its philosophy, corresponds with the many
attempts, related in history, at the assassination of kings and
emperors. An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people till he
fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. He ventures the
attempt, which ends in little else than his own execution. Orsini's
attempt on Louis Napoleon, and John Brown's attempt at Harper's Ferry,
were, in their philosophy, precisely the same. The eagerness to cast
blame on Old England in the one case, and on New England in the other,
does not disprove the sameness of the two things.

And how much would it avail you if you could, by the use of John Brown,
Helper's book, and the like, break up the Republican organization? Human
action can be modified to some extent, but human nature cannot be
changed. There is a judgment and a feeling against slavery in this
nation, which cast at least a million and a half of votes. You cannot
destroy that judgment and feeling--that sentiment--by breaking up the
political organization which rallies around it. You can scarcely scatter
and disperse an army which has been formed into order in the face of
your heaviest fire; but if you could, how much would you gain by forcing
the sentiment which created it out of the peaceful channel of the
ballot-box into some other channel? What would that other channel
probably be? Would the number of John Browns be lessened or enlarged by
the operation?

But you will break up the Union rather than submit to a denial of your
constitutional rights.

That has a somewhat reckless sound; but it would be palliated, if not
fully justified, were we proposing, by the mere force of numbers, to
deprive you of some right plainly written down in the Constitution. But
we are proposing no such thing.

When you make these declarations you have a specific and well-understood
allusion to an assumed constitutional right of yours to take slaves into
the Federal Territories, and to hold them there as property. But no such
right is specifically written in the Constitution. That instrument is
literally silent about any such right. We, on the contrary, deny that
such a right has any existence in the Constitution, even by implication.

Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the
government, unless you be allowed to construe and force the Constitution
as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will
rule or ruin in all events.

This, plainly s