Argument ingenious and subtle, declamation earnest and bold, and persuasion gentle and winning as the voice of the turtle dove when it is heard in the land, all alike and altogether have failed to convince me of the soundness of this principle of the proposed compromise, or of any one of the propositions on which it is attempted to be established. How is the original equality of the States proved? It rests on a syllogism of Vattel, as follows: All men are equal by the law of nature and of nations. But States are only lawful aggregations of individual men, who severally are equal. Therefore, States are equal in natural rights. All this is just and sound. But assuming the same premises, to wit, that all men are equal by the law of nature and of nations, the right of property in slaves falls to the ground; for one who is equal to another cannot be the owner or property of that other. But you answer, that the Constitution recognises property in slaves. It would be sufficient, then, to reply, that this constitutional recognition must be void, because it is repugnant to the law of nature and of nations. But I deny that the Constitution recognises property in man. I submit, on the other hand, most respectfully, that the Constitution not merely does not affirm that principle, but, on the contrary, altogether excludes it. the idea that slavery was legal in a moral view.”—Madison Debates, pp. 487, 492. I deem it established, then, that the Constitution does not recognise property in man, but leaves that question, as between the States, to the law of nature and of nations. That law, as expounded by Vattel, is founded on the reason of things. When God had created the earth, with its wonderful adaptations, He gave dominion over it to Man, absolute human dominion. The title of that dominion, thus bestowed, would have been incomplete, if the Lord of all terrestrial things could himself have been the property of his fellow-man. The right to have a slave implies the right in some one to make the slave; that right must be equal and mutual, and this would resolve society into a state of perpetual war. But if we grant the original equality of the States, and grant also the constitutional recognition of slaves as property, still the argument we are considering fails. Because the States are not parties to the Constitution as States; it is the Constitution of the People of the United States. But even if the States continue as States, they surrendered their equality as States, and submitted themselves to the sway of the numerical majority, with qualification or checks; first, of the represen tation of three-fifths of slaves in the ratio of representation and taxation: and, secondly, of the equal representation of States in the Senate. The proposition of an established classification of The Constitution does not expressly affirm any-States as slave States and free States, as insisted on thing on the subject; all that it contains is two inci- by some, and into Northern and Southern, as maindental allusions to slaves. These are, first, in the tained by others, seems to me purely imaginary, and provision establishing a ratio of representation and of course the supposed equilibrium of those classes a taxation; and, secondly, in the provision relating to mere conceit. This must be so, because, when the fugitives from labor. In both cases, the Constitu- Constitution was adopted, twelve of the thirteen tion designedly mentions slaves, not as slaves, much States were slave States, and so there was no equiless as chattels, but as persons. That this recogni- librium. And so as to the classification of States as tion of them as persons was designed as historically Northern States and Southern States. It is the known, and I think was never denied. I give only maintenance of slavery by law in a State, not paraltwo of the manifold proofs. First, JOHN JAY, in the lels of latitude, that makes it a Southern State; and Federalist, says: the absence of this, that makes it a Northern State. And so all the States, save one, were Southern States, and there was no equilibrium. But the Constitution was made not only for Southern and Northern States, but for States neither Northern nor Southern-the Western States, their coming in being foreseen and provided for. "Let the case of the slaves be considered, as it is in truth, a peculiar one. Let the compromising expedient of the Constitution be mutually adopted which regards them as inhabitants, but as debased below the equal level of free inhabitants, which regards the slave as dívested of two-fifths of the man," Yes, sir, of two-fifths, but of only two-fifths; leaving still three-fifths; leaving the slave still an inhabitant, a person, a living, breathing, moving, reasoning, immortal man. The other proof is from the Debates in the Convention. It is, brief, and I think instructive: "Mr. BUTLER moved to insert after article 15: If any person bound to service or labor in any of the United States shall escape into another State he or she shall not be discharged from such service or labor in consequence of any regulation subsisting in the State to which they escape, but shall be delivered up to the person justly claiming their service or labor.'" "After the engrossment, September 15, page 550, article 4, section 2, the third paragraph, the term 'legally' was struck out, and the words 'under the laws thereof inserted after the word 'State,' in compliance with the wishes of some who thought the term 'legal' equivocal, and