ed
race would have rallied to her rescue. But now, so long as this wicked
oligarchy rules her destiny never--never! It was England forced slavery
upon us. It was England fastened upon our feeble, youthful limbs, this
poisoned shirt of Nessus, and then, when we were tearing it from us,
even though the vitals and the life-blood might follow, England exulted
in what she believed to be our dying agonies.

This is no fancy sketch, but a dread reality. It has filled our cup with
sorrow; it is mingled with every tear that falls upon the dying
patriot's couch; it is wafted with every agonizing sigh that follows the
departed spirit; it is felt in every house of mourning, and is seared,
in letters of fire and blood, upon the memory of every American.

But England now says that Slavery was not the cause of the war. Yet it
was so avowed in every secession ordinance, and in the confederate
constitution. None but a slave State revolted; none but a slave State
can be admitted into the rebel confederacy; and slavery is extended by
their constitution over all existing or after-acquired territory. If
England should ever form a part of slavedom, slavery would be extended
there, and slaves could be bought and sold in London. Other revolts have
been against tyranny, but this is a rebellion of slavery against
freedom, of the few against the many, of the bayonet against the ballot,
of capital invested in man as a chattel, against free labor and free
men. The tariff was scarcely referred to in the contest at the South.
The tariff then existing was a free-trade measure, prepared by the
leaders of this rebellion, and passed in 1856, by the aid of their
votes. That tariff was twenty per cent lower than the revenue act of
1846. The tariff of 1846 was proposed in the Treasury Report of
December, 1845, which report was quoted by Sir Robert Peel in his speech
of January, 1846, and made the basis of his motion to repeal the corn
laws. But the free-trade bill of 1856 (duties on exports being
prohibited) was _the law of the land_ when the Cotton States seceded in
December, 1860, and January and February, 1861, and inaugurated the
rebel government. It was not until _after_ all this, that this measure
was repealed, in March, 1861. This repeal could never have occurred but
for the prior withdrawal of the Cotton States from Congress. The great
agricultural and exporting North-west was opposed to high tariffs; so
also was New-York, the great mart of foreign