuse to support any public man who turns, or equivocates, or conceals his opinions. Beware of half-way abolitionists, and of men who are abolitionists but once a year. Prove that you do not require the machinery of party discipline, to vote strictly according to your professed principles. Do this, and you will rapidly acquire a deserved influence. 'Such a party,' as Mr. Webster justly said, in speaking of the abolitionists, 'will assuredly cause itself to be respected.' Within the next two years, the friends of freedom might hold the balance of power in every free state in the Union; and no man could ascend the presidential seat against their will."
So say the board of managers of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in their address to abolitionists, an address, by the way, the least exceptionable and the best written of any abolition document we have seen. But does this look like discussing the subject of slavery? Take also the following from the Human Rights, published by the American Anti-Slavery Society:
"There is but one remedy. Men must be sent to congress, made of sterner stuff-men who, like senator Morris, of Ohio, are not ashmed to advocate the rights of their constituents. Doughfaces have had their day. Let us keep them at home,-their proper vocation is to head our northern pro-slavery squadrons, armed with brick-bats and stale eggs. State offices too, and country and town offices must be filled with men who will at least show as much zeal for the great objects which the 'Union' was intended to secure, as for the 'Union' itself,-men who will not esteem it their duty to choke discussion and encourage mobs to please the slave-holders. We need not debate this point. Every man's conscience will show him his duty.
"What we beg is, that duty may be done in season. Don't wait till candidates are before the people and the elections are at the door, and the lines of party are drawn, and its wire-work all fixed. Let your voice be head at once. Let your determination be known, not to support any man who will not unequivocally pledge himself to free discussion, free petition, and abolition where congress has the power. Let the political parties have this to reflect on before they select their candidates. No candidate ought to expect the vote of the abolitionist, who is not prepared to answer the follwing questions in the affirmative:
" ' 1. Are you in favor of abolishing salvery in the District of Columbia-for the honor and welfare of the nation?
" ' 2. Are you in favor of so regulating commerce among the several states that human beings shall not be made
subjects of such trade?
" ' 3. Are you opposed to the annexation of the Texas to this Union, under any circumstances, so long as slaves
are held therin?
" ' 4. Are you in favor of acknowledging the independence of Hayti, and of establishing commercial relations with
that nation on the same terms with the most favored nations?'
"But they will expect votes unless abolitionists bestir themselves in time. Crafty politicians always calculate on humanity's dying away. By our 'fathers' ashes' let them be disappointed henceforth and forever. Let the abolitionists meet in their societies, resolve on energetic and up to the-mark-action, and publish their resolution in the country as well as the abolition papers. Such demonstrations, in good time, will not be without their effect. Above all things, let the action when begun, like the good cause itself, 'die away bigger and bigger.' "
The abolitionists are merely discussing the subject of slavery, are they? What have the respective merits of candidates for office, state or federal, to do with the merits of slavery? What has the recognition of the independence of Hayti to do with the merits of slavery? If abolitionists are merely discussing slavery, we ask, what they have do, as abolitionists, with questions like those here introduced? But we need dwell no longer upon this point. Abolitionists may say and believe what they will, but it is perfectly idle for them to dream of convincing any intellligent observer, that they are merely discussing the question of slavery. As we have said, their object is to abolish it, not to discuss it, and their means for abolishing it are not calm and rational discussion, but agitation, the agitation of the community, inflaming its passions, and directing, by means of the ballot-box, the force they thus collect, to bear directly on southern institutions.
We say again, then, that Mr. Treadwell has not stated the real question at issue, and his book is therefore worthless. The real question at issue is, Have the citizens of the non-slave holding states the right to set on foot a series of measures-no matter what measures-intentionally and avowedly for the purpose of emancipating the slaves? This is the question. Have we the right to commence a series of operations for the accomplishment of an object, and to prosecute them with strict and sole reference to the accomplishment of an object, over which we have no rightful jurisdiction?
Why is it that the abolitionists shrink from this question? Why is it that,-so far as our knowledge extends,-they have never in a single instance met this question, or even alluded to it? Shall we say, because they are conscious that they cannot meet it, without being forced to acknowledge that they are wrong in their proceedings, and ought forth-with to disband their associations?
