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the Autocrat of Russia, and as despotic in its tendency as any ab- solute government that ever existed.
"The cry of Union, Union, the glorious Union, can no more prevent disunion than the cry of health, health, glorious health, can save a patient dangerously ill.
" Nor can the Union be saved by invoking the name of the illus- trious southerner whose mortal remains repose on the western bank of the Potomac. He was one of us a slaveholder and a planter. And it was the great and crowning glory of Washington's life that he severed a union with Great Britain which had ceased to be mutually beneficial."
Said James K. Polk in his inaugural address: "One great object of the Constitution was to restrain majorities from oppressing minorities, or encroahing on their rights. Minorities have a right to appeal to the Constitution as a shield against such oppression."
How vain this appeal was events proved.
WEBSTER FOR SECESSION.
Mr. Webster, in his speech at Capon Springs, Va., in 1851 says: " I do not hesitate to say and repeat that if the Northern States re- fuse wilfully and deliberately to carry into effect that part of the Constitution which respects the restoration of fugitive slaves, the South would no longer be bound to keep the compact. A bargain broken on one side is a bargain broken on all sides."
Judge McLean, of the Supreme Court of the United States, says: " Is not the master entitled to his property? I answer that he is. His right is guaranteed by the Constitution, and the most summary means for its enforcement are found in the Act of Congress."
Judge Story decides as follows : " It is weil known that the object of the clause in the Constitution relating to persons owing service and labor in one State escaping into another was to secure to the citizens the complete right and title of ownership to their slaves as property in every State of the Union."
HATRED OF THE SOUTH.
Governor Chase gives the key to the cause of the whole Aboli- tionist excitement when he said : " I do not wish to have the slave emancipated because I love him, but because I hate his master."
The New York Tribune has it: " We have no doubt that the free and the slave States ought to be separated ; the Union is not worth supporting in connection with the South."
