Delivered on Sunday evening, December 16th,
in reply to Theodore Parker.
Mrs. C. L. V. Hatch, Medium
Ladies and Gentlemen: It is customary in any controversy or debate of a political kind, that it shall take place under the jurisdiction or especial administration of either committees who have a Chairman, or in legislative halls under a Speaker, chosen by the House that represents the nation. In this instance, however, it is deemed advisable for us to address you on topics of a political nature, leaving you to be the Speakers, the Chairmen, the Representatives. It is with the utmost reluctance that I enter upon this controversy, upon this occasion, and yet it is with great pleasure. You have listened, upon this morning, those of you who were present, to the views, and doctrines, and advocacy of principles, believed in and professed by one whose great erudition and learning I will not question, whose sincerity I do not profess to doubt, whose mind and thought I must positively admire. Therefore, it is with reluctance that I enter in opposition. But it is also with pleasure that I venture, first, to personify the interest which I take and always have taken in this great country. It is with pleasure, secondly, that I may also give some views, to represent, in some directions, the great general feeling of patriotism which I feel does pervade this Union, notwithstanding party strife and party contention.
Your speaker of this morning advocated this question as a matter of right and wrong, of moral evil; claiming that slavery as it exists now, and as it may ever have existed in these United States, is a positive moral evil, and consequently, should not have been permitted to have an existence; or if permitted, should have been as early abolished as was possible. We might, with the same degree of propriety, say that no slavery should ever have existed in the world; that no nation should ever have been superior to any other nation; that there should never have been any struggles for supremacy; that no revolution should ever have been fought; that conquering nations should never have claimed their superiority. We might, with the same degree of argument, say, that never, since the history of time began, should one supreme ruler of a nation, have affirmed his power over his subjects. We might, with the same degree of propriety, say that no legal administration, no execution of governmental laws, should be carried into effect, that have a tendency in any degree to injure the rights and privileges of any human being. We may say this; but of what avail is it? The past is filled with the written and unwritten history of oppression and bloodshed.
And my learned friend forgets, when he advocates the cause of American abolitionism, that he is advocating a cause directly opposite to the policy of the national government, the national administration, and the national Constitution, which, in my humble opinion, has its foundation in the highest and holiest ordinances of Heaven. It is not with me a question of the right and wrong of slavery itself. It is not with me a question whether slavery is morally or religiously right and wrong. That I do not profess to decide. Of course, each individual has his own opinion. You have yours; I have mine. Your speaker of this morning has his. Many earnest and devoted minds believe with him. But there are as judicious men, as intelligent men, as patriotic men, as truth-loving men, as Christian-loving men, who believe the opposite to be true. There are those who believe that slavery is a righteous institution, who believe that they have inherited it rightfully, that it belongs to them under the law of this glorious Union, and the Constitution upon which it was built. There are those who likewise believe, religiously, that it is right, that it was approved by sacred and divine revelation, that Christianity never for one moment rebuked it, or sought in any degree, or in any manner, to interfere with it. There are those who believe that it is a right by divine inheritance; therefore, their sincerity is none the less.
The history of this country is well known. Our friend pointed out, we must say with some degree of partiality, and no little degree of party feeling, the action of the various sessions of Congress upon this subject of slavery. It must be remembered that when the Constitution of the United States was formed, slavery was not a Southern institution, but national; that there was no State in the Union or out of the Union, no State which constituted the various colonies of these now United States, that did not recognize it, that did not to some extent justify it, that were not in some degree in possession of slaves. It must be remembered, also, that there are geographical distinctions between the Northern and Southern portions of the United States which render it impossible for slavery to exist in one, and impossible almost for the States to exist without it in the other. It must be remembered that the Northern States are not adapted, either agriculturally or in climate, to the successful promotion of slavery; but it is also remembered well by you that the South could not then, and cannot now, exist without slavery. It is not for us to decide which shall eventually conquer. It is not for us to decide which is right or wrong. It is not for us to say that the Northern Abolitionists are in the right, or that the Southern Secessionists are in the right. Both are probably wrong.
