inion in the past, and seek for points of agreement in the
present. Taking this position, we cannot ignore the fact of the Southern
Confederacy, and that the avowed basis of it is slavery. It is a
stubborn fact confronting us at the outset of our inquiry, and, like
Banquo's ghost, 'will not down.' Proclaiming boldly that free labor is a
mistake, and unblushingly affirming as a doctrine of social and
political economy that 'capital must own labor,' the Southern
Confederacy challenges the Christian civilization of the age, and
declares its right to exist as an independent nation of slaveholders.
How may we explain so monstrous a pretence? There is but one explanation
that is adequate. It may be stated in a single word, _ambition_. The
lesson of our experience is that this malignant system of slavery, the
chattel slavery of the South, is too great a temptation to the ambition
of men. Let us not disregard it. Political ambition stands always ready
to strike hands with the devil, and the devil is always near the
conscience of ambitious men. We have no recourse but to remove the
temptation. The death-knell of Carthage is well appropriated: _Servitudo
est delenda_. So long as a vestige of the slavery establishment remains,
the temptation remains--a deadly risk to our Government. The peril of it
is too great. And this furnishes a complete answer to the superficial
objection that there is no need of the amendment because slavery is dead
already; for ambition may revive it, and what ambition _may_ do it
_will_ do. In other words, and to sum up the argument on this point:
Whatever may have been our individual opinions and beliefs before the
rebellion (variant enough at all times), the attempted establishment of
a confederacy avowedly based on slavery, proves beyond possibility of
cavil that chattel slavery, to which we have been lenient without limit,
is a temptation too great for the peace of the nation, and therefore the
highest interests of the nation require its removal.

2. The simple fact of the Southern Confederacy is also the basis of our
second proposition. For it reveals clearly the necessity of the proposed
amendment as a thing essential to be added to the organic law, in order
to carry out the purpose of it. That purpose is thus expressed in the
preamble to the Constitution: 'We, the people of the United States, _in
order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic
tranquillity, provide for the comm