p .APERS OF MIRABEAU BUONAP.ARTE LAM.AR
271
ous and happy results, and they cannot exceed the trials and suffer- ings which our revolutionary patriots encountered for those very rights and principles which it is our purpose to regain and re-establish. There is no disguising the truth, that the South has as many high and just complaints against the North, as the colonies had against the mother country. Our situation is much more alarming than that of the colonies at the commencement of the revolution. But if our long endurance of insult and submission to wrong have rendered us too timid and effeminate to vindicate our rights and character -:- if in losing our social and political equality we have lost our virtue and valor too - then let us yield at once; and ceasing from our windy war of words, obey the conqueror and kiss the rod. Let it not be forgot, however, that our continuance in the Union ...,_ without some unexpected change in the views and feelings of the anti- slavery party -will doom us, beyond all doubt, to a far deadlier strug- gle than that which the submission party are so desirous to avoid. In steering from Sylla we shall be wrecked upon Charybdis. We shall be thrown, by the triumph of abolition, into all the horrors of a do- mestic and servile war - a war which will have no parallel i~ atrocity and cruelty, and which must leave the Southern country a bleeding victim - a land of suffering, mourning and desolation. There is no uncertainty as to the consequences. The Northern States will never permit our black population to enter their country. The gates will be closed against the negroes in all abolition States. The consequence will be that when we shall be finally driven by the combined powers of corruption, harrassment and force into the emancipation of our slaves, they will have to remain amongst us; and the impossibility of their doing this in peace and safety, must be apparent to every mind. The freed slaves and the master cannot dwell together on terms of political and social equality. Such a thing would not only be ren- dered impossible by the recollection of their former relative positions, but it is forbid by the laws of God and nature. It cannot be. Thus, as I have already said, the success of abolition will throw the two races into a fearful conflict - a conflict that admits of no compro- mise but death - no [ ] but the grave, no termination but in extincftion ] that the South may be saved from this awful tragedy. I desire that she may escape from it; because it is revolting to every sentiment of humanity - because there is no possible reason for sucn a horrible catastrophe - because it is an unmixed evil without the remotest hope of good. And yet it is in- evitable if the South falter in her duty to herself. I am not opposed to the emancipation of slaves, solely on account of the universal bank- ruptcy and pecuniary ruin which it would create; but more on ac- count of those very calamities to which I have just alluded; it will lead to the total butcherv and destruction .of a race whose welfare and happiness every Southern man feels bound to consult as well as his own; and viewing the subject in this liJ?ht. I rannot but hold it as one of the highest duties of the patriot and philanthropist to op- pose every act and measure which may have the remotest tendency to bring about this unhappy state of thin~. We, and our slaves, are now dwelling in peace and harmony together - satisfied with '!ach other - we, with their moderate labor, and they with our kindness
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