true purpose in the protection of the lives, liberties, and legitimate occupations of the people, it becomes only a nuisance, and the time has arrived for its overthrow.

But the responsibility of revolution under a settled form of government is indeed fearful. Before undertaking it, the evils of endurance, however great, should be long and carefully weighed against those of change and uncertainty. The fabric of civil society ought not lightly to be overthrown. It is easier to destroy than reconstruct; hence revolution is "the extreme medicine of the state." Men are as much bound by the moral law to abstain from its use without good and sufficient reason, as they are by the political law to resort to it when occasion absolutely requires; and when this becomes inevitable, they owe it to a candid world to explain their reasons with the most scrupulous exactness.

Have the Southern States thus justified their rebellion? "Think, if you can," said Mr. Lincoln, in his inaugural address, "of a single instance in which a plainly-worded proviso of the Constitution has been denied." Through

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all their ordinances of secession the search is in vain for a record of that "single instance." Many of these give no reason whatever. Alabama sets forth the election of Mr. Lincoln, "following on the heels of many and dangerous infractions,' as justifying her withdrawal.1 South Carolina, the first State to secede, only complains that the free States have not restored her fugitive slaves. The speeches of Southern orators have pleaded protective tariffs and navigation laws excluding foreign vessels from the coasting trade; and, finally, Mr. Jefferson Davis has wound up this impalpable list of grievances with the belief of the Southern States that to remain longer in the Union would be to "subject them to a continuance of a disparaging discrimination, submission to which would be

"Our present purpose does not require us to discuss the propriety of the acts of these States, yet it may be proper for us to say that they find no warrant in any known principle of our Government, and no justifi'cation in the facts existing when they seceded. *** We ask no concession of new or additional rights. We do not fear any

immediate encroachment upon our rights as Slave States. *** The States which have seceded have abandoned the best Government in the world without any good or sufficient cause."-Address of the Convention of the Border (Slave) States, June, 1861; PUTNAM'S Rebellion Record, New York, 1861.

inconsistent with their welfare, and intolerable to a proud people." Such are the alleged causes set forth to justify revolution. Let us briefly examine them.

We have here two pleas-insecurity to slave institutions, and a protective policy.

With regard to slavery, the whole history of the Union shows that the National concessions have from the very first been only too favourable to the South. They began in the Federal Convention, by conceding an addition to the claims of the white population of the Slave States for proportionate representation of three-fifths their number of slaves.

The revolt of Texas from Mexico was followed by her admission into the Union, against the strong protest of all the free States, after the re-establishment of slavery where it had been already abolished, and this too when Mexico and the United States were at peace. A costly and sanguinary war with Mexico was the consequence, only closed by the purchase of additional territory and the assumption of American claims; these alone amounting to nearly four millions sterling.

The Missouri compromise of 1820, prohibiting slavery from the territory ceded by France north of 36° 30,° after thirty-four years' acquiescence in its provisions by both North and South, has been recalled.

A new and more stringent law was passed in 1850 to facilitate the recovery of fugitive Slaves, and most, if not all, of the free States have repealed their personal-liberty bills, which to some extent obstructed its operation.

The ordinance of 1787, forbidding the introduction of involuntary servitude into the North-Western domain, and for which it is upon record, that at the formation of the Constitution that clause giving the right to demand back "the person held to service or labour in one State under the laws thereof escaping into another," was given as an equivalent, has been abrogated by the "DredScott" decision of the Supreme Court-a decision opening the whole territory of the United States to the polluting influence of that accursed system, preventing its abolition in the district of Columbia, and clearly opposed to the whole spirit, if not the letter, of the

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Constitution; and yet we are gravely told, that power in the hands of the South threatens nothing in the North, seeks nothing from it, desires to disturb nothing in it."1

Moreover, it has been shown by Mr. Kennedy, of the Census Bureau, that not more than 1,000 slaves per annum make their escape from thraldrom. In 1860, out of 4,000,000 of slaves only 803 escaped-equal to one-fiftieth of one per cent. Many of these escape southwards and westwards; some to Florida; some to the dismal swamps, until hunted out by bloodhounds; a small proportion only to Canada; and many are recovered by due process of law. That this is not a justification for rebellion, is evident from the fact, that if separation could be effected, the alleged evil would only be aggravated, because no law of extradition would then exist, and the slave, once succeeding in pressing his foot on free soil, would himself be free.

"Up to the present period," says Mr. Spence most correctly, "the Southern interest has

"The American Union," by London, 1861, 1st edition, JAMES SPENCE, 115. Bentley,