Republican to Frederick Douglass, March 5, 1858

For Frederick Douglass' Paper.

MR. EDITOR:—I purpose, with your permission, to state some reasons why I cannot agree with the Radical Abolitionists.

I support the Republican Party, though I cannot sustain all its positions, and on many questions I find that I agree more nearly with you than with many authorized and orthodox Republican Journals. And I am confident that this is the position of thousands who still remain in the Republican Party—some from motives of expediency, and others because they cannot agree with the Radical Platform.

We have never been able to see that the Federal Government has power to abolish slavery in the States. Our Government, is one of limited power, and the Constitution provides that 'all power not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the State respectively or to the people.' We do not find in the Constitution, any prohibition of slavery in the States, and therefore it is reserved to the States in which it exists.—Slavery exists in the States, by local or municipal laws, and not by any provisions of the Federal Constitution. And if the above clause does not reserve all the domestic affairs—slavery included, exclusively for State action, what does it mean? Any other constitution, must inevitably destroy State Sovereignty, and make this a consolidated Government. If Congress has power to abolish slavery in the States, then it is supreme, and the now Sovereign States become mere provinces or Departments of the Central power. The independence and soveignty [sic] we hold to be essential to the security of personal rights. States stand as the barrier between the Central power, which is always exacting and usurping, and the rights and liberties of the People, and we would not see the barrier weakened or destroyed. If the general Government assume the right to overthrow State Sovereignty, by abolishing slavery in the States, a great central power is established, which, created in the name of liberty, and to remove the evils of and to remove the evils of slavery from a part of our population, would in the end prove destructive to the rights of all.

Even the most speedy Abolition of slavery would be dearly purchased at such a price.—

Slavery is a great wrong, but it is necessarily transient in its nature. It will, and must be ere long be abolished by the People of the States, without the intervention of the Federal Government, which, in all local affairs, we hold is almost as much a foreign power, as England or France. It would be the height of folly, in order to destroy this evil which must, at any rate soon pass away to insert the Government with despotic powers which must prove dangerous to to the sight of all.

But let it not be said, that we are the party of inaction, as that we seek to secure liberty in the States already free. We are in favor of liberty everywhere, but to secure it, we must use such means as we love. In the Territories Congress has power, and there Congress ought to prohibit or abolish it. In the slave States we leave slavery to State action, aided by the strong expression of Anti-Slavery sentiment at the North, and the indirect influences of Government, which ought everywhere to be cast for Freedom, and by these means slavery will ultimately be abolished.

Let it not be said that we propose no definite action against slavery. We intend to reserve the Federal Government from the slave propagandists, who are using all its immense patronage for the extension of slavery, and to 'crush out anti-slavery sentiments. If we can but do this we shall see at once, a great change in public sentiment, both North and at the South, white men who have for years been compelled, from fear of mobs, to conceal their hatred of slavery, will again dare to proclaim their sentiments. Strong Emancipation parties will at once arise in all the more northern States. Such parties exist even now, and stimulated by secret expressions of Northern Anti-Slavery sentiment, one State (Missouri) has already declared for Emancipation, in spite of all the adverse influence of Federal Patronage. And thus slavery will be gradually driven back to the extreme South, and ultimately disappear.

Is not this an end worth striving for? Is it not something which ought to unite the free men of the North? Instead of disputing about things which are plainly impracticable, or which if carried into practice would endanger the liberty of the whole Nation—let us unite upon those efforts which are practicable, and which in any event can do no harm.

REPUBLICAN.