ted as a rule of conduct for
slave-holding communities. In this respect, also, he considered that
it was at best extremely questionable. Let us illustrate the principle
by the oft-repeated case of the District of Columbia. Abolitionism
asserts that it is the clear duty of Congress to abolish slavery
instantly in that District, without regard to what may occur
afterwards in consequence of that act. Let us admit that the
dissolution of the Federal Union is a consequence not worthy of
regard--even when distinctly foreseen; and that all the evils
attendant on such a result, to human society, and to all the great
interests of man throughout the earth, are as nothing, compared with
the establishment of a doubtful definition, having an antiquity of at
least four years, and a paternity disputed between Mr. Garrison and
Mr. Thompson. As a principle concerning no other creature but the
slaves of the District, and no interest but theirs, it can be shown to
be false. If Congress were instantly to abolish slavery there, with a
tolerable certainty that every slave in the District would be removed
and continued with their issue in perpetual slavery; when by an
arrangement with the owners, they might so prospectively abolish it as
to secure the freedom of every slave in five or ten years, and of
their issue as they successively arrived at twenty or twenty-five
years of age; if Congress could do the latter, and were in preference
to do the former, they would deserve the execrations of the world. The
first plea is Mr. Thompson and abolitionism; the second express my
principles and those of the despised gradualists. At all events, the
truth of the principle involved in the former supposition was not so
manifest as to justify Mr. Thompson in denouncing, as he had done,
those who did not see proper to follow it. A wise man would
hesitate--he would weigh well the resulting circumstances as one of
the best tests of the truth and utility of his principles before he
propagated, as indisputably and exclusively true, and that in despite
of all results, such principles, with the violence which had been
manifested--principles which, he repeated, were but four years old,
and which he was still convinced, were but arrant quackery. There was
another aspect of the subject. Reference had been made to the
representation of the black population in the National Government. He
would remark on this subject that it was the duty of every State to
see that powe