Glass __LAA_k_ Book, . L^ fe, EIGHTH EDITION. THE WILMOT PROVISO IS ABOLITION, AGGRESSIVE, REVOLUTIONARY, AND SUBVERSIVE OF THE CONSTITUTION AND ITS GUARANTIES TO THE SLAVEHOLDING STATES. YOICE FROM THE SOUTH : COMPBISING LETTERS FROM GEOEGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS, THE SOUTHERN STATES. APPENDIX JNTAININS AN ARTICLE FROM THE CHARLESTON MERCURY ON THE WILMOT PROVISO, TOGK- THER WITH THE FOURTH ARTICLE OF THE CONSTITUTION, THE LAW OF COKGRBSS, THE NULLIFICATION LAW OF PENNSYLVANIA, THE RESOLUTIONS OF TEN OF THE FREE STATES, THE RESOLUTIONS OF VIRGINIA, GEORGIA AND ALABAMA, AND MR. CALHOUN'S RE- SOLUTIONS IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES. BALTIMORE: SAMUEL E. SMITH, PUBLISHER AND BOOKSELLER, I SUNBUILDINGS, No. 57 Baltimore street, S. E. corner of Gay. ^ 1848. n WILL THE SOUTH SUSTAIN A LITERARY JOURNAL ? TIE WESTERN COI A POPULAR SOUTHERN FAMILY NEWSPAPER, JVEUTHML m POLITICS AJVD RELIGIOA". At a time when nearly every publication that emanates from the northern press — lite- rary, religious and political — is impregnated with sentiments hostile to the interests, and insulting to the feelings of the people of the South, — when the enemies of Southern In- stitutions are organizing for a bold and formidable invasion of Southern Ritrhts, and when professed Abolition papers are sustained within our borders by contributions from Northern Societies, — when the most important political issues of the d;iy, are being merged in that of Abolitionism, — the vital necessity of at least ojje popular jiEnirM, in which Southern views may be uttered, and Southern interests vindicated, fiee from the bias of political or sectarian prejudice, must be apparent to all. With a view to supply such a, journal, the Western Continent has been established in Baltimore. This position was selected as being the furthest Southern point which olTered the necessary facilities for a successful competition with the large weeklies of the Nor- thern cities. The success of the paper thus far has abundantly attested the correctness of our views, and we feel that is only necessary to make the Continent known to the public to whose interest it is devoted, to secure for it a general circulation. The Western Continent is a paper of the largest size, printed on good paper and with fair type, and in all the characteisrtics of a POPULAR FAMILY J OUPJS'-AL Will compare favorably with the best weeklies of the coimtry. It has been the aim of the editors to preserve a high moral tone, and to maintain an elevated standard of literary excellence, giving to its contents such varied character as to interest and in- struct all minds, and please all tastes. THE CURRENT NEWS OF THE DAY— Foreign and Domestic, is carefully compiled for the Continent, special pains being taken to comprehend every thing of interest to the Southern reader. TALES, SKETCHES, ESSAYS AND POEMS— Original and Selected, of the highest merit, will always be found in the colums of the Continent, it being our fi.\ed determination to admit none others. THE LADIES' DEPARTMENT— With a view to make this department useful and entertaining to our Lady readers, we have secured the aid of an accomplished and ta- lented YOUNG LADY of this city, who will preside over the columns devoted to their interests. MAJOR JONES edits the Humorous Department, in which will be found, every week, original stories and sketches from his pen and from his numerous correspon- dents, as well as his choicest selections from various sources, with his comments on matters and things in general. DOMBEY AND SON. — This popular work, justly classed among the ablest pro- ductions of Mr. Dickens, is given in entire parts immediately on its arrival in thisf country. Our close proximity to the great Political, Conimercinl and liiterary Emporiums o the country, enables us to disseminate the LATEST INTELLIGENCE on all suT jccts as promptly as any of our northern coieniporarics ; and as our paper is as larg^, cheap, and wc trust as good, we feel that we have at least an equal claim with the worthiest of tiiem to the patronage of the Southern Public, to whose peculiar interests our Journal is especially devoted. Determined to do ail in our power to merit their patronage, it is most resi)cclfully solicited. Address, post-paid, W. T. THOMPSON, Editor. Single copy of the Continent one year, $2 — Three copies, §5 — Seven copies, $10— i Twelve copies, $15 — Seventeen copies, $20. ^ / smr A VOICE FROM THE SOUTH. L oTv ^^a.2.-+7 f\ ^4,^s\u.s E) ^U wl-n YOICE FROM THE SOUTH : COMPRISING LETTERS FROM GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. AND TO THE SOUTHERN STATES. APPENDIX CONTAIXIXG AN ARTICLE FROM THE CHARLESTON MERCURY OS THE WILMOT PROVISO, TOG THER WITH THE FOLTRTH ARTICLE OF THE CONSTITUTION, THE LAW OF CONGRESS, THE NULLIFICATION LAW OF PENNSYLVANIA, THE RESOLUTIONS OF TEN OF THE FREE STATES, THE RESOLUTIONS OF VIRGINIA, GEORGIA AND ALABAMA, AND MR. CALHOUN'S HE- SOLUTIONS IN THE SENATE OF THE CNIl'ED STATES. BALTIMORE : WESTERN CONTINENT P R E S i5 1847. r^-^ or Fail INTRODUCTION. The interest with which the following letters have been generally read, and the claims of the South, to a fair hearing at the bar of public opinion, upon the all-ex- citing subject of Slavery, have induced us to place them in a permanent form. We think they will commend themselves to every candid and impartial reader, both as to their style and matter. We do not profess to be an impartial judge of their mer- its. Southern as we are in all our feelings; but we hardly think we are so far biased by our prejudices, as to misjudge when we say, that most readers will rise from the perusal of this pamphlet more favorably disposed towards Georgia than Massachu- setts. In order to a proper appreciation of these letters, the reader must remember that the Author speaks throughout, in the character of a Sovereigii State, which had long been abused by the Abolitionists, and which had received some personal aggressions from Massachusetts, in regard to her Slave property and other things ; as indeed had Virginia, South Carolina, and Louisiana. Massachusetts may well be considered the mother of Abolitionism ; indeed her State Abolition Society lays claim to this honor for her; and no one will dispute it with her. She has been the most restless agitator upon this subject by far, of any Stale in the Union. But a few years back, a Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, a citi- zen of Georgia, and one of the most holy, zealous Christians belonging to that Church, and distinguished for the extent and the success of his labors among the Blacks, married a lady who owned Slaves, which upon his marriage he made ovei to her. At the next General Conference of that Church, he was arraigned for this act by the Abolitionists, and by a vote of the Anti-Slaveholders, he was required to desist from his official duties until he should absolve himself from his connection with Slavery. This produced a division of that Church; thirteen Annual Confer- ences and about five hundred thousand members, moving off from the old, and form- ing a new Ecclesiastical connection. About the same time a split occurred in the Baptist Church, by reason of plain encroachments of the rights of Southern mem- bers, on the ground of Slavery. In the mean time. Congress had been harassed at 6 INTRODUCTION. every Session with numberless petitions — of which Mr. Adams was usually made the conduit-pipe — upon the subject of Slavery, over which every body who is not wilfully blind knows Congress has no authority. At length came the Wilmot Proviso, a copy of which is appended to these letters. About the time that it was in progress, we wrote to the Author of Georgia's Letters, informing him among other things, of the stand which we had taken upon the subject of Abolitionism, and of the alarming extent to which it was growing, and of which we knew the people of Georgia were generally profoundly ignorant; for Abolition papers are excluded from that State by statute. This brought him out in the character and in the de- fence of Georgia. This character he sustains throughout, and of course he speaks with the independence and severity of a Sovereign State long trampled upon and insulted by one that was but an e(juul to say the least of it. Georgia's position would have justified even the most intemperate recrimi- nation, in addressing Massachusetts — for Massachusetts was the chief agent in fastening Slavery upon her ; and if this fact, as one of the British Reviews says, does not justify a Slave State in supporting Slavery, it certainly justifies her in look • ing for courtesy from those who fastened the institution upon her, and in demanding silence from them, until they will point out some practicable mode of getting rid of it. No such mode does any of them point out — nothing like courtesy does she re- ceive from any of them. She has a right to demand of all the Free States, whose Slaves have been sold at the South, that they shall each at fair prices purchase back as many as they sold, with their proportionate increase, before they abuse her and complot her ruin, by endeavoring to hem in the whites and blacks until they cannot live on the same territory. This openly avowed purpose, is monstrous — shocking ; and when we consider that it was actually in a course of experiment by the Wil- mot Proviso when Georgia took the pen, we will rather wonder at her temperance and self-command than at her severity. She is the greatest cotton growing State in the Union, and to her Cotton is Massachusetts mainly indebted for what she is worth. If she would return to Georgia all that she has made by manufocturing her produce and carrying it to market, and trading with her, with interest on it, Georgia would this day be able to buy Massachusetts, and yet have enough to live on. We are ourselves, to a certain extent, protectionists, and we do not believe that Georgia has suffered as much by that system, as she thinks she has ; but in reading these letters, we must remember what Georgia thinks, and has ever thought. Her opin- ion has ever been that the constantly descending price of her great staple is owing to the tariff; and if this be true, she has lost millions annually for thirty years by the very policy which has built up Massachusetts. This, all must accord to her ; (hat she has asked nothing but to be let alone in the management of her own con- cerns. Now, with these views, to find herself abused by Mussachusclts, and the Northern States making common cause with Massachusetts against her, and in their attacks unsettling the very foundations of the Government, was well calculated to drive her to desperation ; and every candid reader will, as we have intimated, rather admire her equanimity, than condemn her severity, cutting and excoriating as some of her remarks are. We think her vindication of herself complete ; and that when the storms of Alwlitionism shall have blown over, or overset the Republic, history will not i)lace her below Massachusetts, in anything that constitutes the real worth of a nation. INTRODUCTION. 7 It was not the original intention of Georgia, to have done more than to have vindicated herself from the attacks of the Abolitionists, and to have compared her- self with Massachusetts, in those traits of character which distinguish them as members of one family ; but upon learning that her letters would be pamphleted, (and perhaps upon our request to extend them,) she determined to make her defence more complete j and to extend it to the many false rumors and impressions which were cunent in the world in regard to Slavery, and its effects upon Southern char- acter. If these letters affect others as they have us, we think Georgia has laid the Southern States under lasting obligations to her. The force of them lies in this : that they are true to the letter ; and will be found so upon the strictest examination of impartial history. This way of bringing the States in comparison with each other, is well cal- culated to have a fine moral effect upon the States themselves, as it will teach them to be careful how, for a time-serving purpose, they depart from the line of rectitude. Georo-ia says in one of her letters to us j "I am obnoxious to some pretty severe raps for my own past conduct, which I suppose I shall get. Well, let them come ; they will teach me better for the future ; and teach others, that in the end, the strait course is always the best course. What I have said, however, will be found true, viz : that my faults have been such as affect no body but myself; those of Massachusetts have been obtrusive, contagious, and I fear are likely to become mor- tal to the body politic. I thought the time had come for some one to speak in d&- fence of the South, if her sons did not intend to be fibbed out of their character as well as choused of their rights." In another letter Georgia says : " Writing under a sense of wrongs, long continued and unprovoked — and in full view of the dangers which threaten the country from these wrongs, and with the branding iron of Abolitionism still upon me, (hear them talk of " Southern Intolerance!") I find that I have been frequently betrayed into feelings too warm, and expressions too harsh." Accordingly, upon learning that these letters were to be put in the present form, Georgia has softened some of the severer passages in them. We think she need not have been so scru- pulous, for surely the South has borne enough, and long enough, to weary the pa- tience of Job himself. It is a singular fact, that even complaint of Abolition en- croachment on the part of any son of the South, is called " Southern Intolerance ;" and we are given to understand, that even this will not be allowed by the North. Truly we have fallen upon strange times ! For the information of the Southern public, we have added, as a valuable Appendix to these Letters, the article from the Charleston Mercury o{ the 11th August, in which the aggressive and revolutionary tendency of the Wilmot Pro- viso is most ably set forth by the editor. The Appendix also contains article 4, sec- tion 2, of the Constitution of the United States, guaranteeing the Rights of the South ; the Law of Congress of 1793, giving Protection to the Slave Property of the South ; the Law of Pennsylvania in effect nullifying that Law of Congress, and in open violation of the spirit of the Constitution ; the Wilmot Proviso, with 8 APPENDIX. the Resolutions of the States of Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Ohio, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Michigan, Massachusetts, and Maine, in fa- vor of its provisions; the Resolutions of the Democratic* Conventions of Virginia, Georgia and Alabama ; and Mr. Calhoun's Resolutions in the Senate. Editor Western Continent. LETTERS FROM GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. LETTER I Dear Sister Mass : Read this letter, attentively, ptiently, and candidly ; and when you shall have read it, place it among your archives, where History may find it, when Aboli- tionism, of which you are the mother, and the chief supporter, shall have accom- plished its now undisguised purpose. In addressing you, I shall endeavor to observe the respect due to an elder sister ;. but, at the same time, I must guard you against confounding truths which prove you to be entitled to no respect at all, with a breach of courtesy" Certainly, after the unsparing and unprovoked ahuse which you have heaped upon me and my neighboring sisters for many years, I might be pardoned for the most bitter recriminations ; but if I were not deterred from them by self-re- spect, and the dread that I have of being thought like you in any respect, 1 should certainly forbear them now that I am about to give to the world so much of your history as involves my interests, and the points of difference between us ; for if you be not invulnerable, this will inflict a wound upon you, deep enough, and painful «nough, to appease even malignity itself; and I am sure I have not a particle of that °in my composition. It will irritate you, I know, sister Mass. — what that comes from the South does not ? But to this I am indifferent ; not because I delight in provocation, but because it will give you some little apology for wrath which you have enkindled without cause, and cherished without excuse, for many long years. Some things that I have to say to you will be equally applicable to your neighbors, who have "imbibed your principles. To such I have a caution, but no apology to affer : the caution is, that they avoid the common fault of proselytes, which is to take to themselves an over-share of the disgrace which may attach to their new- faith, in the belief that this will entitle them to an over-share of its honors. When I first settled in this country, as you may remember, I proclaimed to the world that I intended to have nothing to do with Slavery ; and I adhered steadfastly to my resolution, until it was overpowered by the complaints of my children. They compared my situation with my sister's on the other side of the Savannah. 1 was gaining but a bare subsistence, they said, by the labor of my children, while she . was growing rich by the labor of slaves. Her sons were sent over to England, to receive a liberal education, while mine were kept constantly employed delving for bread in my unhealthy lowlands, or nursing silk- worms on my arid barrens. They censured mysqneamishness in regard to Slavery, and pointed to all the other sisters of the family, especially to you and sister Penny, who made great pretensions to piety, as entertaining no scruples upon that subject. Indeed, the prevailing opinion of the whole family at that time was, that it was a mercy to the African race to. JO LETTER FROM bring them, even as slaves, from the miseries of their own country, to this. Urged by these considerations, and many others, and finding myself unsupported by a sin- gle member of the family in my opposition to Slavery, I at length yielded a reluctant consent to the introduction of slaves into my domain. My consi^nt was no sooner obtained than you and mother Britannia filled my ports, my fields, and my houses, with these unfortunate beings — Slaves, " kidnapped" at their parents' doors, by " man-stealers," in very truth, carrying your blood and our mother's blood in their veins; but not a drop of mine. Man stealers, who are verily complimented by the name, as you would readily admit, had you seen them, as I have seen them, coming into port with an escort of sharks, and landing their cargoes of naked, starving, sick, and dead, and dying human beings, from the most infernal fetid pits that man ever lived in or ever died in. I have often seen my children weep over these wretched victims of Yankee avarice, while yours drove their trades, with all that same self- sufficiency, pertness, humor and disgusting suppleness, which marks the character of your Pedlars at the presentday. I have known these miserable wretches, when just from the hands of the Britton and the Yankee, to dispute with the vultures for the half devoured carcass that lay by the highway, and with difficulty restrained from feeding upon the loathsome mass of putrescence. Indeed the first care of the purchaser from the slave-ship used to be, to prevent them from killing themselves hy surfeit. For the part which my sons took in these shocking scenes, God may, for aught I know, have judgments in reserve for me ; but I cannot believe that he will ever use you as the instrument for executing them. That my children, in pur- chasing slaves from yours, delivered them from the most cruel bondage that man ever groaned under, is most true — that there was pity and compassion on the side of the purchasers, and none on the side of the venders, is equally true ; but for these things I give them no credit, because selfishness and not humanity urged them to the traffic. But if they be guilty, they who never owned a slave ship or sailed on board of one — they who never enslaved a freeman — they to whom the slave rushed with joy from the cruelties of your sons — they who would not look into the floating dungeons, from which your boys daily drew their famished dead, for many long weeks — in mercy's name, where do you stand? Of all the sisterhood, you should be the first to sympathize with me and the last to upbraid me. But you are ihe file- leader in this modern crusade upon Southern rights ; and the end of it will be just what might be expected from such a leader in such a cause — trouble to us both, but a thousand times more trouble to you than to me. Laugh at the prediction if you please — but bear it in mind, tJie result of your movements loill he more disastrous to you and your allies, thun to me and mine. Why, I thus judge, will be dis- closed in the sequel, when I shall return to this subject. As a proper introduction to it, let us pursue your liistory in order. You and mother Brit, having " put the price of human flesh in your pockets," went off" glorying in your profits — leaving me to manage this flesh as 1 could. In process of time, the Old Lady grew weary of making money by the slow process of traffic with her daughters; and she determined to get it in a more summary way — by virtue of her authority. Accordingly she issued her orders that we should all be taxed. This was a direct approach to the seat of your sensibilities, and of course you became desperate. You called upon us all to unite with you in resist- ing her exactions. The other sisters responded promptly to the call ; hut what was I to do? I was very young, and very weak. Father Oglethorpe liad with difficulty saved my life from tbe Spanish sword. My mother had for a long time, , as I have intimated, kept me poor, by confining me to the silk business, instead of letting me choose my own occupation. I was surrounded by Indian tribes, numer- ous and warlike. Your importations of " flesh and blood" had by this time in- creased upijn me to ratlier an alarming extent — and of course I was in no situation to throw off" parental authority and meet the inevitable consequences. Withal, I was just beginning to gain hi-allh and strength. My affairs were intrusted to the supervision of James VVku;ht, a most amiable, excellent, prudent man, who left me no ground of complaint. As for the tax, it did not hurt me : for the plain GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 11 reason that I had little or nothing to be taxed. As for tea, not one in a hundred of my children ever used it; and most of them, I believe, had never seen it. To es- pouse your cause under these circumstances, was, it seemed to me, to sacrifice everything and to gain nothing. And yet to stand by and see you flogged into submission, to unrighteous exactions, was abhorrent to every principle of my na- ture. I did what you never do — I sacrificed interest to principle and joined you — I say I joined you : for you were the only one of the family who had come to blows with our mother. The rest of us were foolishly hoping for a compromise ; but you took the better course. Convinced of the justness of your cause, you resisted op- pression at its first approach ; and you did well, as the event clearly proved. In cases of doubtful right, compromises are excellent things ; but where there is flagrant injustice, cruelty and extortion on the one hand, and clear right on the other, a com- promise is no better than a reward to iniquity for its daring, and a promise to double the premium at short payment, when it becomes doubly villainous. He is a fool, or a suicide, or both, who tries to appease the bloodhound by giving him a lap of his blood ; and man bereft of every moral sense, is but a bloodhound with human saga- city. You did right, therefore, sister Mass, in resisting oppression in limine, though it seemed a desperate adventure at the time. My support of you, ruined me for a time. We conquered, and having severed the connexion with our unnatural parent, we were now all, by common consent, at liberty to manage our own affairs in our own way. Not one of the sisters dreamed that she had any right to intermeddle with the domestic concerns of another. Withal, these were days of decency and courtesy, which protected each from the intrusions of another. That such was the gener 1 - understanding at that time, was proved beyond question by the fact, that when tae social compact was formed, two of the sisters refused for a time to unite in it ; ahd during this time they were considered by all as entirely independent of the ren . This was " the Government of the People," as we learn from high judicial as*- thority, which three millions could not enforce upon four hundred and sixty tho - sand, and which eleven communities could not enforce upon two ! I beg you uo remember these things for future uses. Absolved from maternal authority, we agreed to band together for the common defence and general welfare. To this end wte drew up articles of confederation, in which we confided to deputies chosen by us all, the management of our foreign relations, and such matters as were of general inter- est ; while we reserved to ourselves individually the entire management of our local concerns. It was in settling these articles that you and I divided for the first time ; and as we have never agreed since, I beg leave to submit to the judgment of the world the points of difference between us, with the course of us both m our opposition. You were for clothing the Deputies with powers to force us to a per- petual union, and to revise, if not to direct, all our household movements. You supposed there would be a perpetual tendency in the sisterhood to fly from each other, and you would have made the Deputies " whippers in" to us. Indeed, I think I would hazard nothing in saying, that you would gladly have adopted the Old Lady's system of government which we had just thrown off". Nor have I a scruple of blame to attach to you on this account. They were strange views, to be sure, under the circumstances, and in point of consistency, in perfect keeping with your views ever since ; but then they were sincere, and therefore they received from me the most liberal indulgence— an indulgence which I would gladly have repeated, had you afforded me an opportunity like favorable, within the last fifty years. On the other hand, I believed that the ties of friendship, kindred, and common interest would keep us together in love and harmony, without the aid of a driver's thong — our children intermingling and intermarrying, I could not conceive how we were ever to fall out. Nor could I see, nor can I yet see, the propriety of keeping any sister in the family, who might wish to leave it. My dread was of the Depu- ties. Power I knew to be self-sustaining and self-increasing. All history had