This Element Is Slavery, Which Exists In Fifteen Out Of Thirty-One States,
And It Is To Be Feared That By A Recent Act Of The Legislature The Power
To Extend It Is Placed In The Hands Of The Majority, Should That Majority
Declare For It, In The New States.
The struggle between the advocates of
freedom and slavery is now convulsing America; it has already led to
outrage
And bloodshed in the State of Kansas, and appearances seem to
indicate a prolonged and disastrous conflict between the North and South.
The question is one which cannot be passed over by any political party in
the States. Perhaps it may not be universally known in England that
slavery is a part of the ratified Constitution of the States, and that the
Government is bound to maintain it in its integrity. Its abolition must be
procured by an important change in the constitution, which would shake,
and might dislocate, the vast and unwieldy Republic. Each State, I
believe, has it in its power to abolish slavery within its own limits, but
the Federal Government has no power to introduce a modification of the
system in any. The federal compact binds the Government "not to meddle
with slavery in the States where it exists, to protect the owners in the
case of runaway slaves, and to defend them in the event of invasion or
domestic violence on account of it." Thus the rights and property in
slaves of the slaveholders are legally guaranteed to them by the
Constitution of the United States. At the last census the slaves amounted
to more than 3,000,000, or about an eighth of the population, and
constitute an alien body, neither exercising the privileges nor animated
by the sentiments of the rest of the commonwealth. Slavery at this moment,
as it is the curse and the shame, is also the canker of the Union. By it,
by the very constitution of a country which proudly boasts of freedom,
three millions of intelligent and responsible beings are reduced to the
level of mere property - property legally reclaimable, too, in the Free
States by an act called the Fugitive Slave Act. That there are
slaveholders amiable, just, and humane, there is not a doubt; but slavery
in its practice as a system deprives these millions of knowledge, takes
away from them the Bible, keeps a race in heathen ignorance in a Christian
land, denies to the slaves compensation for their labour, the rights of
marriage and of the parental relation, which are respected even among the
most savage nations; it sustains an iniquitous internal slave-trade - it
corrupts the owners, and casts a slur upon the dignity of labour. It acts
as an incubus on public improvement, and vitiates public morals; and it
proves a very formidable obstacle to religion, advancement, and national
unity; and so long as it shall remain a part of the American constitution,
it gives a living lie to the imposing declaration, "All men are free and
equal."
Where the whole machinery of government is capable of being changed or
modified by the will of the people while the written constitution remains,
and where hereditary and territorial differences of opinion exist on very
important subjects, it is not surprising that party spirit should run very
high.
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