favoring It needs little argument to show that the idea of a joint stock association, or a copartnership, as applicable even by its analogies to the United States, is erroneous, with all the consequences fancifully deduced from it. The United States are a political state, or organized society, whose end is government, for the security, welfare, and happiness of all who live under its protection. The theory I am combating reduces the objects of government to the mere spoils of conquest. Contrary to a theory so debasing, the preamble of the Constitution not only asserts the sovereignty to be, not in the States, but in the People, but also promulgates the objects of the Constitution: "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquil lity, provide for the common defence, promote the GENERAL WELFARE, and secure the blessings of liberty, do ordain and establish this Constitution." Objects sublime and benevolent' They exclude the very idea of conquests, to be either divideo among States or even enjoyed by them, for the purpose of securing, not the blessings of liberty, but the evils of slavery. There is a novelty in the principle of the compromise which condemns it. Simultane ously with the establishment of the Constitution, Virginia ceded to the United States her domain, which then extended to the Mississippi, and was even claimed to extend to the Pacific Ocean. Congress accepted it, and unanimously devoted the domain to Freedom, in the language from which the Ordinance now so severely condemned was borrowed. Five States have already been organized on this domain, from all of which, in pursuance of that Ordinance, slavery is excluded. How did it happen that this, theory of the equality of States, of the classification of States, of the equilibrium of States, of the title of the States to common enjoyment of the domain, or to an equitable and just partition between them, was never promulgated, nor even dreamed of, by the slave States, when they unanimously consented to that Ordinance? There is another aspect of the principle of compromise which deserves consideration. It assumes that slavery, if not the only institution in a slave State, is at least a ruling institution, and that this characteristic is recognised by the Constitution. But slavery is only one of many institutions there. Freedom is equally an institution there. Slavery is only a temporary, accidental, partial and incongruous Freedom, on the contrary, is a perpetual, organic, universal one, in harmony with the Constitution of the United States. The slaveholder himself stands under the protection of the latter, in common with all the free citizens of the State. But it is, moreover, an indispensable institution. You may separate slavery from South Carolina, and the State will still remain; but if you subvert Freedom there, the State will cease to exist. one. 66 This is a State, and we are deliberating for it, just as our fathers deliberated in establishing the institutions we enjoy. Whatever superiority there is in our condition and hopes over those of any other kingdom" or "estate" is due to the fortunate circumstance that our ancestors did not leave things to "take their chance," but that they "added amplitude and greatness" to our commonwealth "by introducing such ordinances, constitutions, and customs, as were wise." We in our turn have succeeded to the same responsibilities, and we cannot approach the duty before us wisely or justly, except we raise ourselves to the great consideration of how we can most certainly sow greatness to our posterity and successors. 66 And now the simple, bold, and even awful question which presents itself to us is this: Shall we, who are founding institutions, social and political, for countless millions-shall we, who know by experience the wise and the just, and are free to choose them, and to reject the erroneous and unjust-shall we establish human bondage, or permit it by our sufferance to be established? Sir, our forefathers would not have hesitated an hour. They found slavery existing here, and they left it only because they could not remove it. There is not only no free State which would now establish it, but there is no slave State, which, if it had had the free alternative as we now have, would have founded slavery. Indeed, our revolutionary predecessors had precisely the same question before them in establishing an organic law under which the States of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin, have since come into the Union, and they solemnly repudiated and But the principle of this compromise gives complete excluded slavery from those States forever. I con- . ascendency in the slave States, and in the Constitu- fess that the most alarming evidence of our degention of the United States, to the subordinate, acci-eracy which has yet been given is found in the fact dental, and incongruous institution over its para- that we even debate such a question. mount antagonist. To reduce this claim for slavery to an absurdity, it is only necessary to add that there are only two States in which slaves are a majority, and not one in which the slaveholders are not a very disproportionate minority. Sir, there is no Christian nation, thus free to choose as we are, which would establish slavery. I speak on due consideration, because Britain, France, and Mexico, have abolished slavery, and all other European States are preparing to abolish it as speedily as they can. We cannot establish slavery, because