courage, disinterestedness, and all the high qualities which adorn our nature. I ask whether we have not contributed our full share of talents and political wisdom in forming and sustaining this political fabric; and whether we have not constantly inclined most strongly to the side of liberty, and been the first to see and first to resist the encroachments of power. In one thing only are we inferior-the arts of gain; we acknowledge that we are less wealthy than the Northern section of this Union, but I trace this mainly to the fiscal action of this government, which has extracted much from, and spent little among us. Had it been the reverse, if the exaction had been from the other section, and the expenditure with us,-this point of superiority would not be against us now, as it was not at the formation of this government.

But I take higher ground. I hold that in the present state of civilization, where two races of different origin, and distinguished by color, and other physical differences, as well as intellectual, are brought together, the relation now existing in the slaveholding States between the two, is, instead of an evil, a good—a positive good. I feel myself called upon to speak freely upon the subject where the honor and interests of those I represent are involved. I hold, then, that there never has yet existed a wealthy and civilized society in which one portion of the community did not, in point of fact, live on the labor of the other. Broad and general as is this assertion, it is fully borne out by history. This is not the proper occasion, but if it were it would not be difficult to trace the various devices by which the wealth of all civilized communities has been so unequally divided, and to show by what means so small a share has been allotted to those by whose labor it was produced, and so large a share given to the non-producing class. The devices are almost innumerable, from the brute force and gross superstition of ancient times, to the subtle and artful fiscal contrivances of modern. I might well challenge a comparison between them and the more direct,

simple, and patriarchal mode by which the labor of the African race is, among us, commanded by the European. I may say with truth, that in few countries so much is left to the share of the laborer, and so little exacted from him, or where there is more kind attention paid to him in sickness or infirmities of age. Compare his condition with the tenants of the poorhouses in the more civilized portions of Europe-look at the sick and the old and infirm slave, on one hand, in the midst of his family and friends, under the kind superintending care of his master and mistress; and compare it with the forlorn and wretched condition of the pauper in the poorhouse.

But I will not dwell on this aspect of the question; I turn to the political; and here I fearlessly assert that the existing relation between the two races in the South, against which these blind fanatics are waging war, forms the most solid and durable foundation on which to rear free and stable political institutions. It is useless to disguise the fact. There is, and always has been in an advanced stage of wealth and civilization, a conflict between labor and capital. The condition of society in the South exempts us from the disorders and dangers resulting from this conflict; and which explains why it is that the political condition of the slaveholding States has been so much more stable and quiet than that of the North. The advantages of the former in this respect will become more and more manifest, if left undisturbed by interference from without, as the country advances in wealth and numbers. We have, in fact, but just entered that condition of society where the strength and durability of our political institutions are to be tested; and I venture nothing in predicting that the experience of the next generation will fully test how vastly more favorable our condition of society is to that of other sections for free and stable institutions, provided we are not disturbed by the interference of others, or shall have sufficient intelligence and spirit to resist promptly and successfully such interference. It rests with ourselves to meet and repel

them. I look not for aid to this government, or to the other States: not but there are kind feelings towards us on the part of the great body of the non-slaveholding States; but as kind as their feelings may be, we may rest assured that no political party in those States will risk their ascendency for our safety. If we do not defend ourselves, none will defend us; if we yield, we will be more and more pressed as we recede; and if we submit, we will be trampled under foot. Be assured that emancipation itself would not satisfy these fanatics; that gained, the next step would be to raise the negroes to a social and political equality with the whites; and that being effected, we would soon find the present condition of the two races reversed. They and their Northern allies would be the masters, and we the slaves; the condition of the white race in the British West India islands, bad as it was, would be happiness to ours. There the mother country is interested in sustaining the supremacy of the European race. It is true that the authority of the former master is destroyed, but the African will there still be a slave, not to individuals but to the community, forced to labor, not by the authority of the overseer, but by the bayonet of the soldiery and the rod of the civil magistrate.*

Surrounded as the slaveholding States are with such imminent perils, I rejoice to think that our means of defense are ample, if we shall prove to have intelligence and spirit and to see and apply them before it is too late. All we want is concert, to lay aside all party differences, and unite with zeal and energy in repelling approaching dangers. Let there be concert of action, and we shall find ample means of security without resorting to secession or disunion. speak with full knowledge and a thorough examination of the subject, and for one see my way clearly. One thing alarms me the eager pursuit of gain which overspreads the land, and which absorbs every faculty of the mind and

I

*By the British Emancipation Act, which went into effect in 1834, former slaves were to serve as apprentices under their late masters for seven years.

every feeling of the heart. Of all passions avarice is the most blind and compromising the last to see and the first to yield to danger. I dare not hope that anything I can say will arouse the South to a due sense of danger; I fear it is beyond the power of mortal voice to awaken it in time from the fatal security into which it has fallen.

17. WENDELL PHILLIPS, OF MASSACHUSETTS.—EULOGY OF GARRISON

(Delivered in Boston, May 28, 1879, at the funeral of Garrison.)

TO THE assertions of the new school of Southern statesmen that "slavery was a positive good," there was opposed the view of a growing minority at the North that in spite of Constitution and laws slaveholding was a sin, complicity in which could only be avoided by active opposition whenever and wherever met with-an opposition justified by the appeal to the "higher law" which overrides mere manmade ordinances. From this feeling came the formation of the "Underground Railway" to aid slaves escaping to Canada; and from it came also the long and relentless warfare as impractical at times as the most doctrinaire of Slavery utterances-carried on by the Abolitionists, through their press, through the mails, from the lecture platform, and in petitions to Congress.

Foremost among the names of Abolitionists will always rank that of William Lloyd Garrison. Born in Massachusetts in 1805 and reared in poverty, he was placed as an apprentice at the age of fourteen in a printing office, and found there his lifelong vocation. For a few months (1829) he was associated with Benjamin Lundy in publishing the Genius of Universal Emancipation; for a “libel" in which on a New England shipowner, whom he

WENDELL PHILLIPS. Born in Boston, Mass., 1811; graduated from Harvard College, 1831; admitted to the bar, 1834; joined in the anti-slavery agitation, 1837; opposed reelection of Lincoln, 1864; public lecturer on temperance, woman suf frage, the rights of Indians, prison reform, etc.; died, 1884.