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Show 84 is established, as from exerClsmg it against slavery in foreign communities. The second is, to free ourselves from all obligation to use the powers of the national or state governments in any manner whatever for the support of slavery. The first duty is clear. In regard to slavery, the Southern states stand on the ground of foreign communities. They are not subject or responsible to us more than these. No state-sovereignty can intermeddle with the institutions of another. We might as legitimately spread our legislation over the schools, churches, or persons of the South, as over their slaves. And in regard to the General Government, we know 'that it was not intended to confer any pow· er, direct or indirect, on the free, over the slave states. Any pretension to such power on the part of the North, would have dissolved immediately the convention, which framed the constitution. Any act of the free states, when assembled in Congress, for the abolition of slavery in other states, would be a violation of the national compact, and would be just cause of complaint. On this account I cannot but regret the disposition of a part of our abolitionists to organize themselves into a political party. Were it indeed their simple p~rpose to free the North from all obligation to give support to slavery, I should agree with them in their end, though not in their means. By look- I ' 85 ing, as they do, to political organization, as a means of putting down the institution in other states, they lay themselves open to reproach. I know, indeed, that excellent men are engaged in this movement, and I acquit them of all disposition. to transcend the limits of the Federal Constitution. But it is to be feared, that they may construe this instrument too literally ; that, forgetting its spirit, they may seek to use its powers for purposes very remote from its original design. Their failure is almost inevitable. By extending their agency beyond its true bounds, they ensure its defeat in its legitimate sphere. By assuming a political character, they lose the reputation of honest enthusiasts, and come to be considered as hypocritical seekers after place and power. Should they, in opposition to all probability, become a formidable party, they would unite the slaveholding states as one man ; and the South, always able, when so united, to link with itself a party at the North, would rule the country as before. - No association, like the abolitionists, formed for a particular end, can, by becoming a political organization, rise to power. If it can contrive to perpetuate itself, it will provoke contempt by the disproportion of its means to its ends ; but the probability is, that it will be swallowed up in the whirlpool of one or the other of the great national parties, from 8 |