House, a few days since, to pass a resolution calling upon the President to state the time and place, when and where, and the persons who had any purpose to interfere with the domestic institutions of the Southern States. He says, 'Sir, I would intimidate no one; but I tell you there is a spirit in the North which will set at defiance all the low and unworthy machinations of this Executive, and of the minions of its power. When the contest shall come, when the thunder shall roll, and the lightning flash ; when the slaves shall rise in the South, when, in imitation of the Cuban bondmen, the Southern slaves of the South shall feel that they are men; when they feel the stirring emotions of immortality, and recognise the stirring truth that they are men, and entitled to the rights which God has bestowed upon them; when the slave shall feel that, and when masters shall turn pale and tremble, when their dwellings shall smoke, and dismay sit on each countenance, then, Sir, I do not say, "We will laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear cometh," but I do say, when that time shall come, the lovers of our race will stand forth and exert the legitimate powers of this Government for freedom. We shall then have constitutional power to act for the good of our country,and do justice to the slave. Then will we

strike off the shackles from the limbs of the slaves." That will be a period when this Government will have power to act between slavery and freedom, and when it can make peace by giving freedom to the slaves. And let And let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, that that time hastens, it is rolling forward. The President is exerting a power that will hasten it, though not intended by him; I hail it as I do the approaching dawn of that political and moral millennium which I am well assured will come upon the world.'

"Next I read from a speech made in Boston by Mr. Burlingame, member of this House, and a leading Republican, whose voice was heard in the recent canvass far away from his New-England home, in the prairies of the north-west, as well, perhaps, as in the Keystone State, when no doubt he advocated the same doctrines herein contained and earnestly appealed to Northern men to adopt them as their standard of political orthodoxy, and who, I may say, has been selected by his constituents to a seat in the Thirty-fifth Congress. He said: 'If asked to state specially what he would do, he would answer: First, repeal that Nebraska Bill; second, repeal the Fugitive Slave Law; third, abolish slavery in the district of Columbia; fourth, abolish the inter-slave trade; next, he would declare

that slavery should not spread to one inch of the territory of the Union; he would then put the Government actually and perpetually on the side of freedom; he would have judges who believe in a higher law, and an anti-slavery constitution, an antislavery Bible, an anti-slavery God. Having thus denationalised slavery, he would not

menace it in

the States where it exists, but would say to these States, "It is your local institution; hug it to your bosoms until it shall destroy you." This is the only condition of repose, and it must come to this; for so long as life dwelt in his bosom so long would he fight for liberty and against slavery; and he hoped the time would soon come when the sun should not rise on a master nor set on a slave.' After this speech was delivered the Hon. Henry Wilson, the present senator for Massachusetts, being called for, rose and said:

This is not the time nor the place for me to utter a word. You have listened to the eloquence of my young friend, and here to-night I indorse every word and sentiment he has uttered. In public or in private life, in majorities or minorities, at home or abroad, I intend to live and die with unrelenting hostility to slavery on my lips.' Such language needs no comment from me to explain that, in the hands of these men, all of whom

are shining lights in the Republican party, the institutions of the Southern States would be crushed out and destroyed. And I think that the President has very properly and truly characterised the objects of these men and their associates as being dangerous and revolutionary. At all events, the only construction which I can give these sentiments is, that slavery everywhere must fall, and our only condition is to be when the sun shall not rise upon

of

repose

a master, nor set upon a slave.""

192

CHAP. VI.

THE REAL POINTS OF THE QUESTION.

Ir is difficult to say what are the relative chances of success of the two parties, in the total absence of all data upon which a calculation of the extent and duration of the warfare must be based; but the complete failures of the two main points which were put forward as the confident expectation of the Federal Government-1. the overwhelming of Southern opposition by the crushing force of an immediate attack; 2. the starving out of the South-go far to diminish the impression that the weight of money and power lies so entirely on the North side, as was at first presumed; while the unanimity of resistance, and measures taken to organise and concentrate its action, give no mean estimate of the strength and resources which will be forthcoming in a struggle pro aris et focis. The purchase of the cotton crop of this year by the Government of the Confederate States, and the issue of their notes in lieu of cash, will relieve any immediate pressure on