ke that good, all Mr. Fisher's skill and ingenuity will
be required. Why so many Northern politicians should have weakly
surrendered this point is a mystery. Because the slaveholders (who are
not, Mr. Fisher, "the people of the Slave States," by any means, but a
small portion of them) are at home a privileged aristocracy, have they
any claim to the same position abroad? If so, on what does it rest? The
laws of the Southern States? They are now beyond their jurisdiction. The
common law? To that wise and beneficent law slavery is a thing unknown.
The Constitution? It is silent. There is no exclusion of the Southerners
even proposed. Let them come: but when they claim to carry with them
the right to hold a certain class of men as property because they
are recognized as property by certain local regulations elsewhere
prevailing, they must not complain, if such a claim be disallowed. The
Southerner's complaint, that he is accustomed to the institution of
slavery, is fairly met by the Northerner's retort, that he is accustomed
to the institution of freedom.

Now, which voice shall prevail? Neither party has any more right than
the other; and neither party has any right at all. The Territories are
in a state of wardship; and Congress is to decide as it thinks best for
their welfare, present and future; and if Congress thinks that a nation
prospers with free institutions and droops under slavery, then let
Congress admit the Territory as a Free State. True, there is some
inconvenience to the slave-holder; but from so abnormal a relation as
slavery some inconvenience must result. When admitted to be a necessary
evil, it is barely tolerable; when boastingly proclaimed to be a
sovereign good, it is fairly intolerable. And it is both criminal and
foolish to try to make good all the evils inseparable from slavery by
systematic injustice to other interests.

"Slavery has changed. When Southern
men consented to its prohibition, they hoped
and believed that the time would come when
it could be abolished altogether. They have
as much right to these as to their former opinions,
and to have them represented in the
Government."

Here Mr. Fisher hints at, rather than fully states, the grand retort of
the Southerners,--"Our fathers, you say, were opposed to slavery: very
good; but we are not: why should we be bound by their opinions?" A mere
misapprehension of the force of the argument. The Southerner of 1860 is
_not_ bound