men, by the laws of the slave states. They are a distinct race, God We know indeed, that in the laws of the slave states these Africans are regarded simply as chattels and not as men, but in the law which is higher than those laws, they are declared to be men. But at all events, say some, they are recognized as property and not as men in the constitution of the United States. Far from it. Unjustly as they are treated in this instrument, they are divested by it, as has been well said in your hearing, Senators, of only two-fifths of their manhood. This constitution recognizes full "three-fifths" of every slave as standing in the rank of manhood, and these three-fifths of him are represented in Congress, (by men of another complexion, it is true,) not as so much property, but as so much of humanity. In the only other instance in which they are alluded to, they are spoken of not as cattle or as chattels, but as "persons," "persons held to service," and it is a matter of history that the framers of that instrument did positively refuse to employ any term which might seem to recognize on the part of the national government, any right of property in man. The broad precept of our Savior is as fully applicable to our treatment of the African race, as it is to our relations with men of our own color. And now if this be not God's injunction against slavery, it is nevertheless God's injunction, and it is against slavery, and every other wrong. It will finally overthrow it. But how long, O God, how long before that time shall come? If the representatives of freedom in our national councils prove recreant now, how long must these millions remain in bondage? "The question! the question!" Shall we then, can we agree to extend and perpetuate such a wrong as this, without renouncing our allegiance to the throne of God? Shall we yield one jot or tittle in as plain and palpable a case of right and wrong as ever occurred or can occur in human legislation? 1 What are "the circumstances" in which this demand is made? What pretext is presented? Why, a new state has sprung into being on the Pacific, in which the people have ordained-heaven pardon the offense-that every man among them may remain a man. And they ask to be admitted to full communion with the states of this Union. These are the circumstances. Do they afford any pretext whatever for the demand that some new slave state or states shall come into the Senate to keep pace with liberty in her onward march? Must we give our consent to a great wrong, a clear violation of natural justice-(we will not use the more fashionable word, for it has too much of a political sound, and we are no politicians now-must we in the right use of language, agree to "frame mischief by a law," and so pay for the privilege of doing an act of simple justice to the people of California? Must we consent to force the iron heel of oppression still more deeply into the neck of the enslaved race, because this new state has ordained to treat men of every color as men? Oh, but can we not yield a little for this once for the sake of peace and the Union? They do not demand our money; it will not affect our property, it will do us no harm here in the free states to make a few more slave states in a far distant portion of the Republic; it will not affect our peace and happiness; we shall not hear the clanking of the new chains we impose and rivet; our sensibilities will never be disturbed by the horrors of these new slave markets and prisons that we help to erect; and then too the men and women are not yet born who are to be the principal victims of this "extension," and we shall all die and be out of the way before they appear, and it will come down upon them most mysteriously as a great "organic" sin. And besides, if we will only consent to yield a little in this crisis, we shall double the value of "property"-personal property of course-in the Southern states, and slaveholders will be highly gratified and perhaps make some of us President of the United States. Certainly, gentlemen, this is a consideration to be thought of. Can we not then be so obliging for this once, especially as our refusal may tempt them to dissolve the Union and abolish the presidential office itself? All that we are called upon on our part to sacrifice in this matter, as we have somewhere seen it asserted recently by somebody in Congress, is "only a sentiment," only a sentiment that we are cherishing here about slavery. And what, pray, is a "sentiment?" One definition given us by the great master of our language, which we think will suit the present case, is, "a decision of the mind formed by deliberation or reasoning." It is sometimes, as in the present case, a decision of the mind in relation to some great moral question, and a decision based on some great principle or precept in "the law and the prophets." VOL. VIII. 38 All that we are required to do then, is simply to do violence to a deliberate decision of our minds, formed in the light of God's revelation! We are only called upon to perpetrate a new outrage upon the slaves and their posterity! to perpetuate a system which, besides its intrinsic injustice, is ruinous to the real interests of the South itself, as many of the Southern people, if not a majority, know and feel. For our part we do verily fear the thing will somehow be brought about. But God forbid it! Let it never become a part of the history of this Union, that when its greatest curse was at least beginning to languish, and giving to the poor African some faint but cheering promise that it might, at some distant day, die and disappear, this government with its own hands tenderly nursed the gasping monster and would not even let it die! Who has faith to ask that God would preserve and cherish a national government that could thus deliberately repeal and repudiate the law and the prophets? On a certain occasion a man came to Jesus Christ in deep affliction, earnestly beseeching him to cast the devil out of his son. It was a very sad and alarming case. The possession was one that would not yield to the prayers and measures of the disciples. Jesus in the plenitude of his compassion and power instantly rebuked the demon and he departed out of the child. And why, said the disciples, could not we cast him out? Jesus in his reply gave them to understand that "this kind," the kind of demon which had possessed that child, "went not out but by prayer and fasting." Without undertaking to say whether the spirit which has taken possession of some of our national counsellors, and has caused them to give out some very strange utterances in these days, is exactly one of that