was more in point.  In that case, only about twenty were admitted to the secret; and yet one of them, in his anxiety to save a friend, betrayed the plot to that friend, and, by consequence, averted the calamity.  Occasional poisonings from the kitchen, and open or stealthy assassinations in the field, and local revolts extending to a score or so, will continue to occur as the natural results of slavery; but no general insurrection of slaves, as I think, can happen in this country for a long time.  Whoever much fears, or much hopes, for such an event, will be alike disappointed.

In the language of Mr. Jefferson, uttered many years ago, “It is still in our power to direct the process of emancipation and deportation peaceably, and in such slow degrees as that the evil will wear off insensibly, and their places be, pari passu, filled up by free white labourers.  If, on the contrary, it is left to force itself on, human nature must shudder at the prospect held up.”

Mr. Jefferson did not mean to say, nor do I, that the power of emancipation is in the Federal Government.  He spoke of Virginia; and, as to the power of emancipation, I speak of the slaveholding States only.  The Federal Government, however, as we insist, has the power of restraining the extension of the institution—­the power to insure that a slave insurrection shall never occur on any American soil which is now free from slavery.

John Brown’s effort was peculiar.  It was not a slave insurrection.  It was an attempt by white men to get up a revolt among slaves, in which the slaves refused to participate.  In fact, it was so absurd that the slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough it could not succeed.  That affair, in its philosophy, corresponds with the many attempts, related in history, at the assassination of kings and emperors.  An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them.  He ventures the attempt, which ends in little else than his own execution.  Orsini’s attempt on Louis Napoleon, and John Brown’s attempt at Harper’s Ferry, were, in their philosophy, precisely the same.  The eagerness to cast blame on Old England in the one case, and on New England in the other, does not disprove the sameness of the two things.

And how much would it avail you if you could, by the use of John Brown, Helper’s book, and the like, break up the Republican organization?  Human action can be modified to some extent, but human nature cannot be changed.  There is a judgment and a feeling against slavery in this nation, which cast at least a million and a half of votes.  You cannot destroy that judgment and feeling—­that sentiment—­by breaking up the political organization which rallies around it.  You can scarcely scatter and disperse an army which has been formed into order in the face of your heaviest fire; but if you could, how much would you gain by forcing the sentiment which created it out of the peaceful channel of the ballot-box into some other channel?  What would that other channel probably be?  Would the number of John Browns be lessened or enlarged by the operation?