GENTLEMEN :—I rejoice in your organization. I thank God the palsy of death is not yet upon the liberties of the Free States. The young blood begins to move. The question depending is—are the slaveholders or the free States henceforth to govern this Union. If He comes, from whence great men usually the Free States are united, their success is cer- do come, from the mass of the people. Nursed tain. Be on your guard. The slaveholders in difficulties, practised in surmounting them; have governed this Union almost uninterrupt- wise in council; full of resource; self-possessed

in danger; fearless and foremost in every use- This state of things naturally leads thought ful enterprise; unexceptionable in morals; ful minds to reflect on the actual condition of with an intellect elevated by nature, and cul- this Union, of Slave States politically united tivated in laborious fields of duty, I trust with Free States. Those living under the he is destined to save this Union from disso- former are in a perpetual consciousness of lution; to restore the Constitution to its danger. It cannot be otherwise, however they original purity; and to relieve that instrument, may attempt to conceal it from others which Washington designed for the preserva- and from themselves. It is impossible that tion and enlargement of freedom, from being any longer perverted to the multiplication of Slave States and the extension of slavery. JOSIAH QUINCY.

QUINCY, July, 1856.

any

three hundred thousand whites, who are the masters, surrounded by three million of blacks, who are slaves, can live otherwise than under a never-ceasing sense of danger. The mode of maintaining the subjection of their slaves is, therefore, the constant object of their thoughts.

In the Free States, on the contrary, from twenty to twenty-five millions of whites exist, with proportionate superiority in wealth, activity, and physical power, without any care of or danger from slaves.

This difference of condition in the two

In early life, from 1805 to 1813, I served as Representative in the Congress of the United States from the town of Boston. I was an active member of the Federal party formed by Washington, and have never belonged to other. Though sympathizing in feeling with Free Soilers and Abolitionists, I have never concurred in the measures of either. My heart has always been more affected by the species of States produces unavoidably, in slavery to which the Free States have been slaveholders, a continual sense of danger from subjected, than with that of the negro. Placed successively, since 1820; in the offices of Judge of the Municipal Court, of Mayor of Boston, and of President of Harvard College, I have abstained from all connection with politics for thirty-four years, except by voting; and now I come, at your request, to offer views and opinions on the present crisis of public affairs, derived from the light of history, and from the counsels and advice of Washington.

within, and of prospective danger from without. The immense superiority of physical power in the Free States, combined with a knowledge of their own inherent weakness, creates in their minds a belief that their own political existence, and that of their slaves, depend upon obtaining and keeping the control of the Free States. Nature, in the human as in every other animal, compensates positive or comparative weakness by some The blow on the head of Sumner was not quality which is equivalent for defence. In intended for him alone. It was struck at the case of the Slave States, she supplies the Liberty herself, in one of her most sacred want of strength by art. The operation of temples. It was a public notice and declara- this, in effecting their great object of obtaining tion to every man in the Free States, that and keeping the control of the Free States, it liberty of speech no longer existed in Congress is my purpose briefly to illustrate from the for him or for his Representative; that whoever history of this Union. coming from the Free States dare to utter a word in opposition to the views, or in derogation of the power of slaveholders, will speak at the peril of life. There is nothing new in this system of intimidation. Fifty years ago it was an approved practice of slaveholders. In that day, men from the Free States, who were open opponents to the administration, often carried By this, they established the pistols in self-defence. Others, urged by their seat of national government in a slave counfriends to do it, declined; being unwilling, try, and thus surrounded Congress with an under any circumstances, to have the life of a atmosphere of slavery, and subjected the Free fellow-being on their consciences. The only States to its influences, in the place where the difference between our times and the past is councils of the nation are held, and where the this; heretofore they brandished the bludgeon; whole public sentiment is hostile to the prinnow they have brought it down. Formerly ciples of the Free States; and where, in case the bowie-knife was only seen in its sheath, or of collisions resulting in actions at law and inhalf-drawn by way of terror; now it is seen dictments, slaveholders are judges, jurors, and glistening in their hands, or steeped in the executioners. This location of the seat of govblood of freemen in Kansas.