But it is for us to ask, in view of what does exist, ladies and gentlemen, in view of what already exists in the Union, in view of what is entailed by hereditary lineage upon those who constitute the Southern portion of these United States, and in view of the various governmental compromises and treaties which have been formed in reference to this subject, is it not better, before taking any decisive step, before taking any distinctive and positive ground to rupture this glorious fabric, this chain bright and glittering which has been formed into our glorious confederacy, to pause and consider: first, that the eye of man and the eye of God differ widely in conceptions of right and wrong; and while slavery abstractly may be an evil—no one pretends to deny it—where two evils exist in any nation, in any policy of government, in any occasion of public or of domestic life, the least of the two is preferable?
Now we ask of you, what has the North done? Our friend stated this morning what we do not regard as being strictly in accordance with facts, or defended by history, that the South had always been the cause of each and every trouble and contention that had existed upon the subject of slavery, because if slavery had not existed there would have been no trouble at all. The South did not create slavery. Before the Constitution of the United States was formed, previous to the Convention of 1787, previous to the Declaration of 1776, slavery existed in all the colonies, the North as well as the South. Slavery was inherited, slavery was promoted, slavery was assisted as much by the North as by the South. Northern merchants, Northern commerce, flourished upon the traffic of slavery. And those who now cry out loudest against Southern institutions, and Southern men who uphold these institutions, are perhaps the very ones whose forefathers encouraged and assisted slavery, and brought into this country the slaves, or the forefathers of the slaves, that now exist in the South. The slaves were here; what was to be done with them. They were to be emancipated by the modes and means and in the manner which every State thought proper to adopt, if consistent with the internal policy of each separate State. Therefore the Constitution of the United States forbore any action, any treaty, any law, which could in any degree interfere with the respective rights of the individual States, either to retain or to abolish slavery.
Our friend this morning furthermore stated that in each and every step which had been taken for compromising, the difficulties which had arisen between the South and the North upon the subject of slavery, had originated in the South, in its demands, in its aggressions, in its perseverance for the promotion of the cause of slavery. We ask of you, what was the South to do? Each individual and separate State was in itself an absolute confederacy. Each individual and separate State has within itself the power to regulate its own internal laws. No other State, no other combination of States, no power of Congress, no power of any legislature at all, has a right to interfere with it. No matter whether it is right or wrong, that is the case. To illustrate in New York city, the great metropolis of this Western continent, there are laws, we will suppose, heinous to human morality, laws which pervert the highest and holiest sensibilities of government, laws which are at variance with the Constitution, laws which positively and entirely overthrow the very principles upon which your Constitution and country is predicated. There are laws upholding and legalizing prostitution, laws that uphold and legalize gambling, laws that uphold and legalize robbery. What would the municipal government and authorities of New York say, were the citizens of Charleston, of South Carolina, to come forward and say, “This is un-Christian; this is morally wrong; therefore will we teach the citizens of New York, the ignorant portion of your society, those who are subservient to State authorities, those who hold places under your Government, to come out against it. We will raise an insurrection of your State power and State authorities, and you shall not have this continued any longer, because it is morally wrong, because it is not in the eye of heaven right.” Would not you, would not your State authorities, would not every other man, in your nation or in your State, say that it was none of your business? Most assuredly.
Now, whether slavery be right or wrong, so long as the North has the privilege of admitting or restricting slavery in its States, it has no right to interfere with it where it already exists, and did exist, when the Constitution of the United States was formed. So much for that.
The second point is, that every compromise which has been made, has tended not to fulfill the compact between the United States of the Union, which was established in the confederacy of the Constitution, but to destroy, and utterly and entirely annihilate everything, that has existed in accordance with an understood and tacit treaty, which was supposed to exist, when the Constitution was formed. What then was to be done with the increase of slaves? What was to be done with those that were constantly imported? What was to be done with those that Northern merchants, failing to sell at the North, still carried to the South, for Southern citizens to buy and to support, and to send them, in return, the profits of slave labor? What is to be done with the gradual and almost unobstructed increase of these people that were in those States?
The Missouri compromise was sought for and obtained, honestly advocated and supported, by the one who is now addressing you, upon the simple ground that it is better to have slavery extended than to have a nation ruined. For if slavery is wrong, and there is a God of justice, it will die of itself. If it is not morally wrong, but only politically impolitic, then the individuals of the respective States have the right to decide whether it is impolitic or not. Therefore, admission of any State into the Union, predicated upon the ground that slavery shall not exist within its limits, is unconstitutional, unless the inhabitants of that State shall so decide. With regard to the extension of slavery in the territories, you well remember what was sought for and procured, and afterwards repealed, about that same time, with reference to the extension of slavery in the West and Northwest territory. You well remember what a struggle ensued, and what has since been the struggle upon that same subject.
