the
dominant institution.

CHAPTER VI. THE SLAVERY ISSUE IN POLITICS

Some who opposed mob violence became active abolitionists; others were
led to defend the rights of abolitionists because to do otherwise would
encourage anarchy and general disorder. The same was true of those who
defended the right of petition and the free use of the mails and the
entire list of the fundamental rights of freemen which were threatened
by the crusade against abolitionists. Birney's contention that unless
the slave is freed no one can be free was thus vindicated: the issue
involved vastly more than the mere emancipation of slaves.

The attack made in defense of slavery upon the rights of freemen was
early recognized as involving civil war unless peaceable emancipation
could be attained. So soon as John Quincy Adams faced the new spirit in
Congress, he was convinced that it meant probable war. As early as
May, 1836, he warned the South, saying: "From the instant that your
slaveholding States become the theater of war, civil, servile, or
foreign, from that moment the war powers of the Constitution extend
to interference with the institution of slavery." This sentiment he
reiterated and amplified on various occasions. The South was duly
warned that an attempt to disrupt the Union would involve a war of which
emancipation would be one of the consequences. With the exception
of Garrison and a few of his personal followers, abolitionists were
unionists: they stood for the perpetual union of the States.

This is not the place to give an extended account of the Mexican War. *
There are, however, certain incidents connected with the annexation
of Texas and the resulting war which profoundly affected the crusade
against slavery. Both Lundy and Birney in their missions to promote
emancipation through the process of colonization believed that they had
unearthed a plan on the part of Southern leaders to acquire territory
from Mexico for the purpose of extending slavery. This discovery
coincided with the suppression of abolition propaganda in the South.
Hitherto John Quincy Adams had favored the western expansion of our
territory. He had labored diligently to make the Rio Grande the western
boundary of the Louisiana Purchase at the time of the treaty with Spain
in 1819. But though in 1825 he had supported a measure to purchase Texas
from Mexico, under the new conditions he threw himself heartily against
the annexation of Texas, and in 1838 he