Jefferson Davis, was the
original inventor of repudiation. Mississippi was the first State
which repudiated, Mr. Jefferson Davis was Governor of Mississippi, and
the Legislature of Mississippi had passed a Bill recognizing and
providing for the debt, which Bill Mr. Jefferson Davis vetoed. Unless
we abandon the principles we have for two generations consistently
professed and acted on, we should be at war with the new Confederacy
within five vears about the African slave-trade. An English Government
will hardly be base enough to recognize them, unless they accept all
the treaties by which America is at present bound; nor, it may be
hoped, even if _de facto_ independent, would they be admitted to the
courtesies of diplomatic intercourse, unless they granted in the most
explicit manner the right of search. To allow the slave-ships of a
Confederation formed for the extension of slavery to come and go free,
and unexamined, between America and the African coast, would be to
renounce even the pretence of attempting to protect Africa against the
man-stealer, and abandon that Continent to the horrors, on a far
larger scale, which were practised before Granville Sharp and Clarkson
were in existence.
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