an overwhelming majority would be found favourable to its maintenance. Such being their belief, it would seem to be right and proper that they should be enabled to act in accordance with it, and yet, although almost thrice as numerous as the whites of the slave states, they have rarely been allowed to exercise the slightest influence upon the action of government in reference to this most important subject." The reader, therefore, will do well to weigh the following facts.

"The vast majority north of Mason and Dixon's line have always believed in protection." North of the above line they are protectionists. South, freetraders. Their interests, therefore, are as wide as the poles asunder.

"The votes of Northern representatives on all occasions proved the belief of this.”

In 1824 the tariff of that year was passed with the following vote:

Northern States for protection, 88 Against it,
Southern do.,

19

For protection, 107

Do.

32

70

THE INFLUENCE OF HIGH AND LOW TARIFFS PRO AND ICON ON THE NORTH.

WHEN the tariff was high it was associated with glorious days in the opinion of the Northerns. "Public debts were paid off, emigration promoted, mills and furnaces built, the prosperity of the country was raised to a higher point than ever before known, whilst Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and the Canadas were ready to allay themselves in free gift with the North." But when the influence of the Southern belief in free trade was predominant in 1836, '40, '48 and '52, the writer in the articles referred to says :-"bankruptcy and ruin, rarely exceeded in any country, was the consequence; the government became burdened with debt, its agents knocked at the doors of all the banking houses of London and Paris, Hamburg and Amsterdam, for a loan at six per cent in vain; the losses of the people in those awful days we need scarcely state; mills and furnaces were everywhere closed; labourers were reduced to the weakness, ignorance, and stagnation of bondage, and for the first time was heard in the streets of our cities the cry of sober, industrious, orderly men, 'give me work, only give me work; make your own terms-myself and family. have nothing to eat."

"Such being their belief it would seem to be right and proper that the Northerns," says the writer

referred to, "should be enabled to act in accordance with it; and, yet, although thrice as numerous as the whites of slave states, they have rarely been allowed to exercise the slightest influence upon the action of government in reference to this most important subject." And why? Because the Southerns designated the tariff laws "abominations," and South Carolina threatened to secede from the Union in consequence of what she called "Black Tariffs," and regarded as an infraction of her rights as a sovereign state. And now we see since the disruption how the " enabling power" of the Northerns has been used in the adoption of stringent tariff laws both on the ad valorem and specific principle. How gladsome in heart and lightsome of foot they must be in the enjoyment of their rights as protectionists. The laws, however, are a violation of the fundamental law of the Constitution; a removal of one of its great landmarks; the abrogation of their charter; the destruction of the citadel in which was treasured up and guarded their equality of right.

Another breach made in the Constitution was the subversion and extinction of the principle of equality towards all men. Commenting on a discourse delivered by a Rev. Mr. Parker, the Charleston Courier says, "The truth is, that our government, although hostile in its incipiency to domestic slavery, and starting into political being with a strong bent towards abolition; yet afterwards so changed its

policy that its action for the most part, and with only a few exceptions, has fostered the slaveholdinginterest, and swelled it from six to fifteen states;" and we may add, also increased its victims from six hundred and forty-seven thousand to four millions. And in the removal of this landmark there was no opposition from any political or orthodox religious party in the North amongst the principal denominations at any period of our history, from the commencement until the outbreak of the present war. When referring to this sad change amongst the administrators of the government, and the overwhelming mass of people in the churches and states, the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, in a sermon preached on the occasion of the reinforcement of Fort Sumter, from the text, "Go forward," reported in the New York Times, said, "There could be no disputing the fact, that for commercial causes, an element of slavery which had temporary refuge with us, granted by the unsuspecting fathers, has swollen to an unexpected, and unforseen power, and for the last fifty years has held the administrative power of the country in its hands, controlled patronage, and distributed appointments." This it did not only in the Capitols of the States and halls of Congress, but also in the churches whose prudential Committees, and conventional wire-pullers, maintained a sleepless vigilance, and were unremitting in their endeavours to propitiate the "obscene goddess" of slavery. The churches had become so menial and abject in their bondage

to the slave power, that pro-slavery men everywhere found their way to the possession of their choicest gifts, and had assigned to them the greatest posts of honour. To obtain promotion the candidate must be inducted into the American theory of blood distinction and blood equals, burn incense to Washington and Judson, and be the bearer of letters from men who have acquired some degree of pre-eminence amongst the corrupters and defilers of God's heritage, or he may go on a long pilgrimage and travel in vain to obtain the humblest office in the gift of the churches; whilst on the other hand the slightest suspicion of possessing the smallest taint of abolition would cause church officials to tear up every root of friendship, scatter every vestige of his reputation to the winds, and heap on him calumny and abuse; for up to the beginning of the present war the abolitionist in the Northern States of America, as well as the Southern, was everywhere at discount in the churches and States, and in that place which lies outside the sphere of sovereignty, called the district of Columbia. Pulpit doors and church doors were almost universally slammed in his face. Ostracised, calumniated and despised, he was considered a proper target to shoot at. Cut off from social intercourse, and almost ordinary business, he was doomed to be their lawful prey. Elijah Lovejoy made his appearance single-handed to break a lance with the slave power in the Churches and States, but was shot down like