proved this. My plan, therefore, was to clothe the Deputies with just power 12 LETTER FROM enough to discharge the trust confided to them, and no more. My plan prevailed ;: and one would suppose — or rather, one would Imve supposed, that you possessed modesty enough to await the decisions of experience, upon the tpiestious of differ- ences between you, and a large majority of the family. Not you, however. That your judgment was not considered autlioritative, seems to have been considered an ample apology to yourself, at least, for laying aside all modesty, all courtesy, all decency, and all consistency, when you slept into the confederacy. As j''ou could not have the articles cut to your pattern, you determined to stretch them to it ; and accordinfly )'ou have been for sixty years, engaged in the singular employ- ment of fitting your rejected suit to the Deputies, and then abusing them most un- mercifully, fir wearing it — or to speak without a figure — you have ever been labor- ing to increase the powers of the Deputies, by construction ; and yet ever complain- ing, most bitterly, of their abuse of power. Counting out Washington's admin- istration, about which there is a sanctity, which none of us dare invade, you have quarrelled with every other save one ; and that one every body else quarrelled with. It was but recently your son John cried out, " we have been under slave domination for forty years:" and yet, you are as ripe for increasing that power as ever you were. And here lies the secret of your desperate abolition efforts. That you have not half the sympathy for the slave that I have, I will prove to the satis- faction of every unprejudiced mind. I could excuse your zeal in behalf of freedom, if you had wit enough to conceal its true object. But so palpably does selfishness — a yearning for the loaves and fishes, evince itself, in all your mock philanthrophy, that to credit you for the virtue which you feign, would be to discredit myself for common sense. But let me not anticipate. The confederation established, we all got along pretty well. Your children came in great numbers to my domain, and I received them kindly. I did not like their ways in all respects — they were too forward, too tricky, and too covetous ; but as these were hereditary faults, that- I knew would soon wear away in this latitude, and as they possessed some redeeming virtues, I gave them a hearty welcome. They tarried with me, married into my family, and raised a muuerous progeny, who now carry in their veins the blood of us both. Let me impress this fact upon your memory, as it has an important connection with what I have yet to say. We had not long set up for ourselves, before the war l)etween France and Eng- land commenced. The blood of the first had hardly dried up from your fields, nnd the stripes of the last had hardly cured up on your back, and yet you took sides with the latter. This you did before you could plead the horrors of the Revolution as an apology for your unnatural preference. Indeed tliose horrors were the results of mis- directed zeal in a really good cause ; like your burning down Catholic Churches to advance the cause of Religion. France was your ally, England was )'our enemy. The first, struggled for the people ; the last struggled fur kings. Tlie one, lighted the torch of freedom at your own altars; the other, at the same altars, mingled your blood with your sacrifices. The one was a reformer ; the other was an inter- meddler. And yet you took sides with tlie latter ! I could not fillow you. and here wk split again, in that contest both trampled upon our rights, but it was for the last to seize our children and make them lift tiie sword against their benefactors. Our children, did I say ! Not ours, but yours. Not one did I hjse by this daring as- sumption ; but you lost many. For this and many other insults and wrongs, we declared war against Britain. And where were you now ? Ther« were your own sons really " bondsmen" in the hands of " man-stealers ;" and there was your prop- erty confiscated by their "masters." You, of course, warmly espoused ilie war which was declanid to j)unisii these outr.ig(;s ; did you not? Not you: you opposed it, you denounced it, and ynu interposed evtry b;irri(>r to its success that yuu possibly could. With oiuu'ye npun Hunker's Hill, and tiuM)thcr upon Yorktown, you lauded Gkouue the Third, and cahunniated Madison; and when you found that all your effijrts to arrest the war proved abortive, you sent one portion of your children to j)lot a dissolution of the Union, and another to }our waterfalls to supplant your beloved friend in manufactures. GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 13 The war ended, we next find you making your conges to that much abused govern- ment, and humbly sjliciting a little protection for those generous sons of yours, who had vmgnanimmtsly ste\n forward, in the time of distress, to supply the country with clothing. You told us that if the government which j'ou had so kindly befriended, would only fling its protecting arms about them for a few years, you would release it from further obligation, throw yourself, like other people, upon your own resources, and make a wonderful return for the boon extended to them. It was granted ; and surely, after what had transpired, if you could stoop to ask it, they who granted it may be excused on the score of heroism, if not of justice and policy. The favor granted, you returned to your abuse — the sow that icas loashed, to her wallowino- in the mire. The time expired, you again appeared before the Deputies, not to verify your former promises, but to ask for a little increase of protection. This time you told many in- consistent stories; but as they were matters of course, little was thought of them j and you were again favored. In a few years j^ou were back again, supported by sister Conny and sister Rhody, who had got a sip of the pap upon which you fattened so lustily, and who had become as ravenous of it as yourself. Here was now exhibited to the world a sublime moral spectacle — the Hartford Convention assembled at the City of Washington — not "^ to take measures to protect their citizens from forcible draughts, conscriptions, and impressments," (so ourmilitary requisitions were called,) but modestly to request the American family to tax themselves for the third lime with increased severity, in order that this darling Triplet might do a money-making busi. ness. But I must conclude this long letter. I thought, when I commenced it, that it would, within less space, contain all that I had to say; but I find that it will not ; and to do you and myself justice, I must address you again. In the mean time, let me say to your children who have opposed your strange and wayward course, that so far from attaching blame to them, I look upon them as among the noblest, if not tiie very noblest spirits of the land. To stick to their country and to principle, affvidst the influences which surround them, argues a moral character and a moral firmness, which deserves the highest praise, and, of course^ a better parentao-e. Your injured sister, GEORGIA. LETTER II.* Dear Sister Mass : You may remember that I left you, with your colleagues of the Hartford Convention, paying your third visit to Washington, in quest of proleetion. About this time the sisters of the South began to become impatient of your importunities, and to protest sternly against any further concessions to them; but you had now en- listed so manj^ in your favor, that you were gratified once more. Still in the prose- cution of your suit, you preserved the sead)lance of modesty at least; though your spirit manifestly rose with your strength. It was not long biforc you were back again upon the same er^^and, with a strength that was irresistible. And now ensued a scene, which for the honor of my connexions, I blush to record. Your children thronged the Council chamber, with an efi'rontery, which in mine, would cover me with shame, and demanded the old dish, according to their own recipes. Every * As the letters which we have already received from Georgia contnin ^mne tilings which Mr, Calhoun has said in substance, it may be well to remark that all of them w«e written before Mr, C. made his speech on the "Three Millii)n Bill." 14 LETTER FROM ingredient was weighed and measured by their own standards, and handed over Ur the Deputies to be cooked under their own directions. There was not a morsel of the compound suited to the Southern taste, save a few grains of sugar thrown in, to conciliate sister Louisa. Your son John (Q,) was selected to preside over the mingling and simmering process, and your son Dan, was " to do it up brown" with garnishments to his own taste. John, who is really a good man at heart — wonder- fully good, considering his origin and calling — commenced his work ; but before he had completed it, the better feelings of his nature repeatedly prevailed over his servility, and he was several times in the very act of putting in an element or two, to make it palatable, or at least, less offensive to the South, when the purveyors nu oecddpwuupon him like harpies, and compelled him to plumb the line of their prescriptions ! It was passed through the furnace and finished- to order. Such scenes in the very temple of liberty, shocked and incensed the whole Sister- hood of the South, and they talked boldly of seeking relief from this miscalled /iro- tectioii, by self-protection. At first, you tried to convert them to your faith, as you do the heathen, by a liberal distribution of tracts among them, in which you set forth the blessings of the tariff with peculiar force and ingenuity. But finding them incorrigible, you told them plainly, that the slave labor of the South should not come in competition with the free labor of the North ; and you gave them to under- stand, that if argument could not reduce them to order, Northern muskets would. My neighboring Sister Caroline, in the meantime, began to assume an alarming' attitude, and civil war or the foil of the tariff seemed the only alternative. This state of things found you at your old employment of abusing the government, but most of all, Andrew Jackson, who was then at the head of our affairs. Of all men in the country, this was the man against whom you had lifted up the warning voice loudest, and upon whom you had poured out your bitterest anathemas. As the clouds gathered and darkened over our political hemisphere, you threw your- self into this man's arms. If he smiled, you tittered — if he bent, you bowed — if he threatened, you bristled — and so fast, and all confiding grew your friendships, in the course of a few weeks, that you moved to clothe him with almost despotic power, in order to meet the emergency. I say that you moved ; for your son Dan does no- thing without your orders, expressed or implied. The cannons were loaded, the matches were lighted, and nothing was wanted, but the word "Jire,'' to deluge the country with blood, when, by the interposition of Mr. Clay, a compromise was effected. I now flattered myself that this ever-inflaming subject was put to rest ; and certaiidy it ought to have been ; for conceding the benefits of a protective tariff, it is but a matter of policy at last, and no demands of policy will justify a breach of faith. But this is not your ethics. Sister Mass, and it is with you alone that I have to do upon this oc' asion ; though, as I said before, I shall not cover your faults, from courti»sy tt) others who share them with you. The compromise was hardly effected before you began to throw out hints, (Irish hints) that you did not mean to abide by it. Wlio that knew you, supposed yon would ? I did not dream of it, though I hoped that others, more trust worthy, would not permit you to violate it. So fa' as I have been enabled to discover, you have never considered it as involving any higher moral ohli^iition, than the concluding acknowledgements of a friendly epistle; — " your most oi)edient, humble srrvant." Having brought you to this compro- mise, which 1 had mainly in view in giving the history of tlie tariff, and in reacii ing which, I fdlnwed the order of events directly connected with it, regardless of rca!l the Constitution,) were under discussion, a very knotty (juesiion arose, which had like; to have defeated the Union. Considering the views of the parties at that time, it was a ^ery curious one. You of the North considered slaves as men chillch, and, thiTcfore. not to he represented in the Connnon Councils. We of theSontii, admitted the fict, hut drew an opp(jsite conclusion from it, upon the ground that ta.xation and representation should be proportioned to each other. The GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 15 matter was compromised, and from that day to this you have been racking your in- vention to get rid of the compromise. Your Hartford Convention drew up a series of resolutions, which you adopted and remitted to the Sisters, as proposed amend- ments to the Constitution, amonor which w"as one to excUide slave representation. For the honor of the country, not a member of the confederacy, who was not at the concoctincr of these resolutions, adopted a single one of them. What you could not accomplish by direct means, you resolved to accomplish by indirect and less honora- ble means. They are plainly visible, and are as follows : — The first is, to leave the obnoxious clause untouched, but to stifle it by stretching other clauses over it. The second is, to crowd the master and the slave within such a narrow compass, that they cannot both live in it. The third (which is subservient to this,) is, to receive no new member into the Union, but upon the condition of her repudiating slavery. The fourth (which is of like character,) is, to stop all egress of slaves from their present limits ; hence the refusal of yourself and your confederates to receive them when emancipated by their masters ; and hence your opposition to the Colonization Society. These are startling designs, Sister, to be conceived against those who spent their blood and treasure in defence of the liberty which you enjoy ; but I shall not furnish you with a pretext for them by " blustering" over them, as I confess with shame, my children are too much in the habit of doing. And here I will disclose a family secret, which may be of service to you, not long hence, and which some of the members of some of the churches in your neighborhood may be able to avouch. It is this : So long as we bluster, you have nut much to fear ; but when you see our children looking calmly, with compressed lip and reddened cheek, at your encroachments, be assured there are perilous times at hand for ail ot us. And when once they gather for the flight, let them go — you never can conciliate them afterwards. We are idolaters of the Union, and will bear much before we give it up ; but only convince us that it is a golden calf which the profane grow rich by mutilating, and the devout grow lean by worshiping, and we will crush it to atoms, and grind it to powder with as little remorse as did Moses, the calf ot old. In pursuance of the plans just suggested, you opposed the admission of Missouri into the Union, except upon the condition of her renouncing slavery. Here was an unblushing infraction of the compromise you made when the Constitution was framed, and a direct violation of the spirit of that instrument, in all its provisions. A storm of course was raised, which was settled as usual by a compromise. So long have you been in the habit of breaking compromises, and so utterly indifferent to them have you become, that you cannot now wait for a suitable opportunity lo break them ; and you are at this moment engaged in breaking this last, by anticipa- tion. In the last war, you withheld your troops from the service of the country, and afterwards demanded pay from the government to the amount of more than a million of money, fir their services in marching ajid counter-marching about in your own territory. In this war, you lay hold of the purse-strings of the nation, and vow you will never let go until you get a pledge from the whole family, that if we are not driven or starved out of Mexico, and if we should make a treaty with her, and if by the terms of that treaty she should stipulate to pay the expenses of the war, and her old debt, and ij she should pay it in land, and if that land should be- come settled, and become populous enough to be admitted into the Union, and claim to be admitted, without of its own choice objuring slavery — it shall not be received into the Union. This makes your conduct in the first war resplendently virtuous; but that any other Sister in the Union, without the case-hardening through which you have gone, should, at a single leap, reach the platform on which you stand, and ever raise her head afterwards, is, to me, inexpressibly amazing. In looking down to the far-off po- sition which you occupy, I feel that yon are entitled lo some credit for your ingenu- ity and enterprise in getting there ; but as to your companions, they seem to me to have taken your character, only to add to it a new blemish — namely, rashness. The determination which you have formed to allow no more slave territory to come into the Union, apart from the principle involved in it, is, of all movements of abo- 16 LETTER FROM litionism, to me the most inoffensive. It seems to have thrown the Southern Sisters into a panic, and to have reconciled many of their children to a most disgraceful re- treat fremi the war in which we are entraged. " Suppose," cry they, "we should take all Mexico, don't you see plainly that it never can be admitted into the Union as slave territory?" What is the plain and obvious answer to all this? Why let it stay out of the Union, by abolition votes, and let it remain common property as lono- as they choose so to vote. The controversy will be between the applicant and the" abolitionist, and we will stand on the side of the former. She will renounce slavery or she will not. If she renounce slavery, there will be no difficulty in the matter ; if she will not renounce slavery she remains a territory, to which all will have free access. As to the propriety or impropriety of the war itself, I have no- thinn- to say, but to push its conquests just to the limits which the abolitionists pre- scribe, and there stop, without treaty, without peace, without object — because, for- sooth, if we advance farther we may conquer territory, which may give rise to un- pleasant difficulties — is to surrender in advance more than w^e could lose by the threatened contest — to anticipate a br^^ach of faith by removing at our expense the iinducement to it, and to throw the honor of the nation and the army into the bar- gain. If we do not conquer Mexico, will her territory ever become a part of the Union? Your abolition petitions, and your missions to Charleston and Orleans to stir up ]aw suits about your black citizens, are part and parcel of the plans already exposed- While you have been rushing on in your mad career, you have been unsparing in jour abuse of me and my neighboring Sisters. I cannot call to mind that you ever breathed one kind sentiment, uttered one kind word, turned one kind look towards us. To Virginia, your elder Sister, and your great benefactor, you have been signally abusive and vindictive, because, to the sin of slavery, she has added the still greater sin, in your estimation, of exerting more influence in the councils of the nation, and producing more Presidents than any other member of the family. But " man steal- ers," " kidnappers," " traders in blood," "tyrants," " murderers," are the common app'ellations by which we are introduced to the world by the devout, meek, gentle, lamb-like sons of the " Pilgrim Fathers." Engrave them, if you please. Sister, on Plymouth Rock, in this form : MASSACHUSETTS, IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE OF THE SERVICES RENDERED TO HER, BY HER BELOVED SISTERS: Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, In Rescuin}!; her from the Cruelties OF AN UNNATURAL MOTHER, Records upon this Consecrated Rock, The distinguishing Virtues of these Affectionate Sisters: Maryland — T/ie Man-Sleakr. Virginia — T/ie Kidnapper. North Carolina — The Trader in Blood. South Carolina — The Tyrant. Georgia— T/jc Murderer. And now what liavc we done. Sister, to merit this unkind treatment ? Wliat would you have us do, to save ourselves from further injury and insult, and you, from further sclf-abasiineiit ? There is but one answer to these questions, namely : **You own slaves and you refuse to emanci|)ate ihem." Well, let us discuss the matter calmly. I confess it will cost njc a struggle to do it, fur reasons apparent through your whole history ; but I think, for ilie country's sake, I can forget who you an; ami what you arc long enough to discuss the subject with you not only calmly, but fairly. GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 17 I own slaves, and T sin in so doing. Suppose that this is all true ; now what must I do ■? " Why, emmcvpate them ofcoiirseJ' Well, let us see the end of this course. I own two hundred and eighty-one thousand slaves.* Of these, eighty seven thousand five hundred are under ten years of age; two hundred, over a hundred years of age; and ten thousand, between fifty-five and a hundred. I set these two hundred and eighty-one thousand human beings free — I proclaim liberty to these old and decrepid, these youn^ and helpless. Among them are many sick, lame, blind, deaf and dumb. I set them adrift upon the world, houseless, breadless, penni- less. Before the God who made you. Sister Mass, do you think this would be right 1 A month's time would bury nineteen-twentieths of them. "But you shoidd send them away." Well, I turn to my benevolent Sisters, who are moving heaven and earth to abolish slavery, and not one of them will receive them. Oh! think of the Randolph negroes, and try to think how 1 feel, at the abolition cry from Ohio. "But send them to Africa.''^ True; I have no ships of my own, and \ apply to Jim, the greatest ship-owner in the Union, to transport them for me. And 3'ou exclaim : — " Be off! I am the most mortal enemy to Colonization on the Globe, and not a finger will I raise to promote it." " But keep them yourself , and furnish thcni toith the ineans ff living." Exactly! For how long. Sister ? Not more than a year, I suppose. As they could not embark in the learned professions, I must furnish them with an outfit for agriculture. You would not think a half pound of meat a day, and a peck of corn a week, an over allowance for each, would you 7 Calculate the amount, if you please. Sister. But those capable of la- bor must have at least ten acres of land apiece, I suppose. Of these there are one hundred and forty thousand. We must give them, therefore, one million four hun- dred thousand acres. But they must have horses, ploughs, hoes, axes, &.c , or the land will be of no avail to them ; — and they must be clothed for a year, besides. I intended to have calculated the amount in money of all these things ; but this would consume unnecessary time. You can do it ; and y(ju will see, that to furnish these means my own children must be beggared. All this proceeds upon tiie sup- position, you perceive, that when I free the slaves, 1 am bound to provide these freemen with a livmg. Upon this head I have my doubts ; but that the care of them, in this way, would dissolve all my social relations, break up my commerce, my schools, my colleges, my churches — in short, restore iiae to a state of nature, I have no doubt. Nor, if the clamorous Sisters of the abolition taith would receive them, could [ endure the trouble and expense of transporting them — nor could I possibly send them abroad, if I would. Now, when these things are spread out before you, and you shut your eyes to them, and still persist in your machinations and railing against me, to what conclusion must the most unbounded charity he driven 7 We will reach it anon. Another long letter is written, and yet I have not concluded what I have to say !. Bear with me. Sister. I have permitted the account between us to run on for a long time, without a settlement ; and, as is usual in such cases, it requires a longer time to settle than either of us supposed. Your persecuted. Sister, GEORGIA. * I here fullow the census of 1840, for the sake of the relative ages. The numSen is now over300,0U0. 18 LETTER FROM LETTER III Dear Sister Mass : In my last, I plainly showed yon, how utterly impossible it was for me to emancipate my slaves. Why, then, am I denounced and vilified by any one for not doinir it? But why are ymi among the number who thus treat me? Does it become The jMolhcr of Slavery to revile the Heir of Slavery? Every non-?lave- holding Sister should sympathise — deeply sympathize— with rn(-, seeing that none of my^children now living had anything to do with it in its inception. You all atrree that it is a great evil — the direst curse that can befall a nation — how, then, should you all act to an innocent Sister, or, at least, to the innocent children of an erring Sister, who is under the curse? Imbitter it by harsh words and unkind treat- ment"? — cut off her rights? — withdraw from her society? Will this mitigate itg sorrows? Will this remove it? Why, Sister, am I, who am only your acces- sory in guilt, and who became thus far implicated only under the sorest temptation — why am I treated with less civility by you than the Turk, the Algerine, or the Russian ? 