Next has been demanded the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, in the forts, arsenals, navy yards and other public establishments of the United States. What object have the abolitionists had for raising all this clamor about a little patch of soil ten miles square, and a few inconsiderable places thinly scattered over the land—a mere grain of sand upon the beach—unless it be to establish the precedent of Congressional interference, which would enable them to make a wholesale incursion upon the constitutional rights of the South, and to drain from the vast ocean of alleged national guilt its last drop? Does any one suppose that a mere microscopic concession like this would alone appease a conscience wounded and lacerated by the “sin of slavery?”
Another of these aggressions is that which was proposed under the pretext of regulating commerce between the States—namely, that no slave, for any purpose and under any circumstances whatever, shall be carried by his lawful owner from one slaveholding State to another; or, in other words, that where slavery now is there it shall remain forever, until by its own increase the slave population shall outnumber the white race, and thus by a united combination of causes—the fears of the master, the diminution in value of his property and the exhausted condition of the soil—the final purposes of fanaticism may be accomplished.
Still another in the series of aggressions was that attempted by the Wilmot Proviso, by which Congress was called upon to prohibit every slaveholder from removing with his slaves into the territory acquired from Mexico—a territory as large as the old thirteen States originally composing the Union. It appears to have been forgotten that whether slavery be admitted upon one foot of territory or not, it cannot affect the question of its sinfulness in the slightest degree, and that if every nook and corner of the national fabric were open to the institution, not a single slave would be added to the present number, or that, if excluded, their number would not be a single one the less.
We might also refer to the armed and bloody opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law, to the passage of Personal Liberty Bills, to political schemes in Congress and out, and to systematic agitation everywhere, with a view to stay the progress of the South, contract her political power, and eventually lead, at her expense, if not of the Union itself, to the utter expurgation of this “tremendous national sin.”
In short, the abolitionists have contributed nothing to the welfare of the slave or of the South. While over one hundred and fifty millions have been expended by slaveholders in emancipation, except in those sporadic cases where the amount was capital invested in self-glorification, the abolitionists have not expended one cent.
More than this: They have defeated the very objects at which they have aimed. When Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, or some other border State has come so near to the passage of gradual emancipation laws that the hopes of the real friends of the movement seemed about to be realized, abolitionism has stepped in, and, with frantic appeals to the passions of the negroes, through incendiary publications, dashed them to the ground, tightening the fetters of the slave, sharpening authority, and producing a reaction throughout the entire community that has crushed out every incipient thought of future manumission.
Such have been the obvious fruits of abolition. Church, state and society! Nothing has escaped it. Nowhere pure, nor peaceable, nor gentle, nor easily entreated, nor full of mercy and good fruits; but everywhere forward, scowling, uncompromising, and fierce, breaking peace, order and structure at every step, crushing with its foot what would not bow to its will; defying government, despising the Church, dividing the country, and striking Heaven itself if it dared to obstruct its progress; purifying, pacifying, promising nothing, but marking its entire pathway by disquiet, schism and ruin.
We come now to the train of historical facts upon which we rely in proof of the foregoing assertions.