Before God, and Christ, and all
Christian men, they are my brothers and sisters." What a condition! From
the lips, too, of a champion of the Higher Law! Whether the States
be separate or united, neither my brother nor any other man's brother
shall, with my consent, go back to bondage! So speaks the heart--Mr.
Mann's version is that of the politician.
This seems to me a very mistaken strain. Whenever slavery is banished
from our national jurisdiction, it will be a momentous gain, a vast
stride. But let us not mistake the half-way house for the end of the
journey. I need not say that it matters not to Abolitionists under what
special law slavery exists. Their battle lasts while it exists anywhere,
and I doubt not Mr. Sumner and Mr. Giddings feel themselves enlisted
for the whole war. I will even suppose, what neither of these gentlemen
states, that their plan includes not only that slavery shall be
abolished in the District and Territories but that the slave basis
of representation shall be struck from the Constitution, and the
slave-surrender clause construed away.
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