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Show 2-12 DI::SPOTISM we consider that 5ystem an ill~gal u.suq?atio~t or a legal institution of those states 111 wh1ch It cx1sts ;su j)posc the conclusion to be arrived at, that the co~l· tinued existence of slavery, whether legal or not, will be fatal .to the success of that great democratic ex· pcriment which the American people are now mak. ing ·-looking at the matter in this point of view, has not' the Federal goveq1ment a right to interfere, and to adopt such measures as seem best calculated to stop the increase of this evil, and to bring it to an end? If, under the clause above cited, Congress had power to buy Louisiana, to buy Florida, to annex Texas, to buy California, has it not power, under the same clause, to vote money towards the liberation of some millions of native-born inhabitants from most cruel servitude 7 It is true that, heretofore, Congress has not legis· lated with this intention. It is also true, that, on a petition signed by Franklin and others, and presented to the first Congress, praying that body to take mras· ures for the abolition of slavery, the conclusion was arrived at, after a warm debate, that Congress had no juri::;diction over the subject of slavery within the states. But this decision, binding only on the Con· gress that made it, though very generally acquiesced in since, still remains open to revision ; and a change of circumstances, changing the light in which th.e question presents itself, cannot fail to have a sc~Ious influence on the decision to be made upon It. When the first Congress met, !::lavery was a crime and disgrace in whiclf the whole of Christendom was more or less involved; and in the wars which the natious of Europe carried on with each other, their practices in this matter were mutually respected. When France, England, Spain, and Holland invaded each other's colonies, they never thought of putting arms into the hands of the slaves. Early in our ltevolu· tionary war, some suggestion was thrown out ~n the British House of Commons, that the slaves 111 the southern states might be liberated, armed, and em· IN AMF.RICA. 243 ployec~ .to keep those colonies in subjection; but the oppo.:Htwn, headed by Bmkc and Fox, denounced the idea as. barbarou~, at.rocious, and infamous, and the suggestion, never senously entertained, remained, to a g.rC"at extent, unactcd ~pon. Ma~on, of Virginia, feelingly aclmowlcdged 111 the Federal convention that if the British had availed themselves, as they m1ght have done, of the aid of the ncgrocg, t he war in the southern states might have had a very diflerent termination. During the last war with England, a plan, it is said, was formed for occupying t.he peninsula between the Chesapeake and the Delaware with a British army, turning it into an asylum fpr the slaves of Virginia and l\'laryland, to whom liberty waR to be proclaimed; organizing and training a black army, under EnO'lish officers, and marching with it to the conquest of t he South. But Britain had slaves of her own; it would not do to set an example of insurrection and of liberty won at the point of the bayonet; and this brilliant scheme was consequently abandoned. Had it been energetically undertaken, something more might have happened than the burning of the Capitol. Since that period opinions have greatly changed. England has aboli::;hcd slavery throughout h('r wide- 8pread dominions. France has also abolished it in her colonies. All Christendom cries out against it. Should we become jnvolved in war with France- or England, especially with England,-and war with England is one of the commonplaces of our politic:"~, -no matter wh?t the cause or origin of the war, a proclamation of freedom to the enslaved would sane' ify it in the eyes of the world. It would become the can::~e of humanity against despotism-a despotism 1he more hateful from its attempt to cloak itself with the name of democracy, and from its audacious eftOrts to trample out the dOctrine of the rights of man in the. very states by which that. doctrine was first prodatmed as the basis of political organization. The enemy would strike us in our vital parts, and Chris- |