1857.12北方人应该采取反对奴隶制的立场

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POLITICS
Where Will It End?
In its second issue, The Atlantic urged Northerners to take a stand against slavery.

By Edmund Quincy

J. A. Palmer / Library of Congress
DECEMBER 1857 ISSUE
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Editor’s Note: We’ve gathered dozens of the most important pieces from our archives on race and racism in America.  Find the collection here.
Wise men of every name and nation, whether poets, philosophers, statesmen, or divines, have been trying to explain, the puzzles of human condition, since the world began. For three thousand years, at least, they have been at this problem, and it is far enough from being solved yet. Its anomalies seem to have been expressly contrived by Nature to elude our curiosity and defy our cunning. And no part of it has she arranged so craftily as that web of institutions, habits, manners, and customs, in which we find ourselves enmeshed as soon as we begin to have any perception at all, and which, slight and almost invisible as it may seem, it is so hard to struggle with and so impossible to break through. It may be true, according to the poetical Platonism of Wordsworth, that “heaven lies about us in our infancy”; but we very soon leave it far behind us, and, as we approach manhood, sadly discover that we have grown up into a jurisdiction of a very different kind.

In almost every region of the earth, indeed, it is literally true that “shades of the prison-house begin to close upon the growing boy.” As his faculties develope, he becomes more and more conscious of the deepening shadows, as well as of the grim walls that cast them on his soul, and his opening intelligence is earliest exercised in divining who built them first, and why they exist at all. The infant Chinese, the baby Calmuck, the suckling Hottentot, we must suppose, rest unconsciously in the calm of the heaven from which they, too, have emigrated, as well as the sturdy new-born Briton, or the freest and most independent little Yankee that is native and to the manner born of this great country of our own. But all alike grow gradually into a consciousness of walls, which, though invisible, are none the less impassable, and of chains, though light as air, yet stronger than brass or iron. And everywhere is the machinery ready, though different in its frame and operation in different torture-chambers, to crush out the budding skepticism, and to mould the mind into the monotonous decency of general conformity. Fo or Fetish, King or Kaiser, Deity itself or the vicegerents it has appointed in its stead, are answerable for it all. God himself has looked upon it, and it is very good, and there is no appeal from that approval of the Heavenly vision.

In almost every country in the world this deification of institutions has been promoted by their antiquity. As nobody can remember when they were not, and as no authentic records exist of their first establishment, their genealogy can be traced direct to Heaven without danger of positive disproof. Thus royal races and hereditary aristocracies and privileged priesthoods established themselves so firmly in the opinion of Europe, as well as of Asia, and still retain so much of their prestige there, notwithstanding the turnings and overturnings of the last two centuries. This northern half of the great American continent, however, seems to have been kept back by Nature as a tabula rasa, a clean blackboard, on which the great problem of civil government might be worked out, without any of the incongruous drawbacks which have cast perplexity and despair upon those who have undertaken its solution in the elder world. All the elements of the demonstration were of the most favorable nature. Settled by races who had inherited or achieved whatever of constitutional liberty existed in the world, with no hereditary monarch, or governing oligarchy, or established religion on the soil, with every opportunity to avoid all the vices and to better all the virtues of the old polities, the era before which all history had been appointed to prepare the way seemed to have arrived, when the just relations of personal liberty and civil government were to be established forever.

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And how magnificent the field on which the trophy of this final victory of a true civilization was to be erected! No empire or kingdom, at least since imperial Rome perished from the earth, ever unrolled a surface so vast and so variegated, so manifold in its fertilities and so various in its aspects of beauty and sublimity. From the Northern wastes, where the hunter and the trapper pursue by force or guile the fur-bearing animals, to the ever-perfumed latitudes of the lemon and the myrtle, — from the stormy Atlantic, where the skiff of the fisherman rocks fearlessly under the menace of beetling crags amid the foam of angry breakers, to where the solemn surge of the Pacific pours itself around our Western continent, boon Nature has spread out fields which ask only the magic touch of Labor to wave with every harvest and blush with every fruitage. Majestic forests crown the hills, asking to be transformed into homes for man on the solid earth, or into the moving miracles in which he flies on wings of wind or flame over the ocean to the ends of the earth. Exhaustless mineral treasures offer themselves to his hand, scarce hidden beneath the soil, or lying carelessly upon the surface, — coal, and lead, and copper, and the “all-worshipped ore” of gold itself; while quarries, reaching to the centre, from many a rugged hill-top, barren of all beside, court the architect and the sculptor, ready to give shape to their dreams of beauty in the palace or in the statue.

The soil, too, is fitted by the influences of every sky for the production of every harvest that can bring food, comfort, wealth, and luxury to man. Every family of the grasses, every cereal that can strengthen the heart, every fruit that can delight the taste, every fibre that can be woven into raiment or persuaded into the thousand shapes of human necessity, asks but a gentle solicitation to pour its abundance bounteously into the bosom of the husbandman. And men have multiplied under conditions thus auspicious to life, until they swarm on the Atlantic slope, are fast filling up the great valley of the Mississippi, and gradually flow over upon the descent towards the Pacific. The three millions, who formed the population of the Thirteen States that set the British empire at defiance, have grown up into a nation of nearly, if not quite, ten times that strength, within the duration of active lives not yet finished. And in freedom from unmanageable debt, in abundance and certainty of revenue, in the materials for naval armaments, in the elements of which armies are made up, in everything that goes to form national wealth, power, and strength, the United States, it would seem, even as they are now, might stand against the world in arms, or in the arts of peace. Are not these results proofs irrefragable of the wisdom of the government under which they have come to pass?

When the eyes of the thoughtful inquirer turn from the general prospect of the national greatness and strength, to the geographical divisions of the country, to examine the relative proportions of these gifts contributed by each, he begins to be aware that there are anomalies in the moral and political condition even of this youngest of nations, not unlike what have perplexed him in his observation of her elder sisters. He beholds the Southern region, embracing within its circuit three hundred thousand more square miles than the domain of the North, dowered with a soil incomparably more fertile, watered by mighty rivers fit to float the argosies of the world, placed nearer the sun and canopied by more propitious skies, with every element of prosperity and wealth showered upon it with Nature's fullest and most unwithdrawing hand, and sees, that, notwithstanding all this, the share of public wealth and strength drawn thence is almost inappreciable by the side of what is poured into the common stock by the strenuous sterility of the North. With every opportunity and means that Nature can supply for commerce, with navigable rivers searching its remotest corners, with admirable harbors in which the navies of the world might ride, with the chief articles of export for its staple productions, it still depends upon its Northern partner to fetch and carry all that it produces, and the little that it consumes. Possessed of all the raw materials of manufactures and the arts, its inhabitants look to the North for everything they need from the cradle to the coffin. Essentially agricultural in its constitution, with every blessing Nature can bestow upon it, the gross value of all its productions is less by millions than that of the simple grass of the field gathered into Northern barns. With all the means and materials of wealth, the South is poor. With every advantage for gathering strength and self-reliance, it is weak and dependent. — Why this difference between the two?