The art by which, for more than fifty years, the Slave States have subjugated the Free States, and vested in their own hands all the powers of the Union, they call policy. Its proper name is cunning; that "left-handed wisdom," as Lord Bacon calls it, which the Devil practised in the garden of Eden, and conquer."

"divide

ernment has been one of the most potent tute of all desire to establish the supremacy of causes of that dominion over the nation which slaveholders. They spoke of slavery, like they have acquired. Patrick Henry, as "a curse," which blighted Again by cunning, they inserted Louisiana the prospects and weakened the strength of into the Union, not only without the concur- the Slave States, with him deplored the rence of the Free States, but without so much necessity of holding men in bondage, declaring as asking it, a measure which has been the their belief that the time would come when Pandora's box of all our evils. an opportunity will be afforded to abolish this lamentable evil; " like Governor Randolph, they regarded themselves" oppressed by slavery, and treated with disdain the idea that the Slave States could stand by themselves; "* with Judge Tucker, of Virginia,† they thought, as he declared, that posterity "would execrate the memory of those ancestors, who, having the power to avert the evil of slavery, have, like their first parents, entailed a curse on all future generations."

Another of their arts is arrogance, or an insolent assumption of superiority. This, though a result of their condition as masters of slaves, is of great power. "Like boldness, it is the child of ignorance and vanity; yet it fascinates, and binds, hand and foot, those that are shallow in judgment or weak in courage, and prevaileth even with wise men at weak times. It hath done wonders in popular States." In Slave States, slaveholders are sovereigns, and deem themselves entitled to govern everyThese men, far from threatening to go out where. In them, with few inconsiderable ex of the Union, regarded and spoke of it as a ceptions, they are proprietors of all the lands; main hope of dependence against their own which few persons can afford to hold, except slaves. They encouraged and supported every owners of slaves. As the rate of wages is man from the Free States who met the vioregulated by the expense of supporting slaves, lence of the insolent class with appropriate it is, of course, the least possible. Of conse- spirit. They saw and lamented the character quence, slaves are the successful rivals of the and conduct of the lower and baser slaveholdwhite poor; being more obedient, and the ex- ers, who, coarse in language, overbearing in pense of supporting them being less. Thus manner, caring nothing for the principles of the white poor, in the Slave States, are reduced liberty and the Constitution, came to Congress to a state of extreme degradation; in some for the purpose of getting office or place, and, respects, lower than the negro. They cannot to that end, were as subservient to every nod dig; for field-labor to a white person is there of the administration as any slave to that of a disgrace. To beg, they are ashamed; and his master. they have no master to whom they can look The nobler class of slaveholders foresaw for support. Having no land, they have no and foretold that the effect of the language political power: the value of their labor is and course of conduct of this violent class below that of the slave; and their actual con- would gradually wear away the affections of dition comparatively that of extreme wretch- the Free States, and lead to a dissolution of edness. One-half of the white population of the Union. These higher spirits could not the Slave States are said to be in that condition. In the vocabulary of slaveholders, liberty means only that planters should be independent, and have no superiors.

Fifty years ago, there were two classes of slaveholders in Congress; the one, generous in spirit, polished in manners, true to the principles of liberty and the Constitution, uniting heart and hand with the Representatives from the Free States in objects and policy; of the same type and character as George Washington, John Marshall, William Pinckney, Henry W. Dessaussure, John Stanley, Nicholas Vandyke, Philip Stuart, Alexander Contee Hanson, and a host of others, too numerous to be recapitulated, in principle and views coincident with the Constitution, desti

Lord Bacon's Essay on Boldness.

submit to use the arts and language to obtain power to which the baser sort condescended, and, of consequence, lost their influence in their respective districts; to which these political filibusters succeeded, and came to Washington, some to follow and some to direct the course of the administration, by whom they were rewarded according to their talents, their violence, or their subserviency.

In 1810, John Randolph, in whose mind. Virginia included all the South, said to me, " Virginia is no longer what it once was. The spirit of the old planters is departed or gradually wearing away: we are overrun by time-servers, office-hunters, and political blacklegs." In a letter to me, dated “Richmond,

*See Debates in the Convention of Virginia.