But most respectfully do we submit that the North and not the South have been the aggressors. Most respectfully do we submit it to your knowledge of the history of the respective countries, and of the position which the South has taken, to your knowledge and consciousness, of your own governmental laws, and your own Constitution. For be it remembered that the South has a conscience; the South has a religion; the South has social and domestic relations; the South has the relations of husband and wife, of father and son, of parent and child, as positively and distinctively as the North. The North has its own religious and educational institutions, its own manufacturing institutions, its own arts, its own commerce, its own internal laws and administration, and so has the South. These always have and always must exist, so long as the difference of climate, the difference of products, the difference of sentiment, the difference of temperature exists, which now exists between the Northern and Southern portion of these United States.
It has always been a mooted question, and probably will be, unless finally and decisively settled during the present struggle, whether slavery shall or shall not be extended into the territories—whether the South shall or shall not have equal rights in territories, that are equally their own with the North. It is not a question whether a State with slavery shall be admitted into the Union, and no anti-slavery persons shall exist within that State, no Abolitionists, and no Republicans shall be admitted; but it is the question whether a State shall be admitted, and the North and the South shall have equal rights therein.
We claim this, ladies and gentlemen, in behalf of the South; not of that extreme portion of Southern sentiment which says, “Give us what we ask or we are at war;” not of that extreme Northern sentiment which says, “Abolish slavery at once, or we do not care what becomes of the Constitution or of the Union.” We regard as the mildest form in which we can express our opinion of either of these two classes, that both are treacherous to the country, that both are unpatriotic, that both have regard more to self and sectional interests, than to the welfare of the Union or of the nation. It always was and always is my earnest, individual desire, to perpetuate and strengthen by any and every means, consistent with consistency itself, this glorious Union and Republic. I see nothing in the present crisis, nothing in the struggles of the past, nothing in the various and opposite opinions that now exist in different States in reference to this subject, to prevent a full and entire disposition of it, provided there are patriots, statesmen, and lovers of the country, enough to do it.
Again, our learned opponent upon this subject thought proper to denounce the compromise of 1850, as being the last ratification of slavery, the last resignation of liberty, the last seal which the nation set to prevent the emancipation of slaves. In my humble opinion, it was the greatest to preserve the country, the greatest to prevent that calamity which seems now approaching. It was the greatest to serve the interests of the nation for which our mutual fathers, North and South, bled, and fought, and died, upon which they established the glorious, the divine confederacy, which now exists in your country. Situated, not in the extreme South, not in the cotton-growing States, but verging upon the border of the Northern States, having every opportunity of witnessing slave labor in the cotton-growing States, and in the native State of the speaker, which was chiefly productive of tobacco, and of witnessing the struggles going on in the North, the advancement of free labor and the progress of free institutions, the speaker had ample opportunity of judging between the two. And I must say, with all due deference and respect for the opinions that were advanced upon the occasion of this morning’s argument, that I never saw, and never believed, and never for one moment suspected, that slavery, as an institution, as it exists in the South, was in any degree opposed to the national government, to the national Constitution, or to the Declaration of Independence, for which our forefathers so earnestly fought. On the contrary, it would seem to be entailed upon us, because, you will remember, we ourselves inherited it from our mother, Virginia; it would seem to be an inheritance which we were to accept, or to have nothing at all. When the Abolitionist tells us that slavery must be abolished, that slavery must not be extended, that the South must not have the right to extend slavery into the territories, but that it must dispose of it in the best manner that is possible, and at its own discretion, the surplus of slaves that it possesses, we do not know what it means. It proposes to tear down the institutions of the South—to take away from the South its means of subsistence, and its commercial resources, to take away all that belongs to her wealth and posterity, in the persons and property of those slaves, and to substitute—what?
No abolitionist ever consents, even for a moment, that the nation shall buy these slaves; because, say they, if it is a wrong we will not countenance the wrong by paying for it. If it is right, or if it is not morally wrong, say they, the South should dispose of the slaves themselves; but the nation should not do it, because they justly perceive that it is not a subject with which the nation has anything to do. And whence is the nation to derive its means of paying for those slaves? Why, if it is as a nation, the South as well as the North should be taxed; and whence would it derive its money to pay for the slaves which it owns itself?
