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Show J ~unes Freeman Clarke. America; and this work was mo. t easily and chc»ply done by Slave~. At the end of a generation from the death of "\Va-.hington, ' laYery hall become vastly more protit:lblc in the Southrm Stat'S than it wa' in his days. Now, the outh did not ,,/sh Slavery to come to an end. It wishe(l it to continue. I do not say that the Slaveholder · were worse in this thnn other people. l'hcir misfortune wa to be exposed to H tremendous temptation, anll they yielded to it. The people of New England might have yielded too, if they hall been expo ell to that temptation. This was the fit·'t great change ; this the cs cntial change; this chanrre of desire and wi 'h-all the l'Cst lla ' followeJ b that. For, though ingle men are illogicnl anu incon ' istent, mankind is logical and consistent. In thP long run, people will either act as they believe, or else belie.ve as they act. The Slavchohlers were believing one way, but de termined to net another. '.fl1c situation w:-t painful, and they broke awny from it. Never was uch a revolution in opinion as that which hns taken place at the outh within the la ·t twenty years, on the subject of S lavery. Twenty yc~ns ngo, nine Slavelwl<.lers out of ten would tell you they thou ght tihwcry wrong; to-<lay, nine out of ten will te ll you tlH•y think it 1·ight. So logicnl i ' man. As they mnue up their wills to extend, and not aboli 'll Slavery, they presently made up their miud~ to Lclicve it right, and not wrong- a Christian ln'titution ; a mi::;. ionary enlerpri e ; based on the Bible, and in accordance with the highc t principle of duty. I lmow v ·ry well that there was n transition p riocl. 1Vhile this great change of pnblie opinion was going- on, it wa. covered np :1Jl(l conccnlecl with fine phrn~c.. 'I'his was the period of what B entham cal l:;" Fal1acious JJesi,qnations." lkntham say "the object and dfect of a F'ollacious Desi,rpwtion i' to avoid any unp1rasant idea that happens to be associated with a per on or class, and to present to the mind instead an abstraction or creation of fnncy ." Thu , ays he, James Freeman Clarke. 321 Instead of' ICings or the King,' you ny' The Crown or Throne.' " " 'Churchmen,' " " 'The Church or Altar.' " " " " 'Lawyers,' " 'A Judo- ' ~ ' " ' H.ich l\1en,' " " 'IGlling a Man,' So in this country we saiu, Instead of 'Slavery,' " " " " " 'The Law." " 'The Court.' " ' Property.' " ' Cnpital Punishment.' ' Southern Institutions.' " " 'SlaYcholder-,' 'The Soul h.' A good d<•al wa accompli~lt ccl in this way by the Slavc- 1wlders. Thus, in 1850, when it wa propo ed to cxC'lu<.le Slavery, hy law, from the new T e rritorie , it was said, in reply, "The Soul h has a right to take its property into the territory purchased by its own tren. m·e nnd blood." Translated into plain Saxon Engli:.;h, this meant, " Three hundred thou:.<ancl S lnveholtlers, in the Slave State:;, rieh enough to own, on an a.verag , te n negroes cneh, inRiHt, against the intore. t of thirteen million in the Free States, of' ix million of Non- lavehold r:=; in the Slave State., nnd of three million of Slavrs, to carry Slave into territorie' whe re there are none now, and to have the laws changrd to let them do it." 1\h. Calhoun fir:t e tabl ished this " Fallacious De in-nation" c of 'The South' instead of 'The Sl:n·ehold r . . ' And, in his lnst trrcat , pccch in the United States Senate, h carried it so far as to complain that in the annexation of new territory to the Union, ''the North had obtained more than the South," -not meaning that more tenitory. itunted at the North had been annexed, but that more had been secured to Freedom than to lavery. In the same way, in the Free States, we nlway haYe bad a party who wish to cover up and conceal the radical opposition of Slavery to Freedom, aml Freedom to Slavery ; to daub the wall with untempcred mortar- to cry peace when thet·e is no peace. They al 'o make gt·ent u e of these " Fallacious Designations." They say ' Our Southern Brethren ; ' |
