Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/654

 the agitation of this measure in congress, when this congress was elected, or even when it assembled in December last.

Under such circumstances, and in the midst of agitation, and excitement, and debates, it is only fair to say, that certainly the country has not decided in favor of the bill. The refusal, then, to let the question go to the country is a conclusive proof that the slave states, as represented here, expect from the passage of this bill what the free states insist that they will lose by it — an advantage, a material advantage, and not a mere abstraction. There are men in the slaves states, as in the free states, who insist always too pertinaciously upon mere abstractions. But that is not the policy of the slave states to-day. They are in earnest in seeking for, and securing, an object, and an important one. I believe they are going to have it. I do not know how long the advantage gained will last, nor how great or comprehensive it will be. Every senator who agrees with me in opinion must feel as I do — that under such circumstances he can forego nothing that can be done decently, with due respect to difference of opinion, and consistently with the constitutional and settled rules of legislation, to place the true merits of the question before the country. Questions sometimes occur which seem to have two right sides. Such were the questions that divided the English nation between Pitt and Fox — such the contest between the assailant and the defender of Quebec. The judgment of the world was suspended by its sympathies, and seemed ready to descend in favor of him who should be most gallant in conduct. And so, when both fell with equal chivalry on the same field, the survivors united in raising a common monument to the glorious but rival memories of Wolfe and Montcalm. But this contest involves a moral question. The slave states so present it. They maintain that African slavery is not erroneous, not unjust, not inconsistent with the advancing cause of human nature. Since they so regard it, I do not expect to see statesmen representing those states indifferent about a vindication of this system by the congress of the United States. On the other hand, we of the free states regard slavery as erroneous, unjust, oppressive, and therefore absolutely inconsistent with the principles of the American constitution and government. Who will expect us to be indifferent to the decisions of the American people and of mankind on such an issue?

Again: there is suspended on the issue of this contest the political equilibrium between the free and the slave states. It is no ephemeral question, no idle question, whether slavery shall go on increasing its influence over the central power here, or whether freedom shall gain the ascendency. I do not expect to see statesmen of the slave states indifferent on so momentous a question, and as little can it be expected that those of the free states will betray their own great cause. And now it remains for me to declare, in view of the decision of this controversy so near at hand, that I have seen nothing and heard nothing during its progress to change the opinions which at the earliest proper period I deliberately expressed. Certainly, I have not seen the evidence then promised, that the free states would acquiesce in the measure. As certainly, too, I may say that I have not seen the fulfillment of the promise