1 hear of no efforts made by you to emancipate the slaves of these peo- ple, nor have I ever heard you speak harshly of them upon this score. This seems to be adding cruelty — unnatural, ungrateful, wanton cruelty — to your usual in- consistency. Let us, in the next place, examine your system of warfare against Slavery. I omit your town meetings, and the agencies used in them, because they are all with- in your legitimate prerogative; they are good schools for declamation, and excellent things for" ahoUshinn; the distinctions of sex and color, while they are very harm- less^to me. Your first plan is to disregard all compromises entered into upon this subject, and to twist the Constitution out of joint as a part of this plan. Believe me, Sister, a project thus begim, never can succeed. How shall 1 address to you the rea- sons for this opinion without seeming to calumniate you ? For myself, I look upon a compromise, entered into for the peace of the country, as involving a sanctity which is exceeded only by that which attaches to the communion and matrimonial vow. I should instinctively recoil from the wretch wiio would ask mc to violate it. I think I uii<'-ht defy you to produce a case in which a clear breach of faith has ever been productive of ultimate good to the party guilty of it. On the other hand, I could produce hundreds, in which this conduct has been followed by the utter ruin of the perfidious party. When a cabinet council was held in France, in order to deliberate upon the propriety of violating a treaty, the tn aty was read to the members in turn ; all gave tlieir opinions to the King, in which they unfolded the great advanta- ges that he would derive from violating it. After hearing them all through, t he Duke of Jiurguruly closed the conference by saying : " Gentlemen, Ihrrc is the Treaty."' You must admire this sentiment. Sister, keen as is its reproof to you, unless, for- sooth, you have worked in kitchens so long that you have lost your relish for the moral sublime. But wliat shall we say to a deliberate infraction of a treaty made to bind together in peace and iiarmony, the several members of one great family ! Surely, it is more sacred than a treaty between distinct nations. Now, add to it the sanction of an oath, which every member of the family who is called to the management of its local or general concerns, is obliged to take ; and then measure the extent of its ob- ligati(.ri if you can. To pervert its mi'aniug. is to violate it in tlie worst of all ways. 'I'^j keep within the letter and to violate itss|)irit, is to cover jHrfidy with uicauiiess. You ask me indignantly whftlier I charge you with this vile conduct ? W liy ; — - no : n(tl yet, at least. I am imly speaking of your clearly revealed plans, and it is jxmihle that you may repent of iheui before you carry them into execution — or, which is more proliable, you may be prevented from executing them. GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 19 Yo-or next device is to contract, the area of Slavery in the country. Ingenious as you are, Sister, especially in the pursuit of money, if millions were staked on it, you could find but one object in this project, and it is this : to confine masers and servants to such a narrow territory, that in a little time they both cannot live on it. Thus far I can follow you ; but what you hope fur, when this point is reached, God only knows. At that point the whites must yield their territory to the blacks, and move away ; or the whites must put the blacks, or the blacks must put the whites, to the sword. There is no other alternative; for, as you have seen, we could not remove them now— much less able will we be to do so then. Now, which of these issues do you yearn for, Sister? When I find all your sympathies on the side of the blacks— when I see them admitted to your pulpits and communion tables, and the whites excluded — when I witness your exasperation at the whites, and hear your ever streaming abuse of them, I am constrained to believe that you prefer the third alternative — that the blacks cut the throats of the whites. But when I hear you avowing that slave labor shall not come in competition with free labor — that no ter- ritory shall be added to the country, into which the free born sons of the North will have to commingle with the slaves of the South — with much more, which implies that the blacks, in your estimation, are a degraded race, not to be put on a level with whites — I am led to infer that when the throat-cut' ing tragedy comes off, you hope to see the whites the victors. Whatever you may desire, ttiis will certainly be the end of that drama; and if you really sympathize with the slaves, you could not fiursue a worse policy than to contract the area upon which the two races are to ive, until want drives them to war. As to our giving the slaves our possessions, and moving: to the free States, that, of course, will not be done ; and if it were done, they would soon all perish. The only rational conclusion that I can draw from your conduct in this regard, is that you care for neither master nor slave, and that thf true aim of this circumscribing policy is to vveaken the power of slaveholders in the councils of the nation. This c(jnclusi(in is strengthened by many considerations : — your many complaints of that power-— your attempts to reduce it during the last war — your opposition to the Colonization Society— your refusal to give a dollar to free the slave from bond- age—your contempt of him when put in comparison with JVorthera freemen — the little encouragement you give him to come to your land — the coldness with whicli you treat the black who does go there — and the few privileges you allow him when he gets there. To reconcile such conduct, with either respect for the master or hu- manity to the slave, is beyond my ingenuity. And yet to suppose any being capa- ble of s«ch utter abandonment, as this conclusion would imply, for the paltry purpose ■of gaining a little brief authority, is to suppose that Vice has yeaned anew, and brought forth a monster that startles even Vice herself. I pray you, Sister, havr mercy upon your reputation for justice, truth or sanity. Do not so speak, and so act as to bring them all in question ; or to make them bring each other in quesiion. If you really would emancipate the slave, without affecting the master, extend the area of slavery as widely as possible. Remember, if you please, (what I should hv ashamed lo confess my ignorance of,) that to extend the area, of slavery, is not to in- crease the number of slaves. It is not to increase their burdens. .Just the reversr. By as nuich as you widen the field of slavery, by so much do you increase the pro- portion of whites to blacks within its limits. By as much as tiiis proportion is in- creased, by so much isthe divisor of ownership increased, and the fewer must be the number which each white man will own. The fewer that each owns, the better will he treat them — the more certainly will he instruct them, and the more ready will he be to emancipate ihem. 1st, because he will have a warmer regard for them, from his closei- intimacy with them, and 2d, because he can do it at a less sacrifice. Suf - 1y, there is no refinement or subtlety in this reasoning. Every body knoAvs that the snan who owns but three slaves, treats ihem better than does the man who owns fiiiy or a hundred. And if the whole numter could be divided in the proportion ot thn e %o one, every man in the country would liberate iiis slaves, and give them a start in the World., the nnjuieut that he could supply their places with white servants. For veri- 20 LETTER FROM ly, Sister, most of m)' children are jtist as side of them as yon are of their masters, and their masters are of you. But ihe prnpuriion must in a short time become even less than this. If no man in the country had more than one slave, slavery must be soon abolished ; and wliile the whites increase faster than the slaves, the tendency, under the coinmon statutes of distribtitions, must ever be to this state of thin£rs. As to tiie cry that your free born sons will not mingle with slaves, it is like most of your cries — opposed to the evidence of your senses. They do mingle with them ; and it is against them, your own blood, as well as mine, that you are pouring out the vials of your wrath, and meditating destruction. So much for your aims and the tendency of them. Let us now look to the fruits of them, so far as they have been gathered. First. — You have paralized the Colonization Society ; an Institution which united North and South, in the laudable enterprise of abolishing slavery without periling freedom, of blessing the black man without cursing the white, of seperating master and servant by a power which drew their hearts together as it drew their bodies asun- der, and of changing the civil relations of the country, without violence to the consti- tution, or intrusion on either side. I have asked myself, wb}'' did God permit an Insti- tution which promised so much good, to be the first victim of a fell spirit which threat- ened so much evil ? Am I to take it as an indication of his favor, to these self- infurated fanatics? And I have found consolation, if not truth in the answer : that on this wise has he often permitted his own most benevolent designs to be met by the worrns for whose benefit they were intended. Even onr holy religion began with the crucifixion of its great Head, and the martyrdom of his disciples. He was of the seed of Abraham 1 And who was Abraham ? — Be not alarmed Sister, I am not going to speak of his household, but his progeny — Who was Abraham ? The man to whom the second promise of the Messiah was made ; the father of the peo- ple to whom the Old Testament dispensation was committed. But how strange its beginning! Its dawn found that very people in the most abject slavery that ever afflicted man — at least, so I understand the Scriptures. A slavery foreordained by God himself, and continued for centuries. A strange precursor of the light which these people were to spread through the world! From these things, and others to which I miirhi advert, I infer that the shock which the Colonization Society has received, is no proof that God does not mean to]>rosper it yet ; or that he does mean 10 prosper the Vandalism which laid violent hands upon it. May it rise again with renewed vigor and strength, and mav the good of all latitudes sustain it and defend it, as the ark of our political covenant. I am strengthened in the opinion just ad- vanced by the fict that Abolitionism, after nearly thirty )'ears' travail, has not yet produced even a mouse. Not a man has it liberated — not a blessing has it pro- duced. Sccondh/. — You have severed the Churches, and thus, at one blow, cut the nerves of Protestantisdi. and the strongest bond of tiie Union. I speak of the first conse- f|nence. not as a Sectarian, but to a Sectariat), a recruiting sergeant of the Anti- Slavery LeaiTue (I have tiiis moment read the announcement that the Wii,- MOT proviso has passed the House — of course, I am not in a frame of mind to write ti-mpcrately. Excuse me, until the return of better feelings. There you are. Mass, first in the breach of the Constitution. ) Nearly a day has rolled away, and ( am aoain prepared to resume my letter. Ycni have sundcrcHl the Churches, and thereby produced a state of feeling ns unpro- pilious to the cause of religion, as your political movements have been to the stabili- ty of the L nion. And here I find great encouragement, in view of the revolution which your abolitionism is .s.)on to produce. In every instance in which we have dissolved our association with you, our peace and happiness have been areatly jiromoted. Can you say as much. Sister? TliirdUj. — You have forced yourself almost entirely from the affections of your Southern Sisters, and led them to look with a cold, suspicions eye upon nil your eliildren who come hither. .Many who would have received a hearty welcome years ago, and have been promptly iiUrar — courtesy, condescen- sion — privileges, concessions ; and with an arrogance, that despotism would blush to assume, he proclaims what in Church and State he will tolerate, and what he will never allow ! He feeds and fattens on what he professes to abhor, and drives from his borders what he profes.ses to love. With the eye of the eagle by day, and of the owl by night, he pries into kitchens, quarters and shanties, for something to snap at ; and when driven hence, he sets up a pitious howl of persecution. He shrieks out at slavery, and calls on the Catholic to help him crush it. He shrieks out at Popery, and calls on the slave-holder to help him crush it — then hurls a fire- brand into the habitation of the one, and the Church of the other. He begs, and abuses his government — stretches its power and rebels against it. receives its larg- esses, and strikes at its pillars. And, what is not the least remarkable circumstance attending this unheard of malady, the world seems to consider the name of it a suffi- cient apology for all its extravagances. *' He is an Abolitionist, '' covers all guilt, quiets all fear, excuses all insults, pardons all injuries. At home and abroad, on sea and on land, in peace and in war, in trade and in treaties. Abolitionism must receive the first courtesies, and then the interests of the nation. Such are the fruits of Abolitionism, and such is Abolitionism itself. Its promises in my next. In the meantime be it remembered, that the coun try owes ii to you, as. it does mainly, the servitude which it was intended to remove. Thus, by your lust,. you engendered a disease, which, by your quackery, you have turned into a cancer. Your outraged Sister. GEORGIA. LETTER IV. Dear Sister Mass : Having shown you what abolitionism has produced, I am now to show you what it toill produce. It will produce a dissolution of the Union ! This is in- evitable, unless God interposs to arrest its progress ; for it is manifest that this, or destruction, is the only alternative left to the South. She has tried to arrest its pro- gress by threats, (poor expedients,) concessions and compromises ; and they have produced no other effect than to embolden aggression. Nearly twenty years ago, one of my son.s U)ld his brethren in particular, and the sons of the South in general, to quit tiieir party wrangling, for a time at least, and to unite in some precautionary measures against Abolitionism. He told them to draw a line which they all could agree upon, and say to the abolitionists, as with the voice of one man, " the moment you reach that limit we leave you for ever." As that, when slavery should be abolished in the District of Columbia— or when a certain number of abolitionists should get info Congress — or when that body pa^^sed the first act in relation tt) slavery — or anything (>lse that would enable the abolitionist to know before hand just how far he might go, and the South to move in a body as soon as he overstepped the limit-s. The same i^r.son Sviid that abolitionism would inevitably grow, and grow rapidly, at the North — tiiat the pious would espouse it from principle, and the politician from interest ; and that, as snon as it became general at the North, noth- ing could keep it from oppressing tlie South intolerably, but the assurance that the GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 23 destruction of the Union would be the consequence. There was but one way of giving that assurance, and that was the one proposed. Without this, encroachment would follow encroachment, and every one would find us split into parties, one or another of which would be forever making apologies for these inroads, and paralyz- ing opposition to them. That consequently there would be no concert, no harmony of action among us — a little blustering, a little fuming, and a little threatening, and the ground usurped would be quietly surrendered. In the mean time, our oppres- sors would become convinced by our conduct that they might advance upon our righta with bolder strides. They already calculated largely upon our fears, and they wuuld soon calculate more largely upon our distractions ; and thus encouraged, they would go on from outrage to outrage, until we could indure no longer, and then, with per- haps the puise, the army and the navy of the nation in their hands, they would tell us to submit to their dictation, or the sword, as we pleased. Then they were only experimenting upon our fears and love of the Union, (a hellish experiment to be sure, for kinsmen to try upon kinsmen,) but soon they would trust to their power ; and what was power when exerted to inforce man's notions of the edicts of Heaven, every body knew. He was pronounced a restless alarmist who was endeavoring to make political capital out of abolition folly ; but most of his prophecy has already become history ; and whether it will not all become so very soon, depends, so far as man can foresee, upon whether there is virtue enough in the country to arrest you and your colleagues in your lawless crusade ; and I confess witli mortification that I have but little hope from this quarter. Your frenzy then, will probably end in the dissolution of the Government—" And Madam," you will add, " in rjour ruin." And, Madam, supptjse this true — would that afford you any gratification? I verily believe it would ; for unprovoked malignity and persecution are never satisfied, until they see their victim at the rack or the stake. But let us calmly examine this thing. We shall hardly separate before we shall be involved in war. The aggressions which drive off the South will not cease at the separation; they will rather be more flagrant, because wrath will then take the place of sophistry, on the strong side, and that wrath will be stimulated by envy at the peace and prosperity of the South, and by disappointment of all your expectations as to the result of your mischievous projects. War will probably ensue. But it will be a war in which the South will be united to a man, and emboldened by the thorough conviction that they have been the objects of unrelenting persecution and oppression. The North, on the other hand, will be divided. There will be a vast difference in paying the expenses of a war out of your own pockets, and paying it out of Uncle Sam's, especially when your revenue is to be collected from your own foreign commerce. Withal, very many of your people even now see that you are decidedly in the wrong ; and many abolitionists, when they see the results of your course, will wake from the dream into which your oily tongued politicians have lulled them. Voting down slaveholders, and cutting down slaveholders, will be very dif- ferent things to them. As for you. Sister Mass., you will be the very first to bolt from the war-party. You never have supported your country in a war, and you never will : for this plain reason, that it always brings your love of money and your love of country in direct conflict ; or, if I mistake the reason, ihe fact is enough for my purpose, as I think you are now U)o old to change your habits. With us it will be victory or death — with you, it will be only victory or disgrace ; and as by that time victory will cost you something, and disgrace nothing, your own good sense would lead you to choose the latter. We will be united, then, and you will be divided. We will be on the right side and you on the wrong. This, to my mind, settles the issue of the war at once. " But you would have the marine, and you would lay hands upon our cotton, rice and tobacco." Not so fast. Sister. About this time, when your factories are shut up, and your " free labor" is in the field, you will be amazed to see how the Abolitionism of England cools. She will be exceedingly respectful to you as her old ally in benevolent enterprises; but then she will tell you, that she never thought of abolishing slavery in any other way, than by the moral agencies of reli- 24 LETTER FROM gion and diplomacy ; and that conscience never will permit her to engage in a war which is not in someway, at least, subservient to these blessed instrumentalities — • such as keeping people from suicide by opium, and the like. " She will, therefore, observe the strictest neutrality lietvveen the contending parties, and take great plea- sure in conducting their foreign trade for them, until such time as they could resume itsdirection themselves wiih convenience. And here she would be governed by the strictest rules of impartiality. If she carried two millions of bales of cotton for her unfortunate friends of the South and Southwest, she would, with equal pleasure, carry two millions of sacks of corn for her particular friends of the North and West ; and two millions of bales of Lowells for her favorites of New England. If she carried an hundred and twenty thousand hogsheads of tobacco for the first, she would carry as many barrels of flour for the second, and as many quintals of fish for the third. If she carried an hundred and eighty-seven thousand hogsheads of sugar for the first, she would carry as many bushels of wheat for the second, and as many casks of cheese for the third. If she carried eighty thousand tierces of rice for the first, she would carry as many hogsheads of bacon for the second, and as many firkins of butter for the third. Beyond this, however, she could not go." " But we would blockade your ports, and then what would you do?" Why, then, the British carrying trade must stop — her cotton factories must stop, and an immense trade must be stifled. She would, therefore, tell you, " that while she was ever disposed to respect the rights of beligerents, yet when the conduct oi one of the parties was so nnanifestly leveled at her interest, she never could submit to it, unless it was in the strictest conformity to the law of nations. If, therefore, you did not put a force at every Southern port greater than she could put there, then you would be considered without the pale of that principle of international law, which considers no blockade valid unless it be by a force suflicient to sustain the blockade. But still, as her sense of justice always weighed down every other con- sideration in her estimation, and as the question might be settled by the best of arguments, a practical experiment, she would propose to you to try the lorce of your one seventy -four and three frigates, against her eight seventy-four's. And if your force proved sufficient to sustain the blockade, why then with all courtesy she would yield her trade and her factories, in deference to the law of nations." But all this is upon the supposition, that upon the division, you help yourselves as your churches have done, to all the joint property. But this may not be the case. VVhat your best men have already done (or plainly mean to do,) it is very natural, yon may wish to do; but then there is such a mixture of officers and meQ from both sections, in the army and navy, and the several departments of State, and such a dispf rsion of the joint property all over the Union, that in the scramble we should be certain to get some. All the ports and arsenals within our limits of course we should get ; and in the breaking up, the chances for the army and navy would be in favor of that side on which justice lay : for these servant* of the nation at large have none of your abolition notions. They would lean to the side of the injured party ; or at least they would be apt to divide according to their domestic relations. Let us now come to the battle field. Here you think you would have greatly the advantage of us, because you look only at the numerical strength of the two parties. But what is numerical strength in modern warfare ? Absolutely nothing, where both parties can carry to the field more than either can support iheTe. We can muster into the field an army i\vo times as large as Buonaparte conquered half Eu- rope with, five times as large as Alexander coiKjUcred the world with, and larger than any nation upon the face of the globe ever carried to the field, save one ; and that one was wiii|)t by a little hand, no braver than the Texan Rangers. It is almost a year since wa; was declared against Mexico, and yet with the wliole numerical force of the Union at command, we have but a little over twenty ihousand men in arms between the Rio Criinde ami the Pacific. The Government is already, even in the midst of victory, not a little emliarrassed for means to carry it on; and many (you, as ever, among the foremost.) are complaining bitterly of the expenses of this war. You and yinir confederates would not hope to conquer me and mine with an army GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 25 less than five times as large as this. You could not expect to orifanize such an army, put it under marching- orders, and reach tlie Southern frontier in i(>ss than four months from the time you begin. Now, four months, counting two at thirty, and two at thirty one days, each, make one hundred and twenty-two days; and your own most distinguished son tells us, that the present war costs the country a half mil- lion per day. Now, if twenty thousand men give a half a million per day, a hun- dred thousand men will give two millions and a half per day ; or three hundred and five millions for one hundred and twenty-two days. That is to say. Sister, three hundred and five millions, before the first shot is fired. But, as we could bring into the field one hundred and fifty thousand men with the greatest ease, you could hardly hope to conquer us short of seven years. The expenses of a seven year's war, at your son's rates, would amount to six thousand three hundred and eighty- seven millions five hundred thousand dollars. How do you think you could stand that. Sister 1 But suppose our one hundred and fifty thousand should, by goorf luck, happen to conquer your one hundred thousand; why then you would have to recruit your army with new levies to the amount of one hundred and fifty tliousand in all. Now, when we saw you coming with one hundred and fifty thousand, we would meet them with two hundred thousand, and the same fortune might attend our arms as before. In the mean time, with a debt of six thousand three hundred and eighty-seven millions five hundred thousand dollars, and equipments to be fur- nished de novo, it would be very inconvenient for you to get up and support the new levies long enough to g-et to the battle-field. Do you not perceive, then, that to presume upon your numbers, is very great folly ? Certainly the Southron who entertains any fears upon that head, must be a very great coward, or a very great simpleton. " But there is your internal foe ; what would you do with that?' ' I answer, just keep it making supplies for the army. No man who is acquainted with the feelings and condition of this people, could suffer one moment's uneasiness, if you were to come to our borders and blow the blast of freedom as loud as three- fold thunder. I will put the case in the strongest possible light. Suppose, instead of our advancing to meet you upon your own territory, we alloW you to advance into the very heart of Virginia, and that from every phntation that you pass, and from all others within three tuiles of you, yon gather recruits of field-hands. Do you suppose, that ten, twenty and fifty miles from your track, there would be any insurrection at all? You may rest assured there would not be; for the plain and obvious reason, that these people can form no concert of acti(jn ; and to rise by households or plantations at a time, without any arms, without discipline, without plan, would be to insure their destruction — a truth which, if they did not foresee, they would soon learn from the fate of those who should attempt a revolt. I put out of view all feeling of attachment from these people to their owners, which in thou- sands, and tens of thousands of instances, would be a certain guaranty against hos- tility fnjui them under any circumstances. All that your armies could pick up and take care of, might follow you ; but no