Doubtless somebody must have the jurdistiction of the slave question. Who is it? Who has the legal right to abolish slavery? The states in which it exists, and the sole right to do it, says the constitution of the American Anti-Slavery Society. If this be so, it is certain that the abolitionists, as citzens of non-slave holding states, have not the right to abolish slavery. In laboring to abolish it, then, they are laboring to do that which they have no legal right to do, even according to their own official confession. They, then, so far as they labor to abolish it, are acting against law, are transgressors of the law, and obnoxious to its penalties. There is no gainsaying this.
This being so, on what ground will the abolitionists justify their proceedings? Will they take their stand above law, appeal from law to their individual conceptions of righ, to the paramount law of humanity-of God? We presume so. We believe this is their appeal, this is the ground on which they attempt to legitimate their proceedings. Be it so. In taking this ground they set the law of defiance, and are either a mob or a band of insurrectionists. In taking this ground they justify all the lawless violence against which they have so vehemently declaimed. If one class of the community may set the laws of defiance, why may not another? If the abolitionists may set at nought the international law, which gives
the slave-holding states the exclusive jurdistiction of the slave question, why may not other citizens say they have a right by mob-law to prevent them, if they can, from doing it? It were not difficult to convict the abolitionists of preaching the very doctrines the mobocrats attempt to reduce to practice. They ought not, therefore, to think it strange, that they have been in but too many instances the victims of lawless violence. When a portion of the community take it into their heads that they are wiser than the law, and commence the performance of acts in contravention of law, they ought to be aware that they open the door to every species of lawless violence, unchain the tiger and must be answerable for the consequences.
Nevertheless we cheerfully admit, that, in saying the abolitionists appeal from the law as it is to what they consider it ought to be, to the paramount law of humanity, we do not necessarily condemn them, nor even cast a shadow of a reproach upon them. There may be cases in which men shall be justified in doing this; nay, when it shall be their duty to do this. But this cannot be done without rebellion. They do declare the bonds of society broken, and society itself reduced to its original elements. It cannot be done in accordance with any existing social order; it therefore can be
justified only in such cases as do justify rebellion, revolution. Revolutions are sometimes justifiable, and we as a nation hold to the sacred right of insurrection. If the abolitionists take the ground we suppose they do, they are in fact insurrectionists, they are revolutionists. This is their character. Now in order to justify themselves they must make out a clear case, that the present circumstances of our republic are such as to warrant a revolution.
No doubt justice, the paramount law of humanity,demands the abolition of slavery. But of whom does it demand it? and on what conditions does it demand it? Does humanity command to abolish it in contravention of law? Is humanity, all things considered, more interested in declaring the negroes free, than in maintaining those laws which the abolitionists violate in laboring to bring about the declaratation? We say declaring the slaves free, and we do so designedly; for this is as far as the efforts of the abolitionists, if successful, can go. They cannot make the slaves free. The slave is never into a freedom by the stroke of the pen. Freedom cannot be conferred; it must be conquered. The slave must grow into freedom, and be able to maintain his freedom, or he is a slave still, whatever he may be called. If, then, the abolitionists cannot make out clearly and beyond the possibility of cavil, that humanity is more interested in declaring the slaves free than she is in maintaining the laws the citizens of non-slave holding states must violate, before they can cause them to be declared free, they cannot make out a case that justifies revoultion, or a case that justifies their proceedings, even admitting their own premises.
Slavery ought to be abolished, says the abolitionist, and what ought to be done it is right to do. It is right then to abolish slavery. This is enough for me. Ask me not to stop and consider what may be found in statute laws and paper constitutions. The tyrant's foot is on the neck of my brother; don't tell me to stop and ask whether, all things considered, it be my duty to run to his rescue. It may not be expedient to do it. But what of that? Let me alone. I will hurl the tyrant to the dust, and deliver my brother. We understand this feeling very well, and by dwelling on it could work ourselves up, as we often have done, into a glorious passion and become quite heroic. Still we believe harm seldom comes from stopping to consider.
We eschew expediency as a rule of action as heartily as do our friends the abolitionists. We are not among those who sneer at abstract right, and say we are not to regard it in practical life. Abstract right, as we view it, is absolute right, which is simply right, neither more nor less. Now we hold that everyone is bound to consult the right and the right only, and having found it, to do it, let who or what will oppose. But we believe it is, before acting, very proper to determine what is right, not only in a general case, but in the particular case in which it is proposed to act. In determining what is right in any given case, it is necessary to take into consideration all the circumstances and bearings of that case. Right, it is true, never varies, but the action varies according to the circumstances under which it is performed. An action with certain general characteristics, performed under certain circumstances, shall be right, but performed under other circumstances, shall be wrong; because in the latter case it is in fact a different action from what it is in the former. A given action, viewed in one of its relations may be right, yet viewed in all its relations it shall be improper to be done. It is therefore always necessary, in order to determine whether a particular action should be done or not, to survey it in all its relations, and to determine as far as we can all its bearings. The consequences of the action are by no means to be overlooked. True, the consequences of an action do not constitute its moral character, but they are necessary to be consulted in order to determine its moral character. The idea of right is unquestionably intuitive, of transcendental origin; but its proper application to practical life is a matter of experience, to be determined by the understanding.
