"Colonization Society." Of this Society I am neither the advocate nor apologist. Their views and objects may, for ought I know, be as mischievous, as you represent them. It may be their object to effect a general emancipation by transporting two millions of men to Liberia. But, if it be, they are to be treated, not with logic, but with hellebore. I have seen nothing yet that would justify me in imputing to this body so signal a hallucination; and I can hardly forbear smiling when I find it gravely argued, that, because their means are clearly inadequate to the accomplishment of their ostensible purposes, therefore, they must have in view ulterior designs, compared with which, the former are as nothing. This really seems to be the amount of a late argument on this subject; in a quarter, too, where one might have fairly expected to find sounder reasoning, at least, if not a better spirit.

The Colonization Society' really seems to me a very harmless body. If servitude is never abolished in the United States till this Society shall effect the abolition, we of the present day, at least, shall not live to witness it. What are its resources and means of operation? Where are its funds? Are they sufficient to bear the expense of transporting to Africa even the annual increase of the free blacks and people of colour? It is notorious, that they are not. But, it is feared the Government will make them a grant. Will it not be time enough to take the alarm on this point, when some indications of such a purpose shall appear?

There is a singular inconsistency in the sentiments and proceedings of the alarmists in regard to this subject. The free people of colour are, habitually, represented as objects of distrust, at least, if not of dread. Now, it is the very object of this Society-its avowed object, at any rate--to effect the removal of this class of persons from among us. In this view, one would think, that its movements should be cheered by general acclamation. But on the contrary, it is encountered, at the outset, by jealousy and suspicion, as the embodied spirit of mischief and disorganization. Is it not "the weakness of our eyes that shapes this monstrous apparition"? Fear is the most creative of the passions.

But suppose the resources of the Society were equal to its wishes? By what method are they to effect, what you choose to consider their real object? In the regular course of purchase and sale, certainly, No other has ever been dreamed of. For every individual liberated the full value is to be paid. Now, who in this case, is the injured party? Where is the wrong? Why may not individual interest and discretion be safely left to regulate the whole business? If any one chooses to dispose of his slaves to the Agents of this Society, to be transported to Africa, it is not easy to perceive any valid reason why he should not be at liberty to do so, as well as to dispose of them to the agent of a planter on the banks of the Mississippi. Or, if an individual, labouring under a "morbid philanthropy" for this, I think, is the cant term applied to dispositions of this sort--is inclined to emancipate persons of this description, by sending them out of the country, who, but himself, will, or can, be injured by it?

But further. The Legislature of any State, if it be thought advisable, has an undoubted right to prohibit the emigration of these people altogether. Let it do this; and then the vocation of the Society as to that State, is at an end.

On the supposition, therefore, that Congress should be induced to put a million of dollars, per annum, at the disposal of the Society, it is not easy to perceive any cause of alarming apprehension. No man's property can be taken from him without his own consent, and the consent, explicit, or implied, of the Legislature. With all these guards we may feel ourselves secure.

But it is said, that the vague apprehension of emancipation to be obtained by means of this Society, will unsettle the minds of these persons; produce discontent, and, perhaps, disorder. Yet, almost in the same breath, we hear it pronounced, that they could not be persuaded, were the option in their power, to accept the boon on the only condition, on which it can be offered them! This assertion, doubt not, is generally correct; and if it is, there can, surely, be little cause of apprehension from the indirect influeuce of this Society.

ter.

I

But, be the character, the resources, and the objects of the Colonization Society, what they may; be its "intents wicked, or charitable;" one thing is certain; that neither the people of the North, nor those of the West, are at all responsible for them. The men of the Wabash, and those of the Connecticut, are innocent in this matLet those of the Potomac, and the Roanoke, look to it. For it is an unquestionable fact, that the Society originated with citizens of the slave-holding States; with men who were, and are still, extensive slave-holders; and it is an unquestionable truth, that, in these States, it finds nearly its whole support. In this very region were all its dark and malignant purposes devised; and here, too, are its operations daily going on. The thing is hardly known in the northern and middle States, excepting as one of the thousand corporate mendicants, that are pestering them with applications for money.