more, my word for it. This is not mere specu- lation ; it has been twice demonstrated by actual experiiuent. During the Revolu- tionary War, the British were all through our country. Masters, for a time, of most of the territory of North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia ; but such a thing as the slaves taking sides against their masters, I never heard of. But I heard of thousands of instances, wherein they served them in battle, took care of the wives and children, bore them away frotu peril, (sometimes on their own backs,) kept watch for their safety, bore tidings of them to their masters by night, and per- formed ten thousand kind offices to them besides. During the last war, the British were all along my coast, landing when they would and where they would ; and yet no one ever heard of a revolt of slaves occasioned by their presence or encour- agement. They took off some, to be sure, and so might you, if you felt disposed to burden your armies with them ; but the moment you dismissed them, to take care of themselves, that moment would they begin to perish, or go back to their masters. These facts should satisfy any reasonable being, that a revolt of the slaves is not at all to be dreaded. No people, profoundly ignorant of government, with no settled 26 LETTER FROM rights of property, with no means of defence, with no means of subsistence, with no confidence of security, could gain or hope to gain anything by flinging off" their vassalage. Negroes know this, or what is the same thing, instinct teaches it to theiii. Yuir people, Sister, are lamentably ignorant of the true condition of this people — lamentably ignorant of their views and feeling ; and, what is worse, you are wilfully ignorant of them, and (worse still,) you are maliciously ignorant of them. The history of the South is just precisely the history of the world in this regard. Slavery has existed in every nation upon the earth — more dangerous slavery far, than ours ; yet we hardly ever hear of its being taken into the account of war, by any nation, and as seldom of its ever embarrassing a war in any way. But I have put the case too strong. If we come to the fighting point, we will not show the indif- ference to your arms that we have shown to your envy and your insults — we will not be as slow to resist your physical, as we have been to resist your moral (or ra- ther immoral) encroachments. The first battle, I predict, will not be fought on slave-territory. Now, remove all danger of insurrection, and I think you will have to admit, that instead of being as you suppose, the weakest people in the world, we are the strong- est people in the world. This is reducible almost to a demonstration. To illustrate it, let us suppose (as we can without an effort) that half your population were like the boasts, birds, and reptiles of Egypt, i. e. held sacred. That neither your friends nor your foes would under any circumstances, molest them. That they labored in- dustriously from year's end to year's end, in the production of the most valuable com- modities in the world, and that they gave all the profits of their industry, beyond a bare support to the other half — would not this half, other things being equal, be the most invincible people on the face of the globe 1 Most assuredly they would ; for the unanswerable reason, that ev.ry man of them might take the field, w-ithout abstracting a scruple from the care and support of his family, the annual productions of the country, its agriculture, commerce, or manufactures. Who might not well afford to go to war, when others bore the expenses of it I Now, with the qualifica- tion just mentioned, (and which I think just no qualification at all,) we are precisely in this situation. Almost ever since the government was established, from a half to three fourths of the foreign commerce of the country has been sustained by South- ern productions; productions, which left free to seek their own markets, and the revenues of which confined within our own limits, would make us as rich as we are powerful. If all foreign commerce were cut off, all our efficient industry might be turned to raising provisions and clothing for the army. But how is it with you. Sister ? To go to war you must take your men from their families, turn your pro- ductive industry to consuming industry — close up your redundant factories — dis- mantle your shipping, and with your means of paying, thus reduced, accumulate an enormous debt upon your shoulders — not as great, I grant you, as I made it upon your son's data, by four-fifths; but far too great for you to endure. This, too, is a fact established by history. You pronounced yourself ruined by the war of 1812, when it was not a year old, and you pointed to your useless shipping, by which you had lived, as the proof Hence it is, and only hence, that you ever have complained, and ever will complain of war. VVliat nonsense is it then, for you to be bullying us with your freemen. The lion's skin cannot make the wearer a lion, as fable shows. All these things have I known for many years past — but knowing my sons to be too impi'luous any how, and that many of them thought of the issues of a war be- tween us, as you think of them — that their error in this regard tended to the peace of the country, and to the perpetuity of that union which I revered as the ark of our safety, the pledge and the proof of our glory and our greatness, and the monu- ment of our wisdom, I havi; hitherto forborne to disclose them. But the time has come, when silence in this regard becomes cowardice, and forbearance a decoy to you, treason to the country, desertion of my children, and desecration of the most holy relics of our fathers. By your magic nrl, a spirit has been waked up which baffles all description, and nil philosophy. This .what shall I call it? verily I am afraid to designate it. 1 was going to say " hell-honi" — l)ut it seems to have GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 27 too much religion in it for that. "Enthusiasm?" It has too much of perdition in it for that this Massachiisettsia, this satanic pnritanism, this puritanic Satan- ism, is laying waste all that is great, and glorious, and good, and beautiful and love- ly, in our Heaven befriended land. The bonds of religion, patriotism, kindred and party, all snap at its touch. Reason is lost on it, persuasion insults it, endurance provokes it. There is but one expedient left ; which is to hold up the mirror of the future before it, and if this will not stay its onward march, why, then let it come ; and when it shall liave completed its work, and Despotism shall smile over its ruins, and exclaim, "I told you so!" I, at least, can reply with a clear conscience, " thou canst not say I did it." Your indignant Sister, GEORGIA. LETTER V Madam, When I took up the pen for the first time to address you, I had not the most distant idea of extending my remarks beyond the limits of one or two letters at farth- est ; and here am I at the fifth. Well, bear with me ; I have never troubled you before, and I do not expect ever to trouble you again. I have brought your history down to the present time, and I have fiireshown you the dreadful end of it. In so doing, I have often had to trace your windings through good company, who honestly espoused your principles — or rather your opinions — and who may perhaps feel themselves implicated by what I have said of you. If so, they do both themselves and me injustice. I have noticed your conduct in these connections only to show its peculiar features in you ; such as cruelty, vindictive- ness, inconsistency, ingratitude, and the like ; and not to censure it per se. Thus, I have noticed your conduct during the last war, not because you opposed it, much less to cast reflections upon any who oppose this, but to show the mode and manner of your opposition — the unreasonableness of it, in the mother of half the impressed seamen of the country — and the unblushing confidence, not to say effrontery, with which you turned it to your own private and special interest ; but more especially to show the precise time and place, at which you formed the resolution to crush the slave power at the South, or to crush the Union. This was one of the leading ob- jects of the Hartford Convention, as one of its resolutions proves, and hence the per- fect identity in policy and pursuit of the Trio who formed it. All since has been merely in subservience to this plan. This much, however, I will venture to say, that to oppose this war, or any other, declared by the constituted authorities of the country, by withholding the means necessary to a successful prosecution of it, argues a pride or an obstinacy of opinion, which extinguishes every noble and patriotic feel- ing of the human heart, and even this kind of oppression is magnanimous, when com- pared with that of Mr. Wilmot. I have adverted to your fawning on the Government for protection, not to cast re- flections u[)on those who honestly espouse the restrictive system, (among whom are some of the wisest and the best) but to show your bearing and daring through the whole progress of the system. I meant to hold up the Arch-Abolitionist to the eyes of the world in her true character; and I did not mean to allow her to escape expo- sure by getting into genteel company. I think I see plainly that the days of this great and glorious Republic are numbered — that it is soon to become the victim of one of the most frightful, disgusting monsters, that ever reared its head among a Christian people. I consider you the mother of it ; and I wish to leave your portrait to our common offspring, that they may know its lineage from its resemblance to its 28 LETTER FROM parent. The lime has come, I conceive, when you should be taught that forbearance is not insensibility, that courtesy is not cowardice, nor charity servility. These pearls your Southern Sisters have been casting before you ever since you breathed the air of freedom ; and they have reaped the reward which, with the liglit before them, they might have expected. Verily, Madam, the indulgence of the family to your failings lias been your ruin, as it is likely to be their own. Had your plots against the Government, in 1813, been properly rebuked, your influence npon it would not have been as mischievous as it has been since. Had your Abolitionism been properly met fifteen years atjo, it would not now be riding over Church and State, with Turkish indifference. Vandal cruelty, and Cretean perfidy. How comes it to pass that, with only occ;isional bursts of indignation from the halls of Congress, when your intrusions bec^ame insufferable, reiterated by a few partisan editors, you have been treated with uniform deference and respect by the whole Sisterhood ? How happens it that the " chivalrous South," that " high-minded and spirited pecn pie" of whom we hear so much and see so little, have borne your encroachments and jour insults so long and so patiently, with scarcely a word of recrimination, and with scarcely a glance of contempt after the injury was inflicted ? I do not wonder, pet- ted as you have been, and indulged as you liave been, that you have at last become intolerable. And how is this to be accounted for? I will tell you. The people of the South are really not wanting in the virtues which they claim for themselves — though greatly wanting in prudence, when they become their own criers of them — especially to you, who have small dealings in these wares, though you deal largely in everything else. They love the Union, as I have said, almost to idolatry. All the nobler feelings of their hearts gather round it. They will therefore bear much, rather than do anything that may weaken its bonds; — they will bear almost every- thing rather than give it up. Withal, they are a courteous and confiding people. All this you know; and as you are as vigilant of the moral world, to see what can be made out of it, as you are of the physical, you have fixed the screws npon these noble afl"ections, and you have been calmly twisting them for thirty years, to see how far they will stretch, auii how much they will bleed t)efore they will snap. Henceour people bear and forbear, they shriek and solicit, they denounce and forgive, they hope against hope, they appeal to your mercy, your justice, your patriotism, your promises — everything, rather than level a blow at you that may recoil upon the Union. Duly to appreciate this experiment, you must suppose a physician at the bed-side of a dy- ing child, with the sanative in his liand, and the tortured mother, begging for it — her money gone, her jewels gone, the hallowed braid, the bridal ring — and yet the wretch unsatisfied. Here is the secret of their concessions and their courtesies to you ; and I beseech you by — your purse, do not mistake them. And now, having closed your history, I have again and again, run my mind's eye over your life, to see if I could not find one magnanimous, nobh', generous act to re- lieve its dark shading; and I cannot find one. If I could, I certainly would give you credit for it; for it would be wanton cruelty to do you injustice, when justice itself is little else than unmitigated castigation. You have erected a monument to be sure; and what barbarian has not done thati Jf lanffiiage, our citizens have beeni'sometimes subject to impressment. But, so far as I have heard, they have been discharged, lehen application was made in their behalf, and EviDE?ieE fiirnished of THEIR CITIZENSHIP. In some instances there may have been a wanton exercise of power by impressing officers, but it is iin.pussihle for the best regulated State wholly to control the action of its subjects, 5{c." " She asserts that her seamen are essential to her sule. ty ; that though they are not liable to be taken from our national ships, and we have a right to protect them, while they remain within our territory; yet, if they pass into her dominidus, or if, in transacting their own affairs on the highway of nations they come within her power, she has a right to take them by virtue of hur prior claim ihatshe never can relinquish the right, so long as we employ her seamen, without endangering the existence of her Navy. What hope of a peace, then, can reasonably be entertained, when such a sacrifice is required of her?" This from tlie mother of half the impressed seamen of the country, and the employer of half the British seamen on board our vessels , tOn the 13th June, 1813, the Senate of Massachusetts passed the fuilowing resolution : " Whereas, a proposition has been made to this Senate for the adoptiim of sundry reso- lutions, expres^ive of their sense of the gallantry and good conduct e.xhibited l)y Cap. tain .Tames Lawrence, Commander of the United States ship of war Hornet, and the officers and crew of that ship, in the destruction of his Britanic Majesty's ship Peacock. And whereas, it has been found that former resulutions of this kind, passed on similar occasions relative to other officers engaged in like service, have given great discontent to many of the good people of this Commonwealth, it being considered by them an encour- agement and excitement to the present unjust, unnecessary and iniquitous 70flr ; and on that account the Senate deem il their duty to rwfrain from acting on said proposition, - ceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters— despiteful^ proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implaca- ble, unmerciful. Who knowing the judgment of God, (that they which commit such things are worthy of death,) not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.'' " Let every soul he subject unto the higher powers ; For there i» no power but of God ; tilt powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever thcrefmx resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God ' — -Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath but also for conscience sake ■ ■ Render therefore to all their dues ; tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor ta whom honor." " Submit yourselves unto every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake; whether it be to the King as supreme ; or iinto Governors, as unto them that are sent by hint for the punishment of evil doers, and for tl>e praise of them that do well. For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men, and not as using your liberty, for a cloak of mulicimisness, but as servants of God." "The works of the flesh are- — — —hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies. (But the fruit of the Spirit, ia love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance ; against such there is no law.)" " A good tree bringeth not forih corrupt fruit ; neither does a corrupt tree brincr ' forth good fruit — For every tree is known by his own fruit, &c. -" " Vow, and pay unto the Lord yoiir vou'.'>, Sfc.^' -— " When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it ; for he hath no pleasure. Sec. ; — pay that whicb thou hast vowed. Better is it thattliou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay. Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin, neither say thou be- fore the Angel, it was an error : wherefore should God be angry at thy voice and destroy the work of thine hands?" " But let none of you suffer, &-c., as anevil-doer, orasa fcit^-Zwdj/ in other men's matters." " And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" Relying upon these scriptures, I fear you not ; nor all who may combine with you. 1 mark your gathering hosts, as calmly as I view the setting sun New York is your strongest ally. The plague spot is upon her. She has the guilt of kidniippiiig upon her skirts. It was but late ly, her suns collected the last bonds given to ilieni by mine, for negroes, which tlfey brought hither in chains from Africa. On lit r statute book, may be seen laws more cruel to the slave, than any that are to be found on mine. Her Governors have overleajjcd the Constitution, to protect the slave, wbil(' ilie black freeman begs for bread in her streets. ll(^r religious press, is closed to the complaints and argmnents of injured Christians, South. Her political ])ress, holds U]) to scorn and cnntrin[)t her noblest sons, because ihcy will not t'orswc'ar themselves to further a lawless warfare upon Southern rights.. I do not tear Ntnv York. Ohio is a strong and clamorous ally. Ohio j)ermit8 the; emancipated slave to buy land in her domain, pay for it, and then looks candy on, while her son's repel him j)eimilc.ss from her borders. Hear their tender breaihings of mercy and compassion for iiose in whose bidialf she is laying waste Church and Stale : " Resolved, That we will not live auiong negroes; as we have settled here firs^ we have fully dcti^inined that w(! will resist the settlement of blacks and mulattoes in litis couniy to the full extHiil of our means — the bayonet not excepted. *' Resoloed, Thdt the blacks of this county be, and they are respectfully re(juesteosili()n to Al)olitioiiism, why then let them take ttie conseijuences. I would rather see South Carolina moving in this matter than n ibody ; but I would rather see any other State in the Union taking lead in it than South Carolina — for obvious reasons. What I ihink should be done, hereafter, GEORGIA. GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 37 LETTER VII. Madam, How strange, and yet how fortunate ! I had just closed my last letter, with an earnest request to yuu to leave the Union, and a final adieu, when I received the Fifteenth Annual Report of the Board of Managers of the Massachusetts Anti- Slavery Society. It was exactly the thing I wanted — for it is an incontestible voucher of everything that I have written against you. I therefore withdrew the conclusion of my last letter and reserved it for another. The Report just mentioned, emanated from the Press of Andrews & Prentiss, No. 11 Devonshire street, Boston, on the 27th of January, 1847, after having been presented to the Society convened in Faneuil Hall, on the same date, by the Board of Managers. I re gret that I cannot give the names of the Board of Managers, as an invaluable legacy to posterity. However, I suppose they are to be found in the following list of officers — and if not, they will readily be found among the archives of the Society. The officers are as follows : Presidetii — Francis Jackson, Boston. Vice Presidents. Seth Sprague, Doxbury ; Andrew Robeson, New Bedford ; Nathaniel B. Borden, Fall River j Stillman Lothrop, Cambridge; Amos Farnsworth Groton ; Adin Ballou, Milford ; Jno. M. Fisk, West Brookfield ; Joshua T Everett, Princeton ; Effingham L. Capron, Uxbridge ; Wm. B. Earle, Lei cester; Jefferson Church, Springfield; Wm. B. Stone, Gardner; Oliver Gardner, Nantucket ; Joseph Southwick, Boston ; Saml. May, Leicester ; Harris Cowdrey, Acton ; Nathan Webster, Haverhill ; Geo. Hoyt, Athol ; Theodore P. Locke, Westminster ; Jno. C. Gore, Roxbury ; Caroline JVes- ishment of a new government, ff ivhich justice and equal rights sliall be at once the end and means of its existence." Here the Legislatiire of Massachusetts are taken to task for not executing previous threats of th:it boily against the government, in case of Annexation — which they consider " a jiust occasion for the Dissolulion ssiiy uf a war, provided a projligale government have embroiled us in one; huinnnity plainly dict^ilejs tons that we must fighi it out !" They, therefore, (juoU^ with approbation the following resolution adopted by tlie Atjt' Eng- land Convention of Alxiliiionisls : *' Resolved, Tiiat at the bnr of Liberty and Humanity, we impeach George N. BiiiGfis, St(!., us perjured, on liis own principles, as a traitor by his own showing— as one, before ichosc aiiiU the infamy (f Arnold, awd vi ihe Missouri Compromisers, GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 39 Womes respectability and decency ; since, under oath to support the Constitution i?Tr UnUeTs'a es, he calls on the Commonwealth to rally to a war wh ch s waLed To defend and protect an act (,h. Annexation of Texas, which he himself ^a^"*. flftpn declared a ' violation of the Constitution.' &.c. ^c Then fbUows a irade of abuse of divers others, good citizens of Massachusetts, who c,,uld not subrcribe t. these revolutionary doctrines, which closes with a reference to "•^ wVsSlTaT^iThtn^rs^— what such men can do for the deliverance of ^. St Jp from oro slavery bondao-e ; but we believe they will be compelled to come S the condu"i«Ta^^ thdr'deliverance is impossible, a. U^ngasshc remn,^s a^lZTof a Slave-Mding Confederacy; and that her real Pr°«P-"^y/''V^"" ho^icanonly be secured b. the bi.ow that shali. sever the bond of the ex- ''TTe^neT'thin.. discussed is the triumph of Abolitionism (last year,) in New Hampshire whicf is ascribed to Annexation. Then New York ,s peppered for e- Ste bhct suff^^ clause of her new Constitution; and the Tribune is applaud- ed for having " Jwmrahly distinguished itself by Us mainte^nance of ]»^« "g^^, ^''[U masters disposed^of, the melanchdy ^::^^^^^^^ST^^^ tirL^rpuiiisrsii^^^^^^^ gotg i.'toTe^army.and the National Era of Washington, Edited by Dr. G. Bai- LEY? is brought under consideration. .u iu;„„ P^n^r which has This, it seems, from the Report, is professedly an A^>oUtion Paper, whc^^^^^^ ™„,H „r-iot of ours should have Ihe reniolest tendency w jeopard ine saleiy oi Sni X'rld his brave army," " When they come ,o lea™ '^<-«^ the Renort " thev will not see in him a very dangerous enemy to their pec" i^^ LtiSn— We are bold to affirm, that a man who could entertain and express B.ch S,g towards the slaveholding leader or o.. -^-r'^^ Z^ZTA^Z-^Z ^"^:^;!i^i:^r^C^::?t;:R.port,wh.