+ See Tucker's Commentaries on Blackstone.

tion, as it is called, of the United States.

The admission of Louisiana into the Union, without asking or having the consent of the people of the States or of the States themselves, was undeniably a stupendous usurpation.

22d March, 1814," after giving a melancholy the present actual condition of the Constitudescription of a visit he had just made to "the seat of his ancestors, in the maternal line, at the confluence of the James and Appomattox Rivers," he adds, "The curse of slavery, however, an evil daily magnifying, great as it already is, embitters many a moment of the Virginian landholder, who is not duller than the clod under his feet."

Slaveholders have been for fifty years, a few only excepted, the political masters of these States. Rampant with long-possessed authority, in the natural spirit of the class, they have now put on the lash, and are getting ready for use their fetters and manacles.

The passage of the Louisiana Admission Bill was effected by the arts which slaveholders well know how to select and apply. Sops were given to the Congressional watch-dogs of the Free States. To some, promises were made, by way of opiates; and those whom they could neither pay nor drug were publicly treated with insolence and scorn. Threats, duels, and violence were at that day, as now, Let the Free States understand that the modes approved by them to deter men from crisis has come. Their own fate and that of awakening the Free States to a sense of their their posterity depend upon the fact, whether, danger. From the moment that act was passed, in this crisis, they are true or false to them- they saw that the Free States were shorn of selves. The extension of slavery has been, their strength; that they had obtained space from the days of Jefferson, the undeviating to multiply Slave States at their will; and pursuit of the slaveholders. Hitherto by cun- Mr. Jefferson had confidentially told them, ning, intrigue, and corruption, and now to that, from that moment, the "Constitution of plant it forever among the South-western the United States was blank paper;" but more States, compromises have been violated, the correctly, there was 66 no longer any Constituballot-boxes broken, the votes of freemen de- tion.” stroyed, and free citizens massacred and their houses plundered by mobs, encouraged by a slaveholder's administration, and supported by the military arm of the United States. If this tissue of events do not rouse the Free States to united and concentrated action, nothing will. Their destinies are fixed. They are doomed slaves. Their liberties are gone. Their Constitution gone. Nothing is left for them but to yoke in with the negro, and take the lash, submissively, at the caprice of their

masters.

But everybody asks, “What is to be done to throw off this slaveholders' yoke?" The first step is to have a spirit and will to be free. If there is a will, the spirit of freemen will soon find a way. It is not the slaveholders' strength, but your folly. It is because they wake, and you sleep; because they unite, and you divide; because they hold in their hands the means of corruption, and half of you perhaps are willing to be corrupted. This is bold language, it will be said. Boldness is one of the privileges of old age. When can a man have a right to be bold, if it be not when he is conscious of being prompted by truth and duty alone, and when a long life is behind him, and nothing before him but a daily-expected summons to the highest and most solemn of all tribunals?

I now proceed to trace the political power of these slaveholders from its origin, and show

The slaveholders from that day saw they had the Free States in their power; that they were masters, and the Free States slaves; and have acted accordingly. From the passage of the Louisiana Bill until this day, their policy has been directed to a single object, with almost uninterrupted success. That object was to exclude the Free States from any share of power, except in subserviency to their views; and they have undeniably, during all the subsequent period of our history (the administration of John Quincy Adams only excepted,) placed in the chair of state either slaveholders, or men from the Free States, who, for the sake of power, consented to be their tools, "Northern men with Southern principles;" in other words, men who, for the sake of power or pay, were willing to do any work they would set them upon.

In the times of non-intercourse and embargo, I had frequent intercourse with John Randolph, and for many years a correspondence with him. During the extreme pressure of those measures upon the commerce of the Northern States, I said to him, "Mr. Randolph, these measures are absolutely insupportable. You Southern men will, at this rate, put an end to parties in the Northern States, and we shall come down upon the South in one united phalanx." I shall never forget the half-triumph and half-sneer with which he replied, "You are mistaken, sir; you

are mistaken, sir. THE SOUTH ARE AS SURE OF YOUR DEMOCRACY AS THEY ARE OF THEIR OWN NEGROES."