Again, individual men in the South, perceiving, perhaps, from their own consciences, from their own religious opinions, or from any other motive that we choose to attribute to them, that slavery was wrong, have emancipated their slaves. But there are those in the South—and those constitute the great masses of the population—who do not know of any other means of revenue. There are States that subsist upon this, States that have no other source, no other provision made for their existence. And what would you who are a mechanic, what would you who are an agriculturist, what would you who are following any other profession in the North, reply to the man who should come and say to you: “This pursuit that you are engaged in is morally wrong; we will not countenance it; we desire you to leave it.” “But what shall I do?” you ask. “Oh, do whatever you can; but you must leave this. We will not give you any employment; we will not encourage you in getting any employment elsewhere; we will not extend your prosperity; we will do everything in our power, even by interfering legally, even through the national Congress or Legislature, to destroy the mechanical interests of the North.” What would you say? That it was wrong; that it was an aggression upon your rights; that you had as much right to go where you pleased in pursuit of your business, and business interests, as we had. Of course it would be wrong. What would you who have families to support, who have wives, and daughters growing up around you, say, if we were to tell you that you were to be deprived of your rightful inheritance, even though we may believe that inheritance to be wrong? Still regarding it as sacred, and as justly yours, belonging to you by rightful heirship, you would ask: “What are we to do? what will you substitute in its place? what shall we receive in compensation for this inheritance?” We answer: “Nothing.” Where would be the justice, where the equity, where the liberty of such a proceeding?
Again, our friend does not seem to take into consideration when he views this subject, that human beings have all the right to the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness, as they shall decide; and that the slaves themselves, who in their own individual condition, as is not generally known, or professed not to be known by Northern abolitionists, were in a worse degree of bondage and slavery than can possibly be conceived of as existing among the most barbarous and tyrannical masters that the abolitionists have pictured as existing in the South; and that therefore the slave himself is not injured; and that if, when Northern slavers were engaged in the trade of importing African slaves, they had considered it morally wrong then, and had not countenanced it, had not assisted it; if it had been strictly and entirely a Southern institution of Southern importation, they might have demanded, upon the adoption of the Constitution, upon the ratification of the confederacy, the emancipation of the slaves, and the discontinuance of the slave trade. But for many years after the Constitution existed, the North supported slavery; and even up to the present day, the most conservative and Union loving and peace-loving men at the North still say, “While we have no slaves, and do not wish for slaves, we have no right to interfere with yours.” This is, in our opinion, the only just construction which can be put upon the constitutional rights of the South by any candid mind. This is in our opinion the only manner in which the question of slavery can be solved, and the Union preserved from the ruin which must assuredly follow dissolution.
We were much grieved in listening to the course of the argument of our friend this morning, to hear that at whatever sacrifice, at whatever cost to this Union, he approved of the most strenuous measures being adopted by the North to prevent any compromise. But we are glad to perceive in our individual conception, that such a proposition is revolting, not only to the South, but to every patriot and every lover of the Union in the North. We do not believe that if you who are here assembled, or who in all your Northern States are assembled to-night for worship in the name of heaven, were to assert your true opinions, there would be one out of a hundred who would say, “Dissolve this glorious confederacy, come what may.” No; if they are so strong and earnest in their belief that slavery is wrong, they should be willing to leave it with Him who always uproots wrong wherever it exists. If they are not so willing, it shows that it is a sectional party feeling, and not a patriotic feeling, which prompts their remonstrances. We are happy to believe that our friend was sincere; but we are sorry that his judgment and conscience lead him in such a direction.
Again, ladies and gentlemen, you all remember with what earnestness and with what desire for the advancement of humanity, and for the recognition of every human government predicated upon principles like our own, the speaker advocated the recognition of the States of South America upon their forming themselves in various republics, and seeking to gain countenance and favor from our own Government. You well remember with what earnestness and power the administrators of your national Government, who perceived that the republics of South America, Bolivia, Lima, and all that now embody that beautiful country, sought to be recognized, urged that it was the policy of this Government, in justice to humanity, in justice to the recognition of its own principles, to take into favorable consideration these new republics. You will also well remember the course which our Government pursued in reference to the Republic of Mexico; how long and earnestly it was advocated that our Government did not pursue the right course towards that country, in that it did not recognize its rights and privileges as a separate government, a separate republic; and that at last it did decide, although it has never decided as fully and as positively as the present speaker would desire, to recognize fully and entirely those principles of humanity wherever they exist.