The why is not far to seek. It is to be found in the reward which Labor bestows on those that pay it due reverence in the one case, and the punishment it inflicts on those offering it outrage and insult in the other. All wealth proceeding forth from Labor, the land where it is honored and its ministers respected and rewarded must needs rejoice in the greatest abundance of its gifts. Where, on the contrary, its exercise is regarded as the badge of dishonor and the vile office of the refuse and offscouring of the race, its largess must be proportionably meagre and scanty. The key of the enigma is to be found in the constitution of human nature. A man in fetters cannot do the task-work that one whose limbs are unshackled looks upon as a pastime. A man urged by the prospect of winning an improved condition for himself and his children by the skill of his brain and the industry of his hand must needs achieve results such as no fear of torture can extort from one denied the holy stimulus of hope. Hence the difference so often noticed between tracts lying side by side, separated only by a river or an imaginary line; on one side of which, thrift and comfort and gathering wealth, growing villages, smiling farms, convenient habitations, school-houses, and churches make the landscape beautiful; while on the other, slovenly husbandry, dilapidated mansions, sordid huts, perilous wastes, horrible roads, the rare spire, and rarer village school betray all the nakedness of the land. It is the magic of motive that calls forth all this wealth and beauty to bless the most sterile soil stirred by willing and intelligent labor; while the reversing of that spell scatters squalor and poverty and misery over lands endowed by Nature with the highest fertility, spreading their leprous infection from the laborer to his lord. All this is in strict accordance with the laws of God, as expounded by man in his books on political economy.

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Not so, however, with the stranger phenomenon to be discerned inextricably connected with this anomaly, but not, apparently, naturally and inevitably flowing from it. That the denial of his natural and civil rights to the laborer who sows and reaps the harvests of the Southern country should be avenged upon his enslaver in the scanty yielding of the earth, and in the unthrift, the vices, and the wretchedness which are the only crops that spring spontaneously from soil blasted by slavery, is nothing strange. It is only the statement of the truism in moral and in political economy, that true prosperity can never grow up from wrong and wickedness. That pauperism, and ignorance, and vice, that reckless habits, and debasing customs, and barbarous manners should come of an organized degradation of labor, and of cruelty and injustice crystallized into an institution, is an inevitable necessity, and strictly according to the nature of things. But that the stronger half of the nation should suffer the weaker to rule over it in virtue of its weakness, that the richer region should submit to the political tyranny of its impoverished moiety because of that very poverty, is indeed a marvel and a mystery. That the intelligent, educated, and civilized portion of a race should consent to the sway of their ignorant, illiterate, and barbarian companions in the commonwealth, and this by reason of that uncouth barbarism, is an astonishment, and should be a hissing to all beholders everywhere. It would be so to ourselves, were we not so used to the fact, had it not so grown into our essence and ingrained itself with our nature as to seem a vital organism of our being. Of all the anomalies in morals and in politics which the history of civilized man affords, this is surely the most abnormous and the most unreasonable.

The entire history of the United States is but the record of the evidence of this fact. What event in our annals is there that Slavery has not set her brand upon it to mark it as her own? In the very moment of the nation's birth, like the evil fairy of the nursery tale, she was present to curse it with her fatal words. The spell then wound up has gone on increasing in power, until the scanty formulas which seemed in those days of infancy as if they would fade out of the parchment into which they had been foisted, and leave no trace that they ever were, have blotted out all beside, and statesmen and judges read nothing there but the awful and all-pervading name of Slavery. Once intrenched among the institutions of the country, this baleful power has advanced from one position to another, never losing ground, but establishing itself at each successive point more impregnably than before, until it has us at an advantage that encourages it to demand the surrender of our rights, our self-respect, and our honor. What was once whispered in the secret chamber of council is now proclaimed upon the housetops; what was once done by indirection and guile is now carried with the high hand, in the face of day, at the mouth of the cannon and by the edge of the sabre of the nation. Doctrines and designs which a few years since could find no mouthpiece out of a bar-room, or the piratical den of a filibuster, are now clothed with power by the authentic response of the bench of our highest judicatory, and obsequiously iterated from the oracular recesses of the National Palace.

And the events which now fill the scene are but due successors in the train that has swept over the stage ever since the nineteenth century opened the procession with the purchase of Louisiana. The acquisition of that vast territory, important as it was in a national point of view, — but coveted by the South mainly as the fruitful mother of slave-holding States, and for the precedent it established, that the Constitution was a barrier only to what should impede, never to what might promote, the interests of Slavery, — was the first great stride she made as she stalked to her design. The admission of Missouri as a slaveholding State, granted after a struggle that shook American society to the centre, and then only on the memorable promises now broken to the ear as well as to the hope, was the next vantage-ground seized and maintained. The nearly contemporary purchase of Florida, though in design and in effect as revolutionary an action as that of Louisiana, excited comparatively little opposition. It was but the following up of an acknowledged victory by the Slave Power. The long and bloody wars in her miserable swamps, waged against the humanity of savages that gave shelter to the fugitives from her tyranny, — slave-hunts, merely, on a national scale and at the common expense, — followed next in the march of events. Then Texas loomed in the distance, and, after years of gradual approach and covert advances, was first wrested from Mexico. Slavery next indissolubly chained to her, and then, by a coup d'etat of astonishing impudence, was added, by a flourish of John Tyler's pen, in the very article of his political dissolution, to “the Area of Freedom!” Next came the war with Mexico, lying in its pretences, bloody in its conduct, triumphant in its results, for it won vast regions suitable for Slavery now, and taught the way to win larger conquests when her ever-hungry maw should crave them. What need to recount the Fugitive-Slave Bill, and the other “Compromises” of 1850? or to recite the base repeal of the Missouri Compromise, showing the slaveholder's regard for promises to be as sacred as that of a pettifogger for justice or of a dicer for an oath? or to point to the plains of Kansas, red with the blood of her sons and blackened with the cinders of her towns, while the President of the United States held the sword of the nation at her throat to compel her to submission?

Success, perpetual and transcendent, such as has always waited on Slavery in all her attempts to mould the history of the country and to compel the course of its events to do her bidding, naturally excites a measure of curiosity if not of admiration, in the mind of every observer. Have the slave-owners thus gone on from victory to victory and from strength to strength by reason of their multitude, of their wealth, of their public services, of their intelligence, of their wisdom, of their genius, or of their virtue? Success in gigantic crime sometimes implies a strength and energy which compel a kind of respect even from those that hate it most. The right supremacy of the power that thus sways our destiny clearly does not reside in the overwhelming numbers of those that bear rule. The entire sum of all who have any direct connection with Slavery, as owners or hirers, is less than THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND, — not half as many as the inhabitants of the single city of New York! And yet even this number exaggerates the numerical force of the dominant element in our affairs. To approximate to the true result, it would be fair to strike from the gross sum those owning or employing less than ten slaves, in order to arrive at the number of slave-owners who really compose the ruling influence of the nation. This would leave but a small fraction over NINETY THOUSAND, men, women, and children, owning slaves enough to unite them in a common interest. And from this should be deducted the women and minors, actually owning slaves in their own right, but who have no voice in public affairs. These taken away, and the absentees flying to Europe or the North from the moral contaminations and material discomforts inseparable from Slavery, and not much more than FIFTY THOUSAND voting men will remain to represent this mighty and all-controlling power! — a fact as astounding as it is incontrovertible.

