A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention: For Proposing Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, Held at Washington, D.C., in February, A.D. 1861Chittenden, L. E. (Lucius Eugene)
History
A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention: For Proposing Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, Held at Washington, D.C., in February, A.D. 1861
Chittenden, L. E. (Lucius Eugene)
Conference Convention (1861 : Washington, D.C.); United States -- Politics and government -- 1857-1861
Nor have they been sufficiently modest to cloak their designs under
the veil of secrecy. These people advocated their pernicious doctrines
openly in your leading cities, even within the consecrated walls of
Fanueil Hall.
Openly among your people, in the very light of day, these efforts were
carried on for the destruction of your sister States. There has not
been an effort of the law nor an exertion of public opinion to put
them down.
These efforts culminated in the actual invasion of my own old honored
State, and your people thought they were doing GOD service in signing
a petition to our authorities for mercy to John Brown and his ruffian
invaders of our soil. And when these men met the just reward of their
crime, there was, throughout the North, in your meetings and your
public prints, expressions of sympathy for these robbers and
murderers. They were looked upon as the victims of oppression, as
martyrs to a holy and righteous cause. Gentlemen, consider these
things, and tell me, is there not to-day reason for suspicion; on the
part of the South for grave apprehension?
But the half is yet to be told; I have looked only at the moral aspect
of the question. Dangerous enough hitherto, it becomes far more
dangerous when it culminates on the arena of politics, and asks, with
the powerful aid of a majority, the interference and the aid of the
Government.
As soon as it became the party of one idea it began to draw to it,
first the support of one, then another political party. It went on
securing the assistance of one after another until it demoralized,
until it brought each to ruin. It destroyed the grand old Whig party.
Fanatic enough before, when it had brought that party to its grave, it
thrust upon the arena of politics this question of slavery in the
territories. Then for the first time it raised the cry of "Free Soil,"
and brought to its support the hearts of a majority of the people of
the northern States.
The people of the North and Northwest have long been noted for their
acquisitive disposition, especially for the acquisition of lands. This
has been manifested in every form. Carried into effect it has made
them powerful, until, not long since, they thought they might get
entire dominion at no distant day. Then arose in their hearts a desire
greater than the greed of land--the greed of office and power. They
then saw that perhaps the North alone might control the national
government, and with it the South. Then, too, the great class of
protected interests at the North--always greater at the North than at
the South--joined with them. All these protected classes, whose
advantages had been diverted from other classes to which they
belonged, joined with landseekers to secure power. Influence after
influence of this sort combined, until it produced your great
Republican party; in other words, your great Sectional party, which
has at length come to majority and power.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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