Let any man examine the history of the United States, from the reign of Thomas Jefferson to that of Franklin Pierce, and he will find, that, when the slaveholders have any particularly odious and obnoxious work to do, they never fail to employ the leaders of the Democracy of the Free States. This fact speaks volumes to the Free States. In all estimates of their future duties, it should never be forgotten, that every act by which their interests have been sacrificed, and the power of slaveholders increased, has been effected by the treachery of members of the Free States.

It is manifest to the Free States, that a monstrous usurpation has been effected, and is intended to be enlarged and perpetuated.

lar man in his district, were to keep a white servant in his house, his character and reputation would be irretrievably ruined. Mr. Adams said, that this confounding servitude and labor was one of the bad effects of slavery. Mr. Calhoun thought it was attended with many excellent consequences. It did not apply to all sorts of labor, -not, for example, to holding the plough; he and his father had often done that: nor did it apply to manufac turing and mechanical labor; these were not degrading: but to dig, to hoe, to do work either in the field, the house, or the stable, these were menial labors, the proper work of slaves. No white man could descend to that. Calhoun thought that it was the best guaranty of equality among the whites. It produced among them an unvarying level. It did not admit of inequalities a song whites. The warning voice of Washington, in this Mr. Adams replied, that it was all perverted state of things, is, “LET THERE BE NO sentiment, mistaking labor for slavery and CHANGE BY USURPATION." He adds, dominion for freedom. And, in stating it in "CHANGE BY USURPATION IS THE CUSTOM- conversation, Adams remarked, that this disBY WHICH FREE GOVERNMENTS ARE DESTROYED." Again: Washington advises, "RESIST WITH CARE THE SPIRIT OF INNOVATION UPON THE PRINCI PLES OF THE CONSTITUTION. THE SPIRIT OF ENCROACHMENT TENDS TO CONSOLIDATE tion of masterdom. They fancy themselves THE POWERS OF ALL DEPARTMENTS IN ONE, more generous and noble-hearted than the AND TO THUS CREATE A REAL DESPOTISM." plain freemen that labor for subsistence. They The Free States are then, undeniably, at look down on the simplicity of New-England this day, in that very state of things in which manners, because they have no habits of overthe warning voice of Washington declared bearing like theirs, and cannot treat negroes RESISTANCE TO BE THEIR DUTY." During like dogs. It is among the evils of slavery, more than forty years, the spirit of a contin- that it taints the very sources of moral princiued series of encroachments has established ple. It establishes false estimates of virtue over them the worst of all possible despotisms, and vice; for what can be more false and – that of slaveholders. The manner in which this duty of resistance, so distinctly advised by Washington, is to be performed in the spirit which he advised, and which his life exemplified, is at this time the subject of earnest and solicitous consideration by the people of the Free States. It will be my endeavor to throw some light on their duties, and on the course to be pursued in performing them.

ARY WEAPON BY WHICH

Many years ago, John Quincy Adams related a conversation which he once had with John C. Calhoun on this very subject. Calhoun said to him, that the broad principles of liberty which Mr. Adams had been advocating, were just and noble; but that in the Southern country, whenever they were mentioned, they were always understood as applying only to white men. Domestic labor was confined to the blacks; and such was the prejudice, that if he, who was the most popu

4

cussion with Calhoun had betrayed to him the secret of their souls. In the abstract, they admit slavery to be an evil; but, when probed to the quick, they show, at the bottom of their Souls, pride and vainglory in their very condi

heartless than this doctrine, which makes the first and holiest rights of humanity depend on the color of the skin? It perverts human reason, and reduces man, endowed with logical powers, to maintain that slavery is sanctioned by the Christian religion; that slaves are happy and contented in their condition; that there are, between master and slave, mutual ties of attachment and affection; that the virtues of the master are refined and exalted by the degradation of the slave; while, at the same time, they vent execrations on the slave-trade, curse Great Britain for having given them slaves, burn at the stake negroes convicted of crimes, for the terror of the example, and writhe in agonies of fear at the very mention of human rights as applicable to people of color.

After reading and weighing the opinions of this great and good man, and reflecting on the