there are certain elements of the security, welfare, and greatness of nations, which we all admit or ought to admit, and recognise as essential; and these are the security of natural rights, the diffusion of knowledge, and the freedom of industry. very is incompatible with all of these, and just in proportion to the extent that it prevails and controls in any republican State, just to that extent it subverts the principle of democracy, and converts the State into an aristocracy or a despotism. I will not Sla But there is yet another aspect in which this principle must be examined. It regards the domain only as a possession, to be enjoyed either in common or by partition by the citizens of the old States. It is true, indeed, that the national domain is ours. It is true it was acquired by the valor and with the wealth of the whole nation. But we hold, nevertheless, no arbitrary power over it. We hold no arbitrary authority over anything, whether acquired lawfully or seized by usurpation. The Constitution regulates our stewardship; the Constitution devotes the domain to union, to justice, to defence, to wel-offend sensibilities by drawing my proofs from the fare, and to liberty. slave States existing among ourselves. But I will draw them from the greatest of the European slave States. But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes. The territory is a part, no inconsiderable part, of the common heritage of mankind, bestowed upon them by the Creator of the Universe. We are his stewards, and must so discharge our trust as to secure in the highest attainable degree their happiness. How momentous that trust is, we may learn from the instructions of the founder of modern philosophy: "No man," says Bacon, "can by care-taking, as the Scripture saith, add a cubit to his stature in this little model of a man's body; but, in the great frame of kingdoms and commonwealths, it is in the power of princes or estates to add amplitude and greatn 8s to their kingdoms. For, by introducing such ordinances, constitutions, and customs, as are wise, they may sow greatness to their posterity and successors But these things are commonly not observed, but left to take their chance.' captivity of the conquered was made perpetual and hereditary. This, it seems to me, is identical with American slavery, only at one and the, same time exaggerated by the greater disproportion between the privileged classes and the slaves in their respective numbers, and yet relieved of the unhappiest feature of American slavery, the distinction of castes. What but this renders Russia at once the most arbitrary despotism' and the most barbarous State in Europe? And what is its effect, but industry comparatively profitless, and sedition, not occasional and partial but chronic and pervading the Empire. I speak of slavery not in the language of fancy, but in the language of philosophy. Montesquieu remarked upon the proposition to introduce slavery into France, that the demand for slavery was the demand of luxury and corruption, and not the demand of patriotism. Of all slavery, African slavery is the worst, for it combines practically the features of what is distinguished as real slavery or serfdom with the personal slavery known in, the oriental world Its domestic features lead to vice, while its political features render it injurious and dangerous to the State. The reservation of the public don ain is such. The right to divide is such. The Ordinance excluding slavery is such a condition. The organization of a Territory is ancillary or preliminary; it is the inchoate, the initiative act of admission, and is performed under the clause granting the powers necessary to execute the express powers of the Constitution. This power comes from the treaty-making power also, and I think it well traced to the power to make needful rules and regulations concerning the public domain. But this question is not a material one now; the power is here to be exercised. The question now is, How is it to be exercised? not whether we shall exercise it at all, however derived. And the right to regulate property, to administer justice in regard to property, is assumed in every Territorial charter. If we have the power to legislate concerning property, we have the power to legislate concerning personal rights. Freedom is a personal right; and Congress, being the supreme legislature, has the same right in regard to property and personal rights in Territories that the States would have if organized. The next of this class of arguments is, that the I cannot stop to debate long with those who main-inhibition of slavery in the new Territories is unnetain that slavery is itself practically economical and cessary; and when I come to this question, I encounhumane. I might be content with saying that there ter the loss of many who lead in favor of admitting are some axioms in political science that a statesman California. I had hoped, some time ago, that upon or a founder of States may adopt, especially in the the vastly-important question of inhibiting slavery in Congress of the United States, and that among those the new Territories, we should have had the aid axioms are these: That all men are created equal, especially of the distinguished Senator from Misand have inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the souri, [Mr. BENTON;] and when he announced his choice of pursuits of happiness; that knowledge opposition to that measure, I was induced to expromotes virtue, and