Oligarchies are nothing new in the history of the world. The government of the many by the few is the rule, and not the exception, in the politics of the times that have been and of those that now are. But the concentration of the power that determines the policy, makes the laws, and appoints the ministers of a mighty nation, in the hands of less than the five-hundredth part of its members, is an improvement on the essence of the elder aristocracies; while the usurpation of the title of the Model Republic and of the Pattern Democracy, under which we offer ourselves to the admiration and imitation of less happy nations, is certainly a refinement on their nomenclature.

This prerogative of power, too, is elsewhere conceded by the multitude to their rulers generally for some especial fitness, real or imaginary, for the office they have assumed. Some services of their own or of their ancestors to the state, some superiority, natural or acquired, of parts or skill, at least some specialty of high culture and elegant breeding, a quick sense of honor, a jealousy of insult to the public, an impatience of personal stain, — some or all of these qualities, appealing to the gratitude or to the imagination of the masses, have usually been supposed to inhere in the class they permit to rule over them. By virtue of some or all of these things, its members have had allowed to them their privileges and their precedency, their rights of exemption and of preeminence, their voice potential in the councils of the state, and their claim to be foremost in its defence in the hour of its danger. Some ray of imagination there is, which, falling on the knightly shields and heraldic devices that symbolize their conceded superiority, at least dazzles the eyes and delights the fancy of the crowd, so as to blind them to the inhering vices and essential fallacies of the Order to whose will they bow.
But no such consolations of delusion remain to us, as we stand face to face with the Power which holds our destinies in its hand. None of these blear illusions can cheat our eyes with any such false presentments. No antiquity hallows, no public services consecrate, no gifts of lofty culture adorn, no graces of noble breeding embellish the coarse and sordid oligarchy that gives law to us. And in the blighting shadow of Slavery letters die and art cannot live. What book has the South ever given to the libraries of the world? What work of art has she ever added to its galleries? What artist has she produced that did not instinctively fly, like Allston, to regions in which genius could breathe and art was possible? What statesman has she reared, since Jefferson died and Madison ceased to write, save those intrepid discoverers who have taught that Slavery is the corner-stone of republican institutions, and the vital element of Freedom herself? What divine, excepting the godly men whose theologic skill has attained to the doctrine that Slavery is of the essence of the Gospel of Jesus Christ? What moralist, besides those ethic doctors who teach that it is according to the Divine Justice that the stronger race should strip the weaker of every civil, social, and moral right? The unrighteous partiality, extorted by the threats of Carolina and Georgia in 1788, which gives them a disproportionate representation because of their property in men, and the unity of interest which makes them always act in behalf of Slavery as one man, have made them thus omnipotent. The North, distracted by a thousand interests, has always been at the mercy of whatever barbarian chief in the capital could throw his slave whip into the trembling scale of party. The government having been always, since this century began, at least, the creature and the tool of the slaveholders, the whole patronage of the nation, and the treasury filled chiefly by Northern commerce, have been at their command to help manipulate and mould plastic Northern consciences into practicable shapes. When the slave interest, consisting, at its own largest account of itself, of less than THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND souls, has thirty members of the Senate, while the free-labor interest, consisting of at least TWENTY-FOUR MILLIONS, SIX HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND souls, has but thirty-two, and when the former has a delegation of some score of members to represent its slaves in the House, besides its own fair proportion, can we marvel that it has achieved the mastery over us, which is written in black and bloody characters on so many pages of our history?

Such having been the absolute sway Slavery has exercised over the facts of our history, what has been its influence upon the characters of the men with whom it has had to do? Of all the productions of a nation, its men are what prove its quality the most surely. How have the men of America stood this test? Have those in the high places, they who have been called to wait at the altar before all the people, maintained the dignity of character and secured the general reverence which marked and waited upon their predecessors in the days of our small things? The population of the United States has multiplied itself nearly tenfold, while its wealth has increased in a still greater proportion, since the peace of ’Eighty-Three. Have the Representative Men of the nation been made or maintained great and magnanimous, too? Or is that other anomaly, which has so perplexed the curious foreigner, an admitted fact, that in proportion as the country has waxed great and powerful, its public men have dwindled from giants in the last century to dwarfs in this? Alas, to ask the question is to answer it. Compare Franklin, and Adams, and Jay, met at Paris to negotiate the treaty of peace which was to seal the recognition of their country as an equal sister in the family of nations, with Buchanan, and Soule, and Mason, convened at Ostend to plot the larceny of Cuba! Sages and lawgivers, consulting for the welfare of a world and a race, on the one hand, and buccaneers conspiring for the pillage of a sugar-island on the other!

What men, too, did not Washington and Adams call around them in the Cabinet! — how representative of great ideas! how historical! how immortal! How many of our readers can name the names of their successors of the present day? Inflated obscurities, bloated insignificances, who knows or cares whence they came or what they are? We know whose bidding they were appointed to obey, and what manner of work they are ready to perform. And shall we dare extend our profane comparisons even higher than the Cabinet? Shall we bring the shadowy majesty of Washington's august idea alongside the microscopic realities of to-day? Let us be more merciful, and take our departure from the middle term between the Old and the New, occupied by Andrew Jackson, whose iron will and doggedness of purpose give definite character, if not awful dignity, to his image. In his time, the Slave Power, though always the secret spring which set events in motion, began to let its workings be seen more openly than ever before. And from his time forward, what a graduated line of still diminishing shadows have glided successively through the portals of the White House! From Van Buren to Tyler, from Tyler to Polk, from Polk to Fillmore, from Fillmore to Pierce! “Fine by degrees and beautifully less,” until it at last reached the vanishing point!

The baleful influence thus ever shed by Slavery on our national history and our public men has not yet spent its malignant forces. It has, indeed, reached a height which a few years ago it was thought the wildest fanaticism to predict; but its fatal power will not be stayed in the mid-sweep of its career. The Ordinance of 1787 torn to shreds and scattered to the winds, — the line drawn in 1820, which the slaveholders plighted their faith Slavery should never overstep, insolently as well as infamously obliterated, — Slavery presiding in the Cabinet, seated on the Supreme Bench, absolute in the halls of Congress, — no man can say what shape its next aggression may not take to itself. A direct attack on the freedom of the press and the liberty of speech at the North, where alone either exists, were no more incredible than the later insolences of its tyranny. The battle not yet over in Kansas, for the compulsory establishment of Slavery there by the interposition of the Federal arm, will be renewed in every Territory as it is ripening into a State. Already warning voices are heard in the air, presaging such a conflict in Oregon. Parasites everywhere instinctively feel that a zeal for the establishment of Slavery where it has been abolished, or its introduction where it had been prohibited, is the highest recommendation to the Executive favor. The rehabilitation of the African slave-trade is seriously proposed and will be furiously urged, and nothing can hinder its accomplishment but its interference with the domestic manufactures of the breeding Slave States. The pirate Walker is already mustering his forces for another incursion into Nicaragua, and rumors are rife that General Houston designs wresting yet another Texas from Mexico. Mighty events are at hand, even at the door; and the mission of them all will be to fix Slavery firmly and forever on the throne of this nation.

