lution with a Declaration of Independence that hangs the
franchise of human nature on the kink of a hair, and substitutes for
the visionary right of all men to the pursuit of happiness the more
practical privilege of some men to pursue their own negro,--these
proceedings would be merely ludicrous, were it not for the danger that
the men engaged in them may so far commit themselves as to find the
inconsistency of a return to prudence too galling, and to prefer the
safety of their pride to that of their country.

It cannot be too distinctly stated or too often repeated, that the
discontent of South Carolina is not one to be allayed by any concessions
which the Free States can make with dignity or even safety. It is
something more radical and of longer standing than distrust of the
motives or probable policy of the Republican Party. It is neither more
nor less than a disbelief in the very principles on which our government
is founded. So long as they practically retained the government of the
country, and could use its power and patronage to their own advantage,
the plotters were willing to wait; but the moment they lost that
control, by the breaking up of the Democratic Party, and saw that their
chance of ever regaining it was hopeless, they declared openly the
principles on which they have all along been secretly acting. Denying
the constitutionality of special protection to any other species of
property or branch of industry, and in 1832 threatening to break up
the Union unless their theory of the Constitution in this respect were
admitted, they went into the late Presidential contest with a claim for
extraordinary protection to a certain kind of property already the
only one endowed with special privileges and immunities. Defeated
overwhelmingly before the people, they now question the right of the
majority to govern, except on their terms, and threaten violence in the
hope of extorting from the fears of the Free; States what they failed
to obtain from their conscience and settled convictions of duty. Their
quarrel is not with the Republican Party, but with the theory of
Democracy.

The South Carolina politicians have hitherto shown themselves adroit
managers, shrewd in detecting and profiting by the weaknesses of men;
but their experience has not been of a kind to give them practical
wisdom in that vastly more important part of government which depends
for success on common sense and business-habits. The members of t