^ rination with compensali.m to theownetsofslaves.is discussed. Of course ttiis nione "Cnci^tn "ILpudiaU^d upon the ground ''■»\*e South ,sf»ya^p™ed^.f all , evils o^r Slave,,, (which arc, enumerated bun,a,nta„s,t not f the^weal.h s? ::ire^rthf s'„:lr I'srr^Serni-Si^p^^^^^^ morally So^sible) or by a Dissohdion of the Union:^ As there isno hope of a r. ie'i Thr;;St statJof thmgs. the Ripurt declares ;h;t." I>--;on, r.hgu^ W "nautical is the only remedy -f(yr the distempered and disjointed times in tUiicn Te KL-ro/;/e dekX oftheilave, and for the enfranchisement of ourselves. How irpi-is sister is going to liberate the slave by th.s of^i^^ll^;:,*^ -"J^^y ;J "Disunion,'' 1 confess I lann'ot see. Perhaps Mrs. ^''''^'-'f'''\^C''^Y,ll WEsZ,Mrs. Connsellor Mab.a Weston Chapmak, or Mrs^Cotmse^M^^^^^^^^^ Lee FA^EEN.may enlighten me upon this head if they will ^^ Pl^J J ^. J^^^^ and terrifying all who take office, into perjury, may ^^^7Pl'^V.phv fraud fore" gel enouah of your caste into Congress. They may snatch power bj ff^"d jorce f nd false%wearing, sufficient to drive us from the Union, and then you may use that ;^te iit ::t?rnro"r throats for the benefit of the slave ; but, to my g-'^^^^^^ Se Report seems to give up this plan as hopeless and o ^^^^ he slave ^^ ^e your part as the effectual remedy. In that case, I cannot see how the slave w m LETTER FROM relieved ; but I can see how the country would be relieved, ^atly, joyously, glori- ously. The Report proceeds from this country to England, and immediately its style temper and spirit undergoes p. visible change : " The Anti-Slavery history of Eng- land has been unusually full of various incident during the past year. The forma- tion of the Anti-Shivery League, the Evangelical Alliance, the visit of Mr. Garri- son, the extensive agitation of the Slavery question by his means, assisted by Mr, Thompson, and the American Molilionists have made the last year of ex- traordinary Anti-Slavery animation and interest. We believe that we could never boast of a larger and more devoted band ot faithful friends in the Mother Country, than we now possess. We have received elegant gifts from a multi- tude of other places, (besides London, Bristol, &c.) and are thus put in emmnunica- tion with new and efficient friends." Then comes a list of the distinguished aboli- tionists of England who have died during the past year, with suitable compliments. Of the deceased Edw'd. S. Abdy, it says : " He wasan abolitionist of the finest water. He alone of the English tourists in America was able to withstand the in- fluence of our pro-slavery air He separated himself from the Anti-Corn Law League when it sent complimentary gifts to Mr. McDuffie and Mr. Calhoupt, and thus recognised 'soul drivers, and negro jobbers — the enemies of personal freedom — as the friends of commercial freedom.' " Seotlmd is next introduced : " The conflict between the abolitionists of Scotland and the Free Church, in the matter of blood-money, has been carried on with even more vigor during the past year than ever before. The haters of Slavery and lov- ers of pure Christianity have not had their sense of the comfort that was given to the one, and the injury that was done to the other, by the reception of the price of ' slaves and the souls of men' into the treasury of the seceding Kirk, at all dimin- ished by the experience of another year." Here fjllows a flattering accoimt of the labors of Abolition Missionaries to Eng- land. Then comes Ireland. " The Irish contributions to the Bazaar, like those we have just enumerated, were of increased amount in quantity, elegance and value. We accept this annual increase of the tribute paid to the Image of God in chains, whose dungeon is this broad land, as a grateful evidence of an increasing and spread- ing sympathy with universal Humanity." A Word to thoe, Ireland, in passing. We do not forget that you are far away from us, and that you are ignorant of the true state of things in this country ; and there- fore we rather admire than censure your liberality to an enterprize which we know yo7i believe to be philanthropic. It fills my soul with noble emotions, and my eyes with the best tears they ever shed, when I see your national generosity unextin- guished by famine, and your free hand stretched across the broad Atlantic to relieve those whom you think in greater distress than yourself, while your own children perish by hundreds at your doors. But, oh God, what shall I say of that horde of Monsters who, in a land overflowing with plenty, can seize these last drainings of your noble soul, and spend them in fitting out a band of noisy vagrants to stir dis- cord betwe<>n the two cfjuntries, desolate this Eden of peace, and to persuade your famishing children to die, rather than eat the bread which our charity places in their hands! In recording these things, I feel that I am bidding a long fhrovvell to the honor of my country — that the pride which I used to feel at being called an American is humbled f(>rever— and that I would almost change places with Ireland, to change names with her. Land of our champion, Burke, and mother of some of our nohlrst foster-children, we excuse thee. Reject our charities if you will; hut we will offi r them as long as we see thee in distress, and no harsh words which your intemperate .sons may give us in return, shall deaden our .sympathies for you, silence our prayers in your behalf, or tear you from the most consecrated seat in our affi'ctions. We know you to be deceived. But I never can excuse that nest of artful spiders that caught you in their web, and then sucke' I k..,^o MO ctiMU hear gooiine but he that is a companion of riotous men, shameth h\s father." I hope we shall hear no mure of the Abolitionists being a little insignificant band, unworthy ot notice. The " law" of "Massachusetts," which Hannum and Pearson were considered as outraging, tne reader will be pleased to remember, is a law of that State, passed to 44 LETTER FROM nullify the clause of the Constitution which provides for the delivering up of fugi- tive slaves. When South Carolina passed a law to defeat the operation of the tariff acts in her territory — ads which she believed to be unconstitutional — the whole Union was arrayed against her; and Massachusetts, as we have seen, slept torward to clothe the President with extraordinary powers, in order to reduce her to submission ; but when Massachusetts herself passes a law to defeat the operation of an unques- tionable clause of the Constitution, not a word is said about it ! The Report pio- ceeds : " A case similar to this, but more fortunate in its termination, occurred not long before in New York . Although the Mayor and all the police of the city were at the disposal of the kidnapper yet Judge Edmonds, did himself and the Bench honor by judging justly, and deciding that there was no authority by which the slave could be deprived of his liberty." So it seems that Judge Edmonds' legal learning has not yet reached the 3d paragraph, 2d Sec, IV Art. of the Constitution, which he swore to support when he took his commission. We have now advanced seven and thirty pages farther in the Report, and no plan yet proposed to relieve the poor slave of the South. " The Caste Schools" come next in order. The Report regrets that the ne- gro and white children are kept in separate Schools, but sees the dawn of better times. " The Political Parties." — The objection to them is thus expressed : " They are all equally ready to swear to support the Constitution, and if true to their oath, to do the work which the Constitution, as explained by its authentic expounders, re- quires of those supporting it" . " It is still the heaviest of the chains that bind the slave to his despair; the iron which enters into our own souls who have consent- ed to hold it." " The Church, (p. 72) under this head (the last but three) the Churches are arraigned for not warring against the Constitution and the Government, under the names of the " Bulwark of Slavery,'" and the " American Bastille." The Churches, " almost every one of them, expands its doors to welcome the pious rob- ber of the poor — and scarcely any but rejoice to have the bread of life broken unto them by reverend men-stealers, with their hands dripping with their brother's blood. The wisdom of the action of the Southern Methodist Episcopal Churches, in dis- solving the jurisdiction of the Southern and Southwestern Conferences, and erecting them into a separate Ecclesiastical Connection, styled the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, has been justified by the result. The Southern Church, has gained everything," (except its property) " and lost nothing. It has banished the impor- tunate spirit of Abolitionism from its Great Councils, and at the same time ha3 lost none of its ecclesiastical brotherhood with the Northern Churches." Here the Baltimore Conference is taken to task, for disclaiming fellowship with Aboli- tionists, and determining not to hold connection with any ecclesiastical body which shall make non-slaveholding a condition of membership in the Church. After speaking of the support which that Conference has received from some other Con- ferences and organs North ; the Report proceeds in the following reverential strain — "Thus the guilt of slavcholding is piously transferred from tiie shoulders of * » * * * # gj^ (jy * ^jl,g great Methodist Slave-traders) and their compeers, to those of the Almighty which are supposed to be strong enough to bear it.'* Shocking! The New School Presbyterians and the Methodist Protestants, are then brought to acc(juiit for a like sin. Hut amidst these discnuragements, a ray of light breaks in upon them: "Three hundriHl and three Universalist Ministers have protested against the systcMU of American Slavery, as ultt^rly wrong, and confess their obliga- tion to use all jiiKlifiable means to promote its abolition." And an encouraging ad- dress has ajjptarcd from the Irish Unitarian Christian Society to their Christian brethren of America, in which they protest against slavery. A lasli or two upon * The names are given in the Report ; but ihey are not Methodists. GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS, M the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and a disclaimer of any hostility to tiie CImrch of Christ, closes the matter under this head. " «»UR Spirit." — " The bad spirit of the Abolitionists has always been amain ground of complaint against them. It has from the beginning besen made the excuse of the cowardly and time-serving, for not joining our ranks, or doing their duty out of-then;-— We are content that men should say what they like of our spirit, so that they cannot well deny our works." " Our PHiLOsoPHy." — " Our Philosophy is not one hard to understand, though it may be difficult to receive. It is simply the philosophy of personal sejiaration from an evil which we wish to destroy « Under the guidance of this piiilosoj)hy, we have examined the institutions, civil and ecclesiaslical, in the midst of which we live, where we have found the sanctity or security of slavery an essential part of them, 8j,c. Seeing as we did in the Constitution of the United States, the su- preme law of the land- an imperative rule of action- which made Slavery a Kaiional Institution which pledged the physical furce of the whole nation for the protection of Slavery against a righteous, servile Revolution," (!!) "in the presence of such a Constitution, we plainly saw that there was no alternative for men who reverenced the obligation of promises, and the sanctity of oaths on the one hand, and who hated Slavery on the other — but in obedience or REVOLUTION. We have made our election. We have renounced our allegiance to a govennnent which we could not support without sustaining slavery. And believing the existing Constitution and the present union of these Slates, incompatible with the Abolition of (Slavery, we have devoted ourselves to the abrogation of the one, and to the dis- solution of the other, in order that they may be replaced by a purer Constitution, &.c." *' Our Method." — " Our Method is identical with our Philosophy. The one is ihe other reduced to practice^ it consist in short, in the use of every means in our power to make this Constitution and this Union, of which it is the bond, infa- mous and abhorred in the eyes of the people, and of the nations of the world — that it may vanish — and give way to a Republic which shall, indeed, be the Model instead of the warning of the world we see, already, the effect of our agitation in the al- tered tone of feeling and speech, as to the sacredness of the Constitution and the Union. We have disenchanted the mind of the people in a good measure, as to the Divinity of their parchment idol. We have taught men to calculate the valueoi the Union. The idea that loyalty and allegiance are its due, is fast becoming ridi- c'lV'iis and contemptible multitudes who walk not with us, have been taught by '.:•'!! t,'.\ II experience to cwsc the Constitution and the Union, as a delusion and a snare," &c., &.c. Thus ends a Report of eighty-six pages. The funds of this magnificent institu- tion consist of $5,852,01. Of which $3,202,11 were received from proceeds of the Massachusetts Annual Fair; 447,24 from the Rural Fair at Dedham ; $173,95 from office rent ; $298,66 balance in hand from last year ; and $1670,25, donations from all quarters — Ireland, I suppose, included. So that it seems this patriotic band are not likely to bankrupt themselves by their liberality to their noble enter|)rise. Of those funds $1391,78 are paid to agents; $200 to the Liberator; $2,800 to the American Anti-Slavery Society; and the rest for rent of meeting-places, printing, paper, &c. When we see how the funds are raised, we can account for the Lady Vice Picsidents and Counsellors. Of the heroes of the Revolution, to w'.ose me- mory they have erected a monument, they hold this language : '* We cannot see the precise course of events they must be all moulded and guided by Fate, which rules over this nation, through the crimes of our FuUiera and our own." ' " We are constrained to believe there is no deliverance for the people of the Free Slates from the joke their Fathers imposed, and they have worn so long, except by a radical and revolutionary change in our political relations." The dominion of Slave Power is so fastened upon us by the iveitk and wicked compact, which our fathers made with it, &c." So much for the Report : what did the Society ? They Resolved, " That Gov. Briggs was a narrow-minded or willing tool of a 46 LETTERS FROM corriipt faction— not only utterly unequal to his place and the occasion, hnt perjured by his own showing, and traitor to his own principles" -"That in this so called Mexican war, they can see nothing but a foray of pirates and kidnappers ; and that the nation which wages it -deserves the deep curse of every lover of right and human liberty" -"That they hail with thankfulness the -abiding influence of— -—Garrison ; and rejoice to take by the hand their beloved pioneer Thomas Clarkson," (an Englishman,) "and to hear from his Zj'ps the assurance of /li* deep interest in, and cordial approbation of our pleda;ed purpose to seek for a Dissolu- tion of this Union, as the most effectual method of striking off the fetters of the slave" ■" That they cordially approve of the action of the Board of Managers of the society in instituting a movement for the purpose of asking the Legislature of the Slate to call a convention of the People to take measures for a peaceful secession from the Union," (God speed ye in that; and brand any State that ob- jects to it, with a mark of infamy as black as your own,) " and they pledge them- selves to make demand loud, &.c. — and to repeat it, until it shall be heard and obey- ed.'^ (So printed in the Report.) " That the working classes of the North — who stand aloof from the Anti-Slavery enterprise, will be guilty of manufacturing yokes for the necks and fetters for the limbs of the Southern slave population" > " That they rejoice that the working-men of the Old World — are deeply interested in the Anti-Slavery movement in England. Seeing the existence of slavery in this boasted Republic is the mightiest obstacle to their own deliverance from oppres- sion and bondage" "That they cannot view wi.'. ^nprobation the proposal of some devoted friends of the Slave, to test the number of the friends of Disunion, by urging them to repair to the ballot box and deposite their votes for such men as will never take the oath to support the Constitution of the United States," as this method would be " liable to render less distinct, emphatic and intelligible, our pro- test against the Government of the United States" "That each town in the Commonwealth bo urged to assemble immediately, and raise funds for the enter- prise" "That all who participate in this war, or who give it any countenance, are enemies to the country and traitors to liberty and the rights of man" "That they pledge for JYcw England to Oliio, not only their hearty sympathy, but their most efficient aid and support, in covering with Anti-Slavery machinery the vast field she has in charge." These and many other resolutions in the same spirit, were offered and discussed — not one of which can I discover was rejected, though I cannot find where the vote was taken upon some of them. Most of them were adopted. Thus ends a meeting which continued for three days in peaceable session in the Town Hall of Boston. [ have given the subjects, and all the subjects, which en- gaged its attention, with some of its views on each. We learn from it ihat its aim is to overthrow the government of the country ; and the instruments to be used for this purpose are anti-slavery associations in England, the West Indies, and the Free States. That these associations are actually formed and in secret communi- cation with each otiinr — interchanging missionaries and inviting counsels and pecu- niary resources. That the Englishman recommends agitation in this country as the most effi'ient means for destroying the government, and the American thanks him for his advice, and pntmises to follow it strictly ; and in token of its wisdom they tell him and tlie world that they have already wrought a magic change in popular opinion, (and this is certainly true, as to popular opinion North of the P(jtomac,) and disenchanted the mind of the people as to the divinity of their parchment idol. That they have taught men to calculate the value of the Union — That they intend to use every means in their power to render the United States Government infamous. When we examine their works we find that they are in strict accordance with these principles. Not a plan do they propose or iiave they ever proposed, to emancipate the slave: all their machinery is directed towards the slave-holder, the Union, and the sepulchres of their fathers. Falsehood, the most unblusiiing, is uttered, and the Mai/istrate bows assent to it, the .ludge puts his seal to it, and the Priest anoints it. The wiiole vocabulary of Billingsgate is exhausted upon the Slave- GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 47 holder, and mingled with the litual of Divine Service, without compunction and even without remorse. The war in which we are engaged is pronounced a war of Slavery, when surely Slavery had no more to do with it than freedom ; and it is ascribed to the malignity of the South, because Mexico emancipated her slaves— an idea perfectly original with these Christians. I'he intruder upon our peace, is pronounced a martyr, and the perjured villain, a hero. A Servile Revolution is pronounced " righteous, ^' and the government \s cursed because it prevenis it. With one hand in the pocket of starving Ireland, and the other in their daughter's fidiculeg, and six buttons on their own pockets, they call on the world for large con- tributions to their noble enterprise. These things are not done in a corner. There is a logic in the place and the manner in which they are done, which is as convinc- ing as demonstration, that their spirit overspreads the whole State. The con- clusion is confirmed by observation. Abolitionism, as we have seen it, is seen in Some or all of its features in almost all her movements, civil and ecclesiastical- And Would to God that it stopped here. But, alas ! it has extended its dominion to all the free States, and wherever it gets foothold, we find the same daring, the same desperation, the same contempt of oaths, the same inroads upon the Consti- tution, which it here evinces. In the Cathedral and the Capitol, it ia one and the same thing. To comment upon these proceedings in decent language, would be un- becoming my subject. To comment upon them in any other, would be unbecoming GEORGIA. X^ote. — " In Georgia's second Letter to the Southern States, she apologizes for as- cribing the principles of this Society to the State of Massachusetts, upon the ground that they are plainly visible in all the movements of the State, though not as distinctly avow- ed by herj as by the Society. The following resolutions which have passed the Legis- lature of Massachusetts since these letters were written, show that Gechcia was not mis- taken in supposing the Statf and the Society were one in principle : RESOLVES. CONCERNING THE MEXICAN WAR AND THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY. Resolved, That the present war with Mexico has its primary origin in the unconstitu- tional annexation to the United States of the foreign State of Texas, while the same was still at war with Mexico ; that it was unconstitutionally commenced by the order of the President to General Taylor, to take military possession of territory in dispute be- tween the United States and Mexico, and in the occupation of Mexico ; and that it is now waged ingloriously^-by a powerful nation aguinsta weak neighbor — unnecessari- ly and without just cause, at immense cost of treasure and life, for the dismemberment of Mexico, and for the conquest of a portion of her territory, from which slavery has already been excluded, with the triple object of extending slavery, of strengthening the '• Slave Power," and of obtaining the control of the Free Statts, under the Constitu- tion of the United States. Resolved, Thatsucha war of conquest, so hateful in its objects, so wanton, unjust and unconstitutional in its origin and character, must be regarded as a war agiiinst freedom, against humanity, against justice, against the Union, against the Constitution, and against the Free States; and that a regard for the interests and the highest honor o^ the coun- try, not less than the impulses of Christian duty, should arouse all good citizens to join in efforts to arrest this gigantic crime, by witholding supplies, or other voluntary contri. butions, for its further prosecution, by calling for the withdrawal of our army within the established limitsof the United States, and, in every just way, aiding the country to retreat from the disgraceful position of aggression which it now occupies towards a weak, dis- tracted neighbor, and sister republic. Resolved, That our attention is directed anew to the wrong and " enormity" of slavery, and to the tyranny and usurpation of the " Slave Power," as displayed in the history of our country, particularly in the annexation of Texas, and the present war with Mexico; and that we are impressed with the unalterable conviction, that a regard for the fair fame of our country, for the principles of morals, and for that righteousness which exalteth a nation, sanctions and requires all constitutional efforts for the aboli- tion of slavery within the limits of the United States, while loyalty to the constitution, and a just self-defence, make it specially incumbent on the people of the fr e Slates to co-operate in strenuous exertions to restrain and overthrow the " Slave power." 48 LETTERS FROM Sesohfd, That the annexation of territory with a Mexican population upon it, is highly inconsistant with the well-heing of the tFnion. " Mr. Heydex, of Boston, offered resolves of thanks to General Taylor and his offl. cers, and even for iheir gallant conduct, which, after much wranglingf, passed the HoUse by a Vote of 121 to ?1. But they tcere rejected by the Senate.' By the exertions of the patriotic and hii^h-ininded Caleb Gushing, a Regiment was raised in Massachusetts for the Mexican war ; (the first, we believe, that that State ever sent forth from her own borders to inectthv enemies of her country) and she refused to grant it the temporary supplies needful, before it could be mustered into the service. If she feels herself dis- honored by her connexion with the Union ; how should all the other States feel?" LETTER IX. Mad AM J Our characters are before the world. Impartial history never can materially change my outline of them. Upon a comparison of them — (and they may be taken for prelty fair representatives of the North and South — of the Free and Slave States) — the Philosophy of History will have to be remodelled. Had M. Comte lived among' us, he would doubtless have anticipated her in this department of her labors ; and I sincerely regret that he has not lived among us, because his worka will live to instruct future generations, while mine will die as they leave the Press. Never was the world more deceived, than it has been in regard to the influences of •Slavery in this country. When the writer just mentioned stated that it \va.s impos- sible for an hereditary nobility to exist for any length of lime, because the race would run out, and that poverty, however abject, never would arrest the increasing population of the indigent, I was startled. The doctrine seemed to me alike hostile to the teachings of sound philo.?ophy, and the lessons of experience. Yet it is as certainly true, as any dwtrine can be, that is based upon history. Nothing would be more easy than lo reason it down, as Lardner did the practicability of crossing the Atlantic by steam ; but there stands \.hefact, impregnable in both cases. So is it with regard to Slavery. We all revolt at it — we can fill volumes with unan- swerable arguments to prove its baneful influences upo'" rJo'-^rnment, R(4igion, Wealth, social and individual happiness ; but when we turn oui ■ '.u.!! Sue domain of reas(jn to the stern reality of iliings as they exist around us, we find that nineteen' twentieths of these arguments are opposed to the evidence of our senses. " Hi"V," inquires Philosophy, *' can a people, born and raised to command, ever be brought to obey ? They will ever be impatient of s^overnment, restless under authority, and ripe for revolt at the smallest prov(tcation." But huw is the fact? You are the child of Puritanism, I of Commercial Adventure. The principle could not be tested by stronger cases. Docs our history confirm it ? A'ery far from it. I never raised a finger against the Government in my life. The only lime that I ever assumed a menacing attitude to it, was when, under a solemn compact to extinguish the Indian title to lands within my borders, the Government made a treaty to lhi< •effect, and then, under the guidance of your John, was about to abrogate it. I then -^id I would act upon the treaty, and if he could prevent me from so doing he might do it. That compact was left unexecuted, until millions upon millions of other lands were bought fnun the Indians, settled, erected, into Territories, and actually admitted into the Union as new States. On the other hand, you, who have actually drawn five dol- lars from the Guveriunent where I have drawn one, while I have put five into the connnon Treasury where you have put one — you, who have been pampered by it, and favored by it, and indulged by it, more than any State in the Union — have ever heen in hostility to it, and at times in open revolt against its authority. I bore for sixteen years a course of policy which I then believed was ruining me just to fatten you, without lifting an arm against it; while you could not have your comuK-rce GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 49 eheclced by it for a year or two without plotting its destruction. Your power has always been much greater in the Councils of the Nation than mine ; and yet, to de- prive me of the little that I have, you are moving^ Heaven and earth, covering your- self with infamy, and openly laying the train which is to blow up the Union. You have been at this work confessedly for sixteen years ; and yet I am now making the first grave appeal to the world, in my behalf, that ever has been made. Look at the power which the Free States possess, compared with the Slave States : and then look at their deportment towards the Government : and say, what becomes of the oft- repeated charge of Southern insubordination. '' Slavery is hostile to a pure religion.'^ That i/o?« should think so, with your notions of religion, is not strange ; but it is exceedingly strange that anybody else should thiiik so. If it be true, as you teach us, that a Slaveholder cannot be a Chris- tian — that Slavery is per se a damning sin, involving a breach of nine precepts of the Decalogue, why then there is Utile or no religion in the Slave Slates. But as we happen to know, upon quite as high authority as yours, that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who were Slaveholders, are all safely housed in Heaven, we are inclined to believe that you are mistaken, and that we have quite as pure a religion, and quite as much of it at the South, as you have at the North. This is a subject upon which I fear to do myself justice, lest I be led into a spirit of boasting for that which none of us can have, except through the boundless mercy and goodness of God ; but let any candid man come and dwell with us and try us by all the tests of Bible-piety, and do the same in the Free States, and if he will say that he finds m )re of the im- age of Christ among you than he finds among us, I will admit that Slavery is hostile to a pure religion. But believe me, until I find more candor, UKjre justice, more meekness, more temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, charity, peace, and good order, than I have yet found among you, I must fling that doctrine among the rubbish of a used-up philosophy. •' Slavery is fatal to mental culture.