WEBSTER ON ABOLITION SOCIETIES.

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their curiosity on this subject most fully by looking through the first volume of Mr. Greeley's "American Conflict." I may be permitted, I trust, without giving serious offense in any respectable quarter, to say that, while I am disposed to give full credit to many of the prominent champions of abolition, whose virtues and achievements the author just referred to has so glowing. ly depictured, for entire conscientiousness of motive, and for having also done more or less good in their day and generation (good unfortunately not unmixed with evil), yet I can not but agree with Mr. Webster in what he is reported to have said in regard to the same associations in his great 7th of March speech, which contains the following weighty declarations:

"Then, sir, there are the abolition societies, of which I am unwilling to speak, but in regard to which I have very clear notions and opinions. I do not think them useful. I think their operations for the last twenty years have produced nothing good or valuable. At the same time, I believe thousands of their members to be honest. and good men, perfectly well-meaning men. They have excited feelings, they think they must do something for the cause of liberty; and in their sphere of action they do not see what else they can do than to contribute to an abolition press, or an abolition society, or to pay an abolition lecturer. I do not mean to impute gross motives even to the leaders of these societies, but I am not blind to the consequences of their proceedings. I can not but see what mischiefs their interference with the South has produced. And is it not plain to every man? Let any gentleman who entertains doubts on this point

recur to the debates in the Virginia House of Delegates in 1832, and he will see with what freedom a proposition made by Mr. Jefferson Randolph for the gradual abolition of slavery was discussed in that body. Every one spoke of slavery as he thought; very ignominious and disparaging names and epithets were applied to it. The debates in the House of Delegates on that occasion, I believe, are all published. They were read by every colored man who could read, and to those who could not read those debates were read by others. At that time. Virginia was not unwilling or afraid to discuss this question, and to let that part of her population know as much of the discussion as they could learn. That was in 1835. As has been said by the honorable member from South Carolina, Mr. Calhoun, these abolition societies commenced a new course of action. It is said, I do not know how true it may be, that they sent incendiary publications into the slave states; at any rate, they attempted to arouse, and did arouse a very strong feeling; in other words, they created great agitation in the North against Southern slavery. Well, what was the result? The bonds of the slaves were bound more firmly than before; their rivets were more strongly fastened. Public opinion, which in Virginia had begun to be exhibited against slavery, and was opening out for the discussion of the question, drew back and shut itself up in its castle. I wish to know whether any body in Virginia can now talk openly, as Mr. Randolph, Governor McDowell, and others talked in 1832, and sent their remarks to the press? We all know the fact, and we all know the cause; and every thing that these agitating people have

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done has been, not to enlarge, but to restrain, not to set free, but to bind faster, the slave population of the South."

I shall cheerfully leave to others the unwelcome task of describing those scenes of crimination and recrimination which have heretofore taken place in the two Houses of Congress in connection with the presentations of abolition petitions, and which are known to have been marked with ebullitions of rancor and ill-will, which no true friend to the future repose and concord of the republic can desire to withhold from oblivion. I should be of all men most unwilling to do or say aught on this delicate and exciting subject to inflame ancient irritations, or provoke the fresh discussion of questions which are now most emphatically res judicata. That there has been much of needless and unprofitable zeal manifested in times past, both on the one side and the other, upon the occasions referred to, no reasonable man would now be inclined to deny. For my own part, I am not a little gratified to feel that, in order to develop the true causes which have led to so much shedding of fraternal blood in civil strife as we have been of late compelled to witness, it will not be necessary to dwell to the extent which some of our contemporaries have judged it right to do upon various topics which I have determined, for the reason just suggested, altogether to pretermit.

After much and painful scrutiny, I have become entirely satisfied that twenty years ago there was no earthly danger that abolition hostility would ever be able to accomplish the downfall of African slavery on this continent. Under the protecting ægis of the Federal Consti

tution, with the exercise of a sound practical discretion on the part of its professed friends and supporters, it would doubtless have survived for many generations yet to come, and would have been only in the end dispensed with when those connected with its control and management should have found that its continued existence was no longer desirable either to themselves or to the world. at large. Twenty years ago, Mr. Polk had been triumphant over his great competitor, Mr. Clay, mainly upon what was known as the issue of Texan annexation, and was vigorously and successfully running that career which has so justly endeared his name to all who feel a proper interest in the future territorial extension and moral ascendency of the American republic in this hemisphere. Twenty years ago, the slaveholding system of the South seemed to be well-nigh as solid and likely to endure even as the Federal Union itself. Twenty years ago, the now prostrate and exhausted states of the South were prosperous, free, and happy, and those who dwelt therein possessed the respect and sympathy of the enlightened and liberal-minded in every country where the honored name of America had itself been pronounced.

The prejudices of men on both sides of the Atlantic in regard to every thing Southern, either in its location or origin, so far as their prejudices had made themselves apparent, were fast giving way under the influence of great commercial considerations, and of that surest of all teachers-Time. The then recent acquisition of Texas, obtained with the general consent of the American people, North as well as South, mainly, as we all vividly remember, with a view to defeating the anti-slavery policy

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of Great Britain, then aiming to undermine the cottongrowing system of the South by converting Texas into a free British province, had supplied a new bulwark to that system, and a wider area for African slavery, then generally supposed to be so desirable. The thrice happy and exultant South, in despite of the solemn teachings of her sagest and most sagacious statesman, was then, like the youthful Alexander, "sighing for new worlds to conquer," and was preparing, with the apparent sanction of millions dwelling far to the north of the celebrated Mason and Dixon's line, to plunge the country into a war with contiguous Mexico.

Just then movements originated which, though they attracted less attention at the time than they should have done, were opening the way to occurrences the influence of which will be felt for a thousand generations yet to arise. Soon the Wilmot Proviso cloud, at first "no bigger than a man's hand," was, before it should disappear, to cover the whole heavens with blackness. Presently a second cloud, sometimes, and aptly, entitled "the Wilmot Proviso South," was to make its appearance, and aid in precipitating the coming storm. At this period of the country's history I had the fortune to be sent to the United States Senate from the State of Mississippi, as the colleague of one whose name is now a familiar word in the languages of all nations. A portion of what I saw and heard in that high position, and of what I have authentically learned from miscellaneous sources, both in Washington and elsewhere, I shall now proceed to bring forward, with such occasional reflections as shall occur to me. Aware how difficult it is, as Mr. Gibbon has finely