2 ANTAGONISM. Mr. President, I have stated some of the reasons why Northern men take a deep and abiding interest in the question of Slavery, because it tends to fasten its nefarious shackles upon them. We may just as well look it right straight in the face, for it never will be allayed with sentiment; you may sing hosannas to this Union until you are hoarse; you may talk of our common blood and our common memories; and you may eulogize that great flag under which our fathers fought; and you may go into hysterics on the subject; but I tell you that Governments, in the long run, will be governed by their interests as they understand them, and by nothing else. These are all very pretty matters in their place, but the administrations of government are made of sterner stuff. They are never perpetuated by sentiments like these. I say to you, Mr. President, there is unfortunately—and I regret it as much as' any other man— a diversity between us in our government that seems almost irreconcilable. I do not know but that means may be found by which this great gulf can be bridged over; but on the one hand you find the freest communities that the world ever saw, where real and unadulterated Democracy does not reign as a sentiment, but is lived out in practice by all the people; where there is no aristocracy; where there is no man so high that he can claim a privilege beyond his most humble fellow citizen. This is the nature of the communities of the North, and of none more so than of that State which I have the honor in part to represent here. That is the freest of the free. It was there that the mind of that great patriot, Thomas Jefferson, fixed his eye the moment we had repelled the force of Great Britian. His philanthropic eye saw that great and beautiful wilderness lying open, soon to be peopled by the citizens of the United States. It was a leading object with him to carry into practice those beautiful theories of equality which had charmed his great mind so long. He labored unceasingly until he had fixed out a document fully to carry out there his great idea that the people should rule the Governments of the earth. He found nothing in the way of his theory; there was a blank sheet of paper. There was a Government to be laid, unstained by any of the crimes of ancient Rome. No institutions had grown up there, inconsistent with right; and he fixed upon that soil to carry out the great theory of self- government for which the world had labored and sighed for so many generations; and there the work was completed. In that region there is no aristocracy. In that glorious region there is no slave. Whoever comes there impressed with the image of God, is acknowledged to have an inalienable fight to liberty that none but God can take away. This is the character of the communities composing more than one-half the States of this Union. How is it on the other side ? Why, sir, I understood the Senator from Virginia, [Mr. Hunter,] in the beautiful speech that he made yesterday, which would have challenged the admiration of every one, except for some sentiments that were scattered through it, to say—I have not had the benefit of seeing his speech printed, but I think he said—that these ideas of political equality which were held up before our communities were utopian and fanciful, and never could be realized. This probably was not his language, but it was his sentiment. Those principles of equality, asserted in the great charter of human liberty, the Declaration of Independence, he believes to be utopian, incapable of practice; mere abstractions, not to be lived out. I wish Southern gentlemen were better acquainted than they seem to be with Northern institutions. I tell the Senator from Virginia, you are wrong in believing this to be an abstraction. It is, thank God, a truth, the realization of which any man can witness who will cross over into my State. I have heard these sentiments uttered so often on the other side of the Chamber, that I have come to know that our views of government are just as diverse as men’s views possibly can be. There is, as I said before, an antagonism existing between us, which I know not how you are to cover up. The Declaration of Independence an abstraction 1 Are the great rights which it proclaimed, and which were the boast and glory of our fathers “ glittering generalities,” having no practical meaning ? If so. I would ask any man, what did you gain by that boasted Revolution of yours? Wherein does your Government differ from any despotism on the face of the earth? Once break loose from the glorious doctrines of that great charter of liberty, and you are in the slough of despond; you have nothing to distinguish you from the most horrible despotism that ever reigned over prostrate human nature. I ask again, why do you boast of what your fathers did, if they established a mere abstraction, or, as it is sometimes called, a “glittering generality? ” The Senator from South Carolina, carrying out the same idea, said: “ In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life. That is, a class requiring but a low order of intellect, and but little skill. Its requisites are vigor, docility, fidelity. Such a class you must have, or you would not have that other class which leads progress, civilization, and refinement.” Now, suppose you had not that class which leads progress, civilization, and refinement: which class can you dispense with best? Of what use is your idle aristocracy ? In God’s name, have they not been the curse, the blight of every nation of the earth ? You cannot have this refined aristocracy, says the gentleman, unless you have a class to do your drudgery ; and that is the sentiment of the whole South. How diametrically opposed to it is the whole practical system of the North 1 Is it reasonable, is it right, that “ a class ” shall do
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM4ODY=