Admit then that slavery is wrong, that it is right to abolish it, it does by no means follow that the citizens of non-slave-holding states ahve the right to abolish it; nor that the abolition proceedings are commanded by that law of right, to which the abolitionists so confidently appeal. A fellow-citizen has wronged us. It is right that we should have redress; but it is right that we should seek redress only in conformity to the law of the land. We shall be held justifiable in morals, no more than in law, if we undertake to obtain redress ourselves, without reference to the legal method of obtaining it. The abolitionists must do more than prove that slavery is wrong, that is ought to be abolished, and that it is right to abolish it; he must prove first, that he has a right to abolish it, and secondly, that he has a right to abolish it in the way he proposes to do,-two things we hope he will undertake to prove, but which we fear he will be able to prove not without difficulty.
We go as strongly for liberty as the abolitionists. We protest with the whole energy of our moral being against the right of any man to hold his brother man in slavery. To the slave-holder, boasting the beauties of slave system, its happy effects, and the sweet ties it creates between the master and slave, we have no answer, but "Do unto others as you would they should do unto you." When we find the master willing to become, and desirous of becoming a slave, then, and not till then, will we listen to his defense of slavery. Man is born with the right to be free. Liberty is his inalienable right, and there is nothing in heaven or on earth to justify one man in depriving another of his rights. We can see, we think we do see, how God overrules slavery for good, and makes it serve to restrain or destroy other evils which might perhaps lead to consequences still worse than those of negro slavery itself! But this is in our judgement of the matter no excuse, no palliation of the guilt of those by whose agency slavery was introduced and is perpetuated. On this point we have no controversy with the abolitionists. We sympathize with the slavery no more than he does; and we are as far as he would be from appearing as the defender or the apologist of the slave-holder. Slavery is wholly indefensible! It ought to be abolished! It must be abolished! It will be abolished. But does it belong to us, who are citizens of non-slave-holding states, to abolish it? This is the question we want answered.
To emancipate the slaves, viewed in itself, might be a praiseworthy deed. It were, if it could be done, a good work. But it is not therefore necessarily true that it is a work for us to preform. It is not only necessary to prove the work a good one, but that it is our work, before we have proved that we have a right to undertake it. Every man has, in the general allotment of Providence, his special work, every community its special mission! And it is each man's duty to ascertain and preform his own work, each community's duty to ascertain and fulfil its own mission. Evil always results from the attempt of any one man to be that for which God and nature have not designed him, and consequently evil must always proceed from the attempt of any one to preform the task assigned another.
The emancipation of the slaves, we say, is not our work. Slavery may be a sin,- but it is not ours! And there is no occasion for us to assume the responsibility of other people's sins. We have sins enough of our own, and more than we can answer for! We have more work to preform for freedom here, within the limits of our own territory, than we can preform in many centuries, even should we direct to its preformance our exclusive attention and all our energies. Slavery, it may be, is a stain, a disgrace upon the community that tolerates it! But if so, it is not a stain, nor disgrace upon non-slave-holding communities. We are not disgraced because Constantinople is a slave-holding city, nor are we because Charleston is a slave-holding city. The states that hold slaves are alone responsible for the institution. If, as they are pretend, it is a good and praise worthy institution, theirs be the glor of maintaining it! If it be, as the abolitionists regard it, a wicked, and disgraceful institution, theirs be the sin and disgrace of perpetuating it. They are of age, and are responsible for their own deeds.