Is the success of this conspiracy to be final and eternal? Are the States which name themselves, in simplicity or in irony, the Free States, to be always the satrapies of a central power like this? Are we forever to submit to be cheated out of our national rights by an oligarchy as despicable as it is detestable, because it clothes itself in the forms of democracy, and allows us the ceremonies of choice, the name of power, and the permission to register the edicts of the sovereign? We, who broke the sceptre of King George, and set our feet on the supremacy of the British Parliament, surrender ourselves, bound hand and foot in bonds of our own weaving, into the hands of the slaveholding Philistines! We, who scorned the rule of the aristocracy of English acres, submit without a murmur, or with an ineffectual resistance, to the aristocracy of American flesh and blood! Is our spirit effectually broken? is the brand of meanness and compromise burnt in uneffaceably upon our Souls? and are we never to be roused, by any indignities, to fervent resentment and effectual resistance? The answer to these grave questions lies with ourselves alone. One hundred thousand, or three hundred thousand men, however crafty and unscrupulous, cannot forever keep under their rule more than twenty millions, as much their superiors in wealth and intelligence as in numbers, except by their own consent. If the growing millions are to be driven with cartwhips along the pathway of their history by the dwindling thousands, they have none to blame for it but themselves. If they like to have their laws framed and expounded, their presidents appointed, their foreign policy dictated, their domestic interests tampered with, their war and peace made for them, their national fame and personal honor tarnished, and the lie given to all their boastings before the old despotisms, by this insignificant fraction of their number, — scarcely visible to the naked eye in the assembly of the whole people, — none can gainsay or resist their pleasure.

But will the many always thus submit themselves to the domination of the few? We believe that the days of this ignominious subjection are already numbered. Signs in heaven and on earth tell us that one of those movements has begun to be felt in the Northern mind, which perplex tyrannies everywhere with the fear of change. The insults and wrongs so long heaped upon the North by the South begin to be felt. The torpid giant moves uneasily beneath his mountain-load of indignities. The people of the North begin to feel that they support a government for the benefit of their natural enemies; for, of all antipathies, that of slave labor to free is the most deadly and irreconcilable. There never was a time when the relations of the North and the South, as complicated by Slavery, were so well understood and so deeply resented as now. In fields, in farmhouses, and in workshops, there is a spirit aroused which can never be laid or exorcised till it has done its task. We see its work in the great uprising of the Free States against the Slave States in the late national election. Though trickery and corruption cheated it of its end, the thunder of its protest struck terror into the hearts of the tyrants. We hear its echo, as it comes back from the Slave States themselves, in the exceeding bitter cry of the whites for deliverance from the bondage which the slavery of the blacks has brought upon them also. We discern the confession of its might in the very extravagances and violences of the Slave Power. It is its conscious and admitted weakness that has made Texas and Mexico and Cuba, and our own Northwestern territory, necessary to be devoured. It is desperation, and not strength, that has made the bludgeon and the bowie-knife integral parts of the national legislation. It has the American Government, the American Press, and the American Church, in its national organizations, on its side; but the Humanity and the Christianity of the Nation and the World abhor and execrate it. They that be against it are more than they that be for it.

It rages, for its time is short. And its rage is the fiercer because of the symptoms of rebellion against its despotism which it discerns among the white men of the South, who from poverty or from principle have no share in its sway. When we speak of the South as distinguished from the North by elements of inherent hostility, we speak only of the governing faction, and not of the millions of nominally free men who are scarcely less its thralls than the black slaves themselves. This unhappy class of our countrymen are the first to feel the blight which Slavery spreads around it, because they are the nearest to its noxious power. The subjects of no European despotism are under a closer espionage, or a more organized system of terrorism, than are they. The slaveholders, having the wealth, and nearly all the education that the South can boast of, employ these mighty instruments of power to create the public sentiment and to control the public affairs of their region, so as best to secure their own supremacy. No word of dissent to the institutions under which they live, no syllable of dissatisfaction, even, with any of the excesses they stimulate, can be breathed in safety. A Christian minister in Tennessee relates an act of fiendish cruelty inflicted upon a slave by one of the members of his church, and he is forced to leave his charge, if not to fly the country. Another in South Carolina presumes to express in conversation his disapprobation of the murderous assault of Brooks on Senator Sumner, and his pastoral relations are broken up on the instant, as if he had been guilty of gross crime or flagrant heresy. Professor Hedrick, in North Carolina, ventures to utter a preference for the Northern candidate in the last presidential campaign, and he is summarily ejected from his chair, and virtually banished from his native State. Mr. Underwood, of Virginia, dares to attend the convention of the party he preferred, and he is forbidden to return to his home on pain of death. The blackness of darkness and the stillness of death are thus forced to brood over that land which God formed so fair, and made to be so happy.

That such a tyranny should excite an antagonistic spirit of resistance is inevitable from the constitution of man and the character of God. The sporadic cases of protest and of resistance to the slaveholding aristocracy, which lift themselves occasionally above the dead level of the surrounding despotism, are representative cases. They stand for much more than their single selves. They prove that there is a wide-spread spirit of discontent, informing great regions of the slave-land, which must one day find or force an opportunity of making itself heard and felt. This we have just seen in the great movement in Missouri, the very nursing-mother of Border-Ruffianism itself, which narrowly missed making Emancipation the policy of the majority of the voters there. Such a result is the product of no sudden culture. It must have been long and slowly growing up. And how could it be otherwise? There must be intelligence enough among the non-slaveholding whites to see the difference there is between themselves and persons of the same condition in the Free States. Why can they have no free schools? Why is it necessary that a missionary society be formed at the North to furnish them with such ministers as the slave-master can approve? Why can they not support their own ministers, and have a Gospel of Free Labor preached to them, if they choose? Why are they hindered from taking such newspapers as they please? Why are they subjected to a censorship of the press, which dictates to them what they may or may not read, and which punishes booksellers with exile and ruin for keeping for sale what they want to buy? Why must Northern publishers expurgate and emasculate the literature of the world before it is permitted to reach them? Why is it that the value of acres increases in a geometrical ratio, as they stretch away towards the North Star from the frontier of Slavery? These questions must suggest their sufficient answer to thousands of hearts, and be preparing the way for the insurrection of which the slaveholders stand in the deadliest fear, — that of the whites at their gates, who can do with them and their institutions what seems to them good, when once they know their power, and choose to put it forth. The unity of interest of the non-slaveholders of the South with the people of the Free States is perfect, and it must one day combine them in a unity of action.





政治
它将在哪里结束？
在其第二期中，《大西洋》杂志敦促北方人采取反对奴隶制的立场。

作者：埃德蒙-昆西

J. A. Palmer/美国国会图书馆
1857年12月号
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编者按：我们从我们的档案中收集了几十篇关于美国的种族和种族主义的最重要的文章。 在这里可以找到这些作品。
每一个名字和国家的智者，无论是诗人、哲学家、政治家，还是神学家，自世界开始以来，一直试图解释人类状况的困惑。至少三千年来，他们一直在研究这个问题，而这个问题还远远没有得到解决。它的反常现象似乎是由大自然明确设计的，以躲避我们的好奇心和藐视我们的狡猾。它的任何部分都没有像制度、习惯、礼仪和风俗的网络那样安排得如此巧妙，我们一开始有任何感知，就发现自己被卷入其中，而且，尽管它看起来很轻微，几乎看不见，但却很难与之斗争，不可能突破。根据华兹华斯的柏拉图主义，"天堂在我们幼年时就在我们身边"，这可能是真的；但我们很快就把它远远抛在身后，当我们接近成年时，悲哀地发现我们已经成长为一个非常不同的管辖区。

