own indigenous phrase,
"Go a-head."

LETTER XXXVII.

Slavery--Responsibility of the North--District of Columbia--Preponderance
of the Slave Power--Extermination of the Indians--President Taylor and
his Blood-hounds--Conclusion.

But there is a class of things among them which men of well-regulated
minds and habits cannot but detest. These, as they have come under my
notice, I have pointed out. The chief of all is _slavery_. This stared
me in the face the moment I entered the States; and it presses itself
on my notice now that I have retired from the American shore. It is the
beginning and the ending of all that is vile and vicious in this
confederation of Republics. In England, you have been often told by
American visiters that the Northern States of the Union are not at all
identified with slavery, and are, in fact, no more responsible for its
existence in the South than we are for the existence of a like system
in the colonies of some of our European Allies. Than this
representation nothing can be further from the truth. There is really
no analogy whatever between the two cases. Each State, it is true, has
its own distinct and independent legislature; but all the States are
united in one federation, which has a thoroughly pro-slavery
government. The constitution is pledged to maintain the execrable
system, and the Northern States are pledged to maintain the
hypocritical constitution.

That no preponderance of influence might be given to any one State over
the rest, by making it the seat of the central government, a district
of 10 miles square was partitioned out, partly from Virginia and partly
from Maryland, for that purpose. This district, called the District of
Columbia, has no government and no representation of its own, but is
under the absolute control and regulation of the United Government or
Congress, "exclusive jurisdiction over it in all cases whatsoever"
having been given by the constitution. In this absolute government of
the "ten miles square," embracing the site of Washington the capital,
the Northern States, by their representatives in Congress, have their
full share. Now, not merely does slavery exist in that District, but it
exists there under statutes so barbarous and cruel that the
neighbouring slave States have actually abolished the like within the
bounds of their separate jurisdiction, leaving to the _free_ States the
unenviable responsibility of enforcing laws too horrible for
ki