of the announcement of the truths made by him, admitted them; now they are universally acknowledged.  May we not, therefore, look with confidence to the ultimate universal acknowledgment of the truths upon which our system rests?  It is the first government ever instituted upon principles in strict conformity to Nature and the ordination of Providence in furnishing the material of human society.  Many governments have been founded upon the principles of certain classes; but the classes thus enslaved were of the same race and in violation of the laws of Nature.  Our system commits no such violation of Nature’s laws.  The negro, by Nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system.  The architect, in the construction of buildings, lays the foundation with the proper material,—­the granite; then comes the brick or marble.  The substratum of our society is made of the material fitted by Nature for it; and by experience we know that it is best not only for the superior, but the inferior race, that it should be so.  It is indeed in conformity with the Creator.  It is not safe for us to inquire into the wisdom of His ordinances, or to question them.  For His own purposes He has made one race to differ from another, as one star differeth from another in glory.  The great objects of humanity are best attained, when conformed to His laws and decrees in the formation of government as well as in all things else.  Our Confederacy is founded on a strict conformity with those laws. This stone, which was rejected by the first builders, has become the chief stone of the corner in our new edifice!”

Thus far the declarations of the slave-holding Confederacy.

On the other hand, the declarations of the President and the Republican party, as to their intention to restore “the Union as it was,” require an explanation.  It is the doctrine of the Republican party, that Freedom is national and Slavery sectional; that the Constitution of the United States was designed for the promotion of liberty, and not of slavery; that its framers contemplated the gradual abolition of slavery; and that in the hands of an anti-slavery majority it could be so wielded as peaceably to extinguish this great evil.

They reasoned thus.  Slavery ruins land, and requires fresh territory for profitable working.  Slavery increases a dangerous population, and requires an expansion of this population for safety.  Slavery, then, being hemmed in by impassable limits, emancipation in each State becomes a necessity.

By restoring the Union as it was the Republican party meant the Union in the sense contemplated by the original framers of it, who, as has been admitted by Stephens, in his speech just quoted, were from principle opposed to slavery.  It was, then, restoring a status in which, by the inevitable operation of natural laws, peaceful emancipation would become a certainty.