The abolitionist considers that it is our duty to labor for the emancipation of the slaves, because our nation is a slave-holding nation, and is therefore disgraced in the eyes of foreigners. To foreigners, who reproach us with slavery, all we have to say is, when you have done as much to elevate labor and the laboring classes as we have, we will hear you! Till then, hold your peace. To abolitionists we deny the fact in toto, that we are a slave-holding nation. We are made one nation by the constitution of the United States, and are one nation no further than that declares us to be so. Now, in the sense in which these United States are one people, we do not hold slaves. Slavery is not recgonized by the constitution! That is, it in no sense whatever exists by virtue of the constitution. It is not established by the laws of the Union, nor is it protected by those laws. In our capacity of one people, in the sense in which we are one nation, we have no cognizance of the subject of slavery. We deny, therefore, that our republic is a slave-holding republic. We deny that it tolerates slavery, and request the abolitionists not to be too ready to assume a reproach to which they are not obnoxious.
But some of the members of the confederacy hold slaves? Granted. So does Turkey, so does Brazil, so do a great many nations. But the members of the confederacy that hold slaves, do it not by virtue of constitutional grants, not by virtue of powers conferred on them by their sister states, but by virtue of their state sovereignty, which they did not surrender into the hands of the Union, and which they still retain in all its plenitude, at least, so far as this question is concerned. They stand, then, in regard to this question, as we have shown on a former occasion, precisely as independent nations, and we of course are no more responsible for their deeds, or affected in our national character by their misdeeds, than by those of any indenpendent or foregin community whatever. Let us talk then no more about a slave-holding republic. We are not a slave-holding republic.
We must again point out to our abolitionists that the federal republic is limited to a very few specific purposes. The states, for their mutual convenience, for the general welfare and common defense of the whole, formed themselves into a federal league or union. In the constitution is a specified the extent to which the states, as free, independent, sovereign nations, consented to merge their state character and sovereignty into one nation. To the next extent there specified, we regard the people of the several states as one people, and no further. To the extent there specified, and for the purposes there specified, a citizen of Massachusetts is also a citizen of United States, and has the same right to concern himself, according to the mode there pointed out, with the affairs of South Carolina that he has with the affairs of Massachusetts. But beyond this extent he has no more right to concern himself with the affairs of any state but to the one of which he is specially a citizen, then he has with the affairs of France or China. Our duty, as citizens of the United States, is to observe in good faith the stipulations into which we have entered with our sister states! And so long as the slave-holding states perform towards us all the engagements they have made to us, we have, as citizens of the United States, no fault to find with them.
Now, have the slave-holding states entered into an engagement to emancipate their slaves? Is it in the bond? When they came into the Union, did they stipulate to abolish slavery? Not at all. They retained that matter in their own hands. What have we then to insist upon their doing it now? In what capacity do we call upon the southerner to free his slaves? In our capacity as citizens of the United States? But in that capacity we have no right to meddle with the matter, because slavery is not one of the matters which come under the jurisdiction of the United States. The people of the United States have no legal cognizance of it. In our capacity as citizens of Massachusetts, then? But as citizens of Massachusetts we hold no other relation with the slave-holder in South Carolina than we do with the slave-holder in Turkey. In what capacity then? In our capacity as men and as Christians?
We are far from asserting that, as men and Christians, we have no concern with the slave question. As a man, as a Christian, I have a right to concern myself with whatever affects my brother man, wherever he is. But has this concern no limitation? Limitation or not, it is no greater in the case of southern slavery, than in the case of slavery anywhere else. Our right and our duty to labor for the emancipation of southern slaves rest on our general right and duty to labor for the abolition of slavery wherever it exists. Now, before the abolitionists can make out that is my right and my duty to make any special efforts to effect the emancipation of the slaves in the southern states, he must show that it is my right and my duty to make special efforts for the solution of slavery everywhere. Nay, more than this, he must prove that it is my right and my duty to make special efforts for the correction of all abuses of all countries, to abolish every bad or wrong institution of every nation, to remove all national sins of all nations. Can he do this? He can do it only by doing another thing which is yet more difficult. He must prove that every man has the right and the duty to concern himself with the whole conduct, the entire life, of every other man, and that every man has the right and the duty to see that every other man forsakes his sins and does his duty.
It is the duty of Massachusetts to educate all her children; but is it the duty of South Carolina to undertake to compel her to do it? It is the duty of the citizens of this state to abolish the barbarous law that treats poverty as a crime; but is it the duty of the citizens of Georgia to compel us to do it, or to do it for us? The autocrat of the Russians ought to restore Poland to her national independence: but is it our duty to do it for him, or to undertake to force him to do it? England ought to abolish the laws of primogeniture and entail,-monarchy and the hereditary peerage; but is it our duty to make special efforts to induce her to do it? Is that abolition her work, or is it ours? Universal freedom should be established throughout the earth: is it, therefore, our duty to become propagandists, and band our whole community together into associations for carrying on a war with all nations who have not adopted a republican form of government?
