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Show 244 DESPOT!Si\f tenrlom would honor and applaud the blow. Under these circumstances, will not due regard to the "common defence " justify Congress in adopting ~ c_ourse of legislative policy such as may narrow, hm1t, restrict, and tend to the extinction of a source of :veakncss which no provision of forts and steam fngates can guard against 1 The "welfare of the United States," their internal well-being, apart from any dangers from without, and more especially the welfare of the • lave states themselves, seem to caU still louder for Congressional htterference. 'rhe perception of the evils of slavery has, till recently, been confined to a speculative few -a class of persons more inclined to think than to act, and disabled, by the smallness of their number, from any etlectual political action. But sensibility to those evils, especially to the obstacles w hich the existence of slavery opposes to the further extension of the principles of equality and justice even in t heir application to the Jree,-thanks to the e florts a nd labors of those known as Abolitionists,-is now beginning to penetrate the mass, and to find representatives and an expression in the legislatures of the free states, and even in Congress. When a majority in Congress come to be thoroughly impregnated with these ideas; when they come to look upon slavery, not merely as an evil, a calamity, a thing to be lamented and regret· ted, but as a fatal obstacle to the progress of our free institutions, a consuming cancer eating into the heart of our liberties, and threatening the extinction of those principles upon which our constitutions arc founded; -pe rceiving that the "welfare of the United States" is seriously compromised,-can they hesitate to come to the rescue ? Will they not feel themselves called upon, not alone by humanity, by p atriotism, but by the very letter of the constitution itself, to come to the rescue? But even grant that Congress might not righ~fully assume to legi~latc upon the subject of slavery mde· pendently of and adverse to 1he states to be directly 1:--l Al\lERICA. 245 affecte~l by such legislatJon, yPt 1heir consf:'nt and cooperatiOn \~o ~ld ccrtai uly go far to remove thi!:l ob:;iaclc. Nor Js Jt to be supposed 1hat such a fcelinO' as :vc have a bov.e referred to can become prcdomi~ant 111 Congres~. Without penctrati ng, al:m, to a greater or le~s extcnt, .ll1to.thc sl?"vc states themselves. But the cv1l of slave:y IS so 1mmense, and in most of our slav_c states 1t _has become so firmly rooted,- swallm\: lllp up.' a~ Jt were, t he stale and the church, and ~nli~t_mg 111 1ts support. the wealth, t he talent, the • u~ telhgencc, the cd?cat10n, the ignorance, the prejudices, and the passiOns of t he people,-that to wait for those states to take the lcader.hip in the aboli1ion mo~~men t would be absurd. The effects of such \~'~ l tmg have been long since manifest. The abohtJOn of slavery in lV[aryland and Virginia, so confidently. expected a~d so devoutly wished for by Henry, VVa!.-ihmgton, Jefferson, lVIason J.\IIad ison did not take place. 'l'he slavc·holders 'of those states have, on the contrary, added to the injustice of slave-holdmg the cruelty and turpitude of :-;lavc~breedina and E>iave~exporting; a nd, in difl"u:sing this evil ov~r thP. !tew reg10ns of the sou t h-west, t hey have found new Inducements for continuing it among them:selves. For the pu!pose of .extending t his slave marl\et, they do not hesLtate to mvolvc the Union in disaraccful ;\:ars qf conquest. Not content with the sei~ure of ll~xas: t~c an.nc~~tion. of Cuba is already suggested -to\\ h~eh VIrguua m1ght serve as a new Africa, the slave 1rade. to that coast having been mainly cut oft' by 1he VIIJ'llance of the English cruisers. This let· a~one P?itey, this waiting for the parties most immediately 111tetest.ed to take the lead, came near provinu fatal even- to Congress itself. The right of petiti01~ ev~n freedom of deba te, seemed about to be extingm• hed in that body. The Federal government has put Itself forward as the champion and defe nder of ~lavery j the antagonist, on t his point, of all Christenc; t~· What a change, even on the que.stion of the ncan slave trade !-that very aoverurnt>nt which 21. 0 • , |