THE ALTERNATIVE:
A Separate Nationality, or the Africanization of the South.
A sectional party, inimical to our institutions, and odious to ourpeople, is about taking possession of the Federal Government. The seedsown by the early Abolitionists has yielded a luxurious harvest. WhenLincoln is in place, Garrison will be in power. The Constitution, eitheropenly violated or emasculated of its true meaning and spirit by thesubtleties of New England logic, is powerless for protection. We are nolonger partners to a federal compact, but the victims of a consolidateddespotism. Opposition to slavery, to its existence, its extension andits perpetuation, is the sole cohesive element of the triumphantfaction. It did not receive the countenance of a single vote in any oneof the ten great cotton States of the South! The question is at lengthplainly presented: submission or secession. The only alternative left usis this: a separate nationality or the Africanization of the South.
He has not analyzed this subject aright nor probed it to the bottom, whosupposes that the real quarrel between the North and the South is aboutthe Territories, or the decision of the Supreme Court, or even theConstitution itself; and that, consequently, the issues may be stayedand the dangers arrested by the drawing of new lines and the signing ofnew compacts. The division is broader and deeper and more incurable thanthis. The antagonism is fundamental and ineradicable. The true secret ofit lies in the[Pg 2] total reversion of public opinion which has occured inboth sections of the country in the last quarter of a century on thesubject of slavery.
It has not been more than twenty-five years since Garrison was draggedthrough the streets of Boston with a rope around his neck, for utteringAbolition sentiments; and not thirty years since, the abolition ofslavery was seriously debated in the Legislature of Virginia. Now, onthe contrary, the radical opinions of Sumner, Emerson and Parker, andthe assassination schemes of John Brown, are applauded in Fanueil Hall,and the whole Southern mind with an unparalelled unanimity, regards theinstitution of slavery as righteous and just, ordained of God, and to beperpetuated by man. We do not propose to analyze the causes of thisremarkable revolution, which will constitute one of the strangestchapters of history. The fact is unquestionable. To understandrationally the events which are transpiring, and to forsee theirinevitable issue, it is necessary to examine this element of discordbetween the Northern and Southern people, to investigate its true natureand extent, and weigh carefully the prospect of its cure.
The Northern mind has become thoroughly anti-slavery in sentiment. Eventhose who contend for our constitutional rights share in the universalopinion that slavery is a great moral and social evil. Those who haveadopted the pro-slavery view are exceedingly few in numbers, and areregarded by the mass of Northern people as more fanatical than the mostextreme Abolitionist. The press, the pulpit, the rostrum of the Northare clamorous with declamation against us and our institutions. Slaveryis considered not only immoral but debasing to both owner and owned. Itis, they say, a relic of barbarism and a disgrace to an enlightenedpeople. We are not regarded as equals but are merely tolerated, aspersons whom they in their wisdom may possibly reform and improve.Churches refuse us participation in religi