Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/180

146 show by the recorded opinions of Mr. Madison, that the famous ordinance of 1787, so far as it prohibited slavery in the territory northwest of the Ohio River, was aimed at the African slave-trade, and at that alone; the idea being that if they would restrict the area into which slaves would be introduced from abroad, they would, to that extent, prevent the importation of slaves; and that, when it was altogether prevented, the condition of slavery would die out of itself; but they were not abolitionists, far less within the meaning and spirit of the abolitionists of the present day.

Well, I am willing to accept this as it stands, and Mr. Mason may certainly be considered good Southern authority. I will not stop to investigate the depth and extent of the anti-slavery sentiments of such men as Franklin, who was father of an abolitionist society, and of Washington, who expressed his desire “to see slavery abolished by law”; I am satisfied with Mr. Mason's admission.

This, then, is what the Fathers intended to effect: to bring about a state of things by which slavery would die out of itself. What else do we want? “You mean, then,” I am asked, “to adopt a policy which will work the peaceable and gradual extinction of slavery?” And I answer, “Yes; for if we do not, we shall have to submit to a policy which will work the gradual extinction of liberty.” There is the dilemma. Our answer is understood. If Washington, Madison and Jefferson were abolitionists, we are; Mr. Mason says they were not; well, then, we are not, for our policy has been theirs, and theirs has become ours.

Will this policy effect a solution of the conflict? It will; because it will harmonize our social and political development with the tendency of our age, by neutralizing the obstacles that stand in its way.

But I am told that these obstacles refuse to be neutralized. They will resist. Resist by what? By dissolving the Union! This specter has so long haunted the