事实上，几乎在地球上的每一个地区，"监狱的阴影开始笼罩着成长中的男孩"，这确实是事实。随着他的能力的发展，他越来越意识到越来越深的阴影，以及投射在他的灵魂上的严峻的墙壁，他开放的智慧最早被用来猜测谁首先建造了它们，以及它们为什么存在。我们必须假定，中国的婴儿、卡尔穆克的婴儿、正在吸奶的霍屯督人，以及刚出生的结实的英国人或最自由、最独立的小美国人，都不自觉地停留在他们所移居的天堂的平静之中，他们也是在我们这个伟大国家出生的。但所有的人都逐渐意识到，墙壁虽然看不见，但也是不可逾越的，而链条虽然轻如空气，却比铜或铁更坚固。到处都是准备好的机器，尽管在不同的刑讯室中，其框架和运作方式不同，但都是为了粉碎萌芽中的怀疑主义，并将人们的思想塑造成普遍一致的单调的体面。狐狸或宠物，国王或皇帝，神本身或它所指定的替代者，都要为这一切负责。上帝亲自审视了这一切，它非常好，没有人可以拒绝天国的认可。

在世界上几乎每一个国家，这种对机构的神化都是由它们的古老性促成的。由于没有人记得它们是什么时候出现的，也由于没有关于它们最初建立的真实记录，它们的谱系可以直接追溯到天堂，而没有被证实的危险。因此，王室种族和世袭贵族以及享有特权的神职人员在欧洲和亚洲的舆论中牢牢确立了自己的地位，而且尽管过去两个世纪发生了变化和颠覆，他们在那里仍然保持着巨大的威望。然而，伟大的美洲大陆的北半部分似乎被大自然保留了下来，作为一块白板，一块干净的黑板，在上面可以解决公民政府的伟大问题，而没有任何不协调的缺点，这些缺点使那些在老年世界中解决这一问题的人感到困惑和绝望。所有展示的因素都是最有利的。由那些继承或实现了世界上存在的任何宪法自由的种族定居，没有世袭的君主，或执政的寡头，或土地上的既定宗教，有各种机会来避免旧政体的所有恶习并改善其所有美德，所有历史被指定为准备道路的时代似乎已经到来，届时个人自由和公民政府的公正关系将永远确立。

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一个真正的文明的最后胜利的奖杯将被竖立在多么宏伟的场地上！没有任何一个帝国或王国，在这一过程中，会有一个真正的文明。至少自罗马帝国从地球上消失以来，没有一个帝国或王国曾经展开过如此广阔和多姿多彩的表面，其肥沃程度如此之高，其美丽和崇高的方面如此之多。从猎人和捕猎者用武力或诡计追捕毛皮动物的北方荒原，到柠檬和桃金娘不断散发香气的纬度，从暴风雨的大西洋，渔夫的小船在愤怒的海浪泡沫中无畏地摇晃着，承受贝齿状峭壁的威胁，到太平洋的庄严浪潮在我们西方大陆上涌动，博爱的大自然已经铺开了田野，只要求劳工的神奇触摸，在每一个收获中挥洒，在每一个果实中泛红。壮丽的森林在山丘之上，要求将其转化为人类在坚实土地上的家园，或转化为人类乘着风或火焰的翅膀飞往天涯海角的移动神迹。无穷无尽的矿物宝藏提供给他的手，它们有的藏在土壤下面，有的不经意地躺在地表上，如煤、铅和铜，以及 "受人崇拜的矿石 "黄金本身；而采石场，从许多崎岖的山顶延伸到中心，旁边没有任何东西，向建筑师和雕塑家致敬，准备为他们在宫殿或雕像中的美丽梦想赋予形状。

土壤也受到每一片天空的影响，适合生产每一种可以给人类带来食物、舒适、财富和奢华的收获。每一种草，每一种可以强壮心脏的谷物，每一种可以愉悦味觉的水果，每一种可以织成衣服或被说服为人类必需品的千姿百态的纤维，只需轻轻一招手，就可以把它的丰盛倾倒在农夫的怀里。在这种对生命有利的条件下，人们不断繁殖，直到他们在大西洋山坡上成群结队，迅速填满密西西比河的大河谷，并逐渐流向太平洋的下游。形成十三州人口的三百万人使大英帝国陷入困境，在尚未结束的活跃的生命期限内，他们已经成长为一个几乎（如果不完全是）十倍于此实力的国家。由于没有无法管理的债务，由于收入的丰富性和确定性，由于海军军备的材料，由于组成军队的要素，由于形成国家财富、权力和力量的一切因素，美国即使像现在这样，似乎也可以用武器或和平的艺术来对抗世界。这些结果难道不是无可辩驳地证明了实现这些结果的政府的智慧吗？

当深思熟虑的探究者的目光从国家伟大和强大的总体前景转向国家的地理划分，以检查每个人所贡献的这些礼物的相对比例时，他开始意识到，即使是这个最年轻的国家，其道德和政治状况也存在异常，与他在观察她的姐妹们时感到困惑的情况不一样。他看到南方地区比北方地区多出三十万平方英里，土壤肥沃无比，有强大的河流浇灌，可以漂浮在世界的上空，离太阳更近，有更有利的天空覆盖。大自然以最充分和最无私的手将繁荣和财富的每一个元素洒在它身上，并看到，尽管有这一切，从那里汲取的公共财富和力量的份额，与北方艰苦的不育症灌入公共股票的东西相比，几乎是不可估量的。大自然为商业提供了各种机会和手段，有通航的河流在其最偏远的角落，有世界海军可以驰骋的令人羡慕的港口，有其主要产品的主要出口产品，但它仍然依赖其北方伙伴来获取和运输它所生产的一切，以及它所消费的少量产品。由于拥有制造业和艺术的所有原材料，其居民从摇篮到棺材所需的一切都要靠北方来提供。从本质上讲，它是一个农业国家，拥有大自然所能赐予的一切恩惠，但其所有产品的总价值却比收集到北方谷仓中的简单田地里的草要少几百万。在拥有所有财富手段和材料的情况下，南方是贫穷的。在拥有一切聚集力量和自力更生的优势的情况下，它是软弱和依赖的。- 为什么两者之间会有这种差异？

这个原因并不难找。这可以从劳工对那些对它给予应有尊重的人的奖励中找到，而在另一种情况下，它对那些对它进行侮辱的人进行惩罚。所有的财富都来自于劳动，在劳动受到尊重、劳动者受到尊重和奖励的地方，必须为它的最大丰富性而欢欣鼓舞。相反，如果劳动被视为不光彩的标志，被视为种族的垃圾和污秽的卑鄙职务，那么它的慷慨就会相应地变得微不足道和稀少。这个谜团的关键是在人性的结构中找到的。一个戴着镣铐的人不能做那些四肢不受束缚的人视之为消遣的工作。一个人如果希望通过自己的聪明才智和勤劳的双手为自己和子女赢得更好的条件，就必须取得这样的成果，而这种成果是被剥夺了希望的神圣刺激的人对酷刑的恐惧所无法达到的。因此，人们经常注意到，在仅由一条河或一条假想线隔开的片区之间存在着差异；在这些片区的一侧，节俭、舒适和聚集的财富、成长中的村庄、微笑的农场、方便的居住地、学校和教堂使风景优美；而在另一侧，邋遢的畜牧业、破旧的豪宅、肮脏的小屋、危险的荒地、可怕的道路、罕见的尖塔和更罕见的乡村学校暴露了土地的所有裸露。是动机的魔力唤出了所有这些财富和美丽，使自愿和聪明的劳动所搅拌的最贫瘠的土壤得到保佑；而这种魔力的逆转则将肮脏、贫穷和痛苦散布在大自然赋予的最肥沃的土地上，将它们的麻风病感染从劳动者传播到他的主人。所有这些都是严格按照人类在其政治经济学书籍中所阐述的上帝的法则进行的。

