Amendments, none were graver or more far-reaching in their consequences
than those respecting State Rights and the recognition of Negro slavery.
The bottom difficulty in these was probably that of slavery, for, if it
had not introduced such radically different industries in the two
sections of the country, with their different interests, and habits of
thought and life, the question of State Rights might have slumbered in
quietude. But when slavery had to be defended, State Rights was the
bastion behind which the defence sheltered itself. Whether the
Compromise with slavery at the outset were the wise thing or not, it is
not worth while now to consider. We do not know what the consequences
would have been if the Compromise had not been made. We all know now,
only too sadly, the dreadful price that was at last paid for the
Compromise.

But the war killed slavery and buried it beyond resurrection. Logically,
it also killed the State Rights doctrine. But we fear it "still lives"
in the heart of Jefferson Davis, and in the hearts of the many millions
who still revere him as the leader of the "lost cause." Its avowal is
still heard from Southern lips and in the Southern press. Will there be
any occasion for its revival into active life? We fear there will be.
Slavery has left behind it a ghost which no more than that of Banquo
will "down." Race prejudice is as unyielding in the Southern heart
to-day as was the purpose once to maintain slavery. Should that prejudice
persist in its inexorable demands, another contest may arise, in which
the enfranchised millions may be goaded to take part, and the North, as
in the case of slavery, may be involved in the dreadful struggle. At
what time in the coming hundred years of the Constitution this new
struggle may come, no one can predict. The crisis will not be averted by
merely deprecating it, and we know of no Compromise that can reach it.
The only possible relief that we can see is by educating the Negro, till