You cannot, therefore, doubt the speaker’s interest in the general amelioration of the condition of every nation where tyranny, monarchy, or political oppression, have existed. Nor can you doubt the speaker’s intentions in reference to the condition of slavery in your own country. Because, be it remembered, that while we may consider African slavery as abstractly wrong, we may nevertheless regard it as a greater wrong and a greater evil to dissolve, or to disturb by sectional controversies, the Union which nearly a century has sought to establish. Nay; I would say to you, Republicans of the North, preserve your Union. You need not hold slaves. Your territories need not be peopled with slaves, because the geographical lines and limits of slavery are more strongly drawn than any action of Legislature or of Congress could draw them. You need not emigrate to slave countries. You need not form a part and portion of slave confederacies; but preserve this Union, which is founded upon justice, upon republicanism, upon the highest forms of national administration that exist in the earth. Do not seek to establish an anarchy in your own midst, by the very proposition which our friend encouraged this morning.
We say, if difficulties exist, compromise—compromise. Where two, whether individuals or nations, exist in a union, having mutual interests, when to separate would be destruction to both parties, the most judicious way is to compromise. We will apply it personally. Suppose difficulties arise between man and wife, members of the same family, father and son, or partners in business, and those difficulties are of such a nature that neither the one nor the other can recognize in the opposite party the existence of right, yet both are well aware that to sever the union, to sever the ties, to sever the relationship, would be productive of destruction to both themselves and their posterity, would you not say, “Compromise if you can?” Would you not say to partners in business, who are in financial difficulty, who have had contest after contest, and yet whose interests are so intimately blended that to separate would be to destroy forever the life and vitality and financial prosperity of both, would you not say, “It is better to compromise?” Would you not say to either party who have been the aggressors, “Retract?” Would you not say to both parties who are in the wrong, “Acknowledge your wrong?” We think that every true man, every candid lover of justice, will sanction our utterance.
For be it remembered that it is not a question now of simple right or wrong, that it is not a moral question in which your nation is engaged, that morality and religion are exclusive reservations by your Declaration of Independence, that each and every individual may retain his own forms of religion, his own conceptions of morality—provided that morality or that religion does not interfere with the great general laws of the Constitution of the United States. And each separate State is specifically instructed not to form laws which shall interfere with the Constitution; but in every other respect each is a distinct and positive nation. When we hear the North crying out: “Dissolve the Union, or emancipate your slaves,” and when we hear the extremists of the South crying out: “Adhere and sustain us in our rights, in the extension of slavery, in the preservation of our slave property, or we will secede,” we see on the one hand traitors to the Union and to patriotism, and we see on the other hand traitors to the Union and to patriotism. The greatest evidence of being in the right, is the pursuance of that course which is willing to sacrifice self for the interest of the whole. If any State or States are selfish enough to say “Give us all that we desire, or we will dissolve this Union,” or if any man or men say:” Give us all that we desire in our selfishness or our fanaticism, or we will dissolve the Union,” we say to both parties, “You are no patriots; you are simply demagogues, loving self; you are no advocates of the Constitution, no advocates of the Declaration of Independence, no advocates of the government of the United States, no advocates of the glorious institutions which we have here established; but you are traitors”
We are sorry, too, for another form which this has assumed, which is, appealing to the religious sentiments of the people who have always sought strenuously to avoid the entangling of State with Church. We are sorry that the abolitionists have thought proper to introduce this element of religion. We would always like to see religion in state and legislative halls, to see a Christian spirit carried into every department of governmental life. But we are very sorry to see the political effusions and tirades emanating from Christian pulpits and Christian ministers. We are very sorry to hear it at the South or at the North, because it argues that both sides are wrong. For while religion can with impunity be taken anywhere, everything cannot be dragged into religion. It is the policy of your national government, strictly to avoid the mingling of Church and State, and an appeal to religious bigotry or to any religious feeling, in those things which belong strictly to the governmental action of your country, we are sorry, as I before observed, to witness. We are sorry, therefore, to see this illustration of a desire to appeal, rather to religious sensibilities, which are not founded upon strict conceptions of justice, than to the inherent judgment of a people, whose constitutional rights are well known.
