Congress, in the year 1801, by JAMES R. GILMORE, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

Press of Geo. C. Rand & Avery, 3 Cornhill, Boston.

THE SITUATION.

In the month of November, 1860, culminated the plot against our National existence. The conspiracy originated in South Carolina, and had a growth, more or less checked by circumstances, of over thirty years.

For John C. Calhoun had conceived the idea of an independent position for that State some time previous to the passage of the 'nullification ordinance' in November, 1832. This man, although he bore no resemblance in personal qualities to the Roman conspirator, is chargeable with the same crime which Cicero urged against Cataline—that of 'corrupting the youth.' His mind was too logical to adopt the ordinary propositions about slavery, such as, 'a great but necessary evil;' 'we did not plant it, and now we have it, we can't get rid of it,' and the like; but, placing his back to the wall where it was impossible to outflank him, he defended it, by all the force of his subtle intellect, as a permanent institution. His followers refined on their master's lessons, and asserted that it was one of the pillars on which a republic must rest! Here was the origin of the most wicked and most audacious plot ever attempted against any government. This plot did not involve any contest for political power in the administration of public affairs. That, the Southern leaders already possessed, but with that they were not content. They were determined to destroy the Republic itself,—to literally blot it out of existence. And why? What could betray intelligent and educated men, persons esteemed wise in their generation, into an attempt which amazes the civilized world, and at which posterity will be appalled? We answer, it was the old leaven which has worked always industriously in the breast of man since the creation—Ambition. Corrupted by the idea that a model republic must have slavery for its basis, knowing that the free States could not much longer tolerate the theory, certain leading individuals decided to dismember the country. They cast their eyes across Texas to the fertile plains of Mexico, and so southward. They indulged in the wildest dreams of conquest and of empire. The whole southern continent would in time be occupied and under their control. An aristocracy was to be built up, on which possibly a monarchy would be engrafted. In this way a new feudal system was to be developed, negro for serf, and a race of noble creatures spring forth, the admirable of the earth, whose men should be famed as the world's chivalry, and whose women should be the most beautiful and most accomplished of all the daughters of Eve. The peaceful drudge and artisan of the North, ox-like in their character, should serve them as they might require, and the craven man of commerce should buy and sell for their accommodation. For the rest, the negro would suffice. This was the extraordinary scheme of the South Carolina 'aristocrat,' and with which he undertook to infect certain unscrupulous leaders throughout the cotton and sugar States. It was no part of the plan of the conspirators to precipitate the border States into rebellion. O no! On the contrary, it was specially set forth in the programme entrusted to the exclusive few, that those States were to remain in the 'Old Union' as a fender between the 'South' and the free States; always ready in Congress to stand up for a good fugitive slave law, and various other little privileges, and prepared to threaten secession if Congress did not yield just what was demanded. In this way the free States would be perpetually entangled by embarrassing questions, and the new empire left to pursue unrestricted its dazzling plans of conquest and occupation.

A comfortable arrangement truly, and one very easy of accomplishment,—provided the free States would consent.

'Certainly they will consent. Trade, commerce, manufactures and mechanical pursuits, occupy them exclusively, and these promise better results under the new order of things than under the old. As to patriotism or public spirit, the North have neither. The people do not even resent a personal affront, much less will they go to war for an idea.'

So reasoned the South.

'It is not possible those fellows down yonder can be in earnest. They are only playing the game of "brag." In their hearts they are really devoted to the Union. They have not the least idea of separating from us.'

So reasoned the North.

Neither side thought the other in earnest. Both were mistaken.

Negro slaves were introduced into Virginia as early as 1620. In the year 1786 England employed in the slave-trade 130 ships, and that year alone seized and carried from their homes into slavery 42,000 blacks. Wilberforce experienced many defeats through the influence of the slave-trade interest, but at length carried his point, and the trade was finally abolished in England in 1807,—not a very remote period certainly. The same year witnessed the suppression of the slave-trade in our own country; but, unfortunately, not the abolition of slave-holding. All our readers understand how, when the Constitution of the United States was adopted, slavery was regarded entirely as a domestic matter, left to each of the States to manage and dispose of as each saw fit. But at that period there was no dissenting voice to the proposition, that, abstractly considered, slave-holding was wrong; yet the owner of a large number of negroes could honestly declare he was himself innocent of the first transgression, and ignorant of any practicable way to get rid of the evil,—for it was counted an evil. When the rice, cotton and sugar fields demanded larger developments, it was counted a necessary evil. Congress was called on for more guards and pledges, and gave them freely. It disclaimed any power to interfere with what had now become an institution; it had no power to do so. It went further, and by legislation sought fully to protect the slave-holding States in the perfect enjoyment of their rights under the Constitution.

Meanwhile many wise and good men, North and South, who regarded slavery as a blight and a curse upon the States where it existed, endeavored by all the means in their power to prepare the way for gradual emancipation. It seemed at one time that they would succeed in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and Kentucky. In Virginia, an emancipation act failed of passing by a single vote.

About the time that Calhoun was spreading the heresy of his state-rights doctrine in South Carolina and taking his 'logical ground' on the slavery question, a class, then almost universally branded as fanatics, but whose proportions have since very largely swelled, arose at the North, which were a match for the South Carolina senator with his own weapons. Each laid hold of an extreme point and maintained it. We refer to the Abolitionists of thirty years ago, under Garrison, Tappan & Co. These people seized on a single idea, exclusive of any other, and went nearly mad over it. Apparently blind to the evils around them, which were close at hand, within their own doors, swelling perhaps in their own hearts, they were suddenly 'brought to see' the 'vile enormity' of slave-holding. Their argument was very simple. 'Slavery is an awful sin in the sight of God. Slave-holders are awful sinners. We of the North, having made a covenant with such sinners, are equally guilty of the sin of slavery with them. Slavery must be immediately abolished. Fiat justitia ruat cœlum. Better that the Republic fall than continue in the unholy league one day.' These men were ready to 'dissolve the Union,' to disintegrate the nation, to blast the hopes of perhaps