temporary or permanent; whether they result from accidental derange、 ment of the body politic, or are indications of a normal condition? In the one case, temporary expedients may restore soundness; in the other the remedy is either hopeless, or it must be fundamental and thorough. In these respects, the invasion at Harper's Ferry is a valuable exponent. It furnishes many indications by which we may ascertain the actual condition of things. It is sort of a nilometer by which we can measure the height of the flood which is bursting over the land. By the Providence of that God who preserved your people from the knife of the assassin, you were enabled not only to defeat and capture your enemies, but to get possession of arms and documents which expose the design and plan of the assailants. You find that months must have elapsed in maturing their plans; that arms were manufactured, the design of which could not be mistaken; that large sums of money must have been collected. It is certain, therefore, that many persons must have known that such a blow was intended; and yet who spoke? Who gave a single friendly warning to Virginia? One voice indeed indistinctly uttered to the Federal government a warning, but that voice was disregarded, and the catastrophe burst upon us as a thunder storm in midwinter.

The loyal sons of Virginia rush to her defense, and the military arm bows to the majesty of law, and delivers the murderer to a just and impartial trial. A new incident in the history of crime is developed. Learned counsel from a distant city, once styled the Athens of America, proceed to a distant village to offer their services to defend the midnight assassin. Political offenses have sometimes found voluntary defenders, but the moral sense must be absolutely perverted when it is deemed a virtue to screen the murderer from punishment. The excitement grows, and your courts of justice cannot proceed as in ordinary cases of crime. You are compelled to surround them with military' power; and when the law has pronounced its sentence, you are compelled to guard the prison-house and the scaffold, to keep at bay the confederates and sympathizers with crimes heretofore execrated by every civilized people upon earth.

The indications of this implacable condition of Northern opinion do not stop here. The sentence of death upon the criminals and their execution are bewailed with sounds of lamentation, such as would now follow a Ridley or a Latimer to the stake, and public demonstrations of sympathy exhibit themselves throughout the entire North. To the great discredit of our institutions and of our country, motions are entertained in bodies exercising political power to honor the memory of a wretched fanatic and assassin, and in one body the motion failed only for want of three votes. These are indications which you cannot disregard. They tell of a state of public opinion which cannot fail to produce further evil. Every village bell, which tolled its solemn note at the execution of Brown, proclaims to the South the approbation of that village of insur

rection and servile war, and the ease with which some of the confederates escaped to Canada proves that much of the population around are willing to abet the actors in these incendiary attempts.

To view this matter in its just proportions we must set it at a little distance from us. Familiarity accustoms us so much to things near that we lose the perception of their magnitude. A daily observer of the Falls of Niagara may be brought to look upon them as the ordinary descent of water down a river. Let us, therefore, suppose that the attempted assassination of Louis Napoleon at the Opera House in Paris had been followed by developments showing the contribution of arms and money in England; that upon the arrest of the detected assassins learned counsel had crossed the channel to volunteer a defense before the French courts; that upon his condemnation threats of sympathy compelled the government to surround the scaffold with arms; and upon his execution bells were tolled in many English villages; and as a consummation of the whole, a motion were entertained to adjourn the Parliament in honor of the memory of the assassin, and that this motion had failed in one house only by three votes. Does any man suppose that under these circumstances the peace of Europe could have been preserved for a day? Unless prompt disavowal and punishment had been offered, every Frenchman would have been ready to cross the channel as an enemy, and the civilized world would have regarded the English people as a nation of outlaws.

In our country, so far from there being any proper indication of disavowal, the indications are the other way. Elections have taken place at the North since the Harper's Ferry invasion, in which the public sentiment has been exhibited. Those who maintain the abolition views have proved stronger than they ever were before. In New York they have triumphed over the other parties combined together, and in Boston, notwithstanding an attempt to stay the tide, the same result has followed. In Congress the same lamentable exhibition is afforded. More than one hundred members prefer to keep the government disorganized, rather than abandon a candidate whose recommendation of a book, inviting a combined effort to introduce anarchy and servile war at the South, makes him obnoxious to the South; and of these some sixty have signed a recommendation of the same book; and there they stand, and have stood for more than six weeks, with unbroken front, refusing any kind of concession to the outraged feelings of the South. Can any Southern man believe that these representatives do not represent the feelings of their constituents, and that they would venture upon the measure of keeping the government disorganized against the public opinion that is behind them?

Here, then, we have before us the North and the South, standing face to face, not yet as avowed and open enemies, but with deep-seated feelings of enmity rankling in their bosoms, which at any moment may

burst forth into action. Is it wise, when we see flame shining through every crevice, and ready to leap through every open window; is it wise to close the window, and fill up every gap, and shut our eyes to the fact that the fire is raging within the building? It is not wise. We must examine the premises and determine whether the building can be saved or whether it must be abandoned.

We have now reached this point in our inquiry. The Harper's Ferry invasion, with the developments following it, and the now existing condition of the country, prove that the North and the South are standing in hostile array-the one with an absolute majority, sustaining those who meditate our destruction and refusing to us any concession or guaranty, and the other baffled in every attempt at compromise or security.

The inquiry which must naturally follow would be into the causes which have led to this result, and whether these causes are transient in character, or must continue to operate until they result in the final overthrow of our institutions.