If we have a Constitution, abide by it. If we have laws, abide by them. If we have the foundation of a government, abide by it. If we have none, then establish one. If we have what was sought for, a glorious confederacy of free, individual, and yet limited states, if we have a nation that is so intimately blended, that to separate one portion would entirely destroy, or effectually blot out the interests and the beauty of the other, then we say, let us abide by the laws upon which that union was predicated. Let us as patriots, as lovers of liberty and of justice, encourage nothing which will, in any degree, mar or blot the sacred beauty of that holy edifice.
Finally, it is in accordance with our conceptions of discretion and patriotism, of peace and liberty, that the people of these United States unite now in this last effort—for it will be the last, unless the need and power of justice is more strongly felt than we now perceive it—to unite their forces, individually and collectively, in the preservation of the Union. Let sectional questions, sectional interests, decide themselves; and let no form of party or selfish interests interfere with the general patriotism which shall be felt. Oh, we would love to see in your legislative halls, those men who could sacrifice self and selfish interests for the nation’s welfare; those who in calm debate and in gentlemanly encounter, in strict statesmanship and political right, would discuss this question; who would stand up, not as representatives of sections, but as representatives of the nation, and say, “What is best to be done?” We would love to hear the people of the North saying, “Whatever we have done that is wrong, we retract; we will compromise.” We would love to hear the people of the South saying, “Our judgment was hasty; we will compromise.” We say to you of the North, compromise, because it is the only way to preserve your prosperity and your union. Would you see thousands of your own citizens thrown out of employment, and starving in your midst? Would you see them struggling with poverty, hunger and cold, on account of sectional strife and party contention? Would you witness all this vast nation in arms, in warfare, in parties and sub-divisions, until there are no two alike, until each section is for itself, until it is no longer a union, but a combination of anarchies existing among you? Would you like to see your own friends all around you, starving for lack of employment? Would you like to see the South, with all its claims upon your sympathy and upon your encouragement, precipitated upon the verge of ruin?
But more will it effect you of the North, who are non-slaveholding States, because to the South do you look to a great extent for the encouragement of your arts, your manufactures, your science. Upon them, to a great extent do you depend for the encouragement of your inventions, the creations of that genius which exists among you as your prerogative. Then shall all this be destroyed and sink into nothingness? Shall all this depart, and leave but fragments, broken, desolate, deserted? In the name of all that is good and true, we answer, No. In the name of this Union which has so long existed proudly and prosperously, we answer, No. To the credit of you who are here present, and of those of the North who form the great majority of your community, we hear the answer, from thousands of hearts, No. And to the credit of the South, which was hasty and passionate at first, but which in its cooler and calmer hours is still yielding and tractable, we hear from them the response, No. If the selfishness of party feeling, and the selfish hands of political demagogues, do not touch with their vile fingers this fabric, it will yet be preserved. But beware of these! Could we address you in your Representatives, could we address you as a nation, we would say to you of the North, “Compromise;” to you of the South, “Compromise;” there is everything to be gained by this, everything to be lost by the opposite course.
And again, and lastly, all that forms the beauty and power and purpose of your country, all that belongs to its great social and religious institutions, all that belongs to its prosperity in art and science, and to its triumph in commerce and manufactures, all that belongs to everything that is so intimately connected with the individual welfare of human beings, depends upon those of you who love peace and detest war. Bloodshed is the last resource when there is no peace. Bloodshed is the last attempt of the desperado, or of nations who seek to settle their difficulties when compromise is no longer possible. Warfare or force, then, would be the last resort of this nation to settle its difficulties between the various sections of its own great confederacy. And, therefore, in all due respect, and with all due deference to the speaker who preceded us upon the occasion of the morning of this day, we say that in regard to slavery, whether right or wrong, we leave its final adjudication, its final prosperity or obliteration, in the hands of Him who knows better than we what is right and what is wrong. And in regard to the political administration, or to the continuance of the Government, we say that as patriots, as citizens and members of the various States of this confederacy, you should preserve to the last, not your sectional interests and party strifes, not your individual conception of right, but the nation which is founded upon right. Preserve that, and rest assured that the remaining portion will adjust itself. And now we commend you all to the God of Justice and Liberty.
I have mentioned to you the State of my nativity—the interest which I have taken in the various struggles that have existed in your country, and by that you may know me.