It would be difficult to convince the American people that slavery is not 'the skeleton in their closet.' Any one who has encountered for years the pro-slavery spirit; who has watched it through its unscrupulous deviations from rectitude, morally, socially, and politically, will have been dull of comprehension not to have appreciated its atrocious disposition. Its great instrumentality in the management of Southern masses, consists not only of a disregard, but of a positive interdict of the principles of civil liberty, in all matters wherein the prejudicial effects of slavery might directly, or by implication, be disclosed. It is true, people are permitted to adulate slavery--so they are allowed to adulate kings, where kings reign. No one in recent years has been allowed the open expression of opinion or argument as to the bad effect of a pro-slavery policy on the great majority of Southern white population. This would bring the offender within the Southern definition of an 'incendiary,' and the offense would be heinous. The pro-slavery spirit has always demanded sycophancy where its strength was great enough to enforce it, and has ever been ready to invoke the law of force where its theories were contradicted. Even the fundamental law of the South, contained in Southern State Constitutions in favor of the 'freedom of speech, and freedom of the press,' is mere rhetorical flourish, where slavery is concerned. It means that you must adulate slavery if you speak of it; and woe to the man that gives this fundamental law any broader interpretation. In its amiable moods, the pro-slavery spirit is often made to appear the gentleman. In its angry, jealous moods, it is both a ruffian and an assassin. Mr. Sumner, of the Senate, once sat for its picture--twice in his turn he drew it--each portrait was a faithful resemblance.