An appeal to the people of the North. Page: 2 of 16
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[2]
Would there exist among the several Northern States, should the
present Union be dissevered, that harmony of feeling and of interest,
which will thus bind the whole of the Slave-holding States together as
a unit?
Would not Massachusetts, whose barren rocks and sterile soil are
so genial in the prolific growth of ultra fanaticisms and of every
kind of religious and political intolerance, still domineer over and per-
secute her orphan sister States? Would not New York in the pride of
wealth and strength, rule, with imperial,-yea, imperious sway, her
weakened and impoverished New England neighbors?
Would not toil-worn and patient-enduring Pennsylvania, goaded
with envy and jealousy, stretch forth her strong, brawny arm to wrest
the sceptre from. her Northern rival, enervated by luxury and fancied
security ? Would not Ohio, impatient of law and moral restraint,
make Indiana her vassal and exact tribute of Illinois?
Would not Michigan erect Gibraltar defences on her peninsular
shores and for the protection of her own harvests, lay an embargo on
North-Western wheat in its transit to tide-water? Would not Brig-
ham Young rule the Mormon Kingdom with despotic sway, and forever
sever the over-land communication between the Atlantic and Pacific
coasts? Would not California be forced in self-protection to establish
an independent empire; and Oregon and Washington be left to the
desolating warfare of their Indian tribes?
Or would all these individual traits and popular tendencies, in striv-
ing and unsympathizing States be stayed, that they may unite in a
common warfare to subjugate the Southern States in order to extin-
guish slavery? Even such a combination has no terror for the South;
for the Southern people in the defence of their liberties and their rights
will sacrifice their fortunes and their lives:-and in saying this, we
but honestly express the feeling that now pervades all communities in the
South. There is a fixed and solemn determination to stand or fall in
defence of their rights as a sovereign people. Among those rights
they claim protection from hostile interference with their domestic
affairs: that protection was guaranteed to them in the Federal Consti-
tution, which is the basis and the sole and only basis of Union between
the several States, and when that Constitution shall be perverted to an
instrument of oppression, they will withdraw from Union with the
oppressing States.
THE CAUSES OF THE PRESENT TROUBLES.
That Constitution has been violated in act and deed, by the Northern
States not only by the action of State Courts and by popular mobs, in
preventing the arrest of fugitives from labor; and by State Laws nul-
lifying Constitutional and Congressional enactments for the protection
of the South; but it has been openly and defiantly violated by the peo-
ple and the Executive Officers of several States in encouraging these
violations and pandering to a demoralized public sentiment.
The Constitution has been further violated in spirit and in sentiment,
by many of the Northern people. They have assumed to themselves
an arrogant superiority and an insulting control over the rights, the
conduct and the opinions of their Southern brethren. They have made
Northern anti-slavery views THE ONE GREAT RULING IDEA in all gov-
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Coleman, William L. An appeal to the people of the North., pamphlet, Date Unknown; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth498127/m1/2/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Schreiner University.