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

a dog in the street. John Brown sets out on a sublime mission to rescue a number of slaves from the galling yoke of their bondage in the Southern States, that he might place them beyond the reach of the eagle's claws in Canada, but himself was caught up into the eagle's beak, and dropt into the hungry jaws of Virginia, which were smoothed in his destruction. Others were separated from loved ones, and driven from position, property and home into exile, where amidst years of deep anxiety and sorrow, days and hours were turned into weeks, months and years, associated with the cry from under the altar, "How long, O Lord, how long?" This course of degeneracy in its origin is fixed by the articles referred to in the New York Tribune in 1833, but we trace its existence to the period in our history when Washington, Jefferson, and Madison spoke of the "compromises of the Constitution." It was the sad want of principle then, that afterwards became so fatal to individuals, churches, States, and the Union. The chief instruments in promoting it have been Northern politicians and divines, since one-third of the people in the South could not have ruled two-thirds of the people in the North without their consent, controlled their patronage, or distributed appointments in the churches, States or Congress. Besides, a large proportion of the Southern people received their education in Northern seminaries and Universities, and if they went to their homes with evil principles

instilled into their minds by Northern teachers and professors, can we blame the pupils so much as the teachers or instructors? Moreover, the vast preponderance of talent and genius has ever been associated with the North, but made useless to a great extent and mischievous by assumption, asseveration, distortion, cunning, artifice, deception, fraud and lies, both in the churches and States, so that wickedness was regarded as cleverness, and the man who was the most successful in overreaching his neighbour was almost everywhere considered a smart man. This was so manifest to the Southerns that the Charleston Mercury, one of their principal organs, branded them in the churches and States as "hucksters in politics;" represented them as men who "knocked themselves down to the highest bidder," and looked on them with supreme pity and sovereign contempt, in their adoption of a course of policy, which it says "was marked with cupidity, truckling and subserviency to the South." It is urged, however, that a change has come over the Northern people. A change, indeed, but for the worse, when President Lincoln proclaims to the world that he is an anti-slavery man, and yet takes the oath to the Constitution as a slave document, and avows that "he would save the Union with slavery if he could," When Secretary Seward, in order to make a bid for the Presidency, declares in the senate chamber at Washington, "there have been times when we have surrendered the safeguards of free