Freedom requires us to recgonize in each individual certain rights and rights which we man no more invade to do the individual good than to do him harm. He must have a certain degree of liberty. That liberty he may abuse; but so long as he does not attack our liberty, we cannot, without sapping all liberty in its very foundation, interfere with him. So of the communities; they stand in relation to one another as individuals. So long as any given community respects the rights of all other communities, no other community has any right to interfere with its conduct. Its external relations are just, and its internal affairs, so far as other communities are concerned, it has a right to regulate in its own way. To deny this, is to deny its independence, is to strike at its liberty; to attempt to interfere with its internal policy, is to declare war upon it, and must, if it be a spirited community, and be able to fight for its independence, lead to bloodshed and incalculable sufferings. Peace among the nations of the earth is to be maintained only by each nation's attending to its own concerns, leaving all other nations to regulate their internal policy in their own way. This principle is even more imperative in the case of the states which compose this republic, than in that of nations generally. Our relations are so multiplied, are so intimate, and our intercourse is so frequent and various, that without the most punctilious respect for the reserved rights of each, perpetual embroilment must result, and our union, instead of harmony, be a source of perpetual discord. We say, therefore, inasmuch as slavery is an institution over which the slave-holding states, have no concern with it, we are not called upon, whatever be our oen opinion of it as an institution, to labor specially for its abolition. We are not called upon to abolish it.
But even admitting we were called upon to abolish it, or to labor for the abolition of slavery wherever it exists, we should still deny that the abolition proceedings are justifiable. They are contrary to the genius of our institutions; they make war upon the relations, which it was intended by our federal system should subsist between the states which compose the Union, and are, therefore, as we have said, revolutionary in their character and tendency.
We do not say that to abolish slavery is contrary to the genius of our institutions. The genius of our institutions is liberty, and unquestionably is repugnant to every species of slavery. If the institutions subsist, they must in their gradual unfolding sweep away salvery, and every vestige of man's tyranny over man. But according to our federal system, all the internal affairs of the several states are to be managed by the states themselves. When, therefore, the citizens of one state disregard this system, and labor to control the internal affairs of another state, in the manner we have shown the abolitionists do, they are acting in opposition to the American system of government. The citizens of slave-holding states might, if they chose, adopt all the measures our abolitionists do, without being liable to this charge, and perhaps they ought, in justice, to labor, even more zealously than do the abolitionists for the abolition of slavery. The error of the abolitionists consists in concluding from the duty of the slave-holding states to their own,-of concluding from the fact that it is right for South Carolina, for instance, to labor to emancipate the slaves, it is therefore right for citizens of Massachusetts to so the same. The wrong is not in the end sought, but in the persons who seek it, and the means by which they seek it.
The abolitionists are wrong as to their point of departure. They begin, consciously or unconsciously, by assuming that the people of the United States are one people, not in the restricted sense in which they are so declared by the constitution, but in all senses, to the fullest extent, as much so as the people of France or England. They regard themselves not as citizens of Massachusetts, or of New York, but as citizens of the United States. The division of the terriotory into separate states, they regard as merely for administrative purposes, or for the convenience of transacting govermental business. They see not and understand not that the division into separate states, is a division, in point of fact and in theory especially, into distinct communities, separate nations, afterwards to be united by a league or compact; not a division at all analogous to the division of a state for municipal purposes into counties, townships, and parishes. In giving the legal form to any public measure, they indeed recgonize the boundaries of the states in like manner as the do the boundaries of a county, a township, or a parish; but in all else in preparing the measure, in urging its adoption, in the combination and direction of the influences, which shall lead to or compel its adoption, they know no geographical boundaries, no civil or political divisions. Here is the source of their error. They begin by denying the sovereignty of the states, and consequently the federal government created by the constitution, and by asserting the system of consolidation, another and altogether different system,-a system by which we become one vast centralized republic, adopting the division into states only as a convenient regulation for facilitating the administration of the affairs of the government.
