It was under the reign of law and with the forces of the Union as its
allies that the institution of slavery could meet with success, all
assaults coming from beyond the states where it existed. Amid the clash
of arms and with the Federal Government no longer protecting their
rights, slaveholders were most open to successful attack and slavery
most likely to receive its mortal blow.
Wendell Phillips expressed the idea when he declared:
"The storm which rocked the vessel of state almost to foundering
snapped forever the chain of the French slave. Look, too, at the
history of the Mexican and South America emancipation and you will
find that it was in every instance, I think, the child of convulsion.
The hour will come—God hasten it!—when the American people shall so
stand on the deck of their Union—'built i' th' eclipse, and rigged
with curses dark.' If I live to see the hour I shall say to every
slave, 'Strike now for Freedom.'"[337]