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hesitatingly assume that the force and strength of the Republican organization is derived from an undefined conception that all races of men are equal.
We have received, as a legacy from the last century, an hitherto unquestioned belief in the perfectability of human nature, and the consequent natural equality of all men. Fourth of July orations, echoing the sentiments of the author of the Declaration of Independence, and imitating the brilliant rhetoric of the great leaders of the French Revolution, have firmly indoctrinated the American mind with theoretical opinions which are at variance with all experience and practice. In the northern States this theoretical belief in the equality of all races has had peculiar opportunities of fixing itself in the public mind, owing to the comparative absence of an inferior race, which might serve as a practical proof and an immediate example of the inferiority of one numerous race, to another great race. The bulk of the people of the free States have consequently accepted, almost without question, the general dogma referred to. In addition to this vague idea, there exists in the North a natural geographical feeling of jealousy and hostility to the South. All the world over you find these sectional feeling, which are the same as patriotism under different circumstances. Indeed, as politicians, we know that there are jealousies between Eastern and Western Pennsylvania, between Northern and Southern; and in all our county conventions, we always find that there is an upper end and a lower end, a northern end and a southern end of the country, claiming certain patronage and offices, with considerable bitterness, on account of locality.
Again, there are in the Northern States and the Southern States different systems of labor, producing in each section very different social institutions and habits. The North is, to a considerable extent, manufacturing; the South is principally agricultural—the North is commercial; the South is not. Here, then, are natural passions, prejudices, feelings and interests upon which demagogues may adroitly play for their own aggrandizement; and cool-headed revolutionary leaders have done so with an effect that to-day we observe with dread.
But the idea upon which they base their greatest hopes of success is this undefined one of the equal rights, privileges and capabilities of all races. Ask them directly whether the Negro is equal to the Caucasian, and they may say no; nevertheless, their argument is based upon the assumption that the negro is fit for liberty and ought to have it. Now the Democratic party has never met them squarely in the front; on the contrary, we have interposed the Constitution between the foe and ourselves; we have appealed to the compact between equal sovereign States; we have pointed to the compromises of that instrument, but we have never undertaken to show that the fundamental ideas of the Republican party are absolutely false, both in theory and in experiment. This manner of conducting the war could necessarily result in only one way. If we must hold up a paper constitution as a reply to the arguments of their orators—if we do not attempt to controvert their principles—we virtually concede the soundness of their position. If we continue to attempt to stem the tide of fanaticism by a paper barrier, because unable to erect a barrier of reason, we will be overwhelmed—and deserve to be. If the African is fit for liberty and has a right to it, then John Brown was a greater man than Lafayette, and deserves the brilliant eulogies pronounced upon him by the great Republican orator, Wendell Phillips, with whom we would unite in