righteousness exalteth a nation; claimthat freedom is preferable to slavery, and that democratic Governments, where they can be maintained by acquiescence, without force, are preferable to institutions exercising arbitrary and irresponsible power. It remains only to remark that our own experience has proved the dangerous influence and tendency of slavery. All our apprehensions of dangers, present and future, begin and end with slavery. If slavery, limited as it yet is, now threatens to subvert the Constitution, how can we, as wise and prudent statesmen, enlarge its boundaries and increase its influence, and thus increase already impending dangers? Whether, then, I regard merely the welfare of the future inhabitants of the new Territories, or the security and welfare of the whole people of the United States, or the welfare of the whole family of mankind, I cannot consent to introduce slavery into any part of this continent which is now exempt from what seems to me so great an evil. These are my reasons for declining to compromise the question relating to slavery as a condition of the admission of California. In acting upon an occasion so grave as this, a respectful consideration is due to the arguments, founded on extraneous considerations, of Senators who commend a course different from that which I have preferred. The first of these arguments is, that Congress has no power to legislate on the subject of slavery within the Territories. Sir, Congress may admit new States; and since Jongress may admit, it follows that Congress may reject new States. The discretion of Congress in admitting is absolute, except that, when admitted, the State must be a republican State, and must be a STATE: that is, it shall have the constitutional form and powers of a State. But the greater includes the less, and therefore Congress may impose conditions of admission not inconsistent with those fundamental powers and forms. Boundaries are such. "Cur in theatrum, Cato severe, venisti? An ideo, tantum, veneras ut exires ?" But, sir, I have no right to complain. The Senator is crowning a life of eminent public service by an heroic and magnanimous act in bringing California into the Union. Grateful to him for this, I leave it to himself to determine how far considerations of human freedom shall govern the course which he thinks proper to pursue. The argument is, that the Proviso is unnecessary. I answer, there, then, can be no error in insisting upon it. But why is it unnecessary? It is said, first, by reason of climate. I answer, if this be so, why do not the representatives of the slave States concede the Proviso? They deny that the climate prevents the introduction of slavery. Then I will leave nothing to a contingency. But, in truth, I think the weight of argument is against the proposition. Is there any climate where slavery has not existed? It has prevailed all over Europe, from sunny Italy to bleak England, and is existing now, stronger than in any other land, in ice-bound Russia, But it will be replied, that this is not African slavery. I rejoin, that only makes the case stronger. If this vigorous Saxon race of ours was reduced to slavery while it retained the courage of semi-barbarism in its own high northern latitude, what security does climate afford against the transplantation of the more gentle, more docile, and already enslaved and debased African to the genial climate of New Mexico and Eastern California? Sir; there is no climate uncongenial to slavery. It is true it is less productive than free labor in many northern countries. But so it is less productive than free white labor in even tropical climates. Labor is in quick demand in all new countries. Slave labor is cheaper than free labor, and it would go first into new regions; and wherever it goes it brings labor into dishonor, and therefore free white abor avoids competition with it. Sir, I might rely on climate if I had not been born in a land where slavery existed-and this land was all of it north of the fortieth parallel of latitude; and if I did not know the struggle it has cost, and which is yet going on, to get complete relief from the institution and its baleful consequences. I desire to propound this question to those who are now in favor of dispensing with the Wilmot Proviso: Was the Ordinance of 1787 necessary or not? Necessary, we all agree. It has received too many elaborate eulogiums to be now decried as an idle and superfluous thing. And yet that Ordinance extended the inhibition of slavery from the thirty-seventh to the fortieth parallel of north latitude. And now we are told that the inhibition named is unnecessary anywhere north of 36 deg. 30 min.! We are told that we may rely upon the laws of God, which prohibit slave labor north of that line, and that it is absurd to re-enact the laws of God. Sir, there is no human enactment which is just that is not a re-enactment of the law of God. The Constitution of the United States and the Constitutions of all the States are full of such re-enactments. Wherever I find a law of God or a law of nature disregarded, or in danger of being disregarded, there I shall vote to reaffirm it, with all the sanction of the civil authority. But I find no authority for the position that climate prevents slavery anywhere. It is the indolence of mankind in any climate, and not any naturul necessity, that introduces slavery in any climate. I shall dwell only very briefly on the argument derived from the Mexican laws. The