Page:The Barbarism of Slavery - Sumner - 1863.pdf/9

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DEDICATION. this new edition To the Young Men op the United States, I dedicate in token of heartfelt Slavery, of Barbarism the on Speech of a RENDERED IN GRATITUDE TO THEM FOR BRAVE AND PATRIOTIC SERVICE

WAR

THE PRESENT

FOR CIVILIZATION



than three years since I deemed it my duty to expose, in This phrase, though common now, of Slavery. Barbarism the Senate, the the assumpwas new then. The speech was a strict and logical reply to " " ennobling asserting the " divine origin" of Slavery, its It is

now more

tions of Senators, character,

and that

it

was the "black marble keystone"

of our national

recurrence, I Listening to these assumptions, which were of daily arch. And, considering their effrontery, it felt that they ought to be answered.

seemed

to

me

by exhibitthat they should be answered frankly .and openly careful that I should "nothing is, without reserve

ing Slavery as it really



This I did. pending in the Trial by In that debate the issue was joined which is still ripened in Rebelnaturally Slavery for The inordinate assumptions Battle. its Slavery were, in reality, all that it was said to be by

down aught

extenuate, nor set

lion

and War.

in malice."

If

representatives, they

Not

must have

failed in

duty

if

they did not vindicate and "divine" and so "enno-

easily could they see a thing so

advance of our national archbling "—constituting the "black marble keystone" to sacrifice. doomed yet not if even vote, popular a by discredited it.

The

election of

Mr. Lincoln was a judgment against Slavery, and

its

representatives were aroused. constitutional Meanwhile, for more than a generation, an assumption of side with Slavery, by side rooted become had outrageous, less law, hardly It was assumed together. so that the two had shot up in rank luxuriance time, in the any at Constitution, the under privileged, was any State that

exercise of

its

own

discretion, to

withdraw from the Union.

This absurdity

even among the representatives of Slavery. To But custom irrational. say that two and two make five could not be more until, at last, all impression, an produced gradually repetition and constant

found little favor at

first,

who were maddest

for Slavery

were equally

mad

for this disorganizing

ally.

the was under the shadow of this constitutional assumption that Mr. when last, that, at so vigor, virulent into grew assumption for Slavery declared Lincoln was elected, it broke forth in open war but the war was in the name of State Rights. It