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然而，与这种反常现象密不可分，但显然不是自然和不可避免地产生的奇怪现象却不是这样。剥夺南方国家播种和收获的劳动者的自然和公民权利，应该在土地的稀少产出中，在不节俭、恶习和卑劣中向他的奴隶主复仇，而这正是从被奴隶制破坏的土壤中自发产生的唯一作物，这并不奇怪。这只是对道德和政治经济学中的真理的陈述，即真正的繁荣永远不会从错误和邪恶中成长起来。贫穷、无知和恶习，鲁莽的习惯、贬低的风俗和野蛮的举止应该来自于有组织的劳动退化，以及残酷和不公正的制度结晶，这是一种不可避免的必要性，而且是严格按照事物的性质进行的。但是，国家中较强的那一半会因为它的弱点而遭受较弱者的统治，较富裕的地区会因为它的贫穷而屈服于其贫穷部分的政治暴政，这确实是一个奇迹和谜团。一个种族中聪明的、受过教育的和文明的部分竟然同意他们无知的、不识字的和野蛮的同伴在共同体内的统治，而且是由于那种粗野的野蛮行为，这是一种惊奇，应该让所有的人都感到嘶嘶作响。对我们来说也是如此，如果我们不是如此习惯于这一事实，如果它不是如此融入我们的本质并与我们的天性根深蒂固，以至于似乎是我们存在的一个重要有机体。在文明人的历史所提供的道德和政治方面的所有反常现象中，这肯定是最反常和最不合理的。

美国的整个历史就是这一事实的证据记录。在我们的历史上，有哪件事情不是奴隶制在上面打上烙印，标明是她自己的？在这个国家诞生的那一刻，她就像童话故事中的邪恶仙女一样，用她那致命的话语来诅咒它。当时的咒语在力量上不断增强，直到那些在婴儿时期似乎会从被塞进的羊皮纸中淡出，不留下任何痕迹的微不足道的公式，已经抹去了旁边的一切，政治家和法官在那里只看到了可怕的、无所不在的奴隶制的名字。一旦在国家机构中扎下根来，这种可恶的力量就从一个位置推进到另一个位置，从未失去阵地，而是在每一个连续的点上比以前更加坚不可摧地建立自己，直到它使我们处于一种优势，鼓励它要求交出我们的权利、自尊和荣誉。曾经在议会的密室里窃窃私语的事情，现在却在房顶上宣布；曾经通过隐蔽和诡诈完成的事情，现在却在白天，在国家的大炮口和马刀边上高高举起。几年前的理论和计划，在律师室或拉布者的海盗窝里找不到代言人，现在却通过我们最高司法机构的法官的真实反应，以及从国家宫廷的神龛中谄媚地重复，而被赋予了权力。

而现在充斥着这一场景的事件不过是自十九世纪以购买路易斯安那为开端，席卷舞台的一列火车中应有的继承者。获得那片广袤的领土，从国家的角度来看是很重要的，但南方觊觎它主要是因为它是拥有奴隶制国家的果实之母，而且它确立了一个先例，即宪法只是阻碍奴隶制利益的障碍，而不是可能促进奴隶制利益的障碍，这是她在实现其计划时迈出的第一个大步。密苏里州被接纳为奴隶制国家，这是经过一场震撼美国社会中心的斗争后才被批准的，而且当时只是在令人难忘的承诺下被打破了耳朵和希望，这是她抓住并保持的下一个有利条件。几乎与此同时，对佛罗里达州的购买，尽管在设计和效果上与对路易斯安那州的购买一样，都是革命性的行动，但引起的反对却相对较少。这不过是奴隶制国家公认的胜利的后续行动。在她那悲惨的沼泽地里，针对那些为逃离她的暴政的人提供庇护的野蛮人的人性而发动的漫长而血腥的战争--仅仅是在全国范围内以共同的费用进行的猎奴行动--在事件的发展过程中紧随其后。然后，德克萨斯在远处出现，经过多年的逐步接近和隐蔽推进，首先从墨西哥手中夺取了胜利。接下来，奴隶制被牢牢地拴在了她的身上，然后，通过一场令人吃惊的厚颜无耻的政变，在约翰-泰勒的笔下，在他的政治解体的文章中，"自由之区 "又被加上了一笔。接下来是与墨西哥的战争，它的借口是谎言，它的行为是血腥的，它的结果是胜利的，因为它赢得了现在适合奴隶制的广大地区，并教给了人们在她永远饥饿的嘴里渴望获得更大征服的方法。还需要叙述《逃亡奴隶法案》和1850年的其他 "妥协 "吗？ 或者叙述《密苏里妥协》的基本废除，表明奴隶主对承诺的重视就像对正义的阻挠者或对誓言的践踏者那样神圣？或者指出堪萨斯的平原，被她儿子的鲜血染红，被她的城镇的焦炭染黑，而美国总统却把国家的剑架在她的喉咙上，迫使她屈服？

奴隶制在试图塑造国家的历史并迫使事件的进程听从她的命令时，一直在等待着这种永久和超越的成功，这自然会在每个观察者的心中激起一定程度的好奇心，如果不是钦佩的话。奴隶主这样从一个胜利走向另一个胜利，从一个力量走向另一个力量，是由于他们的人数，他们的财富，他们的公共服务，他们的智力，他们的智慧，他们的天才，还是他们的美德？巨大犯罪的成功有时意味着一种力量和能量，甚至迫使那些最讨厌它的人对它产生一种尊重。因此影响我们命运的权力的最高地位，显然不在于那些拥有统治权的人的压倒性数量。所有与奴隶制有任何直接联系的人，作为所有者或雇佣者，其总数还不到三十五万，--还不到纽约市居民的一半！然而，即使这个数字也夸大了。然而，即使这个数字也夸大了我们事务中的主导因素的数量力量。为了接近真实的结果，应该从总数中剔除那些拥有或雇用少于10个奴隶的人，以便得出真正构成国家统治力量的奴隶主的人数。这样一来，就只剩下超过九万人的一小部分，包括男人、女人和儿童，他们拥有的奴隶足以使他们团结在一个共同的利益中。从中应扣除妇女和未成年人，他们实际上是以自己的权利拥有奴隶，但在公共事务中没有发言权。除去这些人，再加上飞往欧洲或北方逃避奴隶制带来的道德污染和物质不适的缺席者，剩下的代表这一强大而全面控制力的有投票权的人将不超过五万人！这是一个令人震惊的事实。- 这是一个令人震惊而又无可争议的事实。