To determine this question, it becomes necessary to review a portion of the history of our country.

At the termination of the Revolutionary war there were six slaveholding States and seven non-slaveholding. The Northern section had no territory but that from which has since been formed the States of Vermont and Maine. The Southern owned the Northwest and the Southwest; and had in its possession the means of expanding itself into the numerous States which have since been formed out of this territory. The local law of slavery in the parent State would have followed in the offspring, and the result must have been that the power of the South would have had the vast preponderance. At that time, too, the commerce of the South was equal to that of the North; and occupying a more favorable position, both as to soil and climate, there was every reasonable prospect that she would be in the advance in all the elements of national strength.

How different a result do we this day realize? The North has grown to a degree of power and grandeur unequalled in the history of the world. They have taken possession of the magnificent inheritance of the South, and on the fertile plains which should have been ours, they gather their thousands, and utter voices of denunciation against those who bestowed upon them the power and wealth which they enjoy. What are the causes of these results? How has it come to pass that the South, having in its hands the means of unlimited progress and certain preponderance, has been reduced almost to the condition of a suppliant, whilst the North has grown into such proportions that it assumes to give law as a master?

The more perfect union of the States was an object of great interest to the Revolutionary patriots. In 1784 Virginia led the way by ceding

to the United States her magnificent domain North of the Ohio river. The terms of Virginia's act of cession required that the States to be formed from this territory shall be "admitted members of the Federal Union, having the same rights of sovereignty, freedom and independence as the other States." Shortly after the cession a committee of the Congress of the Confederation was raised to frame an ordinance for the establishment of the territory. This committee, of whom Mr. Jefferson was one, reported an ordinance excluding slavery after the year 1800. This restriction on slavery, however, was struck out by the Congress on the motion of North Carolina, every Southern State and every Southern delegate except Mr. Jefferson voting for striking out, and the ordinance was adopted without the restriction. During the several subsequent sessions of Congress other propositions were moved, and, finally, on the 13th of July, 1787, just two months before the adoption of our present Constitution, the ordinance was adopted, with the restriction clause as follows:

"ART. 6.-There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted: Provided always, That any person escaping into the same from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid."

Three things are apparent from this statement. The first is that Virginia and the South made this great concession for the sake of the Federal Union; the second is that the concession was made upon the express condition that fugitive slaves escaping into this territory should be restored to their owners, and the third is that at this early period, long before fanaticism had mingled in this controversy, and before the South had any apprehension as to her equal rights, the North, with far-reaching craftiness, secured to itself a predominance of eventual power in the Union. The generous and confiding character of the South overlooked these considerations. Her statesmen were then in possession of the government. General Washington was at the head, surrounded by generous and noble spirits, and the slave-holder and the non-slave-holder had so often stood side by side in conflict with their enemy that they still deemed each other brethren.

But what has been the effect of these cessions upon the relative condition of the North and the South? From this ceded territory nine States have grown: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi. These States, added to the six original slave States, would have increased their number to fifteen. The Northern States, having but two new States to add to their original seven, would have numbered nine in all. Hence it would have followed

that the South would now have had 30 senators and 122 representatives in Congress, whilst the North would have had only 18 senators and 92 representatives. The effect of the cessions, however, has been to give to the North 5 out of these 9 States, whilst the South retained but 4. The Northern States have, therefore, added these 5 to their original 7, which 12 being added to Vermont and Maine made their number 14, against 10 Southern States, and the distribution of power according to the present basis gives to the North, as the effect of these cessions, 28 senators and 140 representatives in Congress, while the South has only 20 senators and 74 representatives.

History does not afford a parallel for so magnanimous and voluntary a surrender. Virginia, which contributed the largest portion, was per haps more independent than any of her sisters. With a climate and soil the most favored by nature-with an extended commerce-with fine ports and noble rivers-with somewhat of a navy, and with a well-tried militia, she was quite able to stand alone. But she gave up all for the sake of union. Nay, more-the whole produce of the sales of all the lands ceded by the South, amounting to some one hundred and fifty millions of dollars, was thrown into the coffer of the Union-whilst the sales in the northern portion of the Union was reserved to themselves. Surely if there could be created a sentiment of gratitude and brotherly love in States, that sentiment should have existed in the Northern States toward the people of the South.

The next event of importance in this history was the purchase of Louisiana. This acquisition was made in April, 1803, under the treaty with France, and was approved by the whole Union. The territory acquired was all slave-holding. The rights of the inhabitants were expressly guaranteed to them by treaty; and the local law being that of a slave-holding country, of course attached throughout its entire extent. Ten States have been or are about to be formed from this purchase. At the date of the treaty there were eight slave-holding and nine non-slave-holding States; and from the territory then belonging to the Union, the slave States could add to their number but two, to-wit: Alabama and Mississippi-whilst five remained to be added to the North, namely: Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Maine. When these should all have been admitted, the North was to have fourteen States-the South but ten. The purchase of Louisiana by extending the local law of slavery over all its territory, added to the South this whole area, making in all twenty States; and the acquisition of Florida, under the treaty of Spain added one more State, making twentyone Southern States against fourteen Northern.

Such was the condition and prospects of the Union when Missouri applied for admission. Maine had just been admitted without objection, and the Union stood at its old position-the North having one more