c institutions involves the right of all men to think and act,
under the law, as each pleases. We have also forgotten that any subject
which will not bear discussion and political consideration must be
dangerous _in itself_, and pregnant with weakness, if not evil. There is
no harm in discussing questions upon which hang vital principles; for if
there exists on the one side strength and justice, all arguments on the
other side can do it no injury. With regard to Slavery, one of the
'causes' or 'occasions' of this unhappy war, it may be said that the
North owes much to the South which it has never paid, in a true and
kindly appreciation of the difficulties which have ever surrounded the
institutions of the latter. But let us not forget that one reason why
this debt has not been paid is because the South owes the North its
value received, by not being willing to admit in the other's behalf the
motives which underlay the efforts which have been made by the earnest,
or so-called 'radical' men, who have opposed the institution of slavery.
Pure misunderstanding of motive, pure lack of political as well as moral
charity, has been wanting between the men of the North who opposed, and
the men of the South who maintained the extension of slavery. Had each
understood the other better, it is probable that the character of each
would have assumed the following proportions: The slaveholder of the
South, inheriting from generations back a system of servitude which even
ancient history supported and defended, and which he in his inmost heart
believes to be beneficial to the slave not less than the master, regards
himself as violating no law of God or man in receiving from this
inferior race or grade of men the labor of their hands, and the right to
their control, while they draw from him the necessary physical support
and protection which it is in his belief his bounden duty to give. The
planter, a gentleman educated and a Christian, with the fear of God
before his eyes, believes this--the belief was born in him and dies in
him, and he is conscientiously faithful in carrying out the principles
of his faith. I speak now of no exceptional, but of general cases,
instancing only the representative of the highest class of Southern men.
Is it to be wondered at that such a man, looking from _his_ point of
vision, should regard with suspicion and distrust the efforts of those
who sought to abolish even by gradual means the apparent sources of his