寡头政治在世界历史上并不新鲜。在过去和现在的政治中，少数人统治多数人是常规，而不是例外。但是，把决定一个强大国家的政策、制定法律和任命部长的权力集中在不到五百分之一的成员手中，是对古老贵族制度本质的改进；而篡夺 "模范共和国 "和 "模式民主 "的称号，使我们受到不那么幸福的国家的钦佩和模仿，无疑是对其名称的改进。

这种权力特权在其他地方也是由众人让给他们的统治者的，一般是由于他们对自己所担任的职务有某种特殊的适合性，无论是真实的还是想象的。他们自己或他们的祖先对国家的一些贡献，一些自然或后天的优势，部分或技能的优势，至少是高级文化和优雅教养的一些特长，快速的荣誉感，对公众侮辱的嫉妒，对个人污点的不耐烦，--这些品质中的一些或全部，吸引了群众的感激或想象，通常被认为存在于他们允许统治他们的阶层中。凭借这些东西中的某些或全部，它的成员被允许拥有他们的特权和优先权，他们的豁免权和优先权，他们在国家议会中的潜在发言权，以及他们在国家危险时刻最重要的防御要求。有一些想象力的光芒，落在象征着他们公认的优越性的骑士盾牌和纹章装置上，至少使众人眼花缭乱，心花怒放，从而使他们对他们所服从的骑士团的固有恶习和基本谬误视而不见。
但是，当我们与掌握着我们命运的权力面对面时，我们就不会再有这种错觉的安慰了。这些朦胧的幻觉没有一个能用这种虚假的预言来欺骗我们的眼睛。没有古代的神圣，没有公共服务的神圣，没有崇高文化的礼物的装饰，没有高贵教养的恩惠来点缀给我们提供法律的粗俗和肮脏的寡头政治。在奴隶制的阴影下，文字会死亡，艺术无法生存。南方曾向世界图书馆提供过什么书？她曾为其画廊增添过什么艺术作品？她培养的哪位艺术家不是像阿斯顿一样本能地飞向天才可以呼吸、艺术可以实现的地区？自从杰斐逊去世和麦迪逊停止写作以来，除了那些无畏的发现者告诉人们奴隶制是共和制度的基石和自由本身的重要元素之外，她还培养了哪位政治家？除了那些具有神学技能的神职人员外，还有哪位神学家达到了奴隶制是耶稣基督福音的本质的学说？除了那些教导强者应剥夺弱者的一切公民、社会和道德权利是符合神的正义的伦理学博士之外，还有哪个道德家？1788年，卡罗莱纳州和佐治亚州的威胁使他们获得了不相称的代表权，因为他们在人身上的财产，这种不公正的偏袒使他们总是作为一个人代表奴隶制行事，这使他们变得无所不能。北方被无数的利益所困扰，总是听命于首都的任何一个野蛮人首领，他可以把他的奴隶鞭子扔进政党的颤抖的天平。至少从本世纪开始，政府一直是奴隶主的创造者和工具，国家的全部赞助和主要由北方商业填充的国库，一直听从他们的指挥，帮助操纵和塑造可塑的北方良知，使之成为可行的形状。当奴隶利益集团，按它自己最大的说法，只有不到三十五万人，却有三十名参议员，而自由劳工利益集团，至少有二千四百万，六百五十万人。当前者除了自己的公平比例外，还有一个由几十名成员组成的代表团在众议院代表它的奴隶时，我们还能惊讶于它已经实现了对我们的控制，这种控制是以黑色和血腥的字符写在我们历史的许多页上的吗？

奴隶制对我国历史事实的绝对支配如此之大，那么它对与之发生关系的人的性格又有什么影响呢？在一个国家的所有产品中，它的人是最能证明其质量的。美国人是如何经受住这种考验的？那些身居高位的人，那些被要求在全体人民面前等待的人，是否保持了人格的尊严，并获得了普遍的敬意，而这种敬意在我们的小日子里标志着他们的前辈并等待着他们？自83年和平以来，美国的人口增加了近10倍，而其财富则以更大的比例增长。这个国家的代表人物是否也被造就或保持了伟大和宽宏大量？或者说，另一个令好奇的外国人感到困惑的反常现象是一个公认的事实，即在这个国家变得伟大和强大的同时，它的公众人物却从上个世纪的巨人变成了这个世纪的矮子？唉，提出这个问题就是回答这个问题。比较一下富兰克林、亚当斯和杰伊，他们在巴黎开会谈判和平条约，这将标志着他们的国家被承认为国际大家庭中的一个平等姐妹，而布坎南、苏尔和梅森则在奥斯坦德开会策划对古巴的盗窃行为！圣人和法律家们咨询了他们的意见。一方面是圣人和立法者，为一个世界和种族的福祉进行磋商，另一方面是海盗们为掠夺一个糖岛而密谋!

华盛顿和亚当斯在内阁中也曾召集过哪些人！他们是多么代表伟大的思想！多么具有历史意义。- 多么有代表性的伟大思想！多么有历史意义！多么不朽！我们的读者有多少能说出这些人的名字？我们的读者中有多少人能够说出他们在当今时代的继任者的名字？膨胀的晦涩，臃肿的无足轻重，谁知道或关心他们是从哪里来的，他们是什么？我们知道他们受命服从谁的命令，以及他们准备以何种方式工作。我们还敢把我们的亵渎性比较延伸到比内阁更高的地方吗？我们是否应该把华盛顿的庄严理念的朦胧威严与今天的微观现实放在一起？让我们更仁慈一些，从安德鲁-杰克逊所占据的新旧两派之间的中间位置出发，他的钢铁意志和顽强的目的性使他的形象具有明确的特征，如果不是可怕的尊严。在他的时代，尽管奴隶制力量一直是推动事件发展的秘密源泉，但它开始比以往任何时候都更公开地让人们看到它的运作。从他的时代开始，一排排逐渐缩小的影子相继穿过白宫的大门！从范布伦到泰勒，再从泰勒到范布伦。从范布伦到泰勒，从泰勒到波尔克，从波尔克到菲尔摩尔，从菲尔摩尔到皮尔斯! "渐渐地，精美地减少"，直到最后达到消失的地步!

奴隶制对我们的国家历史和我们的公众人物所产生的有害影响，还没有耗尽它的恶性力量。事实上，它已经达到了一个几年前被认为是最狂热的预测的高度；但它的致命力量不会在其职业生涯的中途停止。1787年的法令被撕成碎片，散落在风中，--1820年划定的、奴隶主保证他们的信仰奴隶制永远不会逾越的界线，被无礼地和声名狼藉地抹去了，--奴隶制在内阁中主持工作，在最高法庭上坐着，在国会大厅里绝对的，--没有人可以说它的下一次侵略可能不会采取什么形式。在只有新闻自由和言论自由存在的北方，对它们的直接攻击并不比后来对其暴政的侮辱更不可思议。堪萨斯州的战斗尚未结束，因为联邦军队的干预在那里强制建立了奴隶制，在每块领土上都将重新开始，因为它正在成熟为一个州。空气中已经出现了警告的声音，预示着俄勒冈州将发生这样的冲突。各地的寄生虫本能地感到，在已经废除奴隶制的地方热衷于建立奴隶制，或在已经禁止奴隶制的地方引入奴隶制，是对行政部门的最高推荐。恢复非洲奴隶贸易的建议是认真的，并将受到激烈的敦促，没有什么能阻碍它的完成，只有它对滋生奴隶制国家的国内制造业的干扰。海盗沃克已经在集结力量，准备再次入侵尼加拉瓜，而且有传言说休斯顿将军打算从墨西哥手中夺取另一个德克萨斯。巨大的事件就在眼前，甚至就在门口；而它们的任务都将是把奴隶制牢牢地、永远地固定在这个国家的宝座上。

