Slavery and Tariffs Are Plunder
What are these two issues? They are slavery and tariffs. These are
the only two issues where, contrary to the general spirit of the
republic of the United States, law has assumed the character of
plunder.
Slavery is a violation, by law, of liberty. The protective tariff
is a violation, by law, of property.
Its is a most remarkable fact that this double legal crime - a
sorrowful inheritance of the Old World - should be the only issue
which can, and perhaps will, lead to the ruin of the Union. It is
indeed impossible to imagine, at the very heart of a society, a more
astounding fact than this: The law has come to be an instrument of
injustice. And if this fact brings terrible consequences to the
United States - where only in the instance of slavery and tariffs -
what must be the consequences in Europe, where the perversion of law
is a principle; a system?