It Was Easier To
Look Forward To Such A Result And Hope For Such An End Of The
Difficulty, Than To Extinguish Slavery By A Great Political
Movement, Which Must Doubtless Have Been Difficult And Costly.
The
Northern States got rid of slavery by the operation of their
separate legislatures, some at one date and some at others.
The
slaves were less numerous in the North than in the South, and the
feeling adverse to slaves was stronger in the North than in the
South. Mason and Dixon's line, which now separates slave soil from
free soil, merely indicates the position in the country at which the
balance turned. Maryland and Virginia were not inclined to make
great immediate sacrifices for the manumission of their slaves; but
the gentlemen of those States did not think that slavery was a
divine institution destined to flourish forever as a blessing in
their land.
The maintenance of slavery was, I think, a political mistake - a
political mistake, not because slavery is politically wrong, but
because the politicians of the day made erroneous calculations as to
the probability of its termination. So the income tax may be a
political blunder with us - not because it is in itself a bad tax,
but because those who imposed it conceived that they were imposing
it for a year or two, whereas, now, men do not expect to see the end
of it. The maintenance of slavery was a political mistake; and I
cannot think that the Americans in any way lessen the weight of
their own error by protesting, as they occasionally do, that slavery
was a legacy made over to them from England. They might as well say
that traveling in carts without springs, at the rate of three miles
an hour, was a legacy made over to them by England. On that matter
of traveling they have not been contented with the old habits left
to them, but have gone ahead and made railroads. In creating those
railways the merit is due to them; and so also is the demerit of
maintaining those slaves.
That demerit and that mistake have doubtless brought upon the
Americans the grievances of their present position; and will, as I
think, so far be accompanied by ultimate punishment that they will
be the immediate means of causing the first disintegration of their
nation. I will leave it to the Americans themselves to say whether
such disintegration must necessarily imply that they have failed in
their political undertaking. The most loyal citizens of the
Northern States would have declared a month or two since - and for
aught I know would declare now - that any disintegration of the
States implied absolute failure. One stripe erased from the banner,
one star lost from the firmament, would entail upon them all the
disgrace of national defeat! It had been their boast that they
would always advance, never retreat. They had looked forward to add
ever State upon State, and Territory to Territory, till the whole
continent should be bound together in the same union.
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