Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/312

Rh course of the Government, you find it favours Slavery with continued increase of intensity. Let not this rest on my testimony alone, or your judgment. Here is "An Address delivered before the Euphemian and Philomathean Literary Societies of Erskine College, at the Annual Commencement, Wednesday, August 12th, 1857, by Richard Yeadon, Esq., of Charleston, S. C." Mr. Yeadon is a representative man, editor of the Charleston Courier, and a staunch defender of the peculiar institution. He tells us he comes "rather to sow the good seed of truth, than to affect the arts or graces of oratory; to teach the lessons of history, and impress the deductions of reason, than to twme the garlands of science, or strew the roses of literature;" he would "combine the didactic in large measure with the rhetorical." He discusses the character of the Federal Government and its relation to Slavery, "on which rest the pillars of the great social fabric of the South." He attempts to show that the Constitution was so framed as to uphold Slavery and check Freedom ; and that the Federal Government has carried out the plan with such admirable vigour, that now Slavery can stand by its own strength. But you must have his own words:—

"The new Constitution not only recognised, sanctioned, and gaaranteed it [Slavery] as a State institution, sacred within State limits from Federal invasion or interference, but also so far as to foster and expand it, by Federal protection and agency, wherever it was legalized, within State or territorial limits ; to uphold it by Federal power, and the Federal arm against domestic violence or foreign invasion; and, to make it an element of Federal organization and existence, by adopting it as a basis of Federal representation, and a source of Federal revenue."

"From that day to this, the institution of domestic Slavery, within the several States, has been regarded and held sacred as a reserved right, exclusively within State jurisdiction and beyond the constitutional power of Congress or of the general Government, except for guarantee, protection, and defence; it being one and the chief of those 'particular interests' which the Convention had in view, as enhancing the difficulty of their work."

"The general Government and the co-States are bound by constitutional duty and Federal compact to uphold and defend the institution, whereever it lawfully exists, in any of the States."

"Indeed, so unquestionable is the exclusive jurisdiction of State sovereignty, except in the way of guarantee and protection, over the institution of Slavery within State limits, that even the high-priest and arch-fiend of political free-Boilism, William H. Seward, in his speech in Congress, on the admission of California into the Union, thus conceded it—’No free State claims to extend its legislation into a slave State. None