We say not that the abolitionists are in general aware of this, or that they would knowingly and intentionally do all this. They are probably aware of nothing buta morbid craving after excitement, and the determination, cost what it may, to abolish slavery. But we do say that the doctrine of consolidation, which we have stated, is that which lies at the bottom of their proceedings, and which has influenced them, and led them to adopt the proceedings they have. Had they been in the habit of contemplating the American political system in its true character, had they been in the habit of seeing in the division into states something more than a municipal regulation, than an affair of internal police, had they been accustomed to see in each state a distinct, independent, and sovereign community, in all matters except a very few specified in the constitution of the United States, they had never taken those peculiar views of their own relations with the slave-holding communities, which have led them to adopt the measures of which we complain. Anti-slavery men they might have been, but abolitionists they could not have been.
We would acquit the abolitionists also of all wish to change fundamentally the character of our institutions. They are not, at least the honest part of them, politicians; but very simple-minded men and women who crave excitment, and seek it in abolition meetings, and in getting up abolition societies and petitions, instead of seeking it in ballrooms, theatres, or places of fashionable amusement, or dissipation. Politics, properly speaking, they abominate, because politics would require them to think, and they wish only to feel. Doubtless some of them are moved by generous sympathies, and a real regard for the well-being of the negro; but the principal moving cause of their proceedings, after the craving for excitement, and perhaps notoriety, is the feeling that slavery is a national disgrace. Now this feeling, as we have shown, proceeds from a misconception of the real character of our institutions. This feeling can be justified on the supposition that we are a consolidated republic. Its existence is therefore a proof of that, whatever be the conscious motives in the main of the abolitionists, their proceedings strike against our federal system.
Well, what if they do? replies the abolitionist. If federalism, or the doctrine of state sovereignty, which you say is the American system of politics, prohibits us from laboring to free the slave, then down with it. Any system of government, any political relations, which prevent me from laboring to break the yoke of the oppressor and to set the captive free, is a wicked system and ought to be destroyed. God disowns it, Christ disowns it, and man ought to disown it. If consolidation, if centralization be the order that enables us to free the slave, then give us consolidation, give us centralization. It is the true doctrine. It enables one to plead for the slave. The slave is crushed under his master's foot; the slave is dying; I see nothing but the slave; I hear nothing but the slave's cries for deliverance. Away with your paper barriers, away with your idle prating about state rights; clear the way. Let me run to the slave. Any thing that frees the slave is right, is owned by God.
We express the sentiment and use very nearly the language of the abolitionists. They have no respect for government, as such. They indeed are fast adopting the ultra-radical doctrine, that all government is founded in usurpation, and is an evil which all true Christians must labor to abolish. They have, at least some of them, nominated Jesus Christ to be president of the United States; as much as to say, in the only practical sense to be given the nomination, that there shall be no president of the United States but an idea, and an idea without any visible embodiment; which is merely contending, on other words, that there shall be no visible government, no political institutions whatever. They have fixed their minds on a given object, and finding that the political institutions of the country, and the laws of the land are against them, they deny the legitimacy of all laws and of all political institutions. Let them carry their doctrines out, and it is easy to see that a most radical revolution in the instututions of the country must be the result.
Now, we ask, has a revolution become necessary? It is no longer possible to labor for the interests of humanity in this country, without changing entirely the character of out political institutions? Must we change our federal system, destroy the existing relations between the states and the Union, and between the states? Nay, must we destroy all outward, visible government, abolish all laws, and leave the community in the state in which the Jews were, when "there was no king in Israel, and every man did that which was right in his own eyes"? We put these questions in soberness, and with a deep feeling of their magnitude. The abolition ranks are full of insane dreamers, and fuller yet of men and women ready to undertake to realize any dream however insane, and at any expense. We ask, therefore, these questions with solemnity, and with fearful forebodings for our country. We rarely fear; we rarely tremble at the prospect of evil to come. The habitual state of our mind is that of serene trust in the future; and if in this respect we are thought to have a fault, it is in being too sanguine, in hoping too much. But we confess, the proceedings of the abolitionists, coupled with their vague speculations, and their crude notions, do fill us with lively alarm, and make us apprehend danger to our beloved country. We beg, in the name of God and of man, the abolitionists to pause, and if they love liberty, ask themselves what liberty has, in the long run, to gain by overthrowing the system of government we have established, by effecting a revolution in the very foundation of our federal system.
