And Mr. Phillips Would Emancipate These At A
Blow; Would, Were It Possible For Him To Do So, Set Them
Loose upon
the soil to tear their masters, destroy each other, and make such a
hell upon the earth as
Has never even yet come from the
uncontrolled passions and unsatisfied wants of men. But Congress
cannot do this. All the members of Congress put together cannot,
according to the Constitution of the United States, emancipate a
single slave in South Carolina; not if they were all unanimous. No
emancipation in a slave State can come otherwise than by the
legislative enactment of that State. But it was then thought that
in this coming winter of 1860-61 the action of Congress might be
set aside. The North possessed an enormous army under the control
of the President. The South was in rebellion, and the President
could pronounce, and the army perhaps enforce, the confiscation of
all property held in slaves. If any who held them were not
disloyal, the question of compensation might be settled afterward.
How those four million slaves should live, and how white men should
live among them, in some States or parts of States not equal to the
blacks in number - as to that Mr. Phillips did not give us his
opinion.
And Mr. Phillips also could not keep his tongue away from the
abominations of Englishmen and the miraculous powers of his own
countrymen. It was on this occasion that he told us more than once
how Yankees carried brains in their fingers, whereas "common
people" - alluding by that name to Europeans - had them only, if at
all, inside their brain-pans.
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