existence of slavery, would have caused even
an attempt at secession? On the question of
the tariff you could not have had a united
North or South. They differed in every por-
tion of the South as in the North upon that
question; and if they had seceded the sword
would have been flashing upon every door
step; for we know from the passions of hu-
man nature and the history of the past, that
civil war always develops resistance in every
household, unless there is some extraordinary
fact which counteracts this result.
But the institution of slavery rendered the
Southern Union man powerless to resist this
rebellion. Gentlemen talk about what Mary-
land might have done, or what any State
might have done. If the men of Maryland
opposed to secession, could not keep the
South back by the reasoning process, it
could not have been done. Virginia could
not have done it; because they had this broad
fact to stand upon to bring this conflict
within their own power. All they had to do
was to fire the cannon, blow the trumpet, and
the common magnetic touch of this common
institution brought around their standard
not only their friends but their enemies.
The politicians of the South knew this. They
knew that however opposed Virginia might
be to revolution and secession, the very mo-
ment they brought it to a conflict of arms,
Virginia would be forced to support them.
Why? Because they were their countrymen?
They were no more their countrymen than
the countrymen of the North. Because they
belonged to the same State? No. It was
because they belonged to the slaveholding
States, and this institution was a part of
something they prided themselves upon. It
was because in their education they had been
taught to believe that they, both secessionists
and Union men, were superior to the mass of
the people of the country, it was this one
fact that brought them to this one standard,
when no other fact or opinion could have
reconciled them to it.
This is a matter which gentlemen upon the
other side will not understand probably as
thoroughly as we I have never ceased to
realize it. The Union men of the State have
come fully to realize it. It has long been
found that men who did not hold to the
State rights theory, when they have come
within the boundaries of the State of Vir-
ginia, have recognized it. And even in Bal-
timore, trembling under the despotic control
of military despotism, unable to express their
true sentiments, as gentlemen say, men delib-
erately asserted and expressed the views of
the ultra Southern rights party of this State.
What were those views? That the institution
of slavery had developed a chivalry, and a
higher class of people in Maryland, a supe-
rior caste in this State, and that the men who
opposed it were the trading and laboring
classes. That we had two classes, like the |
Norman aristocracy and the Saxon peasantry,
in a large portion of the country; and the
former regarded their position as better than
to have prosperous towns; they looked upon
their aristocratic hospitality as better than
the industry, progress, and the development
of high moral principles in the Northern
society. And they directly asserted that
though Northern men should make Maryland
a blackened ruin, they would take it a black-
ened ruin into the Southern Confederacy after
they had driven the Northern barbarians out,
I do not attribute these sentiments to any
member of this Convention. I have no right
to do that. But I say that whatever their
sentiments may be, these are the sentiments
of a large portion of the people who sup-
ported and voted for them; and who, if they
had not voted for them, would have voted
for some other gentlemen representing very
different views from those expressed by my
colleagues and myself upon this floor. I
made up my mind at that time, however
much it might gratify me to be able to pro-
vide for those around me, interested in the
institution, by contributions from my own
pocket, or by State compensation—I made up
my mind, and I express it now without fear
or favor, that it was necessary for the safety
of a portion of the people of this State, that
the institution of slavery should die. And
so far as my own constituents are concerned,
they adopt the same view and accept the
issue, and I proclaim it as the deliberate
opinion and purpose of the constituency
whom I represent, that the institution of
slavery is dangerous to their liberty, their
happiness, their prosperity, their safety, and
so far as they can wield the instrument of
death, it shall die.
What is the alternative to which we are
driven in this State. The fact is certain,
whether the institution of slavery is dead or
not, that it exists in the Constitution of this
State now. No other system ever stood so
protected by the Constitution. This State
to-day is neither a free State nor a slave State,
but both at the same time. It is a peculiar
position. We must array ourselves upon one
side or the other. We must either abolish
slavery, or we must go to work and by a
reactionary process build slavery up. No
State can exist with an institution like this in
the condition it is in now. It does not culti-
vate the land, and it keeps other labor from
doing it. it does not maintain itself in the
position where it was a few years ago, but it
keeps out free labor.
Is any man so insane as to think that it
is possible to bring back to this State the fu-
gitives that have left it? that the grand train
of colored people whom the soldiers have
swept away with their armies, with their
minds penetrated by new ideas of liberty,
can be brought back, and the institution of
slavery can become what it was ten years |
