."

Mr. Jefferson did not mean to say, nor do I, that the power of
emancipation is in the Federal Government. He spoke of Virginia; and,
as to the power of emancipation, I speak of the slaveholding States
only.

The Federal Government, however, as we insist, has the power of
restraining the extension of the institution--the power to insure that
a slave insurrection shall never occur on any American soil which is
now free from slavery.

John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a slave insurrection. It
was an attempt by white men to get up a revolt among slaves, in which
the slaves refused to participate. In fact, it was so absurd that the
slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough it could not
succeed. That affair, in its philosophy, corresponds with the many
attempts, related in history, at the assassination of kings and
emperors. An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people till he
fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. He ventures
the attempt, which ends in little else than in his own execution.
Orsini's attempt on Louis Napoleon, and John Brown's attempt at
Harper's Ferry, were, in their philosophy, precisely the same. The
eagerness to cast blame on old England in the one case, and on New
England in the other, does not disprove the sameness of the two things.

And how much would it avail you, if you could, by the use of John
Brown, Helper's Book, and the like, break up the Republican
organization? Human action can be modified to some extent, but human
nature cannot be changed. There is a judgment and a feeling against
slavery in this nation, which cast at least a million and a half of
votes. You cannot destroy that judgment and feeling--that
sentiment--by breaking up the political organization which rallies
around it. You can scarcely scatter and disperse an army which has
been formed into order in the face of your heaviest fire; but if you
could, how much would you gain by forcing the sentiment which created
it out of the peaceful channel of the ballot-box into some other
channel? What would that other channel probably be? Would the number
of John Browns be lessened or enlarged by the operation?

But you will break up the Union rather than submit to a denial of your
Constitutional rights.

That has a somewhat reckless sound; but it would be palliated, if not
fully justified, were we proposing, by the mere force of numbers, to
deprive you of some right pla