Bell, Mr. Breckinridge, or Mr. Douglas,--there being
quite as little chance that any of them would abolish human nature as
that Mr. Lincoln would abolish slavery. The same generous instinct
that leads some among us to sympathize with the sorrows of the
bereaved master will always, we fear, influence others to take part
with the rescued man.
But if our Constitutional Obligations, as we like to call our
constitutional timidity or indifference, teach us that a particular
divinity hedges the Domestic Institution, they do not require us to
forget that we have institutions of our own, worth maintaining and
extending, and not without a certain sacredness, whether we regard the
traditions of the fathers or the faith of the children. It is high
time that we should hear something of the rights of the Free States,
and of the duties consequent upon them. We also have our prejudices to
be respected, our theory of civilization, of what constitutes the
safety of a state and insures its prosperity, to be applied wherever
there is soil enough for a human being to stand on and thank God for
making him a man. Is conservatism applicable only to property, and not
to justice, freedom, and public honor? Does it mean merely drifting
with the current of evil times and pernicious counsels, and carefully
nursing the ills we have, that they may, as their nature it is, grow
worse?
To be told that we ought not to agitate the question of Slavery, when
it is that which is forever agitating us, is like telling a man with
the fever and ague on him to stop shaking and he will be cured.
Pages:
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290