The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862: Devoted to Literature and National Policy.Various
General
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862: Devoted to Literature and National Policy.
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
We can not sympathize with Mr.
Trollope when he says of the Bell and Everett party: 'Their express
theory was this: that the question of slavery should not be touched.
Their purpose was to crush agitation, and restore harmony by an
impartial balance between the North and South: a fine purpose--the
finest of all purposes, had it been practicable.' We suppose by this,
that Mr. Trollope wishes such a state of things had been practicable.
The impartial balance means the Crittenden Compromise, whose
impartiality the North fails to see in any other light than a fond
leaning to the South, giving it all territory South of a certain
latitude, a _latitude_ that never was intended by the Constitution. It
seems to us that there can be no impartial balance between freedom and
slavery. Every jury must be partial to the right, or they sin before
God.
Mr. Trollope tells us that 'the South is seceding from the North because
the two are not homogeneous. They have different instincts, different
appetites, different morals, and a different culture. It is well for one
man to say that slavery has caused the separation, and for another to
say that slavery has not caused it. Each in so saying speaks the truth.
Slavery has caused it, seeing that slavery is the great point on which
the two have agreed to differ. But slavery has not caused it, seeing
that other points of difference are to be found In every circumstance
and feature of the two people. The North and the South must ever be
dissimilar. In the North, labor will always be honorable, and because
honorable, successful. In the South, labor has ever been servile--at
least in some sense--and therefore dishonorable; and because
dishonorable, has not, to itself, been successful.' Is not this arguing
in a circle? The North is dissimilar to the South. Why? Because labor is
honorable in the former, and dishonorable, because of its servility, in
the latter. The servility removed, in what are the two dissimilar? One
third of the Southern whites are related by marriage to the North; a
second third are Northerners, and it is this last third that are most
violent in their acts against and hatred of the North. They were born
with our instincts and appetites, educated in the same morals, and
received the same culture; and these men are no worse than some of their
brothers who, though they have not emigrated to the South, have yet
fattened upon cotton. The parents of Jefferson Davis belonged to
Connecticut; Slidell is a New-Yorker; Benjamin is a Northerner; General
Lovell is a disgrace to Massachusetts; so, too, is Albert Pike. It is
utter nonsense to say that we are two people. Two interests have been at
work--free labor and slave labor; and when the former triumphs, there
will be no more straws split about two people, nor will the refrain of
agriculture _versus_ manufacture be sung. The South, especially
Virginia, has untold wealth to be drained from her great water-power.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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