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4,
gravated " by t'he recent election. Nothing but her devo-
tion to the Union our Fathers made, induced the South,
thn, to yield to a compromise, in which Mr. Clay rightly
said, we had yielded everything but our honor. We had
then in Mississippi a warm contest, which finally ended in
reluctant acquiescence in the Compromise measures. The
North pledged anew her faith to yield to us our constitu-
tional rights in relation to slave property. They are now,
and have been ever since that act, denied to us, until her
broken faith and impudent threats, had become almost in-
sufferable before the late election.
There were three candidates presented to the North by
Southern men, all of whom represented the last degree of
conservatism and concession, which their respective parties
were willing to yield, to appease the fanaticism of the
North. Some of them were scarcely deemed sound, in the
South, on the slavery question, and none of them suited
our ultra men. And yet the North rejected them all ; and
their united voice, both before and since their overwhelming
triumph in this election, has been more defiant and more
intolerant than ever before. They have demanded, and
now demand, equality between the white and negro races,
under our Constitution; equality in representation, equali-
ty in the right of sufhrage, equality in the honors and emol-
uments of office, equality in the social circle, equality in the
rights of matrimony. The cry has been, and now is, "that
slavery must cease, or American liberty must perish," that
"the success of Black Republicanism is the triumph of
anti-slavery," "a revolution in the tendencies of the gov-
ernment that must be carried out."
To-day our government stands totally revolutionized, in its
main feat ures, and our Constitution broken and overturned.
The new administration, which has effected this revolution,
only awaits the 4th of March for the inauguration of the
new government, the new principles, and the new policy,
upon the success of which they have proclaimed freedom to
the slave, but eternal degradation for you and for us.
No revolution was ever more complete, though bloodless,
if you will tamely submit to the destruction of that Consti-
tution and that Union our fathers made.
Our fathers made this a government for the white man,
rejecting the negro, as an ignorant, inferior, barbarian race,
incapable of self-government, and not, therefore, entitled
to be associated with the white man upon terms of civil,
political, or social equality.
This new administration comes into power, under the
solemn pledge to overturn and strike down this great fea-
ture of our Union, without which it would never have
