Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 37.djvu/370

362 its actual continuance was enormous, aggregating considerably more than $10,000,000,000, or enough money to have paid for the 4,000,000 slaves at their full value three times over.

The North could very well have afforded to consent that the United States should have paid the South a fair price for its slaves, considering the fact that of all the peoples of the earth next to the English, who, by the way, paid for the slaves which they set free in their dominions, they, the Northern people, were far more largely engaged in the business of bringing negroes from Africa to the South than any others. In fact, had it not been for the English and Northern people together, there would not have been a great many slaves in the South.

The course of Mr. Lincoln was also as inconsistent about this matter of slavery as it was about Fort Sumter", for in the very beginning of his inaugural address, March 4, 1861, he declared: "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." And further on in the same inaugural he declared himself in favor of a constitutional amendment which, so far as the United States was concerned, would have made the negroes of this country slaves forever. His exact words were: "I understand that a proposed amendment to the Constitution (which amendment, however, I have not seen), has passed Congress to the effect that the Federal government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. Holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable."

As we have already said, this would have fastened slavery on the country forever, so far as the action of the United States was concerned.

And yet, in exactly eighteen months and eighteen days from