The census of 1860
promised to reduce the delegation of the slave States in the House of
Representatives. Previous to 1870 other free States were likely to be
admitted into the Union; and thus by successive and unavoidable events,
the government was sure to pass into the hands of the non-slave States.
It would not be just to the South to omit to say that apprehensions
there existed that the North would disregard the constitution. These
apprehensions were fostered for unholy purposes; and so sealed is the
South to the progress of truth, through the domination of the
slaveholders over the press and public men, and by the consequent
ignorance of the mass of the people, that these misapprehensions have
never been removed in any degree by the declarations of Congress or of
political parties in the North.
The mind of the South was thus brought logically to two conclusions:
First, that the government of the United States was inadequate to meet
the exigencies of slavery, even though it should be administered
uniformly by the friends of slavery. Secondly, that the administration
of the government would be controlled by the ideas of the free States.
These conclusions would have been sufficiently unwelcome to the Southern
leaders, if they had had no purpose or policy beyond the maintenance of
slavery where it exists; but they had already determined to extend the
institution southward over Mexico and Central America, and they knew
full well the necessity of destroying the Union and the government
before such an enterprise could be undertaken with any hope of success.
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