For ourselves, we have accepted with our whole heart the political system adopted by our fathers. We regard that system as the most brilliant achievement of humanity, a system in which centres all past progress, and which combines the last results of all past civilization. It is the latest birth of time. Humanity has been laboring with it since that morning when the sons of God shouted with joy over the birth of a new world, and we will not willingly see it strangles in its cradle. We take the American political system as our starting-point, as our primitive datum, and we repulse whatever is repugnant to it, and accept, demand whatever is essential to its preservation. We take our stand on the idea of our institutions, and labor with all our soul to realize and develop it. As a lover of our race, as the devoted friend of liberty, of the progrss of mankind, we feel that we must, in this country, be conservative, not radical. If we demand the elevation of labor and the laboring classes, we do it only in accordance with our institutions, and for the purpose of preserving them by removing all discrepancy between their spirit and the social habits and disposition of the people on whom they are to act, and to whose keeping they are entrusted. We demand reform only for the purpose of preserving American institutions in their real character; and we can tolerate no changes, no innovations, no alleged improvements not introduced in strict accordance with the relations which do subsist between the states and the Union, and between the states themselves. Here is our political creed. More power in the federal government than was given it by the convention which framed the constitution would be dangerous to the states, and with less power the federal govenment would not be able to subsist. We take it then as it is. The fact that any given measure is necessary to preserve it as it is, is a sufficent reason for adopting that measure; the fact that a given measure is opposed to it as it is, and has a tendency to increase or diminish its power, is a sufficient reason for rejecting that measure.
The constitution, then, is our touchstone for trying all measures. Not; indeed, because we have any superstitious reverence for written constitutions, or any overweening attachment to things as they are; but because we have satisfied ourselves by ling, patient, and somewhat extensive inquiry, that the preservation of the constitution is strictly identified with the highest interests of our race. Its destruction were, so far as human foresight can go, an irreparable loss. We would preserve it then, not because it is a constitution, not because we are averse to changes, nor because we have a dread of revolutions, but because the safety and progress of liberty demand its preservation.
But can efforts on behalf of liberty be repugnant to a constitution established avowedly in the interests of liberty? The abolitionists are in pursuit of liberty; liberty is their great idea; liberty is the soul of their movements; liberty is to be the end of their exertions: how, then, can their proceedings be dangerous to liberty? Very simply. In their character of efforts merely in behalf of liberty, of course they are neither unconstitutional nor dangerous; but they may have another character than that; beside being efforts on behalf of liberty, they may be efforts which strike against international law. The abolitionist would free the slave. So far so good. But he would free the slave by forgetting that slavery is an institution under the sole control of a state which he is not a citizen. Here comes the danger of liberty. Here is a blow struck at the rights of communities, and as dangerous to liberty as a blow struck at the rights of individuals. He would free the slaves by combining the non-slave-holding states against the slave-holding states, by collecting in the non-slave-holding states a force sufficent to control the internal policy of the slave-holding states. Let him do this, and where is the independence of the states? Let him do this, and one part of the Union has complete control of the other; and when this is done, is not our federal system destroyed? It is possible, then, to pursue liberty in such a manner that the pursuit shall be in open violation of free institutions, and this is, as we allege, the case with the abolitionists.
But we can pursue the subject no further ar present. We are sorry to be compelled to separate ourselves from the abolitionists. There is something exceedingly unpleasant in being, even in appearance, opposed to the advocates of freedom. We have ever been with the movement party; our own position, the much we have suffered from things as they are, the wounds yet rankling in our heart, together with our own love of excitement, of new things, to say nothing of certain dreams we indulge concerning a golden age that is to be, strongly dispose us to join with the abolitionists, and to rush on in the career they open up to a bold and energetic spirit. There is something, too, in the very idea of freeing two or three million slaves, which; in these mechanical and money-getting times, is quite refreshing and capable of dazzling many an imagination. It addressess itself to some of the strongest propensities of our nature, and gives us apparently an opportunity to indulge a taste for the adventurous and the chivalric. There is something almost intoxicating in going forth as a bold knight in the cause of humanity, to plead for the wronged and the outraged, to speak for the dumb, and to do valiant battle for the weak and defenseless. Much that is noble, that is generous,this is god-like, naturally combines itself with such an idea, and enters into the motives of him who goes forth at its bidding. It may be that we have felt something of all this. But self-denial, even in the indulgence of what we call noble impulses, or rather the subordination of our impulses to the clearest and soberest convictions of our understandings, is one of the first laws of morality.
