Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/80

Rh prevention of civil war at the present moment; whilst the feelings of the South are afresh irritated by the probable accession to the North, of California, and even of New Mexico, and Utah into its group of States. The concession has its legal ground, inasmuch as conformably with the constitution of the United States, the States are bound to respect each others' laws, and according to the laws of the Slave States, the slaves constitute a portion of the slave-holder's lawful property.

I perfectly understand the bitterness which the supporters of Anti-Slavery principles must feel at the thought, that their free soil may not be an asylum for the unfortunate slave, and that the slave-catcher may there have a free career, and demand the assistance of the officials of the free states. I know that I myself would rather suffer death than give up an unfortunate slave who had taken refuge with me; but is there, at this moment, an alternative between this concession and civil war? Clay seems to consider that there is not, and Daniel Webster seems to coincide with him, though he has not, as yet, expressed himself openly on Clay's Compromise Bill.

I believe that Clay makes this concession reluctantly, and that he would not have proposed it, if he had regarded it as anything more than temporary, if his own large heart and his statesman's eye had not convinced him that the time is not far distant when the noble hearts' impulse of the South will impel them voluntarily to a nobler, humaner legislation as regards the slave-question; and that urged on necessarily by the liberal movement of humanity, as well in Europe, as in America, the New World will rid itself of this its greatest lie.

And this I also believe, thanks to the noble minds with which I became acquainted in the South,—thanks to the free South, which grows and extends itself in the bosom of the Slave States; and who can feel the movement of the spirit over the whole of this vast world's formation