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.
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