They dared to believe that by separation and the establishment of a military slaveholding oligarchy, to which the public opinion and public policy of the seceded States now tend, they would be able to guard the institution against all tumults from within and all attacks from without.  If success were to crown their present undertakings, is it probable that the government contemplated would be strong enough for the task proposed?  If Russia could not hold her serfs in bondage, can the South set up a government which can guard, and defend, and secure slavery?  Or will a French or English protectorate render that stable which the government of the United States was incompetent to uphold?  These questions remain, but the one first suggested is settled:—­That the government of the United States, howsoever and by whomsoever administered, constitutionally, is inadequate to meet the exigencies of slavery.

Secondly.  The leaders of the rebellion foresaw, a long time since, that slavery had no security that the government would be administered in the interest of that institution.  The admission of California, followed by the admission of three other free States, forced the slaveholders into a hopeless minority in the Senate of the United States.  The census of 1860 promised to reduce the delegation of the slave States in the House of Representatives.  Previous to 1870 other free States were likely to be admitted into the Union; and thus by successive and unavoidable events, the government was sure to pass into the hands of the non-slave States.  It would not be just to the South to omit to say that apprehensions there existed that the North would disregard the constitution.  These apprehensions were fostered for unholy purposes; and so sealed is the South to the progress of truth, through the domination of the slaveholders over the press and public men, and by the consequent ignorance of the mass of the people, that these misapprehensions have never been removed in any degree by the declarations of Congress or of political parties in the North.

The mind of the South was thus brought logically to two conclusions:  First, that the government of the United States was inadequate to meet the exigencies of slavery, even though it should be administered uniformly by the friends of slavery.  Secondly, that the administration of the government would be controlled by the ideas of the free States.

These conclusions would have been sufficiently unwelcome to the Southern leaders, if they had had no purpose or policy beyond the maintenance of slavery where it exists; but they had already determined to extend the institution southward over Mexico and Central America, and they knew full well the necessity of destroying the Union and the government before such an enterprise could be undertaken with any hope of success.  Hence they denied the right of the majority to rule unless they ruled in obedience to the will of the minority.  Thus the slaveholders came naturally and unavoidably to the denial of the fundamental principle of the government; and, having denied the principle, there remained no reason why they should not undertake the overthrow of the government itself.  And thus the conspiracy and the rebellion sprung naturally and unavoidably from the institution of slavery.