The Great Conspiracy, Volume 5 by John Alexander Logan
page 35 of 118 (29%)
page 35 of 118 (29%)
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dissatisfaction. The time spares both races from the evils of sudden
derangement--in fact from the necessity of any derangement--while most of those whose habitual course of thought will be disturbed by the measure will have passed away before its consummation. They will never see it. "Another class will hail the prospect of Emancipation, but will deprecate the length of time. They will feel that it gives too little to the now living Slaves. But it really gives them much. It saves them from the vagrant destitution which must largely attend immediate Emancipation in localities where their numbers are very great; and it gives the inspiring assurance that their posterity shall be Free forever. "The plan leaves to each State, choosing to act under it, to abolish Slavery now, or at the end of the century, or at any intermediate time, or by degrees, extending over the whole or any part of the period; and it obliges no two States to proceed alike. It also provides for compensation,--and generally, the mode of making it. This, it would seem, must further mitigate the dissatisfaction of those who favor perpetual Slavery, and especially of those who are to receive the compensation. Doubtless some of those who are to pay, and not to receive, will object. Yet the measure is both just and economical. "In a certain sense, the liberation of Slaves is the destruction of Property--Property acquired by descent, or by purchase, the same as any other property. It is no less true for having been often said, that the people of the South are not more responsible for the original introduction of this Property than are the people of the North; and when it is remembered how unhesitatingly we all use cotton and sugar, and |
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