"Your mob has declared the South outlawed, branded with ignominy,
consigned to execration and ultimate destruction. Your mob has decreed
the death of Slavery and sends the new President to execute their
decree.
"All right--kill Slavery and then what? Kill Slavery and what will you
do with its corpse? Who shall deliver us from the body of this death? We
are not leaving this Hall to fight for the Institution of African
Slavery. The grim specter of a degraded and mongrel citizenship which
lies back of your mob's programme of confiscation is the force that is
driving the Southern people out of the Union to find peace and safety.
Whatever may be the sins of Slavery in the South they are as nothing
when compared to the degradation of your life which must follow their
violent emancipation. The Southern white man is slowly lifting the
African out of barbarism into the light of Christian civilization. In
our own good time we will emancipate him and start him on a new life
beyond the boundaries of our Republic. Whatever may be the differences
of opinion in the South on the institution of slavery--there is no
difference and there has never been on one point--it was true
yesterday--it is true to-day--it will be true to-morrow--_Slavery is the
only modus viviendi by which two such races as the Negro and the Aryan
can live side by side in a free democracy with equality the law of its
life_--"
Again a burst of tumultuous applause swept the gallery.
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