virtual control of the
government. Its constant presence in politics is dictated, therefore,
by despair, as well as by the wish to secure fresh privileges. Money,
however, is not the only strength of the slave power. That, indeed, were
enough, in an age when capitalists are our feudal barons. But, though
driven entirely from national shelter, the slave-holders would have the
strength of old associations, and of peculiar laws in their own States,
which give those States wholly into their hands. A weaker prestige,
fewer privileges, and less comparative wealth, have enabled the British
aristocracy to rule England for two centuries, though the root of their
strength was cut at Naseby. It takes ages for deeply-rooted institutions
to die; and driving slavery into the States will hardly be our Naseby. *
* *

And Mr. Sumner "knows no better aim, under the Constitution, than to
bring back the government to where it was in 1789!" Has the voyage been
so very honest and prosperous a one, in his opinion, that his only
wish is to start again with the same ship, the same crew, and the same
sailing orders? Grant all he claims as to the state of public opinion,
the intentions of leading men, and the form of our institutions at that
period; still, with all these checks on wicked men, and helps to good
ones, here we are, in 1853, according to his own showing, ruled by
slavery, tainted to the core with slavery, and binding the infamous
Fugitive Slave Law like an honorable frontlet on our brows. The more
accurate and truthful his glowing picture of the public virtue of 1789,
the stronger my argument. If even all those great patriots, and all that
enthusiasm for justice and liberty, did not avail to keep us safe
in such a Union, what will? In such desperate circumstances, can his
statesmanship devise no better aim than to try the same experiment over
again, under precisely the same conditions? What new guaranties does he
propose to prevent the voyage from being again turned into a piratical
slave-trading cruise? None! Have sixty years taught us nothing? In 1660,
the English thought, in recalling Charles II., that the memory of that
scaffold which had once darkened the windows of Whitehall would be
guaranty enough for his good behavior. But, spite of the spectre,
Charles II. repeated Charles I., and James outdid him. Wiser by this
experience, when the nation in 1689 got another chance, they trusted
to no guaranties, but so arranged the very e