Half Slave, and Half Free

During the Illinois canvass between Hon. A. Lincoln and Senator Douglas, when the former asserted the sentiment that "this government cannot permanently endure half slave and half free," it was thought monstrous by the Democratic journals generally, and Mr. Douglas in particular. The doctrine was said to be as now as it was dangerous, and with the ignorant, aided by sophistry, the little giant used it with tilling effect against his opponent. But now it seems that no new dogma was proclaimed by Mr. Lincoln, in littering that sentiment, and that he was but echoing the doctrines of the father of Democracy, Thomas Jefferson, when he said that "this government cannot permanently endure half slave and half free."

More than eighty years ago he wrote and published the following language in relation to this subject:

"Deep-rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real distinctions which nature has made; and many other circumstances will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions, which will probably never end but in the extermination of one or the other race. Nothing is more clearly written in the book of destiny, than the emancipation of the blacks."

Will not the Democracy of to-day take as good doctrine, coming, as it does, from its venerated and wise sire? The Hon. Abraham Lincoln has said nothing more pointed upon this subject than the foregoing. But this same doctrine of the eventual emancipation of the negro race has been entertained by many statesmen and philosophers. It is clearly set forth in De Tocqueville's admirable and philosophical work, "Democracy in America," first published in this country in 1838. And Edward Everett, in his late oration at the inauguration of the Statue of Daniel Webster, expressed the views of that great statesmean on the "conflict" between Free Labor and Slavery in this country, as follows:

"He (Mr. Webster) not only confidently anticipated what the lapse of seven years since his decease has witnessed and is witnessing, that the newly acquired and newly organized territories of the Union would grow up into Free States; but, in common with ail, or nearly all the statesmen of the last generation, he believed that free labor would ultimately prevail throughout the country. He thought he saw that, in the operation of the same causes which have produced this result in the middle and Eastern States, it was visibly taking place in the States North of the cotton-growing region; and he inclined to the opinion that there, also, under the influence of physical and economical causes, free labor would eventually be found most productive, and would there be ultimately established."

So we see that this annunciation of the belief of the final extinction of slavery is based upon no new philosophical principles, but simply the principles of human progress. To say that American slavery will exist always is to say that the hand of human progress shall be paralized in this fair land. To assert the fact that slavery will become extinct does not imply that any other than a peaceful solution to this problem shall obtain So far as the Republican party are concerned no other means are intended to be used to bring about this result but those naturally springing from the progress of civilization and Christianity. They will be potent enough and the result can be easily foreseen by those who are not blinded by selfish interests or partisan bigotry.