genus or not-leaving it to the eye and ear-witnesses of these strange phenomena in Washington, to determine of what "kind" and of what degree of moral dignity the spirit is which possesses so many of the wise men there -we can not at all events but feel, in this latitude, that the case is indeed a sad one, and that it calls for much prayer if not for fasting, on the part of all the disciples of Christ in the Union. This lust of power, this thirst for political advancement, "the spirit" with which too many seem to be possessed, is one of "the kind" that can not reasonably be expected to depart out of them. without the most earnest prayer on the part of all who know how to pray. But can we do nothing but pray? Yes, verily; many things; and among them, one certainly. We can at least whisper a word of "courage" in the ear of our own immediate Representatives in Congress, and of all other Representatives of the free, by whom this great, this greatest question is soon to be determined. We can remind them at least that "the law and the prophets," that God and all enlightened nations and even Mexico and Turkey, are on the one side, and on the other a dying, and we hope, doomed system of oppression, fearful as it still is in its power and influence over the destinies of the nation. God prosper the right and thus preserve the Union; or, let him take it into his own hands and do with it what seemeth good in his sight. "If it be possible, let this cup," this bitter cup, pass from us! Nevertheless, if not-then "THY kingdom come and thy will be done." 2. Bacon The foregoing remarks relate only to the great question by the side of which all others now pending are of little urgency-the question whether slavery, shall be extended into our new territories either by the express legislation, or by the connivance or tacit consent of Congress. Our collaborator who has uttered his own feelings, and ours, on the preceding pages, has abstained from all critical examination of the speeches to which he has made reference. But since his remarks were written, a new edition of Mr. Webster's speech has made its appearance, as revised, corrected and enlarged by the author, and dedicated by him to the people of Massachusetts.* A speech from that illustrious Senator on a great contested question of national policy-a speech reported under his own revision and with his finishing touches, and solemnly dedicated "with the deepest sense of obligation" to the people of the state which has so long been proud of his renown is such an event in our politics and in the history of our literature, as can not be unworthy of critical attention. We confess that we are the more moved to some strictures on Mr. Webster's speech by the public testimonial which several hundred citizens in Boston and its vicinity-some of them men of the highest standing-have been induced to subscribe, professing their unqualified approbation of what the great man has said, and lauding him as the savior of his country. Our first remark then is, that the speech, taken as a whole, is not, intellectually and rhetorically, such a speech as might have been expected of Mr. Webster at such a crisis. As an oration it seems to us quite inferior to that last Demosthenean effort of Mr. Calhoun, in which he gave his dying testimony in behalf of the great principles for which he had been so long and earnestly, and yet so preposterously contending. Still more is it unequal to some of the earlier speeches to which Mr. Webster owes so much of his celebrity as an orator. How far inferior is it, in the highest qualities of eloquence, to that memorable defense of New *Speech of Hon. Daniel Webster, on Mr. Clay's Resolutions, &c. Washington: Gideon & Co., 8vo, pp. 64. England and the Constitution, the reply to Hayne. And the reason is not that the powers of the orator are beginning to fail; it is rather that his great powers had no free scope. If we mistake not, there is a lurking sense of embarrassment from beginning to end the conscious want of a heroic will-the painful feeling of having no great principle to stand for; and it is this that makes him show more like Samson shorn than like him who bore away the gates of Gaza. The finest portion of the speech, and one well worthy of the author's fame, is the part in which he speaks of the union, and shows, out of the fullness of a strong and glowing mind, the utter madness of those who threaten to dissolve the union. But in dealing with the speech we can not spend our time on matters of merely rhetorical criticism. We pass at once to graver work; for the speech is to be considered not as the work of a literary artist merely, an exhibition of eloquence, but as a specimen of statesmanship, an instance of a great statesman's way of dealing with great questions of policy and duty. We come then to the examination of Mr. Webster's position in regard to the question, the great question of the times, the question whether slavery shall be prohibited in the territories. On this question Mr. Webster's position is not that of President Taylor's, who proposes that the territories be left to the action of the existing Mexican laws, without any interference on the part of Congress, till the inhabitants of each territory shall do as the people of California have already done. It is not that of Mr. Clay, who proposes that Congress shall organize territorial governments in the usual form without the proviso of the ordinance of 1787, but with a declaration that the Mexican law abolishing slavery is in force till repealed by some competent legislative authority. It is not that of the "free soil party" and of many others, who propose that territorial governments be established with a distinct and positive prohibition of slavery. What is it then? It is simply to do what the great slave-breeding and slavetrading interest demands. The illustrious Senator whom Massachusetts has so long delighted to honor, the great New Englander whose name and fame are spread through the civilized world, announces his definite determination to vote against the prohibition of slavery in any territory now under the jurisdiction of Congress. We do not think it important for us to inquire into the consistency of this with Mr. Webster's past character and professions. Much less can we here concern ourselves with his motives in taking this position. Let others agitate if they will the question of his consistency. Let the people of Massachusetts judge whether he has violated the pledges which were implied in his character and history, and whether he has forsaken the principles which he was understood to profess when they last committed to |