recognizes the rights of the States to regulate the qualification for suffrage within their borders, by making the right to vote for President depend upon the State regulation as to the qualification to vote for a member of the lower house of the Legislature in such State. The case is so plain, that there is no ground for argument. To state the proposition to any one who has ever read the Constitution, is to prove it. An argument in favor of the General Government imposing on the States the constitutional qualification for suffrage within their borders, would be an argument in favor of violating the Constitution. As that argument would necessarily have to be based on the propriety or impracticability of disregarding the obligations of an oath, that being a question of ethics, would be out of place here.

Connecticut has lately voted on the question of extending the right of suffrage to her colored men, through a change in her constitution. Are not the people of Connecticut willing that Tennessee should have the same right of deciding that question for herself that she (Connecticut) has lately exercised? Just think of it, that Virginia, that surrendered the vast Northwest Territory, out of which so many great and flourishing States have been formed, and that, too, on the condition that slavery should be forever excluded therefrom, should now be told by Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, etc. (her own children), ""Tis true we do not allow black men to vote in our States, but as for you, you must allow it, and you shall allow it, otherwise you shall remain in a territorial condition, and not come into the Union at all!" The gallant and magnanimous people of the Northwest will never be guilty of such political impiety and injustice as this.

It does not require any very extraordinary amount of sagacity to perceive why this question has been thus inop

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portunely introduced, and is being agitated at this time. No one can be imposed on by the pretence that it originates in a feeling of kindness for the negro. If it grew out of a feeling of charity of that kind, that charity would begin at home" in an effort to make the provision apply to all the States. Besides, if the black man should be entitled to vote, he should be entitled to be voted for. And here is the secret of the movement. The votes of the colored race are not wanted for their operation at home, but with reference to their influence elsewhere. The movement is a political one-the ends aimed at are political. If Mr. Johnson had taken ground in favor of imposing on the Southern States this provision in their constitutions in favor of negro suffrage, it is doubtful whether we should have heard of the agitation of the question in the quarter from whence it comes. No Northern man can suspect Mr. Johnson of having any sympathies or affiliations with slavery as it formerly prevailed. So far from it, he was among the very first to proclaim that slavery had brought on the war. And at a time when many Northern politicians, who now oppose Mr. Johnson's policy, evaded the question, or touched it very gingerly, he took a decided stand in favor of holding the South up to the consequences of the issue they had provoked.

CHAPTER XVI.

Course of Mr. Johnson relative to the Institution of Slavery-Brief View of the Acts and Doings of the Secessionists-Nullification in South Carolina-New System of Political Ethics on the Question of Slavery— Origin of Slavery Propagandism on the part of the Ultra Men of the South-A Great Error committed by the South-The Pretext for Disunion --Commercial Conventions-Remark of Mr. Calhoun-Charleston Convention of 1860-Rupture at Baltimore-Views of Mr. Lincoln-State of Parties in Congress-Views of the Secessionists-Slavery might have been Saved to the South and put beyond the reach of Danger.

THERE is one question on which, to a superficial observer who had not taken the pains to inform himself of the facts, President Johnson's course might appear somewhat inconsistent and vacillating. The question alluded to is that of slavery. A thorough investigation of his course on this subject will show that he has been governed by the same high regard for principle which has actuated him throughout his life. During his entire Congressional career of fourteen years, he was the ardent, earnest, bold, and consistent advocate of the constitutional rights of the Southern people and the Southern States to their slave property. No man in the South had more uniformly and more ably and energetically battled for the rights and interests of the South on this subject than he had. As long as the institution of slavery involved the rights of property, under the protection of the Constitu tion and subordinate to it, he sustained and defended it. Those mischievous agitators at the North who advocated disunion as a means of disconnecting themselves with

slavery, met with no favor from him. His denunciations of them were unsparing. As long as he could do so, consistently with his loyalty to the Constitution and the Union, he maintained the rights of the Southern people to their slave property. He heartily coöperated with the efforts of the true friends of the Union in the "Peace Congress" of March, 1861, in trying to harmonize the two sections. Even after the war had commenced, as heretofore explained, he introduced a resolution declaring the war should be waged for the preservation of the Union only, and should be confined to that result. But when every effort at peace and conciliation had been made, and had failed-when he saw that the disunionists had made the institution of slavery the instrument for combating and destroying the Union-when he saw the issue fairly joined, and that either the Union or slavery must yield in the struggle—he did not hesitate. He gave up slavery to the fate which the disunionists had brought upon it. It was just as he had predicted. He had again and again warned the people, and their representatives, of the South, that in their mad attempts to sever the Union they would destroy slavery. He had also warned them that he would not unite with them in their fight for slavery outside the Union

-that its only protection was under the guaranties of the Constitution-and that, whenever they threw away this shield of protection, slavery as an institution must perish. So that Mr. Johnson did not deceive or mislead any one. So far from it, he had most unequivocally declared, on many occasions, that he intended to adhere to the Constitution and the Union at all hazards.

Mr. Johnson had been an attentive observer of the political movements of the times. He saw that the secession operations of the Southern States were the consummation of a fixed purpose and of a deep-laid conspiracy to

destroy the Union, that had been organized for thirty years. A brief review of the acts and doings of the conspirators, from 1831 to 1861, clearly establishes this charge.

The nullification ordinance of South Carolina, in 1832, although passed under a pretended unwillingness to destroy the Union, was arranged with a special view to that result. The public mind in that State had been educated to believe that nullification was a peaceful remedy under the Constitution—that under its operation the people of that State would be rid of an odious and oppressive law, without incurring the danger of war. Her leading men knew—they could not help knowing that General Jackson would resort to force in executing the laws, and that thereby, as they supposed, the other Southern States would, from the sympathy of a common interest and a common locality, take part with her in case of a conflict. From the demonstrations of public sentiment in these other Southern States, however, the leaders in South Carolina saw plainly that they would not take part with her, but would leave her to her fate. Then it was that South Carolina backed down from her position of nullification under the fortunate pretext of the tariff compromise of 1832. It has been perfectly apparent to the whole country, from that day to this, that South Carolina was discontented, moody, and churlish. The speeches of her prominent men teemed with the most glowing accounts of what the South would be as an independent country, separated from the North-that the interests of the two sections were diverse and conflicting-that the South was oppressed and impoverished by the connection-and dwelling upon its prosperity, wealth, and future greatness, if allowed to develop her resources freed from the depressing influences of the Union.

Shortly after the nullification movement commenced in 1832, a new system of political ethics, on the question of