^' With not half your white population, and young enough to be your grand-child, I have more Colleges than you hare, and as many students in them, though neither of them has near as many as your Harvard. I have fewer schools of course, because I have but little more than half your white population. I have made larger appropriations for educational purposes than you have ever made, (not counting taxation for these purposes on either side) and it is only because they were made before the time, that they have not been more profit- able. Had we now the immense sums wiiich we expended in splendid schemes of education, when we had no children to educate, Georgia would soon eclipse you in mental culture. As to the actual exhibitions of mental training, where the sons of the two sections have come in conflict, (as good a test as I can find) ihey seem to me to furnish you no cause for boasting. Mr. Dix recently gave the Senate of the United States a very luminous exposition of this text — but I confess that in looking into that body, I could not find anything to suggest, much less to justify such a dis- quisition. Nor can I fix upon the time since the foundation of the Government, when it would have been more appropriate to the place and the company. Of one thing, however, 1 am certain, and it is this ; that there is a pride of character about the Southern Senators that will stimulate them, under such lectures, if just, to the se- verest exertion, in order to bring themselves up to a level with their more intellect- ual associates of the North — and that humbled under a sense fo their inferiority, they will come home and open their hearts and their hands to the rising generation, in or- der to redeem them from similar mortification. As it is in point to my subject, I will add, that if we happen to get a Senator of note, we do not deify him, nor pen sion him.* Turning from the Senate to the other House, to the Pulpit and the Bar, I can find no better ground for this opinion ; the due allowances being made for numbers. *It may be well to say, for the instruction of distant readers, that one of the Senators of Massachusetts is called " the god-like," and the citizens of that State have raised a fund of $100,000, in order to euable him to remain in the Senate. 50 LETTER FROM " Slavci'y is advene to Internal Lnprovcments.^^ I have greater length of Rail Road than any State in the Union, and as good as any in the Union. I have spent more money on my roads and rivers than any State in the Union — and though the expenditure has resulted in little or no profit, the fault was in my workmen not in me ; nor in Slavery. In these matters I have received less help from the General Government than any in the Union of half my age. At least this is my best convic- tion, without taking the trouble to examine into the expenditures and helps of the other States — and not without having looked into these matters in time past. Turn- pikes I have not had hitherto, because my population was too sparse to make it the interest of Companies to build them, and 1 have not now, because my rail roads would supplant them. " Slavery is prejudicial to productive industry.^' For many years, when your white population doubled mine, the annual produce of my labor was greater than yours, and even now, so far as our labor is left untouched by the Government, I beat you. Your manufactures have brought you up handsomely, and well they might under a system of legislation which forced down my productions and forced up yours. The census of 1840 makes a grand disclosure, to wit : that the value of your manufactures, that year, was sixteen-seventeenths of the whole amount of capi- tal that you had been investing in Factories for four and twenty years. In the same year the value of my productions were reduced to a price that would hardly pay two per cent upon the expenses of them. You have had another advantage of me. For many years past, from a half to three-fourths of the exports of the country were of Southern productions. In exchange for these exports come all the imports. Upon these imports the government has levied upwards of seven hundred millions of du- ties, and in disbursing these immense sums she has given to you more than six dol- lars to my one. Now, if you could not prosper far beyond me with these helps, you deserve to perish ; if you cannot now be satisfied to let us all work as we please, rade where we please, you ought to be drummed out of the Union. And yet you are not; one end, if not the great end, of your Abolition movement is to get our foreiorn commerce saddled again with a paralizing tariff. What the world will think of you I cannot tell — what those must tiiink of themselves who make counnon cause with you, is rnore diflicull to tell. You are " disenchanting the minds of the people as to the divinity of their parchment idol"^all the cliarnis of Heaven and earth cannot disenchant you, as to the divinity of your mammon idol. Your creed consists of but two articles : " Get money — get it honestly, if convenient — but get money :" " Slavery has a denioraUzin;j; tendency.'''' This is considered an axiomatic truth. How shall we test it? Shall we try it by the relative number of the truly pioU3 in each section of the country ? The proof will not be found here. Shall we try it by the deportment, the zeal, the truth, the fervor, the charity, the humility of the professor of religion'? You gain nothing here. Shall we try it by the statistics of crime? I know of no better test. Here, unfortunately, lam wanting in authen- ticated facts; and therefore I must put my word against your record, and challenge you and the world to disprove it. In 1845 you had two thousand two hundred and seventy nine prosecutions for crimes, and one thousand and thirty-eight convictions. Surely I never had as many in any one year of my life. Of these twenty were tried and eleven convicted for felonious offences against the person, viz: — murder, rape, assault with knife or gun, and felonious assault. What the last offence is, as contradistinguished from assault with deadly weapon, I do not know, unless it be assault with intent to commit a rape, or to rob. If this be tiic meaning, this offence, and the second in the list, is hardly known in this State. But as my people are (juick of temj)er, seiisiiivc V) insult, and too (|\iick to revenge it, I will concede that tiie crimes under tliis general head were as mimerousin this State in the same year as in yours. But to be on the safe side I will grant, that they were double that number ; and here F am sure I am beyond the mark. Offences against the person, nut felonious, come next. Of these there were one hundred and seventy five j seventy-eight convictions. Tiiey were for simple assault and battery. As the irrc- GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 5***: l%lous of my people generally consider it a greater disgrace to submit to an insult than to fight, I have no doubt that we equal you here — 1 will say we quadruple you. The next head is offences against property with violence, viz : — riol, burglary, highway robbery and arson — number, forty-five; convictions, eighteen. Now I think I should hazard but little in saymg, that putting all these classes of crimes to- gether, we have not had forty-five cases tried and eighteen convictions for them in five years. Riots we are strangers to. I never heard of tliree serious ones since I entered the Union. I cannot call to mind two — nay, not one, which resulted if sc i ous damage to person or property. Burglary is a crime of very rare occurrences highway robbery has not occurred six times in my borders since I was a State ; and arson but very seldom occurs. You had thirteen in your State Prison that year for that offence. 1 will vouch for it, I had not four in mine. The next head is offences against property without violence, viz: — larcen}', cheating, counterfeiting, for^rery, &c. — four hundred and forty cases, two hundred and forty-nine convictions. Here I am sure you more than double me. All other offences, one thousand five hundred and nine ; convictions, six hundred and eighty-two. Here (which is the best sign of the morals of a country,) I am sure you more than quadruple me. On the 30th Sep- tember, 1845, you had in your State Prison two hundred and eighty-seven. On the same date I had in mine one hundred and twenty-four. Now add to your cata- logue the whole number of pickpockets v* ho escape detection — a class of rogues hardly known in this State — and you will have twenty cases of crime to my one. Let the comparison be closely made, and you will find this to be the result : In crimes originating in temper, I am to you as four to one, (population allowed for.) In crimes originating in lust and covetousness, you are to me as twenty to one. According to your statistics, the first class of cases is to the last as eighty-nine to nine hundred and forty-nine — taking the convictions as proof of the crimes. Now what have you to boast of in point of morals, over a Slave State. Capt. Marry- AT ' speaking of the comparative amount of crime in England and the United States, finding himself a little annoyed by the statistics of the two countries, as tar as as- certained, puts the discredit of the comparison upon the shoulders of poor Ireianu and the civil authorities of this country, and then adds : " Still, the whole oi Ireland, would offer nothing equal in atrocity to what I can prove relative to one small town in America — that of Augusta, in Georgia — containing only a population of three thousand, in which, in one. year, there were Jifly-nine assassiimtioiis commit- ted in open day, without any notice being taken of them by the authorities." Well, now. Madam, you have a fine opportunity of procuring the ema_ioipation of three hundred thousand slaves in a day. If you, with Capt. Marryat, and all the abo- litionists of the world to assist you, will " prove," by credible testimony, that there has ever been one assassinaiion in open day in the city of Augusta, which the civil authorities have never noticed, or that there have been the out-half of fif;y-nine homicides (not to say assassinations,) in that city, since Georgia became an indepen- dent Stale, I pledge myself that every slave in Georgia shall Ije emancipated on the day that the proof is adduced. There never has been a homicide in the place, night or day, that has passed off unnoticed " by the authorities." The only case that I remember, in which there ever was anything like remissness in securing the offender, was a very remarkable case. It was this ; An Englis':man, full-blooded and fresh from his parent-land, went at night to a house in which a number of slaves were enjoying themselves, at a ball. This man, with some o'hers, obtruded him- self among them, and, without any justifiable provocation, discharged his pistol among them and killed one of the women. He made his escape, I forget how, but I well remember that I thought at the time that there was some remissness on the part of the anthorities in securing him fir trial. This grew out of the fact, that it was manifest he did not intend to kill the ii'ommi ; but it was, to my mind, equally manifest that he meant to kill some one else, the killing of whom would have been murder. That the truth or falsehood of this story niaj' be fairly tested. I give the name of the Englishman. It was Charles WoRCE^TKR, a Phrenologist by profession. This, I think, was the seventh case of homicide which had happen- 52 LETTER EROM ed in the city when Capt. Marryat wrote his Diary. In all the seven cases the offenders were tried— in one of the cases two were tried for the same offence ; the one was convicted and executed, the other acquitted. In another, the defendatif was found guilty of manslaughter, and branded. In another the oiTender Was con- victed and executed ; and, in all the rest, the accused were acquitted. Since that time, I regret to say, there have been several homicides — more than had ever be- fore occurred in the city in the same time ; but trials were had in all the cases with various results. I have dwelt upon this report of Capt. Marryat for obvious reasons. I dismiss it, with the remark that there is not in all Great Britain, a more moral city of the size, than Augusta. When the Captain wrote, the popula- tion of Augusta was about six, instead of three thousand. " But ;>a^s through Massachusetts, and you tdlt find the emxfitt'y in (he highest state of agricultural improvement. Pass through Georgia, and the eye is constantly offended by worn out lands, deserted fields, and decaying hahitationsJ' This is true ; and what inference shall we draw from it? Why, at the first blush we should infer, beyond duubt, that the agricultural productions of Massachusetts must be greater and more valuable than those of Goorgia. I suppose nine hundred and nine- ty-nine in a thousand travellers through the two countries, would so conclude. But the fact is otherwise. Here 1 always beat you largely. I could give the reason of it clear enough, but the fact is sufficient for my purpose. *• But the condition rf the poor Slave is so wretched.^' This is wider from the truth than any position yet examined. It is a common remark that there is not to be found a happier race of beings among the lUorking classes on the face of the globe, than the slaves of the South. Most assuredly is this true. What is to make them unhappy? Having never known liberty, they rarely think of it, and still more rarely sigh for it. You might as well suppose that the peasant makes himself always miserable because he is not a nobleman ; or the subject, because he i.s not a king. This source of unhappiness removed, and there is noother^ — noothef I mean, to a vast, vast majority of them. As to the talk of tearing husbands and wives asunder ; it is not done once by the master, where it is done five hundred times by the parties themselves. But I do not mean to discuss the matter, espe- cially to deaf ears. They are, upfrn the whole, a happy people. Let those wha choose to give reasons for or against this assertion, do so if they will; I have to de with the tact, and the fact only. At this monrent I turn my eye to this class of my population ; and if peace and plenty by day, and laughter, and music, and dancings and song by night, nnchecked by care for the present, or thought of the future^ are tokens of happiness, then there are not three millions of happier beings any- where than my slaves. And believe me. Madam, that you and your com plotters, who gather up the few instances of cruelty to them which sometimes occur, and hold them up to the world as fair samj)Ies of slavery in this country, will have to answa^r in the day of righteous retribution fur this falsehood, and for the unmea- surable evils which flow from it. In that day you will find, that all sin does not consist in Slavery on the one hand, nor all piety in Abolitionism on the other,, That the Word of truth no more jastifles hypocrisy, falsehood, slander, treason and violence, in opposition to slavery, than to (Irunkenness and covetouaness. That with this word bef()re you, and the lights which have been burning upon it for de- cades of centuries, showing that God himself has irmre than o"ce dcTiounced Sla- very upm whole races, as" a penalty for sin, he will not justify you in proclaim- ing, '* trumpet tonirned," that Slavery under all circumstances is a dami/inuj crime against God and Nature. Nor will the false glosses that you have given to his holy Word, in order to reduce it to the n«?asure of yonr etf.'ics, be passed to your credits Nor will he look with much indulgence uptn those, who, tinable to justify these glosses themselves, give them currency, uirdor such endorsements r;s, " Dr. Chan- .NiN<; has said," and " Mr. Mai^nks has declared," and " the profound this one as- serts," and " the pious that one avows." On that day, as I reverentially be;ieve, many of your sijns will come l)efore Him, crying " Lord, Lord, have we not prophe- sied in ihy name? and in thy name cast out devils? at\d in thy name done many GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 53 wonderful works ? unto whom he shall profess, I never knew you ; depart from me ye that work iniquity !" While to many a slave-holder he shall say, " Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for yuu from the founda- tion of the world — for I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat ; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink ; I was a stranger, and ye took me in ; naked, and ye clothed me ; I was sick, and ye visited me ; I was in prison, and ye came unto me." " It will be remembered, that the objections to slavery, which 1 have been consid- ering, are such as regard its influences upon the whites. Had they been confined to the blacks, they would have had truth enough in them, to make it desirable to every benevolent slaveholder, that they should be emancipated so soon as it can ba done peaceably, and with safety to both parties. I am done with you, and I am about to bid you farewell, until we meet at Phil- ippi. Let me beseech yju to avert the ruin which you are bringing upon the coun- try, by a peaceable secession from the Union ; and let all who think as you do follow your example. You admit it to have been cemented with your father's blood — that as long as men will regard their oaths, it is impregnable to any who remain in it. You declare that the Constitution is the adamantine chain of slavery — and you proclaim to the world, that the supreme law of the land presses upon your conscience, and holds you to a connection with it, that is intolerable to you and your religion. What then should you do? Disregard your oaths for con- science sake ? Abuse your fathers for their well meant error? Set a mob upon the Constitution ? Cut the master's throat to reform the Government which binds you to followship with him ? Rob him of his acknowledged rights, because you do not like his company ? Surely not. In God's name how have you made proselytes to this system of warfare ! Cease your agitations, and calmly appeal to the States, (not to Congress,) to release you from the tie that binds you to them ; and let us exhibit to the world two sublime political miracles, in less than that many years : the nuptials and the divorce of nations, by the omnipotent law of love on the one hand, and its kindred law of peace on the other. We have struck the true theory of Government, and God seems to be furnishing the proof of it. Let us discard the notion of accession by aggressive warfare. Let us repudiate the idea, that the mem- bers of the body politic are to be bound to it by withs and thongs, when the nerves are cut which made them subservient to its will ; they can only incumber and an- noy it afterwards, and must soon spread their gangrene through the whole system. Now, that we have a chart and compass whereby we can navigate the ship of State through all seas in safety — so long as we can keep her own vermin from her timbers, let us not forget the Cynosure of Independence; but bid her a kind farewell for her pilotage through the breakers of the Revolution — blot her out from the galaxy thai encircles the Eagle's crest — put the Lone Star in its place, and in language as peculiarly our own as is the sentiment, add a new motto to the Star Spangled Banner : " Let all, who love us, come — let all who hate us, GO !" But will you, Madam, give us the chance to exhibit this sublime spectacle to the world ? Not you. You have not the most distant idea of leaving the Union, You could not be emptied out of it. With the adhesiveness and offensiveness of melted sulphur will you stick to it; ever wasting its strength and tarnishing its lustre by your suffocating fumes. Why, then, your pretended horror of Slavery, which is removed a thousand miles from you? To work upon the feelings and sympathies of your children and your neighbors, in order to band them against the South. Why bring the Constitution of your country into contempt? To quiet the consciences of the confederates, in violating its sacred precepts. Why bluster about quitting the Union? To cover your shame in your bold encroachments, and to reconcile the South to them, through their love of the Union. Why rave at the peaceable accession of Southern territory ? Because it adds to the political strength of the South. Why wish to enfeeble this strength? That you may turn the Government into a machine, that shall work as a screw upon the South, and as a mint to the North. This explains — what otherwise would be inexplicable — the mystery of your success. I am done. I have stretched my defence far beyond the limits oiiginally intend- ed ; but not too far, to do justice to GEORGIA. 54 LETTER FROM LETTERS FROM GEOEGIA TO THE SOUTHERN STATES, LETTER I After having witnessed with ever increasing apprehensions, the progress of A!» olitionism for fifteen or twenty years — after seeing it spread from State to State, until it gained the ascendency in two of the strongest Churches of the Union — after seeingit, without scruple and without apology, cnt the cords which bound the mem hers of these Churches together, and while in the very act of seizing upon the privi- leges and the property of the Southern members, heaping upon them contumely and abuse, forbidden by all the laws of courtesy, not to say, of Christianity — after seeing it for many long years, harassing Congress with petitions to do what Congress had no light to do — and after seeing concession after concession made to it on the part of the South, with no other effect then to encourage and to inflame it — after having borne its taunts and its insults, until patience ceased to be a virtue, and forbearance took the complexion of guilt, if not of treason — while its votaries were in the very act of laying si«^ to the Constitution, with a boldness and a wantonness never be- fore equalled by this daring sect — the State looking indifferently upon its ravages in the Church, and the Church looking indifferently upon its ravages in the State — while all these things were before me, and in progress, I took the pen, in order, to the best of my feeble ability, to vindicate my own character, and the character of the South from its calumnies, to expose its parentage and designs, and to implore the Southern States, by everything that they hold sacred, to cease their wrangling about things of minor imjxirtance, and to unite in some plan of determined opposition to this all-wasting monster. To these ends, I have written nine long letters, and (so far as I have seen) I have got my trouble for my pains. No matter : the work is a good one, however poorly executed, and I will go on and finish it. I now approach the most delicate part of it, which is to lay before the Southern States my views of the policy which should govern them, until the Abolition fever subsides of its(>|f, or is cured by depletion ; fi)r in doing this, I must necessarily seem at times, to favor the views of one or the other of the two great political parties, which have ever divided the ajuntry. All, however, who will read me with candor, and judge me with righteousness, will be constraincnl to acknowledge, that the real design of these letters (which will not exceed two) is to favor no man, nor any class of men, but Southern men. I think, that for every opinion which I may advance, I shall give reasons cogent enough to convince any candid man that I am sincere in tho^e opinions, and that F advance tht^m with no object but to perpetuate the Union — to secure to the South her constitutional rights, and to avert civil war ; or if this cannot be done, to bring the South victoriously through it GEORGIA TO THE SOUTHERN SATES 55 No one on this side of Mason and Dixon's Line, knows what Abolitionism is bet- ter than I do — not one in a thousand knows it as well as I do. To understand it per- fectly, one must have seen its workings amidst prayers and hymns, and thanksgiv- ings to God, in the temple where the sons of the North and of the South have been wont to worship together for more than a half century. If here, it can insult with- out a blush, injure without remorse, dispoil without a twitch, and pray without a halt, within the eye-shot of three hundred thousand people, and with nothing to con- ceal its deformity but a cob-web tissue of sophistry ; be assured there is no security against its despotism in our "parchment idol,'''' as one has well expressed it. It is not a thing to be temporized, or tampered with. To my eye, all the agitating top- ics of the day sink into perfect insignificance when compared with it ; and for us to be disputing about wliether this man or that man should be made President — whether there are more Abolitionists belonging to this party than tliat — whether this measure or that measure will be the inost politic, with all the el ceteras of party polemics ; is like wrangling, under the axe of the executioner, about the grave-clothes that we will be buried in. Nothing alarms me more, or amazes me more, than the apathy and indifference with which the Southern people view the encroachments and the pretensions of the Abolitionists. With all their boasted high-mindedness and chiv- alry, I douh*^ whether there is another people on the face of the globe, who would have seen the fires of destruction kindled around them, as they have been kindled around us, with so little resistance, with so little emotion. These Northern rioters come thronging the halls of Congress with bushels of papers at a Session, which they are pleased to call petitions for the redress of grievances ; and they bristle fiercely at any man who would deny them this " glorious constitutional right of petition." And what is the grievance of which they complain? Why they of Massachusetts are grieved, that certain persons in the District of Columbia, whom they never saw and never expect to see, own Slaves. Open these petitions and you will see the very names affixed to them, which you find affixed to resolutions declaring the; Con- stitution under whose panoply they come, is worthy of the bitterest execration. And yet this thing creates no alarms or excitement amongst us. — But let me not again repeat what I have already said. Suffice itto say that encroachment after encroach- ment, aggression after aggression, comes upon us, and it does not move us. At length comes the Wilmot Proviso, an outrage upon all decency and all propriety, uuiooked for and unprovoked — a mere feeler to drag to light all false professors of the Abolition faith, and to segregate for destruction every Northern man, who might have integrity and firmness enough to keep his oath and defend his country from this infamous attack ; and behold ! it passes the popular branch of the Govern- ment by a strong majority ! Northern Whigs and Democrats now take hands, leav- ing their Southern allies to shirk for themselves. Peradventure, the South might not have sense enough to understand these startling indicatinns of popular feeling is the North, the more desperate of the clan proclaim to all the world, '* that upon that subject, the South will find them united toa man." Actions and words put together, and this is their version ; " We give you to understand, that whenever Sliivery can be screwed into any Legislative proceeding on this floor, whether it be in place or out of place, you may expect it to be done; and you may further know, that nei- ther oaths nor Constitution will be held a sufficient apology to our constituents for voting against any measure the prffcssed object of which is to oppose Slavery — no matter what the real object, and no matter how foreign the measure from tlie pro- fessed object." This should have sent one general universal thrill of horror and indignation through every bosom of the South. But it has stirred noliody ; most of the presses between the Potomac and the Rio Grande, have not spoken of it at all j and the very few that have spoken of it, have done it in a way that argues very lit- tle concern about it. The citadel of Freedom is stormed, and the besiegers are en- couraged to push on by huzzas and warnings from their homes. Even little Dela- ware, who has but just cracked the shell of Slavery, cheeps to her Representatives to throw her two mites into the scale of Abolitionism. In the meantime, what are the besieged doing? Just about this: 56 LETTER FROM " Do you see our outpost stormpd by a joint attack of Whi^s and Democrats 1" "Yes; what shall we do? Hadn't we better capitulate ?" "The terms will not admit of capitulation." " Then, do you hasten to the assailants and tell them that we are a high-minded, chivalrous people — and do you demonstrate to them that if they keep on in this way, they will certainly ruin us in a few years — and do ynu show how we got into this predicament — and do you calculate the number of Whigs, and you the number of Democrats, in the enemy's ranks ; and when this is done, let us rush en vwsse to the President, and beg him, for mercy's sake, to do something for us, or we are ruined." Thus, at the battle-field — how at our homes'? " Have you seen the Wilmot Proviso? It is too bad !" " Is he a Whig or a Democrat?" " Upon that subject there's not much difference between them." "Those fellows will never rest till they dissolve the Union ; and you'll see it." "Oh, everybody sees that — what's the price of Cotton?" "/s he a Whig or a Democrat ?" Aye, there is the turning point of our ruin. If a Whig : Southern Whigs are as patient as lambs und^r his chastisements. If a Democrat : Southern Democrats are as meek as sucking doves under his infliction. I ask you, Whigs and Democrats, is this the way to save the Union ? Does the history of the world furnish one single instance of escape from evil, by such conduct? Has it not uniformly and universally avouched it, and aggravated it? In this strange and unnatural deadness which has come over us, I see one strong ground of encour- agement at least, and but one ! It secures us against hasty, intemperate and injudi- cious action. Let us avail ourselves of it, to prepare like patriots and like men for the coming storm. In the absence of better counsels, let me lay before you the plan of defence which I would pursue, and the reasons of it. The cardinal principles of it are : 1st. The Union must be preserved if possible. 