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all of these he enjoys in the highest degree within the Union. The Constitution of the United States was framed by slave-owners, and is a slaveowning code. The whole might of the Union is at the command of the slave-owner to put down any insurrection. It was even forbidden that the slave-trade should be abolished in less than twenty years from its date. It gives political power to slavery, for in allotting the members of Congress to the population, it counts a slave as three-fifths of a man. It provides also, and is in this respect more cruel than the old Hebrew code, that the slave who has escaped on to the soil of freedom, shall be sent back into his bondage. There was a time when we, too, were slave-owners, but even in those days the soil of Britain was held sacred. It was an asylum of liberty, to which when any man had fled imploringly none should ask the colour of his skin. Slave under our laws-owned by our people-of great value to our tradestill, there was that in the genius of the race that gave a sanctity to the land, the moment the foot of the slave trod upon the shore, his fetters fell back into the sea. There is no such asylum in the United States. The capital of the Union is a slave-owning city. The Federal Court decrees that slavery is a prison, whose walls are wide as the country. Upon the open seas, the slavetrader has but to wrap the stars and stripes around his traffic, and go unsearched. Nor in all that expanse of the North is there one altar to which

the fugitive can creep for refuge-clinging with the grasp of despair-appealing to that creed which proclaims that "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," are the inherent rights of man-but he must be dragged back to his bonds, at the bidding of the Federal Constitution.

A fervent appeal has been made to us to support this Constitution. It has been urged, and in no measured terms, that Englishmen, who condemn slavery, are bound to sympathise with those who encounter the perils of war with the name of freedom on their lips. Can it be true, that this is the Constitution we are to support, in freedom's name? Is this what Mr. Seward calls "an object of human affection ?" Our support might be demanded on the grounds that it held together a large population, and gratified the ambition of those whose thirst is for greatness. Or it might be sought on the ground that it fosters a gigantic trade, and brings large profits to its supporters. But to claim our sympathy in the name of freedom, and in the interests of the slave, this seems a mockery of our reason, based on some great delusion in those who ask it, or attempted in a belief that the darkest ignorance envelops those whom they address.

We see clearly that, looking only to slavery, its maintenance, and protection, the Southerner can desire nothing more than he already has in the Constitution and the Union. What, indeed, is he to gain by such a change as the present one?

Instead of the whole power of the continent to support him, two-thirds will be lost to him-perhaps arrayed against him. In place of the Northern States to prevent, to act as a prison wall to the escape of his slaves, and return them at his bidding, he makes them foreign, and jealous powers. Instead of abolitionism being the doctrine of a small sect, regarded as fanatical by the great majority of the North, he will have it adopted as an article of the general creed. It is difficult to imagine a change more dangerous, more disastrous, to his interests as a slave-owner; for to these permanent effects is added, at once, an enormous depreciation in the value of his property of all descriptions, with the risk of hostile armies shattering the whole system into ruin. Hence, to support the theory that slavery, as a system, has been the cause of existing events, we must suppose its people ignorant of their Constitution, and all its safeguards, and blind to evils and dangers inevitable in the change, and so obvious that he who runs may read them. But the men of the South have been, throughout the history of the United States, the ablest statesmen of the Union, and it cannot be conceived that they could be blind to consequences so manifest. The truth is apparent, that so far as slavery is concerned, the South has every possible reason for remaining in the Union, and that they have acted in direct opposition tỏ that interest, under the influence of other and more powerful considerations.

There is, however, a more distant view of the case which has to be considered. It may be said, that although the present state of facts may be as we have described, yet that the accession of the Republican party to power produced an apprehension that the strength of the North might be eventually exerted to abolish slavery, and that the South have acted in this anticipation. But this theory can only be entertained by those who are unacquainted with American politics. There exists in the North a small sect of Abolitionists, zealous to fanaticism, but resolute, untiring men. In numbers they were a handful. In politics they were tabooed by both great parties. By the mass of the people of the North they were avoided, and ridiculed. At the present moment they stand apart in their action from that of the Washington government, and are one of its most perplexing difficulties; and whilst the representative men of the North take up the Constitution as their banner, the views of the genuine Abolitionists cannot be more plainly expressed than in their own words.

One of their leaders, at a meeting held in New York, May 13, 1857, laid down the principle that "They demanded justice for the slave at any priceof Constitution, of Union, of country. He believed that this Union effectually prevented them from advancing, in the least degree, the work of the slave's redemption." And at the same meeting, William Lloyd Garrison, one of the foremost of

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the body, made use of these expressions : long as this blood-stained Union existed, there was but little hope for the slave." There are on record far stronger sentiments from the same leading authority, such as the following: "This Union is a lie; the American Union is a sham, an imposture, a covenant with death, an agreement with hell." "Let the slave-holding Union go, and slavery will go with the Union down into the dust." From this small specimen it will be seen that the genuine Abolitionists regard slavery, not as an evil, but as a crime; that they hold it matter of religious principle, not to be sacrificed to profit, or ambition, and desire it should be ejected at whatever cost; whilst the government, and the great majority of the people of the North, are fighting to retain it within the Union.

There are indeed in the North considerable numbers of rational men who object to slavery, and deplore it, but are not disposed to break the laws, or plunge the South into a whirlpool of ruin. They hope the day will come to end it, but decline acting till they see clearly how to act. The number of this class is steadily on the increase, and it now forms an important section of the republican party; but even in this class it is difficult to say to what extent the feeling is not one of party, rather than principle. The Democrat supports slavery-the object of the republican is to defeat the Democrat; therefore he must needs object to slavery as a party matter. But after allowing for

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