Of the degree of zeal for the interests of this body, felt in New England, the following statement will afford some indication. One of the Agents, a short time since, visited Boston, and laid before the Convention of Massachusetts Clergy, then in session, a proposition, that they should bring the wants and the claims of this Society before their respective congregations, and solicit contributions in aid of its funds. The proposition was referred to a committee; and they reported, "that, if any member of the convention was disposed, in any way, to promote the objects of this Society, he was at liberty to select his own time and manner of so doing." And there the business terminated.

Yet these are the "fanatics, who fulminate insurrectionary doctrines from their pulpits." I know, likewise, that, of one hundred and thirty Societies auxiliary, or collateral to this, in the United States, one hundred and six are established in slave-holding States.

It is for you to explain these facts, and to reconcile them with the views yon have given of the Society and its designs. It is hard to conceive, that you could have been ignorant of their existence. It is harder still to suppose, that, knowing them, you would have drawn so hideous a picture, and hung it up to public view, blazoned all over in burning characters, with the terms, "northern prejudices, northern fanaticism and hostility to southern interests.'

If you think the Colonization Society a visionary, or mischievous

body, you are at liberty so to characterize it. But for justice, and for truth's sake do not charge it on the people of the north; do not reckon it among the proofs of a radical hostility between the two sections of the country No. It belongs to ourselves. Its wisdom or its folly; its vice, or virtue are our own.

Whether it be that fatal machine you represent it, or not, it was built by our own hands. There was no Grecian treachery here.

Some of your other charges will hardly bear examination better than this. Where have you found "the first talents of the country engaged in vulgar abuse of the peculiar policy of the South?" I have seen nothing to justify such a statement. It wants verisimilitude. The first talents' of a country are not wont to be so employed. Crude, or intemperate, effusions may, perhaps, have found their way occasionally, into the newspapers of the day. It is hardly in the nature of things that it should be otherwise. It were too much to expect that, on this subject alone, the scribbler should always write sense and reason. It were equally strange, if thinking, as they necessarily must, very differently from ourselves, they should never give utterance to their thoughts. But you may be assured, that any intemperance on this topic is as severely condemned, and as earnestly deprecated by sober men in that section of the country as in this. That the citizens of the north are not in love with our peculiar usages, is, surely, no recent discovery. It has always been well known, and distinctly avowed. But, that they are disposed to quarrel with us on this account; or to impute to us the existence of these usages as a crime, or to regard them as a just cause of alienation from us, no man acquainted with the true state of feeling there will venture to affirm.

Where, I ask, are the pulpits, from which "insurrectionary doctrines are promulgated?" Who among the hundreds of our fellowcitizens that, for years past, have travelled through the northern, and middle states, can say that these are the topics with which they have been accustomed to be edified from the pulpit?

That a single indiscreet and undiscriminating zealot may have utterred his dreamy oracles from this sacred place, is certainly possible. But admitting the fact, is it fair, is it just, to consider one or two instances of this sort, as indicative of the state of public feeling?Will they justify you in representing these things as customary? They certainly are not so. Those feelings of bitter hostility towards southern interests, of which you have drawn so glowing a picture, I am persuaded, do not exist at the north, to any extent at least. I am persuaded of this, because with ample opportunities for ascertaining the fact, I have found no evidence of their existence. And I appeal, with confidence, to every candid man, who has spent any time in that quarter of the country, whether his own observation does not coincide with mine.

The course of reasoning, which you pursue on this subject, as well as some others, is a very summary one, to say the least. You first assume the existence of all bad dispositions, and mischievous designs on the part of the National Government, and of the people of the north generally; and every thing else follows of course.

It must

be admitted by every one, that there is a discrepancy of feeling, and

opinion, on this subject between the north and the south. It is admitted, likewise, that out of this discrepency may spring a deep-rooted, and ineradicable animosity. From these admissions you draw, at once, the conclusion, that such animosity does exist, and will continue to exist, and produce the most fatal results to our interests. The people of the north are the majority-they have the power to prosecute their hostile purposes-therefore, they will prosecute them. What avail the dictates of all past experience against such demonstration as this? They are scattered like chaff before the wind.