2d. If this cannot be done, we must so act as to compel those to leave it who do not like it — not us. And 3d. We must be prepared to meet the consequences, if we are forced out of it. Upon these heads I have to remark, that so admirably is our Government framed, that Abolitionism never can seriously injure us, until it shall have got the control of all the three great departments of the Government. While any one of these is be- yond its influence, or while any one of these remains pure, we are just as safe from its mischievous assaults as we would be in the heart of a rock-mountain. Let not, then, our Representatives or our ])eople be rash in ijuiting the Union. An unconsti- tutional law can do no great harm, even if it pass both Houses of Congress, while the President regards his duty or his oath. It can create no irrcpdrable mischief, if it pass both Houses, over the h'ad of the President, (as it may possibly do.) or with the sanction of the President, so long as the Supreme Court maintains its integrity. Fortunately, the Supreme Court is a jjerinanent body, not dependent upon the whims of the populace for its place or its power. Jt must and will be, therefore, the last pillar of the Rcjniblic which will give way, and we should never despair of the Republic until wr see a majority of that body the creatures of Abolitionism. But the Abolitionists have liie power to make the President, if they will concentrate it on this object — the President has the nomination of ihe Suitreme Court. If, tiiere- fore, they get their President, and a majority in the Senate, tliey will be certain, after a time, to get a majority of the Court on their side. Now we liavi; seen every- where, hi Church and Statr, that compacts are nut worth a straw, in the sight of an Abolitionist, when his arms are pointed I'gainst Slaveholders. If Abolitii.irism does not entirely reverse the moral code of its "votary, it most assuredly perverts the judgment and distracts the reason. Let ns not, then, with the broad "lights of ex- perience blazing on our pathway, vainly hop(> f.r anyihiiig from AhuHtiou vows, pledges, promises, or piety. These are sad confessions for a believer in Christianity to make, but Irulh and honesty demand them. I do not forget tlie few exceptions, GEORGIA TO THE SOUTHERN STATES. 57 noble spirits, who were seen plying the life-boat at the wreck of the Churches, and amidst the surges which recently beat upon the Constitution ; but these are impotent. There were Christians, doubtless, in the Legislatures of Massachusetts and Penn- sylvania, when they deliberately passed laws to annul the 3d clause, 2d section, IV. Article of the Constitution. I smile at these laws, for reasons that will be disclosed to the first Convention of the Southern States — they can be turned to good account anon — but they are an eighth warning to us, not to trust to Abolition faith under any garb. Our safety, then, consists in a sound President, a sound Senate, and a sound Court. The second we shall always have, so far as our power can secure it. The third depends upon the first, and the first may commonly be secured by pru- dence on the part of the South. The first question with us, then, in a Presidential Canvass, should always be : Is he sound upon the subject of Abolitionism ? Has he been tried, and has he proved himself sound ? Not has he said he was sound ? Can he be trusted to veto an un- constitutional law, amidst the storms and threats and yells of disappointed Abolition- isnt 1 If these questions cannot be answered in the affirmative, let no Southern man touch him sooner than he would touch a live coal. No matter how well he agrees with us in everything else — let him alone, by the salvation of the countrj'. If he be sound upon the great point, and his competitor be like him thus far, why then choose between them according to your tariff and your anti-tiriff notions — your war and your antiwar notions — or any others that you may spring up to serve the time being. Abolitionism is manifestly working out a result which its projectors did not dream of. Some of the more simple and honest-hearted really begin to believe that they cannot live in safety to their souls under a Government that recognizes Slavery. This spirit may in time, and probably will, if the agitation is kept up as hitherto, exert a controlling influence, and compel some of the New England States to quit the Union. We should throw all our power, therefore, about the Constitution, that we may drive these malcontents to despair of a change or overthrow of the Gov- ernment. If they desire to leave us, let no Soutiiern man raise a voice against it. They will not be out of the Union a twelve-month before they will be sueing for re- admission, as perfectly weaned of Abolitionism as I am now. But how are we to do when Abolitionism makes its appearance (as it often will,) in the form of the Wilmot Proviso? — when an indispensible law cannot be passed, without, at the same time, establishing a proviso that is fata! to the riglits of the South ? I answer, examine the law and the proviso well, and see whether the last be constitutional or not. If it be not, then look to see whether it can be brought within the cognizance of the Supreme Court ; and if it cannot be, vote against the whole law, girlng your reasons, and let the Government suffer the con- sequences of the infamous tacticsof these disorganisers. To illustrate : Suppose the Wilmot Proviso had become a law, and by treaty a strip of INIexican territory adjoining Texas had been ceded to the United States — and suppose that slavehol- ders of Texas had moved over and settled on it, does any man believe that they could have been repelled fromheir possessions by virtue of that law '? The officer who would undertake to disturb hem would be sued — he would justify under the law — the Supreme Court would prtoounce the law void, and there would be an end of the matter. But still the Cons:itution may be so daringly overleaped, and, in a matter of such vital importance to the South, that we cannot with safely wait the tardy pro- cess of a legal remedy. And, whether this be the case or not, it is likely that the Abolitionists (without a blow up among themselves.) will in time get the control of all the departments of Government, and, as soon as this is the case, we should separate from them in a body ; for be assured, that of all Despotisms that ever cursed a people, ths will be the worst. Now we sh.;ukl begin camly and prudently to prepar for this event. We should have a military school in every State, and we should patronize them liberally in every way. Tactics should be a part of the study and training of every College. Our militia laws should undergo a thorough remodeling. Our men should be drilled 58 LETTER FROM ^our times where they are now drilled once. There should be an official connec tion between the officers of each military school and the militia of the State in which it may be established. Each Slate should have complete equipments for twenty thousand soldiers at least, always on hand and in good order. The people should be fully instructed upon all occasions as to end and aim of these preparations — every movement in Congress against the rights of the South should be made known to them, with the names of the men who supported and opposed it, and of the States which they represent. But is there not danger in all this? None at all. What can a well-disciplined militia do to disturb the peace of the country under our system of organization, with the enemy hundreds of miles off? But, if it be dangerous, it is not near as dangerous as Abolitionism, or apathy, or tardiness in preparing to meet its inevitable issues. What has become of the hacknied proverb, that " the best way to secure peace is to be always prepared for war?" When the Abolitionists perceive that we are prepared for the argumeutum ad homiiicm, they may disband ; and then let us do the like. GEORGIA. LETTER II It may be well, before I proceed farther in the development of my views upon the policy of the Southern States in regard to Abolitionism, to subjoin an extract or two from a Massaclmsetts paper, confirmatory of the remark with which I closed my last letter : " The great ywlitical contest in this country, in reality is, and long has been, the contest between Freedom on the one side, and Slavery on the other. OlhL-r is- sues have been presented to the people, but the slave jyovjcr has always stood back of them and controlled them." " Why, then, should we longer plav bo-peep around this colossal power, as if Tariffs, or any such thing, were issues of the least consequence in themselves? Why not at once present ihe true issue — the issue which must ere long be tried and determined — that of Freedom or Slavery?" There can be no doubt of the truth of these remarks. Abolitionism has two names at the North, but is substantially the same thing under both ; and turn our eyes whithersoever we may, we see the signs infallible that the Government, or the slave potver, is to be crushed. If, th stir hot blood, or to excite civil commotion. I would rather nothing should be done, than that anything should be done in rashness or wrath. I desire to wake the South up from deadness and apathy — not to a fiery, intemperate, thought- less course of action, but to a calm, determined, dignified opposition to this disorgan izing monster, and an equally wise and sober preparation for the worst that can come of it. I believed that unless something of this kind were done, the Republic would not survive tM'enty years ; and I knew that the crash of its fall would hardly be heard before the Nortliern Press would teem with histories, tracing its overthrow to Slavery, Southern intemperance, cruelty, covetousness and restlessness. 1 deter- mined, therefore, to do my best to save our character from the ruins, if I could save nothing more. I believed that, but for Massachustets, the fell spirit of Abolitionism would hardly have been stirred ;or, if stirred, it would not, for many years to come, have assumed its present formidable appearance. I determined, therefore, to let the world know who and what Massachusetts was, in order that she might be en- titled to all the credit or discredit which attaches to her distinguished position; and, with as much fairness as I could, I have bound up my own history with hers, so that if the one should ever be disinterred from the grave of oblivion, the other may rise with it. In doing this, I was not without hope that a new way of meeting Abo- litionism^' might possibly disarm it of some of its power, and thus prolong, if not save the Republic; while I saw plainly that the old way of treating it (not noticing it.) was adding to its strength daily, and that no way of meeting it could increase its dangers. When I resolved to speak to it, I found it warring upon the Constitution, snatching from us our rights, bullying us to our faces, twitting us with our ignorance, and threatening with one common ruin the Government, the South, and even its own offspring —and yet I determined to speak to it calmly. But in view of our long-endured injuries, the wantonness of the attacks upon us, the cruelty, insolence and daring of those attacks, the breaches of faith through which they were made, the hardship of being thus set upon, for no fault of ours, for a mere relation in which we found ourselves by birth, from which we could not release ourselves, brought on us, too, by our persecutors — assailed in our feel- ings, in our character, in our families, in our Churches, in our Capital, at home, abroad, at all times, in all places, by men, by women, by whites, by blacks, by Christians, by scoundrels, by ex- Presidents, by scullions, while all the time we were lifting up the natural, if not too humble cry, "let us alone — let r.s alone — for mercy's sake, for pea'^e sake, for our father's sake, for our country's sake, for God's sake, let us alone, and attend to your own concerns — Slavery is enough to bear, all admit, without any aggravations" — in view of all these things, and their lamentable consequences just ahead, J have sometimes spoken imguardedly, perhaps too severely for my credit, if not for my cause. The candid and the charitable will excuse me; I have nothing to ask of any others. One has said, " with the politics of the author we have nothing to do." If he will re-peruse my letters, he will see that I speak on political matters with which I have to do, as Gcor'.na, in my sovereign character, or in the name of a majority of my children. I speak of Massachusetts (except in noticing some little incident) in the same way, I charge her with such things only, as she, in her sovereign charac- ter, has done or sanctioned, or such as I have clear proof that a majority of her child- ren approve or design. I said in the beginning, and 1 repeat it here, that many of lier sons have had no part in her ruinous projects, and that such are among the very noblest of the noble. If I am asked why I hold her responsible for the mon- strous doctrines of the Abolition meeting, I answer because I had seen the very GEORGIA TO THE SOUTHERN STATES. principles of that meeting in her own conduct, and had exposed fhem before I ever saw the proceedings of that meeting. I collected them by comparing word with Word and action with action, and action with word, as plainly lurking under her movements^ though not as plainly expressed as by the Abolition meeting. I have been actuated in all 1 said and done by an honest desire to save the coun- try, and to vindicate my character, and the character of the South, from asper- sions which have been so long cast upon them, that almost the whole enlightened world takes us to be a band of cut-throats, robbers, and tyrants. That man Garri- son goes over to England, and he fills all Great Britain with false reports of the Southern character. 1 have thrown to the wings of chance a dagu^nejtype from the focus of Slavery, and from the focus of Abolitionism, in the hope that kind Fortune may bear them alung the path of the slanderous Garrison, if no fartlier, and to as many eyes as he found ears for his detraction. Whatever may be the result of my laborsj the design of them is as pure as anything that emanated from GEORGIA. TH£ RS O. APPENDIX. THE WILMOTPROYISO IS ABOLITION, AOORESglVE. EVOLUTIONARY, AND SUBVERSIVE OP THE CONSTITUTION AND ITS GUARANTIES TO THE SLAVEHOLDING STATES. With an anxioas desire to prevent the dangers which menace this Union, to the preservation of which, in its purity and original design, we are as warmly devoted as any men living, We sometime since stated our design to embody and present to the people in one view the tangible official measures of the Abolition Party, under their new banner, the Wilmot Proviso. We then thought, and still think, that the Slaveholding States have been lulled into a false, and it may be a fatal, non-action, because partly they fear to look at their case exactly as it is, unwisely expecting to escape ite perils by shutting their eyes to the startling demonstrations of ill boding all around them, and weekly trusting to delusive promises and arrangements of politi- cal managers, and the presses which are their organs and parts of their machinery ; yielding themselves up to those who are harnessed to party, who make its triumph their paramount object, going for offices, power, and spoils, without regarding the fatal concessions which tney make to procure the votes and co-operation of Abolition allies. Abolition is thus allowed to get into close communion with both parties ; to walk up to the helm of their political ship, to take the compass and steer it by their principles. And while dangers thicken, and the toils are being drawn to a fatal con- summation, even after the votes of dead majorities of the House of Representatives in two successive sessions of Congress have cut away every principle of safety, and the concurrent and almost unanimous Resolutions of Ten States have rung the death knell of their Constitutional guaranties, such has been the lack of wisdom, spirit, and self-reliance amongst us, that presses and politicians, instead of rousing the peo- ple to organize for the defence of their Constitution, privileges, and institutions, ex- hort them to confide all to party management, and leave the safety of all they bold dear to the secret arrangements nf political bargainers, wholly irresponsible tolhem,i and whose most trusted allies are men whose sympathies, principles, and constitu- encies are steeped in Abolition. There is a fatal error here. It is time for the peo- ple of the non-slaveholding States to disavow the acts of their politicians and leaders, and for the Slaveholding States to look to their own preservation. We cannot safe-' ly, without great risk, confide our defence to any but ourselves. The people of the non-Slaveholding States should let us alone. The Wilmot Abolition Proviso ii splitting the Union into sectional parties ; it is virtually the first step to a dissolu- tion. We appeal from their political leaders to themselves to arrest this progress to the ruin of the Republic. And that the North may see the truth and know the consequences, and that the Slave States may also know the length and breadth of the nieasures progressing for their destruction, we shall adduce and publish here- with such inconlestible proofs of official and State action as tlie most confiding po- litical dupe cannot palliate or deny. The evidence derived from the press, abundant and virulent as it is, we pass by; the petitions and memorials of societies and individuals, under which the tables ot 64 APPENDIX. Congress groan, insulting and irritating as *hey are, we do not count; our proofs of hostility to tlie rights, peace and safety of the Slave States sliall be confined in this review to the official measures of the non-Slave States by their Representatives in Conijress and in th:;ir Stale Legislatures— these being too, almost eqiuiUy the acts of Whigs and Democrats, show that both of these parties, with few and constantly di- minishing exceptions, haVe been absorbed in the movements of Abolition, and are controlled by it ; and that thereby Abolition has been advanced into a new position, which is the mist dangerous it has ever occupied, because it is subversive of the Constitution, and Revolutionary, and will, if it is not now met, resisted and defeated, by the peaceful extension of the Missouri Compromise and the settlement of the is- sue on that basis, inevitably lead to the destruction of the rights of the Slavehold- ing States and their citizens, or to the necessity of maintaining them by the sword. This evidence will further show to the country, that in all cases the Slavehold- in^ States have been the party assailed ; and assailed upon points of vital conse- quence, where to yield on their part, is to submit to ruin and degradation ; and that they have never assaulted in turn, but have acted throughout purely in self-defence. It will show also, that while the attack is one of fearful danger, that it has been deliberately prepared, is widely adopted, has been pursued with a cool and inflexi- ble resolution, and has combined in its aggression a most formidable array of the non-Slaveholding States, not only in and through the almost unanimous votes of their Representatives in Congress, Whig and Democratic, but by their Stale Gov- ernments : and that being thus a Governmental State movement combined, and with this fixed and determinate purpose, it will, if successful, revolutionise the Govern- ment, put the Constitution itself in the hands of Abolition, and take from the Slave- holding States every security for their rights and property which that compact now guaranties to them. The progress of this movement has been one of cold, stern purpose, marching steadily forward with unfaltering step to its object. To understand in its import the dangerous nature and the resolute progressive influences combined to carry it, a retrospect of a few years, to trace the prior action ot Abolition in this country, will be useful. This we shall make very briefly. Although a disposition existed with a class of individuals in this country to attack the slave institutions of the States, it was not until after the example of British West India Emancipation, that it was taken up by any of the States, and became excited to dangerous activity and power. Massachusetts took the first direct overt step in State aggression. The history of it is briefly this : A most dangerous in- surrection had been discovered and supi)ressed in 1822, which had been planned and instigated by foreign colored persons, (from St. Domingo,) who had seduced the colored natives, free and slaves, into a bloody plot to murder the whites, and plun- der and burn the City of Charleston. To guard life and property from the horrors of servile insurrection, an act of the Legislature was passed, prohibiting the intru- sion or residence of foreign persons of color amongst our slaves ; a measure neces- sary to self-preservation, and of equal humanity to whites and blacks. During fourteen years this act was enforced without complaint or remonstrance from any one of ilie American States. But then came British West India Emanci- pation, waking a kindred spirit at the North. Massachusetts aroused from her slum- ber of fourteen years to the sudden discovery, that this act of humanity, so neces- sary to protect thousands of their free white fellow citizens, their wives and chil- dren, from ujassacre, and even greater atrocities, was a supposed invasion of hypo- thetical rights of Iter colored citizens, and imposed on her " a paramount duty" to remonstrate against it, and resist it. The supposed rights of lur colored citizens was their free access to our slaves, and would liavt> opiMicd wide our portals to the emissaries of reiiellion, and ))Ut the peace, properly and lives of our people at the tender mercies of that specuhitive | hila iihropy, vvhicli will see no guilt in stimu- lating the bla(dc slaves to treason, murder and arson on their white masters. On this pretext Massachusetts began a war of legislative reports, protests and re- solutions, which has be<;n prosi>culed by her and other anti-Slavery States ever since without cessation, going even to the bold extent of sending agents with her com- APPENDIX. b5 missions to invade the territories of South Carolina and Louisiana, to brave their auihority, and to break the laws enacted to protect themselves from domestic insur- rection and servile massacre. From this beginning sprung other acts of like character; and the records of Con- gress teem with documents emanating not from farjatical individuals alone, but from sovereio-n States, which contain the most nnwarrantable aspersions, irritating to their feelino-s, unfriendly in their bearing, embittering rank wrong by biting insults, and disturbing their tranquillity by agitations dangerous to their peace and safely ; and yet under all these aggressions, the Slaveholding States, confining themselves strictly within the bounds of their rights and duties, have never been aggressors, but have acted purely on the defensive. But what has been the reward of their forbearance? An increase of injury and aggression. The causes for painful anxiety, from, the con- currence of so many of their sister States in conduct subversive of good feeling and confidence, has m.ore recently grown into profound alarm, by circumstances so preg- nant of evil omen as to shake all reliance on the efficacy and value of the guarantees of the Constitution itself for our safety and protection. For the sake of convenience and brevity, we will divide and treat of these circum- stances under two heads or classes. The first of these is the withdrawal by such States as New York, Pennsylva- nia and Massachusetts of all State aids, stipulated for in the Constitution, and pro- vided for in the Act of Congress of 1793, for the recovery of fugitive slaves, and for the arresting and delivery of those who are charged with the felony of stealing slav©.5 from their masters in their own States. The most flagrant of these is the act of Pennsylvania recently passed, and which we publish with this article — an act which has been responded to in Carlisle, one of its town*, by the murder of a peace- ful citizen of Maryland, whose only offence was that he arrested and attempted to carry home his runaway slave which he found there. We omit the laws of New York, Massachusetts and other States of cognate character, nut having room for them, and leaving this one of Pennsylvania to speak for the others, and to show to the SlaveliHding States how faithfully their Northern sisters fulfil the compacts of the Constitution, and obey the laws of Congress made to enforce them, in regard to slavery. And to enable them to do this moie understandingly, we put the article of the Coastitution, and the Act of Congress of 1793, side and side with the law of Pennsylvania. The second class of these circumstances is the repeal of the 21st rule, its natural corralleries the repudiation of the Missouri Compromise, the passage in two suc- cessive Sessions of the Wilmot Proviso by the popular branch of Congress, and the combined affiliated resolutions of New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Vermont, Ohio, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Michigan— TEN of the SOVEREIGN STATES of this Confederated Republic— Of TEN STATES which wield votes enough to control the legislation of Congress, and to elect a President of the United States ! We have shown that in all that relates to this unhappy controversy, the Slave- holding States have in no instance been aggressors; that the subject of quarrel has been selected by the other side ; the quarrel itself begun by them ; and that it has been urged in all its desperate tendencies by them. And in regard to the second class, viz: the repeal of the 21st rule, the repudiation of the Missouri Compromise, the Wilmot Proviso, and the affiliated Legislative resolutions of these Ten States, we publish these resolutions with dates at which they were presented in the House of Representatives, as well as such defensive proceedings on the side of the Slavehold- ing States as have the sanction of Legislatures or Conventions. We have several objects in thus collecting and throwing before the public these authentic records. One object is, to show, by comparing the dates of these measures on both sides, that what we have said above is strictly true — that Abolition and its friends are the aggressors on the Slave States; and that it was nut until the combination of all par- ties with Abolition was manifested in the events of the last Session of Coniiress, and the co-operation of their allied States, that a single movement, even of self defence, was made by the Slaveholding States, either in Congress, their Legislatures, or Con- Tentions. 