All men, almost, agreed with all men that slavery was wrong; but
what can we do? The compromises of our fathers include us and bind us to
fidelity to the agreements that had been made in the formation of our
Constitution. Our confederation first, and our Constitution after. These
were regarded everywhere as moral obligations by men that hated slavery.
"The compromises of the Constitution must be respected," said the priest
in the pulpit, said the politician in the field, said the statesmen in
public halls; and men abroad, in England especially, could not
understand what was the reason of the hesitancy of President Lincoln and
of the people, when they had risen to arms, in declaring at once the end
for which arms were taken and armies gathered to be the emancipation of
the slaves. There never has been an instance in which, I think, the
feelings and the moral sense of so large a number of people have been
held in check for reasons of fidelity to obligations assumed in their
behalf. There never has been in history another instance more notable,
and I am bound to say, with all its faults and weaknesses, more noble.
The commercial question--that being the underlying moral element--the
commercial question of the North very soon became, on the subject of
slavery, what the industrial and political question of the South had
made it. It corrupted the manufacturer and the merchant. Throughout the
whole North every man that could make any thing regarded the South as
his legal, lawful market; for the South did not manufacture; it had the
cheap and vulgar husbandry of slavery.
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