So long as we regarded the abolitionists as merely contending for the right to discuss the subject of slavery, we were with them; we spoke in their behalf, and we willing to be reckoned of their number. Later developments on their side, and a closer examination of the bearing of their movements on the political institutions of this country, into which we have entered, have convinced us that the cause of free discussion is not now, if it ever was, at all involved in their proceedings; that the cause of liberty even, is by no means in their hands; and therefore that we ought to separate from them, and to state clearly and boldly the reason which we think should induce all lovers of our common country to combine to stay their progress. It may be too late. We fear it is. The ball has been set in motion. It increases in momentum and velocity with every revolution and the result we pretend not to be able to forsee. Already is it hazardous to one's reputation in this part of the Union to oppose them; already is it nearly impossible for any political party to succeed unless it can secure their suffrages. They have become a power. It is in vein to deny it. They are not likely to become weaker very soon. We have not, therefore, dared to keep our convictions in regard to them to ourselves. In opposing them we have had to show as much moral courage as they profess to have had to shown in opposing slavery. We have not, therefore, spoken from considerations we need be ashamed to avow. We may have spoken in vain. But we have said our word, feebly we own but in sincerity; and we leave the result to God. We see danger ahead. We tremble for the fate of our republic; there are mighty influences at work against it; the money power is seeking to bind its free spirit with chains of gold, and mistaken philanthropy is fast rending it in twain; associations, sectarian and moral espionage are fast swallowing up individual freedom, and making the individual man but a mere appendage to a huge social machine, with neither mind nor will of his own; but we do not, we will not, despair of the republic. We hope with trembling, nevertheless we hope. The destinies of individuals or of nations are not left to blind chance. There is a providence that rules them, and we will trust that in due time the clouds that lower over us all shall break and disperse, and the glorious sun of freedom and humanity shine forth in all his noonday splendors. We cannot go back to the night and gloom of the past; the irresistible law of progress does and will bear us onward; and this republic shall rise to the knowledge and enjoyment of the inalienable rights of man.
In conclusion, we would merely add, that in our judgement the first duty of the friend of freedom, of democracy, of progress, is to secure the political institutions established by our fathers. Nothing can come but in its time and in its place. There is a method to be followed in taking up and discussing the great questions which concern mankind, or the progress of society. Errors always come from the fact that we take them up in false order. Our inquiry should be, What is the question for to-day? Having ascertained the problem for to-day, we should bend our whole attention to its solution. The answer of the question of to-day, will of itself lead to the solution of the problem which shall come up to-morrow. The question for to-day is the currency question,-not the most interesting question in itself surely, nor a question of the first magnitude; but it is the first in the order of time. It must be disposed of before we can proceed systematically to the disposition of any other. What will be the question for to-morrow we ask not. Sufficent for the day is the evil thereof. It will doubtless be a question of magnitude. Great questions are hereafter to be ever expected. Humanity approaches manhood, grows serious, and refuses to trifle. As it regards the slave question we leave it to those whom it more immediately concerns. If our republic outlive the dangers to which it is now exposed, the gradual unfolding of its spirit will abolish slavery; and we believe slavery will be sooner abolished, that is, the negro race sooner elevated to the rank of freemen, by leaving the whole matter to time, to the secret but sure workings of Christian democracy, than by any violent or special efforts of abolitionists, even if successful in declaring salvery abolished. Leave the whole matter to the slave-holding states, and in proportion as the negro advances internally, the legislature will spread over him the shield of the law, and impreceptibly but surely shall he grow into a freeman, if a freeman he can become.
If we would serve him and hasten that day, we shall best do it, not by direct efforts in his behalf, but by a steady development and realization of democratic freedom within the bosom of the non-slave-holding states. Let us correct the evils at our own doors, elevate the free white laborer, and prove by our own practice, and by the state of our own society, that the doctrine of equal rights is not a visionary dream. O we have much to do here at home. The beggar full of sores lies at our own gate. In our own dark streets, blind courts, narrow lanes, damp cellars, unventilated garrets, are human beings more degraded, and suffering keener anguish, and appealing with a more touching pathos to our compassion, and demanding in more imperative tones our succor, than is the case with the most wretched of southern slaves. O here are objects enough for our humanity. We walk not through the streets of a single northern city without a bleeding heart. Wash the faces of those children, Abolitionists, which meet you in our cities encrusted with filth, clothe their shivering limbs, let in light upon their darkened minds, and warm their young hearts, before it is too late, with the hope of being one day virtuous men and women. Instead of poring over the horrors of slavery, read your police reports, and see your own society as it is. You have work enough for all your philanthrophy North of Mason and Dixion's line. Do this work, do it effectually, and you shall aid the cause of oppressed humanity everywhere, and the slave a thousand times more than by your direct efforts for his emancipation.