66 APPENDIX. On the 6th of August, 1846, being the 1st Session of the 29th Congress, whilst a bill appropriating $2,000,000 to procure a peace with Mexico wasbn its passage, Da- vid WiLMOT, a Democratic Representative of Pennsylvania, offered an amendment in the following words : " Provided further, That there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servi- tude in any territory on the continent of America, which shall hereafter be acquired by, or annexed to the United States by virtue of this appropriation, or in any other manner whatever, except for crimes whereof the party shall have been duly con- victed. No debate was allowed — the South was gagged, and the amendment passed by a vote of 85 to 80. The bill failed to become a Law in the Senate ; and at the next [session, on the 29th December, before the Committee to which the Mexican question was regular- ly referred had time to act upon the subject, Mr. Preston King, of New York, rose in his place, resumed the offensive, and gave notice of his intention to introduce a bill upon this subject, containing Mr. Wilmot's Proviso. On the 4th January, 1837, he asked leave of the House to introduce his bill, which was refused. On the next day he resumed his purpose, and in a long speech, in which he explained the object of the Proviso, said, in regard to a peace with Mexico, that it would be " vain to attempt to conceal that the acquisition of new territory, at least of the C(difornias and JVew Mexico ***** ^ill be insisted upon by the United States;" and that it was the fixed and determined purpose of the non-slave States to exclude Slaveholders with their property from that territory. It is upon the basis laid down in the speech of Mr. King, their organ, supported by Mr. Brinkerhoff, of Ohio, Mr. Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, and Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, that this Abolition movement has since proceeded, conforming to its principles strictly, both in Congress and in those States which have supported it by their Legislatures. What has given to it even more ominous gravity and con- sequence, is the fact, that in its support we can see (with a few honorable excep- tions) no difference in the zeal and unanimity of original Abolitionists and their mo- dern recruits. Democrats and Whigs. On this issue, the politicians, with very few exceptions, cohere and make one party north of Mason and Dixon's line. From them we appeal to the people, in the hope that a returning sense of justice will yet save our country from the perils they have created. On February 1, 1847, Mr. Wilmot renewed his motion to amend the 1)111 to ap- propriate $3,000,000 for a peace with Mexico, by adding his Proviso. This was debated until the 15th, when it passed — 115 to 105. During this debate, and to influence and act on the decision. Resolutions from several Stale Legislatures, endor- sing and approving the measure, were presented in the House of Representatives — the great States, New York and Pennsylvania, taking the lead, and presonting theirs- together on the 6th February. A few days after, Vermont, Rhode Island, New Jersey and Michigan followed ; Massachusetts and New Hampshire also did the same. Thus the extraordinary spectacle was presented of nine confederate States, parties to a solemn Constitutional compact which guarantied equal rights to all their confederate sisters, bringing their sovereign organic influence into the National Council, to furce up their representatives to an act designed to excUide the citizens of Slaveholding States from emigrating with their property into territories of the Uni- ted States which are their joint and common property, in disregard of their equal rights thereto, and in violation of that compact of the Constitution which stipulates that " the citiz<^ns of each State shall be entitled to all the jirivilegcs and inununi- ties of citizens in the several States." lint our main purpose is to show that these measures, if successful , will subvert and override the Confitiiution, revolutionise and change this Government, and put the Constitution and Slavery in the power or at tlie disposa' of Abolitionism. Ic» short, that the Wilmot Proviso is Abolition — Abolition in the nu)St dangerous form it has ever assumed ; ami thai, if it is not nan' met, resisted and difeatcd, hij peace- ful compromise and settlement on the Missouri basis, it xoill end in the utter ruin of the slaveholders, or compel them to resistance hereafter by the sword. APPENDIX. 67 We have said that the Wilmot Proviso, if successful, subverts and overrides the Oonstitution. The foundation of that instrument is equality amongst the States, and equality of rjghts amongst the citizens ; equality in the joint and common pro- perty, and its benefits and enjoyment. The territories that belong now, or may be acquired, are joint and common property ; and whether acquired by purchase or con- quest, have been and will continue to be, at the joint and common expense of trea- sure, blood and service. No slaveholder has ever proposed to exclude any citizen of any State, or even any foreigner from them; but the Wilmot Proviso excludes every slaveholder who will not renounce his property. There is thus imposed, by an act of Congress, as a fixed and fundamental condilion to emigration from the Slave States, that no owner of slaves shall be permitted to go with his property into them. If we look into the Constitution for any such condition, it is novvliere to be found. In art. 6. it says : " This Constitution, &c. shall be the supreme law of the land ;" but the Wilmot Proviso interpolates, flatly usurps a power above this, to impose as a fundamental condition to the enjoyment of the joint and common pro- perly of the United States what the Constitution nowhere authorizes, and against which all its principles and all sense of justice revolts. This is a condition which overrides the Constitution — is paramount to it — changes it fundamentally, and anni- hilates the highest privileges of nearly one-half of this Confederacy. The Resolutions of several of the States go further still in open words, but not further in effect and operation, when they declare that no new Slate shall be ad- mitted which tolerates slavery. That this is the meaning and intent of the Wil- mot Proviso no man doubts. The speeches of the mover of it, and of its supporters, Preston King, Hannibal. Hamlin, Brinkerhoff, &c. avow it. Here again they impose a coi'.dition not in the Constitution, but over and above it: "New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union," says that compact ; " on condition however," with insulting arrogance adds the VMlmot Proviso Abolition party, " that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall be tolerated in them." This is the plain statement of the case — and now let us see what will he its opera- tion. The United States now own in Oregon and the intervening lands a vast domain, sufficient for some twenty States. The Mexican treaty may, and most probably will, add territory enough to make ten or fifteen more. AH of these, this new in- terpolation, or rather despot Proviso, will force to exclude slavery, and of course adds them to the non-slave States, which are already a majurity, now numberino- fifteen; while the slaveholding States are but fourteen, including Delaware, ichich is never true to them. The Constitution, as it now stands, guaranties slavery to us, and Congress has no power over it, or right »x3 touch it, in the States. But the Constitution provides for its own amendment : two-thirds of Congress, or two-thirds of the Slates, may propose any amendment, which shall be valid if ratified by three- fourths of the States ; and here is our danger, our greatest peril. The Proviso will limit the Slave States to their present number; while new Free States, without limit, may be admitted into the Union. They not only grow in numbers and power, while the Slave States are limited and dwarfed, but they are to be formed on all sides of the Slave States, enveloping them loith enemies to their institutions, and ex- tending all around them the same border intrigues with their slaves that have driven Delaware into their arms, and is destroying the value of that property on their bor- ders, in Marylaad, T^rginia, and Kentucky. They will soon have the two-thirds which are required to propose the amendment ; and at no very remote day will have the three-fourths necessary to carry it, which will give to their Congress the power to abolish Slavery. The end aimed at is to get the power granted by the Consti- tution, not perhaps to exercise it at once, but to hold it in terrorem over us, and by it to rule and subject us to whatever measures of taxation, revenue, or expenditure their interests may dictate; and eventually perhaps, at some moment of fancied in- terest, or under the excitement of feeling or fanaticism, to end our suspense by con- summating the act. 68 APPENDIX. A revolution is in progress by the Wilmot Proviso. Tiie equality of the States and of American citizens is being destroj'ed. The balance of power between the Slave and Free States is being subverted. The guaranties tf the Constitution, often disregarded, are about to be utterly overthrown and rendered useless ; and the Constitution and Slavery are being transferred by the \Vilmot movement to Aboli- tion and its allies. Already the ten States that have spoken in their their resolutions, can vote 118 votes out of 224 in the House of Representatives — a majority of six, without calling on Connecticut, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa or Wisconsin ; and in the electiin of Presi- dent they can cast within six votes of enough to elect. Counting the free Slates all together, they can command both Houses of Congress, and elect a President now. What is the situation of the Slave States under this condition of affairs? One of imminent peril — one demanding grave counsel — one calling for new guaranties ; and \^e say, in the noble warning words of Virginia's resolution, " that the passanre of th*^ above mentioned Proviso makes it the duty of every slave-holdino- State, and the citizens thereof, as they value their dearest privileges, their sovereignty, their indfejiendence, their rights of property, to take firm, united and concerted action in tbiS' enrtergency ." Jufl Ji.(J tSi/io;/ -liV/ o.'lJ Uytlonstitiiihn of the United States, article 4th, section 2. ^^iperson-chaigediijo, any State with ireason, felony or other crime, who shall flee fiq^ justice!,! and; +)efo,und in another State, shall on demand of the Executive author- ity pjf the State from which, he fled, be delivered up to be removed to the State having jilfisdictjon of the qriuie._ •■ ,^ ^,^0 person \)c\d, to serviee' or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping i^o another, shall iij constujucnce of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from suCh'servicc or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such ser- vice ^n,a person, l)elc( fp, labor, in any of the United States or in either of the territories on /he Northwest or South «r the river Ohio, under tbe laws thereof, siia\i escape into any other of the said States or Territory, the person to whom such lftb.6} or seiVice may be due, bis at^entor attorney, fs hereby empowered to seize or ar. risst sucii fugitive from labor, and to tike him or her before any Judg^e of the Circuit or District Courts of the United Start's; resitlinjr or being within the State, or before any Magistrate of a c6nnty.,cii^ybr town corporate wherein such seizure or arrest shall be'. niade^, and upon proftf. to the satisfaction ofsuch Jad^ or Magistrate, either by oral I testimony or affidavit taken before and certified by a Magistrate of any such State q^iTarritoryj that; the persons bo seixed ,or arrested doth under the laws of the State or Trftrrttory from ^vhich he or she. ikd^-oWe st^rvioe. or. labor to the person claiming him Of. her, it shall be tlieduty of si|ch Judge or Magistrajte ,t(?,giye( a certificate thereof to siufh.^l'liniant, his Qgen-f or attorney, which slrall tic sufiicicnt. warrant for removing the said 'fugitive from labpr,,>tp tbe State or Territory fruui which h^, of she tied. Seo, 4. That any person who shall knowingl^y and willingjy obsHuct pr hinder such clai'tpait, .his agent or attorney, in so seizing or arccstiijg such fugitive from labor, or sijati rescue such fugitive from such ,ciainiaut, his^agent or attorney, wIijCii sa arrested, pTrf^^ntto the authority herein given ot- declared ; ^i' 'shali harbor or cori'ctai such pVMOit'Ai'fer. notice that he or "ghei'v^as d' 'fugitive frotn" laboV;' ns aforesaid', shali.'for eilWifioP'iW-sftid oftcuccs', forfeit arid Jiay 'the sum of fivy' Itiii'idred dotlarK v^hich pen-' aitymaV bl?' rt'iio'tered by andlMrthe benefit of t^uch clfiimJint, hj action of debt, in any' Gdui't prrtpfcn tAt»y 4riuii Mio bii'j ' t ,nljHw of 'Pennvjhmia.'"''^^"' '■■•'' '<' '•''"'" ■>' . -'T'f Sec 3. That no judge of any of the courts of this Commonwealth; nbroftV alder-^ man or justice of the peace of said Commonwealth, shall have jurisdiction or take cog- nizan(;e of the case of any fugitive from labor from any of the United States or lerrito- APPENDIX, 69 Tios, ander a certain act of Congress, passed February 12, 1793, entitled, " An act re- specting fugitives from justice and persons escaping from the service of their masters," nor shall any such judge, alderman or justice of the peace of this Commonwealth, issue or grant any certificate or w-arrant of removal of any such fugitive from labor under said act of Congress, or under any other law, authority or act of Congress ot the Uni. ted States- and'ifany alderman or justice of the peace of this Commonwealth, shall take cognizance or jurisdiction of the case of any such fugitive, or shall grant or issue any certificate or warrant of removal as aforesaid, he shall be deemed guilty of a mis- demeanor in office, and shall on conviction thereof be sentenced to pay, al the discre- tjou of the Court, any sum not less than $500, nor exceeding $1000, one-half to the party prosecuting, and the other to the use of the State, Sec. 4. That if any person or persons claiming any negro or mulatto as a fugitive from servitude or labor, shall under any pretence of authority whatsoever, violently and tumultously seize upon and carry away in a riotous, violent, tumultous and un- reasonable manner, and so as to disturb or endanger public peace, any negro or mu- latto within this Commonwealth, either with or without the intention of taking such negro or mulatto before any district or circuit judge, the person or persons so oflending shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction shall be sentenced to pay a fine of not less than $100, nor more than $1000, with costs of prosecution, and be confined in the county jail for any period at the discretion of the court, not exceeding three months. Sec. 5. That nothing in this act shall be construed to take away what is hereby de. dared to be invested in the judges of this Commonwealth, the right, power and author- ity at all limes, on application made, to issue the writ of habeas corpus, and to mquire into the causes and legality of the arrest or imprisonment of any human being within this Commonwealth. Sec. 6. It shall not be lawful to use any jail or prison of this Commonwealth for the detention of any person claimed as a fugitive from servitude or labor, except in cases where jurisdiction may lawfully be taken by any judge, under the provisions of this act ; and any jailer, or keeper of any prison, or other person, who shall offend against the provision of this section, shall on conviction pay a fine of $500, one-half for the use of the Commonwealth, and the other half to the person who prosecutes ; and shal 1 moreover henceforth be removed from office, and be incapable of holding such office of jailor or keeper of a prison at any time during his natural life. Sec 7. That so much of the act of the General Assembly, entitled " An act for the gradual abolition of slavery," passed March 1, 1780, as authorizes the masters or own- •ers of slaves to bring and retain such slaves within this Commonwealth for the period of six months, in involuntary servitude, or for any period of time whatsoever, and so much of said act as prevents a slave from giving testimony against any person whatso- ever, be and the same is hereby repealed, WILMOT PROVISO RESOLUTIONS, The JFilmot Proviso. That there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any territory on the continent of America, which shall hereafter be acquired by or annexed to the United States, by virtue of this appropriation, or in any other manner whatsoever, except for crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted. Provided always, That ariy person escaping into such territory, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the United States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed, and carried out of such territory to the person claiming his or her labor or service. Resolutions of Vermont — Jan. 28, 1847. The Legislature of Vermont adopted a Resolution to the efl'ect, that it will not give its countenance, aid or assent to the admission into the Federal Union of any new State whose Constitution tolerates slavery, and appeals to each of the other States to concur in that declaration, accompanied by another, instructing its Senators and Representa- tives in Congress to use their best efforts to carry the Resolution into effect. Resolutions of JVew York — Feb. 6, 1847. Eesolved, That if any territory is hereafter acquired by the United States, or annexed diereto, the act by which such territory is acquired or annexed, whatever such act may 70 APPENDIX. be, should contain an unalterable fundamental article or provision, whereby slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, shall be forever excluded from the territory acquired or annexed. Resolutions nf Pennsylvania — Feb. 8, 1847. The Legislature of the State ol Pennsylvania, the next largest in the Union, adapted a Resolution requesting their Senators and Representatives in Congress to vote against any measure whatever by which territory will accrue to the Union, unless, as a part of the fundamental law upon which any compact or treaty for this purpose is based, slavery or involuntary servitude, except for crime, shall be forever proiiibited. Resolutions of Rhode Island — Feb. 10, 1847. That while we yield to no State in the Union in our condemnation of the system of slavery, which the errors of past ages have transmitted to us, and will cheeriully co- operate in any just and constitutional measures to terminate it, we are not insensible to the difficulties of the position of our Southern brethren, nor disinclined to fullil in its trtie spirit every obligation and duty imposed upon us by the terms of our compact as embodied in the Constitution of the United States ; but submittnig ourselves iniDliciily to the requirements of that instrument, we insist upon a like compliance by otiier par- ties to said compact with all its material stipulations, express or implied. We protest, therefore, against the acquisition of territory by conquest or otherwise beyond the pre- sent limits of the United States, for the purpose of establishing therein Slaveholding States, as deranging the balance of political power once so happily established between our confederated communiiies, and as manifestly in violation of the spirit and intent of the Constitution. We protest against the introduction ef slaves, upon any terms, into ony territory of the United States, whether of old or recent acquisition, where slavery does not exist, or has not immemorially existed ; and we hold that so far from aiming to extend an institution like slavery over a wide territory than is now pervaded by it, it is clearly the interest, no less than the duty ot the Slaveholding States, to circumscribe its operation within their own limits, and to provide, if possible, for its gradual extin- guishment whenever public sentiment will permit it. Resolutions of Ohio — Feb. 15, 1847. That the Senators and Reprgsentatives from this State, in the Congress of the United States be and are hereby respectfully requested to procure the passage of measures in that body, providing for the exclusion of slavery from the territory of Oregon, and also from any other territory that now is, or hereafter may be, annexed to the United States. Resolutions of JVeic-Jersey — Feb. 19, 1847. The Resolution adopted by the Legislature of New Jersey instructs their Senators and Representatives in Congress to use their best efforts to secure, as a fundamental condiiion to any act of annexation of any territory hereafter to be acquired by the Uni- ted States as an indemnity for claims, that slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, shall be forever excluded from the territory to be annexed. Resolutions of Mew Hampshire — Feb. 19, 1847. That the Senators and Representatives in Congress from this State be respectfully requested to urge the passage of measures for the extinction of slavery in the District of Columbia, for its exclusion from Oregon, and other territories, that now or at any time hereafter may belong to the United Slates, for all constitutional measures for the sup- pression of the domestic slave trade, and to resist the admission of any new State into the Union while tolerating slavery. Resolntions of Michigan — Murcli 1, 1847. That in the acquisition of new territory, whether by jjurchase, conquest, or otherwise, we deem it the duty of the General Government to extend over the same of the Ordi- nance of 1787 (being the one prohibiting slavery Northsvest of the Ohio) with all its rights and privileges, conditions and imntunities. . '• Restihdions of Mnssachusetls — JSIarch 1, 1847. Resolved unanhnuusly, That the Lejjislature olMassachusetts views the existence of human slavery within the hniits of the United States as a great calamity, and immense moral and political evil, which ought to be abolished as soon as that end can be pro- perly and constitutionally attained ; and that its extension should be uniformly and earn- estly oj)posed by all good and pairintic men throughout the Union. APPENDIX. 71 Resnhed unnnimously, That the people of Massachusetts will strenuously resist the- annexation of any new territory to this Union in which the institution of slavery is to be tolerated or established ; and the Legislature, in behalf of the people of this common- wealth, do hereby solemnly protest against the acquisition of any additional territory" without an express provision by Congress that there shall be neither slavery nor invol- untary servitude in such territory, otherwise than for the punishment of crime. Resolutions