Page:An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans.djvu/135

Rh the earnest wishes of the commercial States—two thirds of the Representatives from those States voted in opposition to the measure. According to the spirit of the constitution it ought not to have passed unless there were two thirds in favor of it. Why then should the South have insisted upon conferring a boon, which was not wanted; and how happened it, that Yankees, with all their acknowledged shrewdness in money matters, could never to this day perceive how they were protected by it? Yet New England is reproached with cowardice and ingratitude to her Southern benefactors! If one man were to knock another down with a broad axe, in the attempt to brush a fly from his face, and then blame him for not being sufficiently thankful, it would exactly illustrate the relation between the North and the South on this subject.

If the protection of commerce had been the real object of the war, would not some preparations have been made for a navy? It was ever the policy of the slave States to destroy the navy. Vast conquests by land were contemplated, for the protection of Northern commerce. Whatever was intended, the work of destruction was done. The policy of the South stood for a while like a giant among ruins. New England received a blow, which crushed her energies, but could not annihilate them. Where the system of free labor prevails, and there is work of any kind to be done, there is a safety valve provided for any pressure. In such a community there is a vital and active principle, which cannot be long repressed. You may dam up the busy waters, but they will sweep away obstructions, or force a new channel.

Immediately after the peace, when commerce again began to try her broken wings, the South took care to keep her down, by multiplying permanent embarrassments, in the shape of duties. The direct tax (which would have borne equally upon them, and which in the original compact was the equivalent for slave representation), was forthwith repealed, and commerce was burdened with the payment of the national debt. The encouragement of manufactures, the consumption of domestic products, or living within ourselves, was then