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ever that may be, it is not because they tolerate it now, but because their ancestors were the agents and authors of its original introduction. These ancestors sold ours the slaves and warranted the title, and it would be a much more becoming labor of filial piety for their descendants to pray for their souls, if they are Protestants, and buy masses to redeem them from purgatory, if they are Catholics, than to assail their warranty and slander their memory by denouncing them as “manstealers and murderers." But this voluntary and gratuitous assumption of responsibility, in imitation of a recent and high example in our history, but imperfectly conceals a lurking principle of danger, which deserves to be examined and exposed. What is there to make the people of New York or Massachusetts responsible for slavery in South Carolina, any more than the people of Great Britain? To assume that the people of those States are responsible for the continuance of this institution, is distinctly to assume that they have a right to abolish it. And whatever enforced disclaimers they may make, their efforts would be worse than unprofitable on any other hypothesis. The folly of attempting to convert the slave-holders to voluntary emancipation, by a course of slander and denunciation, is too great to be ascribed even to fanaticism itself. They do not, indeed, disguise the fact that their principal object is to operate on public opinion in the non-slaveholding States. And to what purpose? They cannot suppose that the opinion of those States, however unanimous, can break the chains of slavery by some moral magic. The whole tenor of their conduct and temper of their discussions clearly demonstrate that their object is to bring the slave-holding States into universal odium, and the public opinion of the non-slaveholding to the point of emancipating our slaves by federal legislation, without the consent of their owners. Disguise it as they may, "to this complexion it must come at last."

It is in this aspect of the subject, that it challenges our grave and solemn consideration. It behooves us then, in my opinion, to demand, respectfully, of each and every one of the slave-holding States:

1. A formal and solemn disclaimer, by its Legislature, of the existence of any rightful power, either in such State or the

United States, in Congress assembled, to interfere in any manner, whatever, with the institution of domestic slavery in South Carolina.

2. The immediate passage of penal laws by such Legislature, denouncing against the incendiaries of whom we complain, such punishments as will speedily and forever suppress their machinations against our peace and safety. Though the right to emancipate our slaves by coercive legislation has been very generally disclaimed by popular assemblages in the non-slaveholding States, it is nevertheless important that each of those States should give this disclaimer and the authentic and authoritative form of a legislative declaration, to be preserved as a permanent record for our future security. Our right to demand of those States the enactment of laws for the punishment of those enemies of our peace, who avail themselves of the sanctuary of their sovereign jurisdiction to wage a war of extermination against us, is founded on one of the most salutary and conservative principles of international law. Every State is under the most sacred obligations, not only to abstain from all such interference with the institutions of another as is calculated to disturb its tranquillity or endanger its safety; but to prevent its citizens or subjects from such interference, either by inflicting condign punishment itself, or by delivering them up to the justice of the offending community. As between separate and independent nations, the refusal of a State to punish these offensive proceedings against another, by its citizens or subjects, makes the State so refused an accomplice in the outrage, and furnishes a just cause of war. These principles of international law are universally admitted, and none have been more sacredly observed by just and enlightened nations. The obligations of the non-slaveholding States to punish and repress the proceedings of their citizens against our domestic institutions and tranquillity are greatly increased, both by the nature of those proceedings and the fraternal relation which subsists between the States of this confederacy. For no outrage against any community can be greater than to stir up the elements of servile insurrection, and no obligation to repress it can be more sacred than that which adds to the sanctions of international law, the solemn guarantee of a constitutional compact, which is at once the bond and the condi

tion of our union. The liberal, enlightened and magnanimous conduct of the people in many portions of the non-slaveholding States forbids us to anticipate a refusal on the part of those States to fulfil these high obligations of national faith and duty. And we have the less reason to look forward to this inauspicious result, from considering the necessary consequences which would follow, to the people of those States, and of the whole commercial world, from the general emancipation of our slaves. These consequences may be presented, as an irresistible appeal, to every rational philanthropist in Europe or America. It is clearly demonstrable that the pro

duction of cotton depends not so much on soil and climate, as on the existence of domestic slavery. In the relaxing latitudes where it grows, not one half the quantity would be produced but for the existence of this institution, and every practical planter will concur in the opinion, that if all the slaves in these States were now emancipated, the American crop would be reduced the very next year from 1,200,000 to 600,000 bales. No great skill in political economy will be required to estimate how enormously the price of cotton would be increased by this change, and no one who will consider how largely this staple contributes to the wealth of manufacturing nations, and to the necessaries and comforts of the poorer classes all over the world, can fail to perceive the disastrous effects of so great a reduction in the quantity, and so great an enhancement in the price of it. In Great Britain, France and the United States, the catastrophe would be overwhelming, and it is not extravagant to say, that for little more than two millions of negro slaves, cut loose from their tranquil moorings, and set adrift upon the untried ocean, of at least a doubtful experiment, ten millions of poor white people would be reduced to destitution, pauperism and starvation. An anxious desire to avoid the last sad alternative of an injured community prompts this final appeal to the interests and enlightened philanthropy of our Confederate States. And we

cannot permit ourselves to believe, that our just demands, thus supported by every consideration of humanity and duty, will be rejected by States, who are united to us by so many social and political ties, and who have so deep an interest in the preservation of that union.

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