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Show 248 DESPOTIS:'Il states before ihc fir:st efli?ctu:Jl Rtcps can be taken, we do not say toward~ the abolition of s lavery. mNely, but even towards the enforcement of the nghts of tbo&c nominally free; those gr~at rights of r:ce di scussion and a free press wh1ch no despotism, or woul<.l-be despotism, willingly tolerates. Coucrress, however, or the friends of. freedom in Conu·r~ss are-- not to wait till such a part.y ri~es up. It i~ thc'ir business to help it up, to reach out a hand . to it, on every possible occasion. Could the immense patronage of the F et.lcral government once be directed to that point, we may judge of t he result likely to follow by the effect which that same_ patron· age has produced at the North, 111 a counter directiOn. ]t i~ by calling upon the Federal government, on every possible occasion that occurs, or can be made to occur, to abjure all re~pon sibility for s lavery and all countenance of it; it is by finding and making perpetual occasion::~ to P.oi n~ out the .e~i.ls of ~lavery in particular instances, Its .lllcompattbility w1th the "O'Cneral welfa re," and the obstacles which it opposes to 0 the "common defence; "-it is by imitating the ex· ample of steadfast old Cato, and repeating at every opportunity, in season and out o~ season, HI t.hmk also that slavery ought to be abolished; ''-such are the means by which even a very few members of Con· gress may e liCct great th~ngs; n~t in~eed by w.ay of direct JcO'islation -for dtrcct lcg1slat10n constitutes, after all, 0bot a s~all part of the inOoencc which Con· gress cxcrts,-but by keeping this s ubject con.stantly before the public mind; enabling and compelling the slave-holders to see what they have hitherto so obstt· nately shut their eyes to; and what J.s of more un· portance yet, giving the non-sla.ve-holdtng freemen of the South an opportunity to see what the slave-hold· crs hitherto have so dcxtcrous.Jy kept out of thetr ~~ t . . . Ju~t in proportiOn as the antl·slavcry party Increases in Congres::i; just in proportion as that body shall evince ::;ymptotns of a scttleJ, firm, and steady oppo· IN AMI::RICA. 249 sition to slav?ry; just in the same proportion will the southern an ~I-slavery men be encouraged to confess themselves, lust to themselves, then to one another and then to the world. Only through the media~ of ~ongress, an? the Federal govfirnment, can the anti-slavery sentiment of the North be brouo-ht into any active coOperation with the anti-slavery se~ltiment ~r the South; and su!<'ly, until northern representatives of non-slave-holding constituencies can stand up on the floor of Congress and boldly speak their minds upon the subJect, and secure a hearing too, it is quite too :nuc~ to expe~t any such boldness, or any such heanng, m the legu?-l?.ture of any slave-holding state. It needs, as we behevc, only this free discussion to show that even the technical le«ality behind which slavery claims to entrench itsP.If c:rmot be maintained. This point has hitherto been conceded to the slave· ~alders,, hastily, without examination, and, as we be· heve, Without reason. The truth seems to be that, ?lthougl! the people of the southern states were will· wg, and a larg:e majority of them desirous, to allow slavery to contmue among t hem as a matter of fact, they left its legality to rest upon the enactments and practice of the colonial times, without undertaking by any fundamental act of sovereignty on their part to confer any new or additional leaality upon it. The lc.gality of Affierican slavery rests~ then, upon a colo· ~1al usage-~ usage not only unsustained by the Eng· hsh law? but,m several most important points, directly c~ntrad1etory to it; a usage totally incapable of for· mshing any legal foundation for any claim of right; a usage upon which neither the state constitutions nor the Federal constitution undertake to confer a legal character; and upon which, indeed, taking into ~ccount the very fundamental principles of the Amcr· ICan governme nt, they could not confer a legal character. When the colonists set forth in their Declaration of ln<Jcpendencc, as the justification and basis of t he stand they had taken, the natural Right of all men to |
