destroy it, their abhorrence of republican or democratic institutions, and their preference for an "oligarchy with slavery for its corner stone," have now become known to the people of the North. Their causeless rebellion, their seizure of the territory and property of the United States, their siege of Washington, their invasion of States which have refused to join them, their bitter, ineradicable, and universal hatred of the people of the free States, who are loyal to the government, have produced a general conviction that slavery (which alone has caused these results, and by which alone the country has been brought to the verge of ruin) must itself be terminated, and that this privileged class must be abolished; otherwise the union may be broken, the government overthrown, and constitutional liberty destroyed. To secure domestic tranquillity is to make it certain by controlling power. It cannot be thus secured while a perpetual uncontrollable cause of civil war exists. The cause, the means, the opportunity of civil war must be removed; the perennial fountain of all our national woes must be destroyed; otherwise "it will be vain to cry, Peace! peace! There is no peace.”*

ARE SLAVEHOLDERS ARBITERS OF PEACE AND WAR?

Is the Union so organized that the means of involv ing the whole country in ruin must be left in the hands of a few irresponsible men, to be used at their discretion? Must the blessing of peace and good government be dependent upon the sovereign will and pleasure of a handful of treasonable and unprincipled

* For a brief reference to the legislative acts and constitutional amendments by which this result has been accomplished, see Notes to the Forty-third Edition, on "Slavery " p. 393.

slave-masters? Has the constitution so chained and manacled peaceful citizens that they cannot wrench the murderous knife from an assassin's grasp, even in self-defence? If the destruction of slavery be necessary to save the country from defeat, disgrace, and ruin, and if the constitution, fairly interpreted, guarantees the perpetuity of slavery, whether the country is saved or lost, it is time that the friends of the Union should awake, and realize their awful destiny. If the objects for which our government was founded can lawfully be secured only so far as they do not interfere with the pretensions of slavery, we must admit that the interests of slave-masters stand first, and the welfare of the people of the United States stands last, under the guarantees of the constitution. If the Union, the constitution, and the laws, like Laocoon and his sons, are to be strangled and crushed, in order that the unrelenting serpent may live in triumph, it is time to determine which of them is most worthy to be saved. Such was not the Union formed by our forefathers. Such is not the Union the people intend to preserve. They mean to uphold a Union, under the constitution, interpreted by common sense; a government able to attain results worthy of a great and free people, and for which it was founded; a republic, representing the sovereign majesty of the whole nation, clothed with ample powers to maintain its supremacy forever. They mean that liberty and union shall be "one and inseparable."

WHY SLAVERY, THOUGH HATED, WAS PERMITTED.

It is true, that indirectly, and for the purpose of a more equal distribution of direct taxes, the founders of our

government tolerated, while they condemned slavery ; but they endured it because they believed that it would soon disappear. They even refused to allow the charter of their own liberties to be polluted by the mention of the word "slave." Having called the world to witness their heroic and unselfish sacrifices for the vindication of their own inalienable rights, they could not, consistently with honor or self-respect, transmit to future ages the evidence that some of them had trampled upon the inalienable rights of others.

RECOGNITION OF SLAVERY NOT INCONSISTENT WITH THE PERPETUITY OF THE REPUBLIC.

Though slavery was thus tolerated by being ignored, it would dishonor the memory of those who organized our government to suppose that they did not intend to bestow upon it the power to maintain its own authority and the right to overthrow slavery, or any other institution which might endanger its permanence, or destroy its usefulness. We should discredit the good sense of our forefathers, who established a free republic, created by and for themselves, by denying that they conferred upon it the right, the duty, and the power of self-defence. For self-defence by the government is only maintaining, through the people's agents, the right of the people to govern themselves.

DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE OBJECTS AND THE MEANS OF WAR.

We are involved in a war of self-defence. It is not the object and purpose of our hostilities to lay waste lands, burn bridges, break up railroads, sink ships, blockade harbors, destroy commerce, capture, imprison, wound, or wound, or kill citizens; to seize, appro

priate, confiscate, or destroy private property; to interfere with families, or domestic institutions; to remove, employ, liberate, or arm slaves; to accumulate national debt, impose new and burdensome taxes; or to cause thousands of loyal citizens to be slain in battle. But, as means of carrying on the contest, it has become necessary and lawful to lay waste, burn, sink, destroy, blockade, wound, capture, and kill; to accumulate debt, lay taxes, and expose soldiers to the peril of deadly combat. Such are the ordinary results and incidents of war. If, in further prosecuting hostilities, the liberating, employing, or arming of slaves shall be deemed convenient for the more certain, speedy, and effectual overthrow of the enemy, the question will arise, whether the constitution prohibits those measures as acts of legitimate war against rebels, who, having abjured that constitution and having openly in arms defied the government, claim for themselves only the rights of belligerents.

It is fortunate for America that securing the liberties of a great people by giving freedom to four millions of bondmen would be in accordance with the dictates of justice and humanity. If the preservation of the Union required the enslavement of four millions of freemen, very different considerations would be presented.

LIBERAL AND STRICT CONSTRUCTIONISTS.

The friends and defenders of the constitution of the United States of America, ever since its ratification, have expressed widely different opinions respecting the limitation of the powers of government in time of peace, no less than in time of war. Those who have contended for the most narrow and technical construc

tion, not appreciating the spirit in which it was framed, have kept to the letter of the text, and seemed unable to regard it as only a frame of government, a plan in outline for regulating the affairs of an enterprising and progressive nation. They have supposed it incapable of adaptation to our changing conditions, as if it were a form of clay, which the slightest jar would shatter; or an iron chain, girdling a living tree, which could have no further growth unless by bursting its rigid ligature. But sounder judges believe that it more resembles the tree itself, native to the soil that bore it, waxing strong in sunshine and in storm, putting forth branches, leaves, and roots, according to the laws of its own growth, and flourishing with eternal verdure. Our constitution, like that of England, contains all that is required to adapt itself to the present and future changes and wants of a free and advancing people. This great nation, like a distant planet in the solar system, may sweep round a wide and splendid orbit, but it will not pass beyond the reach of its central light. The sunshine of constitutional law will illumine its pathway in all its changing revolutions. We have not yet ap

proached the "dead point" where the mould must be shattered, the chain broken, the tree girdled, or the sun shed darkness instead of light. By a liberal construction of the constitution, our government has passed through many storms unharmed. Slaveholding States, other than those whose inhabitants originally formed it, have found their way into the Union, notwithstanding the guarantee of equal rights to all. The territories of Florida and Louisiana have been

purchased from European powers. Conquest has added a nation to our borders. The purchased and the