The Project Gutenberg EBook of Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June,
1862, by Various

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Title: Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862
Devoted To Literature and National Policy

Author: Various

Release Date: June 29, 2005 [EBook #16151]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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_THE CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:_

DEVOTED TO

LITERATURE AND NATIONAL POLICY.

VOL. I.--JUNE, 1862.--No. VI.

* * * * *

_THE CONSTITUTION AND SLAVERY._

There are two sections of the United States, the Free States and the
Slave States, who hold views widely different upon the subject of
Slavery and the true interpretation of the Constitution in relation to
it. The Southern view, for the most part, is:

1. The Constitution recognizes slaves as strictly property, to her
bought and sold as merchandise.

2. The Constitution recognizes all the territories as open to slavery as
much as to freedom, except in those cases where it has been expressly
interdicted by the Federal Government; and it secures the legal right to
carry slaves into the territories, and any act of Congress, restricting
this right to hold slaves in the territories, is unconstitutional and
void.

3. Slavery is a natural institution, and not to be considered as local
and municipal.

4. The Constitution is simply a compact or league between sovereign
States, and when either party breaks, in the estimation of the other,
this contract, it is no longer binding upon the whole, and the party
that thinks itself wronged has a right, acting according to its own
judgment, to leave the Union.

5. This contract between sovereign States has been broken to such an
extent, by long and repeated aggressions upon the South by the North,
that the slave States who have seceded from the Union, or who may
secede, are not only right in thus doing, but are justified in taking up
arms, to prevent the collection of revenue by the Federal Government.

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