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 Free Trade, as set forth in the "Confederate
Constitution," as soon as that Independence could be achieved. And the
War on our part, while for the integrity of the Union in all its parts
--for the life of the Nation itself, and for the freedom of man, should
also have brought the triumph of the American idea of a Protective
Tariff, whose chief object is the building up of American manufactures
and the Protection of the Free working-man, in the essential matters of
education, food, clothing, rents, wages, and work.

It is mentioned in McPherson's History of the Rebellion, p. 392, that in
a letter making public his reasons for going to Washington and taking
his seat in Congress, Mr. James L. Pugh, a Representative from