of danger to the Union in
the Free States? The only avowed disunionists of the North are the
radical Abolitionists, whose position is the logical result of their
admitting that under the Constitution it is impossible to touch
Slavery where it exists, and who, therefore, seek in a dissolution
of the federal compact an escape from complicity with what they
believe an evil and a wrong,--with what, till within the last twenty
years, was conceded to be such by the South itself. If Mr. Cushing
be so great an admirer of stability in conviction, he might have
found in these men the subject of something other than vituperation.
There are men among them who might have won the foremost places of
political advancement, could they have sacrificed their principles
to their ambition, could they believe that public honors would heal
as well as hide the wounds of self-respect. It is the South that
advocates disunion, from sectional motives, and adds the spice of
treason. The "London Cotton-Plant" says,--

"If she [the South] is denied 'equality'
within the Union, she can have 'independence'
out of it. Already in European cabinets
the possibility of this contingency is
contemplated. We but perform a public duty
when we tell Mr. Douglas that _there is in
Europe more than one power able and willing
and prepared to take the Cotton States of America,
and with them the other 'Slave'-States,
so-called by free-negroists, under their protection,
as valuable and desirable allies_ ... And
more, _he can say by authority that she [the
South] has active and successful agents in every
part of Europe preparing the way for equal existence,
commercially as well as politically, so
long as the Union exists, or the active support of
powerful allies, if driven as a last resort to appeal
to the civilized world against tyranny and
oppression_." [1]

But what does the "Cotton-Plant" understand by "equality"? Nothing
less than the reopening of the slave-trade. Speaking of the chance
that the captured slaves of the "Echo" would be sent back to
Africa, and resenting such a procedure as "a brand upon our
section and upon our social condition," it affirms that:

"This labor-question of the South does
not depend upon such miserable clap-trap
as Kansas or the Fugitive Slave Law. It
rests upon a full, open, and deliberate recognition
of the rights of the Southern people;
and the Senator from Illinois, _by mo