is no temptation to declare the Adams policy.
But even this consummation must have the most momentous results, and
entirely modify the whole anti-slavery movement of the nation. Should
the war cease to-morrow, it has inaugurated a new era in our nation's
history. The folly of the Gulf States, in throwing away a political
condition where the conservative sentiment stood by them only too well,
must inevitably recoil on their own heads, whether the strife last a day
or a generation. No man can estimate the new measures and combinations
to which it is destined to give rise. There stands the Constitution,
with all its severe conditions,--severe or weak, however, according to
its interpretations;--which interpretations, again, will always prove
plastic before the popular will. The popular will is plainly destined
to a change; and who dare predict the results of its changing? The
scrupulous may still hold by the letter of the bond; but since the
South has confessedly prized all legal guaranties only for the sake of
Slavery, the North, once free to act, will long to construe them, up to
the very verge of faith, in the interest of Liberty. Was the original
compromise, a Shylock bond?--the war has been our Portia. Slavery long
ruled the nation politically. The nation rose and conquered it with
votes. With desperate disloyalty, Slavery struck down all political
safeguards, and appealed to arms. The nation has risen again, ready to
meet it with any weapons, sure to conquer with any Twice conquered, what
further claim will this defeated desperado have? If it was a disturbing
element before, and so put under restriction, shall it be spared when it
has openly proclaimed itself a destroying element also? Is this to be
the last of American civil wars, or only the first one? These are the
questions which will haunt men's minds, when the cannon are all bushed,
and the bells are pealing peace, and the sons of our hearth-stones come
home. The watchword "Irrepressible Conflict" only gave the key, but War
has flung the door wide open, and four million slaves stand ready to
file through. It is merely a question of time, circumstance, and method.
There is not a statesman so wise but this war has given him new light,
nor an Abolitionist so self-confident but must own its promise better
than his foresight. Henceforth, the first duty of an American legislator
must be, by the use of all legitimate means, to weaken Slavery. _Delenda
est Servitudo_. W