这个阴谋的成功是最终的和永恒的吗？那些简单或讽刺地称自己为 "自由国家 "的国家，是否永远是这样一个中央政权的殖民地？难道我们要永远屈从于一个既卑鄙又可恶的寡头政治，因为它披着民主的外衣，允许我们有选择的仪式，有权力的名义，允许我们登记君主的命令，从而骗取我们的民族权利？我们，打破了乔治国王的权杖，把我们的脚踏在英国议会的至高无上的地位上，把我们自己的手脚绑在我们自己编织的束缚上，交到拥有奴隶的非利士人的手中！我们，蔑视乔治国王的统治，把我们的脚踏在英国议会的至高无上的地位上。我们这些蔑视英国亩产贵族统治的人，不声不响地服从美国血肉之躯的贵族统治，或者进行无效的抵抗！我们的精神是否已经崩溃？卑鄙和妥协的烙印是否已在我们的灵魂上烙下了不光彩的痕迹？这些严重问题的答案只在于我们自己。十万或三十万人，无论多么狡猾和不择手段，除非他们自己同意，否则不可能永远把两千多万人置于他们的统治之下，这些人在财富和智慧方面与人数一样多。如果不断增长的几百万人在他们的历史道路上被不断减少的几千人用马鞭赶着走，那么他们只能怪自己。如果他们喜欢让他们的法律被制定和解释，他们的总统被任命，他们的外交政策被支配，他们的国内利益被篡改，他们的战争与和平为他们制定，他们的国家声誉和个人荣誉被玷污，他们在旧的专制制度面前的所有吹嘘都被掩盖，由他们人数中微不足道的一部分来完成，--在全体人民的集会上几乎是肉眼可见的，--没有人可以质疑或抵制他们的快乐。

但是，许多人将永远这样服从于少数人的统治吗？我们相信，这种可耻的服从的日子已经不多了。天上和地上的迹象告诉我们，在北方人的头脑中已经开始感受到那种运动，这种运动使各地的暴政者因害怕改变而感到困惑。南方长期以来对北方的侮辱和误解开始被感受到。沉默寡言的巨人在他那堆积如山的屈辱下不安地移动。北方人民开始感觉到他们支持的政府是为了他们的天敌的利益；因为在所有的反感中，奴隶劳动对自由劳动的反感是最致命和最不可调和的。从来没有一个时代像现在这样，北方和南方的关系因奴隶制而变得如此复杂，人们对这种关系的理解和反感如此深刻。在田野里，在农舍里，在工场里，有一种被唤起的精神，在它完成自己的任务之前，永远无法被安放或驱除。在最近的全国大选中，自由州对奴隶州的大起义中，我们看到了它的作用。尽管诡计和腐败欺骗了它的目的，但它的抗议的雷声在暴君的心中造成了恐怖。我们听到了它的回声，因为它从奴隶制国家本身传来，在白人要求摆脱黑人奴隶制给他们带来的束缚的极其痛苦的呼声中。我们在奴隶制国家的奢侈和暴力中看到了对其力量的承认。正是它自觉和承认的弱点，使得德克萨斯、墨西哥和古巴以及我们自己的西北领土必须被吞噬。是绝望，而不是力量，使棍棒和弓刀成为国家立法的组成部分。美国政府、美国新闻界和美国教会在其国家组织中都站在它一边；但国家和世界的人性和基督教却憎恨和唾弃它。反对它的人比支持它的人更多。

它愤怒了，因为它的时间很短。它的怒火更加猛烈，因为它在南方的白人中发现了反抗它的专制主义的症状，而这些人由于贫穷或原则问题，并没有参与它的统治。当我们谈到南方因固有的敌意而区别于北方时，我们只谈及执政者，而不是数百万名义上的自由人，他们几乎比黑奴本身更容易成为其奴仆。我们国家的这一不幸阶层首先感受到了奴隶制在其周围蔓延的弊端，因为他们最接近奴隶制的邪恶力量。没有哪个欧洲专制主义的臣民比他们处于更密切的间谍活动或更有组织的恐怖主义体系之下。奴隶主拥有南方可以夸耀的财富和几乎所有的教育，他们利用这些强大的权力工具来制造公众情绪，控制他们地区的公共事务，以便最好地确保他们自己的优势地位。对他们赖以生存的制度没有任何异议，甚至对他们刺激的任何过度行为也没有任何不满的音节，可以安全地呼吸。田纳西州的一位基督教牧师讲述了他教会的一位成员对一个奴隶实施的可怕的残忍行为，他被迫离开他的职责，甚至逃离这个国家。南卡罗来纳州的另一位牧师在谈话中表示不赞成布鲁克斯对参议员萨姆纳的谋杀性攻击，他的牧师关系立即被打破，就像他犯了严重的罪行或公然的异端一样。北卡罗来纳州的赫德里克教授敢于在上次总统竞选中说出对北方候选人的偏爱，他被立即赶出了他的职位，实际上被放逐出了他的家乡。弗吉尼亚州的安德伍德先生敢于参加他所偏爱的政党的大会，他被禁止回家，否则将被处死。黑暗和死亡的寂静就这样被迫笼罩着这片上帝创造的如此美丽、如此幸福的土地。

这样的暴政会激起对抗性的抵抗精神，这是人的体质和上帝的性格所决定的，是不可避免的。对奴隶制贵族的抗议和抵抗的零星案例是有代表性的，它们偶尔会超越周围专制主义的死寂水平。它们所代表的意义远远超过它们本身。它们证明，有一种广泛的不满精神，在奴隶制的广大地区流传，这种精神总有一天会找到或迫使人们有机会听到和感受到它。我们刚刚在密苏里的伟大运动中看到了这一点，密苏里是边境流氓主义本身的哺育地，它险些没有使解放成为那里大多数选民的政策。这样的结果不是突如其来的文化的产物。它一定是经过了漫长而缓慢的成长。否则怎么会这样呢？在不持有奴隶的白人中，一定有足够的智慧看到他们与自由州相同条件的人之间的差别。为什么他们不能有免费的学校？为什么必须在北方成立一个传教士协会，为他们提供奴隶主可以认可的牧师？为什么他们不能支持自己的牧师，如果他们选择的话，可以向他们传授自由劳动的福音？为什么他们受到阻碍，不能随心所欲地阅读报纸？为什么他们要接受新闻检查，对他们规定可以读什么，不可以读什么，而对书商保留他们想买的东西，则以流放和毁灭来惩罚？为什么北方的出版商必须在世界的文学作品被允许到达他们手中之前对其进行删减和阉割？为什么一亩地的价值会以几何比例增加，因为它们从奴隶制的边界向北极星延伸？这些问题必须向成千上万的人提出充分的答案，并为奴隶主最害怕的叛乱做好准备，即白人在他们门口的叛乱，他们可以对他们和他们的机构做他们认为好的事情，一旦他们知道他们的力量，并选择把它提出来。南方的非奴隶主与自由州的人民的利益是完全一致的，而且有一天必须将他们结合在一起采取行动。