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Show 1-± TilE GOLDEN HOUR. I I I. IN COMMON LAW. . donee of some years at Washington, I DuRING a rcs1 found that there was a clause in the Constitution used there, which I have vainly looked for in my copy : it ran as follows : - " Ar t. . -, Sec . _ · Any leoa islation on the part of Con-crrcss liable to the charge of being morally right hall ~e held as prima facie unconstitutional; this, however, shall not invalidate such legi lation, if it can be proved that its moral character is simply a coincidence." I have seen good Republicans grow red in the face with showing that they were maintaining freedon1 sin1- ply for strategy or expediency, and indignantly avowing that they were not actuated by any motives of humanity or rectitude. So we must not dwell upon any such little point as the moral ulceration of a whole nation, so much as upon the prospective waving of the Stars and Stripes on the custom-house in Charlo ton. But, even in the eye of the (')rganic law, we maintain that the right to abolish Slavery is antecedent to the right of taking the sword. It is the duty of the President to "suppress insurrections" ; but there is no intimation that the Executive ·hall, in suppre. sing in~nrrcctions be con fined to the method of blood bed. If, ' IN COMMON LAW. 15 indeed, bloodshed is the only method or the best method, he is sworn not to shrink from that ; but if the end could be reached by anything more humane, it is his duty to rcn1e1nber that the sword is termed the ultima ratio,- the last resort of states . If in the present case there was a probability that the insurrection could be put down without bloodshed, say by slavcryshed, it were the legal duty of our President to try the slavery hed first. When the alternative is the dreadful one of civil war, the method which dealt directly through Slavery the paralytic stroke would not demand, any more than a naval expedition, a cer- . tainty, but merely a probability, of success. Atnongst all the rights which have been claimed for Slavery, a guaranteed in the Constitution, there is one which no 1nan has ever been bold enough to try and make out; that is, THE RIGHT OF EXISTENCE. Slavery has the right to the rendition of fugitives,- so long as it exists ; the right of representation, -so long as it exists ; but nowhere the right to exist. Our fathers did not expect it to continue in existence, and made no arrangement to secure it should that existence be threatened. Its right to be let alone in the States where it exists is simply a negative right, held "during life or good behavior " ; and our fathers were not such knaves as to guarantee its life, nor such fools as to guarantee its good l>ehavior. Leaving out of the account any den1and of military |