133 Southern Historical Society Papers,
have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." These are the words of his inaugural address March 4, 1861.
Carve yet again :
'* Resolved, That this war is not waged upon our part with any purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of these States, but to defend and maintain the suprem- acy of the Constitution and to preserve the Union." This resolution Congress passed and he signed it after the first battle of Manassas.
And yet once more :
" I did not at any time say I was in favor of negro suflfrage. I declared against it. I am not in favor of negro citizenship.*'
This opinion he never changed.
These things show in the light of events — the emancipation pro- clamation, the reconstruction acts, the black suffrage, the anarchy that reigned — that the South read truly the signs of the irrepressible conflict.
They show, further, that by the right of revolution alone can Abra- ham Lincoln be defended in overthrowing the institution which he pledged himself to guard like Washington, and with it the Consti- tution which he had sworn " to defend and maintain." And if Jeffer- son Davis appealed to the sword and needs the mantle of charity to cover him, where would Lincoln stand unless the right of revolution stretched that mantle wide, and a great people wrapped him in its mighty folds ?
DECAY OF SLAVERY IN THE NORTH AND GROW^TH IN THE SOUTH DUE TO NATURAL AND NOT MORAL CAUSES.
As the time wore on, the homogeneous order of the American people changed. It was not conscience but climate and soil which effected this change, or rather the instinct of aversion to bondage rose up in the North just in proportion as the temptation of interest subsided.
The inhospitable soil of New England repelled the pursuits of agriculture and compelled to those of commerce and the mechanic arts. In these the rude labor of the untutored African was unprofit- able, and the harsh climate was uncongenial to the children of the Dark Continent translated from its burning suns to these frigid shores. Slavery there was an exotic ; it did not pay, and its roots soon decayed, like the roots of a tropic plant in the arctic zone.
In the fertile plantations of the Sunny South there was employ-
