his prosperity, unmindful of so-called wrongs, and utterly unfit for the boasted freedom that was thrust upon him. The cruel decree was carried out, and millions of helpless beings were turned adrift without rudder or compass, to bemoan the loss of the good old times when they were provided with the comforts of life they were nevermore to know. With the moral question of slavery this paper has nothing to do. Facts, and facts alone, dictate the record. But who has been, and who is now, the friend of the erstwhile slave? The Northerner or the Southerner? Says one: "We have freed you, but we don't want you." Says the other: "We did not free you, but we will take you and make you comfortable. We love your people—you, who have rocked us on your faithful breasts—who have interlarded our very speech with your dialect, and who were our playmates in the joyous days of youth. We have laid your hoary heads in honored graves, and will treasure your memory till the final hour when death shall make all men equal."

Secession

Read April 11, 1909

We seem not to have been a happy family during our first one hundred years as a Union of States. We quarrelled frequently among ourselves, and like the dissatisfied children of the household there was oft-threatened disruption. If you do not treat me fairly I will leave home, said the stubborn Northern child, no less than the warm-hearted Southern offspring. And they stood alike in the attitude of going out the door the moment the provocation became unbearable. The right of secession and the thought of secession was frequently in the mind all along the infant years of the Republic. But the word "Secession" did not become a familiar term until the early sixties. Then the greeting was "Hello! old Secesh!" or "Are you secesh?" One might have thought that this awful thing the South had done was heard of for the first time, and had birth alone in the brains of the fiery aristocrats who tore themselves away from their plebean cousins; whereas history shows, as I have said, that every State believed it had a right to secede from the general government by the wording of our constitution, so when the pressure grew too close the terms, "Southern Rights," and "Secession," became the slogan of battle and sounded the tocsin of war.

Let us begin at the beginning and get at the actual situation. The thirteen original colonies were as follows: Virginia settled by the English, called the cavaliers, in 1607, became a royal colony in 1624. Massachusetts, settled by the Puritans in 1620, became a royal colony in 1629; New York, called Amsterdam, settled by the Dutch in 1623, became a royal colony in 1688; the English were in New York in 1664. New Hampshire, settled by Puritans in 1729, became a royal colony in 1679; Maryland, settled by Catholics from England, in 1632, became a royal colony in 1691; Connecticut, settled by Dutch and English in 1633, became a royal colony in 1662; Rhode Island was settled in 1638, and never became a royal colony. She was excluded from the New England federation because she harbored all kinds of religions. She especially reserved to herself a State government alone, and a right to secede in any case. So this terrible crime of secession had birth in that pious, patriotic north that so bitterly condemned the states of Dixie Land for clamoring for a future right.

Delaware, settled by Swedes in 1638, became a separate colony, owned by William Penn, in 1703. North Carolina, settled by Virginians and Quakers in 1653, became a royal colony in 1729; New Jersey settled by the English in 1665, became a royal colony in 1702. Pennsylvania, settled by Germans, Dutch and Scotch-Irish in 1681, was given by King Charles II of England, to Wm. Penn in 1770. South Carolina, settled by French Huguenots and Germans in 1691, became a royal colony in 1729. Georgia, the last English colony, was settled by the English in 1732 and had her royal charter in 1762.

I have given the colonial dates in regular order of chronology. A more convenient division may be made thus: the New England colonies were Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Rhode Island, all belonging to England except Rhode Island.

The middle colonies were New York, Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, two belonging to England, and two to Wm. Penn. The Southern colonies were Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia, all belonging to England. Brought together by common cause were English, French, Germans, Dutch, Swedes, Quakers, Episcopalians, Catholics and all desired forms of religious worship. Wise legislation indeed was needed to harmonize these conflicting elements and dispositions merely on general principles. But when grave questions came then trouble began. What was to the commercial interest of one section seemed to militate against the prosperity of the other, and the glorious ending of the war for independence was soon clouded by the acts of Congress concerning the polity of the United States.

The African Slave Trade, begun by the North for purposes of profit, became a bone of contention till the year 1808, when the law was passed against the further importation of foreign slaves. Those already owned and employed must on no account be disturbed. They might increase and multiply adlibitum on their own plantations, but they were the legitimate property of their owners. Even when Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Act, he said that he had not the right as President to do it, but that it must be done as a war measure. By depriving the southern soldier of his laborers, the homes must go to waste and the strife most cease.

Politically each of the original colonies was independent had its own assembly and its own governor. From the very first this idea of State sovereignty was inherent, and consequently it was granted. The royal colonies sent all legislative acts to England to be approved or vetoed by the king. It must have required patience to await the going and returning of the documents across the "vasty deep" in that day. These royal colonies so governed by the king, were New York, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Virginia and Georgia. In the proprietary colonies, or those granted by royalty to individuals, the owner appointed the governor, but the king exercised the right of veto in Pennsylvania and Delaware, but not in Maryland. The charter colonies were Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. These held charters from the king permitting a complete government by themselves. At this time black slaves were in all the states. Even after the New England States had grown rich by the selling of the negroes to the south, where the climate suited their natures, they kept up the traffic in white slaves who, too poor to pay their passage to the new land flowing with milk and honey, sold themselves, hoping to buy back their freedom in the, perhaps near future.

When the constitution of the United States was framed many compromises were made. The framers had to select words with extreme care lest some State might refuse to join the federation. A notable compromise, and the very first quarrel, was the one just quoted in reference to placing the limitation of the slave trade as far ahead as 1808. The next disagreement was about the war debt. This was called the Assumption. The general government had contracted a debt of $54,000,000 and the States, about $25,000,000. This was in 1790. Alexander Hamilton proposed that the government assume the whole debt. Hence the word "assumption." The south argued that each state should pay its own debt. That if the general government assumed the State debts it would be taking away the sovereign rights that had been guaranteed them, viz: the right to do as they pleased with what was their own, and that national legislation had nothing to do with the question. About this time they were looking about for a site upon which to build the national capital. Sectional spirit ran high. New England