of the population of the free States); but made to stand,
in the eyes of the South, for the whole."

(123) Hist., etc., Ex., _Dred Scott Case_, pp. 184-5.

XXX
PROPHECY AS TO SLAVERY'S FATE: ALSO AS TO DISUNION

We are approaching the period for the fulfilment of prophecy in
relation to the perpetuity of human slavery in the United States.

We summarize a few of the prophecies made by distinguished American
statesmen and citizens. George Washington, Patrick Henry, and
other Virginia statesmen and slaveholders at the close of the
Revolution predicted that slaves would be emancipated, or they
would acquire their freedom violently. These patriots advocated
emancipation. The stumbling-block to abolition in Virginia at that
time was, what to do with the blacks. The white population could
not reconcile themselves to the idea of living on an equality with
them, as they deemed they must if the blacks were free. As early
as 1782 Jefferson expressed his serious forebodings:

"Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that
these people are to be free; nor is it less certain that the two
races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. . . .

"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that
His justice cannot sleep forever. The way, I hope, is preparing,
under the auspices of Heaven, for a total emancipation."

The anti-slavery societies when they first met in annual convention
(1804) proclaimed that

"Freedom and slavery cannot long exist together."

John Quincy Adams, in 1843, prophesied:

"I am satisfied slavery will not go down until it goes down in
blood."(124)

Abraham Lincoln, at the beginning of his celebrated debate with
Douglas (1858) expressed his belief that this nation could not
exist "half slave and half free." He had, however, made the same
declaration in a letter to a Kentucky friend to whom he wrote:

"Experience has demonstrated, I think, that there is no peaceful
extinction of slavery in prospect for us. . . .

"On the question of liberty as a principle, we are not what we have
been. When we were the political slaves of King George, and wanted
to be free, we called the maxim that 'all men are created equal'
a _self-evident truth;_ but now, when we have grown fat, and have
lost all dread of being slaves ourselves, we have become so greedy
to be masters that we call the maxim '_a self-evident lie_.' The
Fourth of July has not quite dwindled away;