It seems habitual with you to rest on extreme suppositions; to consider as inevitable dangers that are only contingent, and which ordinary discretion and prudence may obviate-and to argue the incorrectness of a principle, or the invalidity of a power from its possible abuse. If this is to pass for logic, society must break up, and return to its original elements. For there is no establishment to which the necessities, or the wisdom of man have given birth, which such reasoning would not subvert.

I have dwelt long on this subject. It is one of no ordinary importance; and your remarks upon it, are, in my judgment, fraught with danger to the best interests of this union, and of all its parts. They address themselves not to the sober reason, but to the passions and excited imaginations of men. They bring heat without light. They tend to exasperate feelings, which it were much wiser to soothe. He who should go to examine a powder mill with a burning torch in his hand, might certainly be very innocent in his intentions; but he could hardly be regarded as a safe inmate there.

I repeat there is nothing in this subject, viewed in its relation to the union of these States, more difficult of adjustment now, than for fifty years past. We are threatened with no new danger, either in kind, or in degree. If we can but exercise an ordinary share of good temper, and good sense, our harmony need not be interrupted by the jarring of this chord. If we cannot do this, then are we unworthy of the blessings we shall have forfeited. If we will give up the guidance of our sober judgment at the bidding of low jealousy, and unfounded suspicion; if the work of mutual crimination, misrepresentation and calumny must go on, till the popular passions are roused into a tempest, that no wisdom can stay, or control-be it so.

But, when the tempest shall have spent its force, over. whose fair fields will it have spread its devastations?-whose happiness, and whose hopes will it have prostrated in the dust?

NO. XIX.

In discussing your principles of interpretation, as applied to the Constitution, I have purposely confined myself, hitherto, to general views. I have relied principally on those considerations which grow out of the nature and ends of government itself. All just government springs from the will of the people, and is instituted for their benefit.. It is merely a convenient instrument, or organ, by which the public

operate in promoting or securing the great interests of the whole community. Every community must be supposed to will its own highest good; and in the institution of its form of Government; in organizing its parts and arranging its powers, must be supposed to have constant reference to this great object. It cannot be admitted, for one moment, that in these solemn transactions, it can be the wish or intention of any community, that any one of its interests should be neglected; that any thing really beneficial and conducive to the highest good, should be omitted by its public agents and servants.

If these general positions are denied, then there is as an end of the argument between us. We differ in first principles; and all our attempts at reasoning must be mere beating the air. If they are granted, as they must be, I conceive, then I ask no other concessions. I want no firmer or wider basis, on which to rest my system of construction. For I have shown conclusively, that our system of Government is the creation of the people-of the whole people; and established for the benefit of the whole-that it is a result of the exercise on the part of the people, of their original, inherent sovereignty; and, therefore, in the very necessity of things, invested with the attributes of sovereignty as essentially, though not as extensively, as any government that ever existed. I have shown that the idea of its being the result of a compact or league, between sovereign and independent States, for the mere purpose of managing, as you maintain, their "external concerns;' a mere organized commission for the execution of certain specific trusts; is the veriest figment of the imagination. It is shown to be such, by the whole history of the government, from its birth to the present day. The records of the Convention, and the letters, speeches, and political essays of cotemporary Statesmen, speak the same language, and establish the same fact.

Now, I say, that a government, such in its origin, such in its objects, and such in its relations-a Government, the design of which is declared by the people themselves, to be, "to form a more perfect union, to establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty"-that such a government must be invested with a liberal discretion; or its institution prove altogether futile. Without such discretion, the performance of its duties would be wholly impracticable; and the great purposes thus solemnly set forth in the preamble to the Constitution, would be nothing more than pompous verbiage. Such, on your principles, they would have been proved to be; long years ago. On these principles the Government must have been arrested at the very outset of its career; for its whole course and track in all the great leading principles of its policy, lie out of the limits of what you regard as constitutional ground. On the fundamental principles of all government, therefore, and on the supposition that the people, the true and original source of its powers, intended that their interests and welfare should be promoted, I maintain that the right and the duty of exercising discretionary powers, belongs to the Government, from the very fact of its existence. The great leading objects which the people designed the Government should effect for their good, were capable of being, many of them at least, foreseen and enumerated. And they were enumerated accordingly. And I admit that the Government can