Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/587

 government, and are fighting, not for any practical result, but for sonic vague, perhaps philanthropic object, which escapes ray penetration, and must be defined by those who assume this new principle of national intercommunication. All wars are to be deprecated, as well by the statesman as by the philanthropist. They are great evils; but there are greater evils than these, and submission to injustice is among them. The nation which should refuse to defend its rights and its honor, when assailed, would soon have neither to defend; and, when driven to war, it is not by professions of disinterestedness and declarations of magnanimity that its rational objects can be best obtained, or other nations taught a lesson of forbearance — the strongest security for a permanent peace. We are at war with Mexico, and its vigorous prosecution is the surest means of its speedy termination, and ample indemnity the surest guaranty against the recurrence of such injustice as provoked it.

The Wilmot proviso has been before the country for some time. It has been repeatedly discussed in congress, and by the public press. I am strongly impressed with the opinion, that a great change has been going on in the public mind upon this subject, in my own as well as others; and that doubts arc resolving themselves into convictions, that the principle it involves should be kept out of the national legislature, and left to the people of the confederacy in their respective local governments.

The whole subject is a comprehensive one, and fruitful of important consequences. It would be ill-timed to discuss it here. I shall not assume that responsible task, but shall confine myself to such general views as are necessary to the fair exhibition of my opinions.

We may well regret the existence of slavery in the southern states, and wish they had been saved from its introduction. But there it is, not by the act of the present generation; and we must deal with it as a great practical question, involving the most momentous consequences. We have neither the right nor the power to touch it where it exists; and if we had both, their exercise, by any means heretofore suggested, might lead to results which no wise man would willingly encounter, and which no good man could contemplate without anxiety.

The theory of our government presupposes that its various members have reserved to themselves the regulation of all subjects relating to what may be termed their internal police. They are sovereign within their boundaries, except in those cases where they have surrendered to the general government a portion of their rights, in order to give effect to the objects of the Union, whether these concern foreign nations or the several states themselves. Local institutions, if I may so speak, whether they have reference to slavery or to any other relations, domestic or public, are left to local authority, either original or derivative. Congress has no right to say that there shall be slavery in New York, or that there shall be no slavery in Georgia; nor is there any other human power, but the people of those states, respectively, which can change the relations existing therein; and they can say, if they will, 'we will have slavery in the former, and we will abolish it in the latter.'

In various respects, the territories differ from the states. Some of their