peech, in which he said: "If an Abolitionist be
chosen President of the United States, you will have presented to you
the question of whether you will permit the Government to pass into the
hands of your avowed and implacable enemies? Without pausing for an
answer, I will state my own position to be, that such a result would be
a species of revolution by which the purposes of the Government would be
destroyed, and the observance of its mere forms entitled to no respect.
In that event, in such a manner as should be most expedient, I should
deem it your duty to provide for your safety, outside of the Union with
those who have already shown the will, and would have acquired the power
to deprive you of your birthright, and to reduce you to worse than the
Colonial dependence of your fathers."

The "birthright" thus referred to was of course, the alleged right to
have Slaves; but what was this "worse than Colonial dependence" to
which, in addition to the peril supposed to threaten the Southern
"birthright," the Cotton States of Mississippi were reduced?
"Dependence" upon whom, and with regard to what? Plainly upon the
North; and with regard, not to Slavery alone--for Jefferson Davis held,
down to the very close of the War, that the South fought "not for
Slavery"--but as to Tariff Legislation also. There was the rub! These
Cotton Lords believed, or pretended to believe, that the High Tariff
Legislation, advocated and insisted upon both by the Whigs and
Republicans for the Protection of the American Manufacturer and working
man, built up and made prosperous the North, and elevated Northern
laborers; at the expense of the South, and especially themselves, the
Cotton Lords aforesaid.

We have already seen from the utterances of leading men in the South
Carolina, Secession Convention, "that"--as Governor Hicks, himself a
Southern man, said in his address to the people of Maryland, after
the War broke out "neither the election of Mr. Lincoln, nor the
non-execution of the Fugitive Slave Law, nor both combined, constitute
their grievances. They declare that THE REAL CAUSE of their discontent
DATES AS FAR BACK AS 1833."

And what was the chief cause or pretext for discontent at that time?
Nothing less than the Tariff. They wanted Free Trade, as well as
Slavery. The balance of the Union wanted Protection, as well as
Freedom.

The subsequent War, then, was not a War waged for Slavery alone, but for
Independence with a view to