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It was not simply free Massachusetts and slave-holding South Carolina, or English Connecticut and Dutch New York, that misunderstood and ridiculed each the other; but even between such neighbouring states as Connecticut and Massachusetts, both of them thoroughly English and Puritan, and in all their social conditions almost exactly alike, it used often to be said that there was no love lost.
Under the present system, it needs no argument to show that the Non-slaveholding States, with a free population considerably more than double that of the Slave-holding States, and with much more generally distributed wealth and opportunities of spending, pay far more than the proportion predicable on mere preponderance in numbers of the expenses of a government supported mainly by a tariff on importations.
The effect of the constitution has been obvious in the preponderance it has given to the slave-holding states over the other states. But the extension of this disproportionate power to the new states would be unjust and odious. The states whose power would be abridged and whose burdens would be increased by the measure would not be expected to consent to it.
Hitherto, Massachusetts and South Carolina had each stood stiffly at times for her own way, even at peril of the national bond; but in that hour the individuality of South Carolina was merged in the slave-holding States, and that of Massachusetts in a Union, one and indivisible. The challenge of South Carolina was promptly answered by Jackson, just re-elected President.
Against the call to protect the freedmen and bridle the slave-holding spirit in its new forms, rose the call to return to the old respect for local rights, and let each Southern State manage its own affairs, as did each Northern State. To this changed attitude came some of the staunchest of the old anti-slavery leaders, and many of the younger generation.
Slave-holding clergymen, and certain piously inclined planters, undertake, accordingly, to enlighten these poor creatures upon these matters, with a safe understanding, however, of what truth is to be given to them, and what is not; how much they may learn to become better slaves, and how much they may not learn, lest they cease to be slaves at all.
Woods-slayer, field-maker; working to bring in the period on the Shield when the hand of a man began to grasp the plough instead of the rifle, when the stallion had replaced the stag, and bellowing cattle wound fatly down into the pastures of the bison. This man had the face of his caste the countenance of the Southern slave-holding feudal lord.
"John Brown," said the late Wm. H. Seward, "was justly hanged." "John Brown," said the late John A. Andrew, "was right." It is easy to perceive the sources of these two opposite judgments: the one was the verdict of slave-holding and panic-stricken Virginia, the other was the verdict of the best heart and brain of free old Massachusetts.
This beyond reasonable doubt was the situation in the Spring of 1860: Our immense State with its coast line of more than seven hundred miles, sharply divided as between Southern and Northern California; the majority of our people in Los Angeles and neighboring counties frankly favoring the proposed confederacy of slave-holding states; many of the larger towns in the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys of a similar mind; the political leaders of the State almost solidly Democratic and the majority with strong Southern leanings; many of our foremost men believing that the time had come to launch the long dreamed of Pacific Republic, and our ranches and mines containing a large population either hostile or indifferent to the cause of Union and Liberty.
His expatriation has, however, been a gain to the cause of humanity in this country, where an intelligent representative of the oppressed coloured Americans is constantly needed, not only to describe, in language of fervid eloquence, the wrongs inflicted upon his race in the United States, but to prevent their bonds being strengthened in this country by holding fellowship with slave-holding and slave-abetting ministers from America.
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