Page:An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans.djvu/142

128 the South, unless the source from which it came, were carefully concealed! Yet New England has always yielded to Southern policy in preference to uniting with the Middle States, with which she has in most respects, a congeniality of interests and habits. It has been the constant policy of the slave States to prevent the free States from acting together.

Who does not see that the American people are walking over a subterranean fire, the flames of which are fed by slavery?

The South no doubt gave her influence to General Jackson, from the conviction that a slave owner would support the slave-holding interest. The Proclamation against the nullifiers, which has given the President such sudden popularity at the North, has of course offended them. No person has a right to say that Proclamation is insincere. It will be extraordinary if a slave owner does in reality depart from the uniform system of his brethren. In the President's last Message, it is maintained that the wealthy land holders, that is, the planters, are the best part of the population;—it admits that the laws for raising of revenue by imposts have been in their operation oppressive to the South;—it recommends a gradual withdrawing of protection from manufactures;—it advises that the public lands shall cease to be a source of revenue, as soon as practicable—that they be sold to settlers—and in a convenient time the disposal of the soil be surrendered to the States respectively in which it lies;—lastly, the Message tends to discourage future appropriations of public money for purposes of internal improvement.

Every one of these items is a concession to the slave-holding policy. If the public lands are taken from the nation, and given to the States in which the soil lies, who will get the largest share? That best part of the population called planters.

The Proclamation and the Message are very unlike each other. Perhaps South Carolina is to obtain her own will by a route more certain, though more circuitous, than open rebellion. Time will show.