was not materially increased. The tariff of 1842 discarded to a great extent protective duties, and they have hardly been heard of as a cause of complaint for several years, a better subject for agitation having been found in slavery.

The origin of the difficulties which have resulted in the attempted secession is to be sought as far back as the adoption of the Constitution itself, and perhaps earlier. The question arose in the Congress of the Revolution, how the quota which each State ought to furnish toward the expenses of the war should be determined. It was at first agreed that apportionment should be made according to a valuation of property. But only one State - New Hampshire - furnished a valuation. Then it was suggested that the number of persons in each State might be taken as the basis. But delegates from Slave States immediately objected that slaves ought not to be included in the enumeration, because slaves did not produce as much as freemen. There was great debate upon the subject, which resulted in a compromise, by which three fifths of the number of slaves were to be added to the number of free persons.

In the Convention which framed the Constitution, the subject of revenue, which it was then believed, as we have already suggested, would be raised mainly by direct taxation, brought up the same question respecting the basis of apportionment. As before, there was an attempt to escape from an apportionment which should embrace slaves in the enumeration of persons. This resulted in another compromise, by which three fifths of the number of slaves were to be included in the enumeration of persons for the purpose of apportioning the taxes among the several States, and the Slave States were to be entitled to a representation upon the same basis, the provision in the Constitution upon these subjects being in these words: "Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States

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which may be included within this Union according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons." The principle of the Revolution, that taxation and representation ought to go together, was exemplified in this compromise. On this basis, the Slave States have had the benefit of a representation founded upon the number of their slaves, constantly increasing, until, according to the census of 1850, it actually amounted to twentyone members, the slaves, however, having no vote in the election of them. The oligarchical democracy of the South has had so much of political advantage. But the burden of direct taxation, proportioned upon three fifths of the slaves, which was the equivalent, has almost wholly failed, because the revenue has been raised, with very limited exceptions, by duties on imports and by sales of public lands. As a necessary result, there has been a growing repugnance to the extension of slavery, aside from all moral considerations, on account of this unequal political representation, an injustice which every extension of slavery, and every admission of a new Slave State, has aggravated.

It must be considered, also, that the Constitution, with this unequal representation, was made for the territory embraced in the treaty of peace with Great Britain. The admission of new States formed from territory acquired outside of those limits was not contemplated nor provided for, and every admission of a Slave State from such territory tends to a further extension of this inequality of representation. The admission of Louisiana, Florida, Arkansas, Missouri, and especially of Texas, furnishes, unquestionably, some of the reasons for a hostility to slavery which has borne fruit, perhaps, in PersonalLiberty Laws, as well as in efforts to exclude slavery from the Territories, in order that there shall not be an increase of Slave

States, and thereby a further extension of a representation already unjust.

Again: In considering the temper which led to the PersonalLiberty Laws, and to the restriction of the extension of slavery, we must by no means ignore the laws of some of the Southern States South Carolina and Louisiana-upon the subject of free Negroes, under which persons of that class belonging to Northern vessels have been imprisoned without even an allegation that they had committed any offence, and by which they would have been sold into slavery, if the fees and charges of that imprisonment had not been paid. The attempt by Massachusetts to test the constitutionality of those laws, first, by the employment of counsel in those States, and, when that failed because counsel there declined to take a retainer, by sending Mr. Hoar as agent to South Carolina, and Mr. Hubbard to Louisiana, to institute suits for that purpose in the Courts of the United States,-and their subsequent expulsion from Charleston and New Orleans, under circumstances of great excitement and indignity, have, in our belief, had more to do in exciting a bitter feeling of hostility to the institution of slavery, than all the speeches of any half-dozen orators or oratresses, white or colored. To say nothing of the preposterous pretension, that the question whether those laws were constitutional or otherwise should not be submitted to the consideration and determination of a judicial tribunal, or of the injustice necessarily attending their enforcement, the circumstances of insult accompanying the expulsion of Messrs. Hoar and Hubbard were not likely to be forgotten by the people of Massachusetts, and the feeling thus excited has been largely extended to other States.

The repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and the subsequent attempt to force slavery into the Territory of Kansas by fraudulent voting and fraudulent returns, by a blockade of the Missouri River outside of the Territory, and by the murder of

peaceable citizens within it, may furnish some palliation and excuse for an excitement which would render Personal-Liberty Laws popular, even if such circumstances cannot prove their constitutionality. In pursuing the design and purpose of preparing the Territory so that when it became a State it would send two Senators and a Representative in sympathy with the South and devoted to Southern interests, no regard was had to personal or political rights. Fraud and injustice marked every step of the progress, and marauding bands from South Carolina and Georgia attempted to complete by force what fraud was not strong enough to accomplish. That corrupt politicians at the North should participate in this iniquity, was in character with their antecedents; and that demagogues at the North should avail themselves of the just indignation excited by such outrages, and endeavor to make political capital for themselves, on the other side, by inflammatory speeches and extreme measures, without regard to their constitutional obligations, was but a natural consequence.

In estimating the morality of the rebellion, it must be recollected that there has always been a strong party at the North sympathizing with the South, partly from political, and partly from personal associations; and a still larger number who have been willing to fulfil all their constitutional obligations, although they have been disposed, and are determined, no longer to give way to Southern insolence and aggression. It is to be noted further, that, at the very time when the rebellion was planned and broke out, five of the nine judges on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States were from the Slave States, and that these, with one of the judges in the Free States, had expressed and recorded their opinion that slaveholders had a constitutional right to carry their slaves into the Territories, and hold them there, any legislation of Congress to the contrary notwithstanding. One other judge from a Free State did not see fit to record a dis

sent to this doctrine, leaving himself free to assent to it at any time afterward, when his convictions of official duty should require such an opinion. We admit that this opinion of the six judges was a "dictum," and erroneous. We aver that it was perfectly outrageous, a gross usurpation of power deserving impeachment, because the question was clearly political, and not judicial. But it was quite improbable that those who had thus committed themselves to the interests of the South would retrace their steps, and the constitution of the Senate rendered impeachment hopeless. Secession was not required to secure or save any of the alleged rights of the South. If the Southern Senators had remained in their places, Mr. Lincoln and his Administration would have lacked the power to do evil to Southern interests, even if they had been so disposed. But it is true that the constitution of the House of Representatives was likely to be such, that the South could not rule Congress as it had been accustomed to do, and the incoming incumbent of the Presidential chair presented an absolute bar to Southern domination.

It may not be amiss to consider here two or three objections which have been raised against the attempt of the United States to suppress the insurrection, and which have been urged independently of the reasons alleged for the secession itself.

It has been contended that the attempt at coercion is in violation of the democratic principle that the people are entitled to govern themselves, and of the republican principle that this right to govern resides in the majority. It is alleged that the people of the Southern States are, on these principles, entitled to choose their own government; moreover, that not merely a majority of the people of the seceding States prefer to change their institutions by forming the Southern Confederacy, but that there is great unanimity among them in this particular.

The principles thus adduced are acknowledged as funda