AMERICAN HISTORY STUDIES. SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES. FOUND it utterly impossible to handle the subject of slavery in a satisfactory manner in one article; and it must be confessed that two numbers even do hardly more than touch the abundance of interesting and valuable matter that lies at hand. In the last number we had just reached the moment when this question began to absorb a large part of the thought of the American people. This article begins with the struggle over the "Incendiary Publications" and the "Right of Petition," of which J. Q. Adams was the hero, and ends with the inauguration of Lincoln. The next number will deal with the Civil War and Reconstruction. J. Q. ADAMS writes, 1820: Slavery is the great and foul stain upon the North American Union, and it is a contemplation worthy of the most exalted soul whether its total abolition is or is not practicable: if practicable by what means it may be effected, and if a choice of means be within the scope of the object, what means would accomplish it at the smallest cost of human suffering. A dissolution, at least temporary, of the Union, as now constituted, would be certainly necessary, and the dissolution must be upon a point involving the question of slavery, and no other. The Union might then be organized on the fundamental principle of emancipation. The object is vast in its compass, awful in its prospects, sublime and beautiful in its issue, a life devoted to it would be nobly spent or sacrificed.-J. Q. Adams, Memoirs, vol. IV, p. 531. If slavery be the destined sword in the hand of the destroying angel which is to sever the ties of this Union, the same sword will cut in sunder the bonds of slavery itself. A dissolution of the Union for the cause of slavery would be followed by a servile war in the slave-holding States combined with a war between the two severed portions of the Union. It seems to me that its result must be the exterpation of slavery from this whole continent; and, calamitous and desolating as this course of events in its progress must be, so glorious would be its final issue, that as God shall judge me, I do not say that it is not to be desired. Never since human sentiments and human conduct were influenced by human speech was there a theme for eloquence like the free side of this question. Oh, if but one man could arise with a genius capable of communicating those eternal truths that belong to this question, to lay bare in all its nakedness that outrage upon the goodness of God, human slavery; now is the time and this is the occasion, upon which such a man would perform the duties of an angel upon earth. -Ibid, vol. V, p. 210. HAYNE speaks on the Panama mission in the United States senate, March, 1826, in these prophetic words: The question of slavery is one, in all its bearings of extreme delicacy; and concerning which I know of but a single wise and safe rule, either for the states in which it exists or for the Union. It must be considered and treated entirely as a domestic question. With respect to foreign nations, the language of the United States ought to be, that it concerns the peace of our own political family, and therefore we cannot permit it to be touched; and in respect to the slaveholding states, the only safe and constitutional ground on which they can stand is, that they will not permit it to be brought into question, either by their sister states or by the federal government. It is a matter for ourselves. To touch it at all, is to violate our most sacred rights-to put in jeopardy our dearest interests-the peace of our country-the safety of our families, our altars, and cur firesides. On the slave question my opinion is this: I consider our rights in that species of property as not even open to discussion, either here or elsewhere; and in respect to our duties, (imposed by our situation,) we are not to be taught them by fanatics, religious, or political. To call into question our rights, is grossly to violate them; to attempt to instruct us on this subject is to insult us; to dare to assail our institutions, is wantonly to invade our peace. Let me solemnly declare, once for all, that the Southern States never will permit, and never can permit, any interference whatever in their domestic concerns; and that the very day on which the unhallowed attempt shall be made by the authorities of the federal government, we will consider ourselves as driven from the Union. Let the consequences be what they may, they never can be worse than such as must inevitably result from suffering a rash and ignorant interference with our domestic peace and tranquillity. But . . . I apprehend no such violation of our constitutional rights. I believe that this house is not disposed and that the great body of our intelligent and patriotic fellow-citizens in the other states have no inclination whatever to interfere with If we are true to ourselves we shall have nothing to fear.-Benton. us. By 1831 the raising of slaves in the northern states for market had become a recognized industry, as may be seen from the following letters and speeches: HENRY CLAY, in an address before the Kentucky Colonization Society in 1829, said: It is believed that nowhere in the United States would slave labor be generally employed, if the proprietor was not tempted to raise slaves by the high price of the Southern market, which keeps it up in his own.-Ibid, p. 257. PROF. DEW, president of William and Mary college, in reviewing the debates in the Virginia constitutional convention, in 1831-2, said of the domestic slave trade: A full equivalent being thus left in the place on the slave, this immigration becomes an advantage to the State, and does not check the black population because it furnishes every inducement to the master to attend to the negroes, to encourage breeding, and to |