The Convention did not meet to do away with slavery, but chiefly to form such an union as would obviate the difficulty already mentioned, and so keenly felt by some of the most earnest friends of the country. Although slavery was pretty well understood then, and seemed to be opposed to all the principles of freedom asserted, yet as it had been embraced by so many, that if they should be united against the constitution its adoption would be endangered, it was thought best not to insist on its instant abolition. Men as yet had too much selfishness in them, and, although reasonable beings, they have too much of the animal in them to see that, in the long run, honesty is the best policy. Many of the opponents of slavery, even from the slave States themselves, took this opportunity of showing the baseness and turpitude of the whole system—its advocates from the far South defending it as well as they could. These advocates gave it as their opinion that, owing to the Declaration of 1776, one which had already done wonders at the North—owing to the influence of the principles of liberty inserted into the constitution, and to the feeling of justice pervading all classes of persons, and to the progress of refinement and true civilization, slavery would ultimately disappear.[[19]]
At the time this opinion was expressed by the conventionists from the South, although we cultivated cotton to a small extent, it could not be regarded as staple. Soon after making the constitution it began to be important. It could be produced only at the South. As it grew in value the notion of abolishing slavery began to wane, till now some of the leading men of that part of the country say it is not only a good thing, but an indispensable one to the highest perfection of the social system.
THE TWO ALTARS;
OR, TWO PICTURES IN ONE.
BY MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
I.—THE ALTAR OF LIBERTY, OR 1776.
The well-sweep of the old house on the hill was relieved, dark and clear, against the reddening sky, as the early winter sun was going down in the west. It was a brisk, clear, metallic evening; the long drifts of snow blushed crimson red on their tops, and lay in shades of purple and lilac in the hollows; and the old wintry wind brushed shrewdly along the plain, tingling people’s noses, blowing open their cloaks, puffing in the back of their necks, and showing other unmistakable indications that he was getting up steam for a real roystering night.
“Hurra! how it blows!” said little Dick Ward, from the top of the mossy wood-pile.
Now Dick had been sent to said wood-pile, in company with his little sister Grace, to pick up chips, which everybody knows was in the olden time considered a wholesome and gracious employment, and the peculiar duty of the rising generation. But said Dick, being a boy, had mounted the wood-pile, and erected there a flag-staff, on which he was busily tying a little red pocket handkerchief, occasionally exhorting Gracie “to be sure and pick up fast.” “O, yes, I will,” said Grace; “but you see the chips have got ice on ’em, and make my hands so cold?”
“O! don’t stop to suck your thumbs!—who cares for ice? Pick away, I say, while I set up the flag of Liberty.”