truth and justice of the charge; but I beg such persons to recollect
that abolition writers and orators have, times without number, avowed
an intention to overthrow this government; but it matters not what
their avowed designs and intentions are, for their lawless and
seditious course leads directly to that result. If they ever succeed
in carrying out their plans and schemes we know that revolution and
disunion will be the consequence. It was remarked by Mr.
Frelinghuysen, of New York, on a certain occasion, that "abolitionists
are seeking to destroy our happy Union." Chancellor Walworth says,
"They are contemplating a violation of the rights of property secured
by the Constitution, and pursuing measures which must lead to civil
war."
The union of these States is based on what has been called the slavery
compromise; and the Union would have never taken place, had not the
right to hold slave property been secured to the slave states, by a
provision in the Federal Constitution. Had not the free states
relinquished all right to interfere with slavery in the slave states,
no union of the slave and free states could ever have taken place. The
right to hold slave property, and to manage, control, and dispose of
that property in their own way, and at their own discretion, was
secured to the slave states by a solemn contract between the slave and
non-slaveholding states, and that contract binds every individual in
this nation, North and South. Slave property then, is held under the
protection of the supreme law of the nation, and any citizen invading
the rights of the South, is guilty of a civil trespass. Hence, all
interference with slavery by northern men, is a violation of the
spirit, if not of the letter of that constitutional compact, which
binds these states together. Any attempt by northern men, either
direct or indirect, to dispossess the South of her slave property, or
in any way to endanger or injuriously to affect their interests
therein, is a violation of the supreme law of the nation. It is an act
of bad faith--of gross injustice, and none but bigoted corrupt
fanatics, and low political demagogues, would be guilty of so base an
act.
It is clear then, that the slave states never will yield to the
requisitions of abolitionists, and should that faction ever become the
dominant party in the free states, dissolution of the Union will be a
necessary consequence _Intelligent men_, who will persist in a course
of con
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