proposition, that those laws must remain in force until altered by laws of our own, is satisfactory; and so is the proposition that those Mexican laws abolished and continue to prohibit slavery. And still I deem an enactment by ourselves wise, and even necessary. Both of the propositions I have stated are denied with just as much confidence by Southern statesmen and jurists as they are affirmed by those of the free States. The population of the new Territories is rapidly becoming an American one, to whom the Mexican code will seem a foreign one, entitled to little deference or obedience. And this brings me to the great and all-absorbing argument that the Union is in danger of being dis solved, and that it can only be saved by compromise. I do not know what I would not do to save the Union; and therefore I shall bestow upon this subject a very deliberate consideration. I do not overlook the fact that the entire delegation from the slave States, although they differ in regard to the details of compromise proposed, and perhaps in regard to the exact circumstances of the crisis, seem to concur in this momentous warning. Nor do I doubt at all the patriotic devotion to the Union which is expressed by those from whom this warning proceeds. And yet, sir, although such warnings have been uttered with impassioned solemnity in my hearing every day for nearly three months, my confidence in the Union remains unshaken. İ think they are to be received with no inconsiderable distrust, because they are uttered under the influence of a controlling interest to be secured, a paramount object to be gained; and that is an equilibrium of power in the Republic. I think they are to be re ceived with even more distrust, because, with the most profound respect, they are uttered under an obviously high excitement. Nor is that excitement an unnatural one. It is a law of our nature that the passions disturb the reason and judgment just in proportion to the importance of the occasion, and the consequent necessity for calmness and candor. I think they are to be distrusted, because there is a diversity of opinion in regard to the nature and op eration of this excitement. The Senators from some States say that it has brought all parties in their own region into unanimity. The honorable Senator from Kentucky [Mr. CLAY] says that the danger lies in the violence of party-spirit, and refers us for proof to the difficulties which attended the organization of the House of Representatives. Sir, in my humble judgment, it is not the fierce conflict of parties that we are seeing and hearing; but, on the contrary, it is the agony of distracted parties-a convulsion resulting from the too narrow foundations of both the great parties, and of all parties-foundations laid in compromises of natural justice and of human liberty. A question, a moral question, transcending the too narrow creeds of Slavery has never obtained anywhere by express parties, has arisen; the public conscience expands legislative authority, but always by trampling down with it, and the green withes of party associations laws higher than any mere municipal laws-the laws give way and break, and fall off from it. No, sir; of nature and of nations. There can be no oppres- it is not the State that is dying of the fever of party sion in superadding the sanction of Congress to the spirit. It is merely a paralysis of parties, premonauthority which is so weak and so vehemently ques-itory however of their restoration, with new elements tioned. And there is some possibility, if not probability, that the institution might obtain a foothold surreptitiously, if it should not be absolutely forbidden by our own authority. What is insisted upon, therefore, is not a mere abstraction or a mere sentiment, as is contended by those who waive the Proviso. And what is conclusive on the subject is, that it is conceded on all hands that the effect of insisting on it is to prevent the intrusion of slavery into the region to which it is proposed to apply it. It is insisted that the diffusion of slavery will not increase its evils. The argument seems to me merely specious, and quite unsound. I desire to propose one or two questions in reply to it. Is slavery stronger or weaker in these United States, from its diffusion into Missouri? Is slavery weaker or stronger in these United States, from the exclusion of it from the Northwest Territory? The answers to these questions will settle the whole controversy. of health and vigor to be imbibed from that spirit of the age which is so justly called Progress. Nor is the evil that of unlicensed, irregular, and turbulent faction. We are told that twenty Legis latures are in session, burning like furnaces, heating and inflaming the popular passions. But these twenty Legislatures are constitutional furnaces. They are performing their customary functions, imparting healthful heat and vitality while within their constitutional jurisdiction. If they rage beyond its limits, the popular passions of this country are not at all, I think, in danger of being inflamed to excess. No, sir; let none of these fires be extin guished. For ever let them burn and blaze. They are neither ominous meteors nor baleful comets, but planets; and bright and intense as their heat may be, it is their native temperature, and they must still obey the law which, by attraction toward this solar centre, holds them in their spheres. I see nothing of that conflict between the Southern and Northern States, or between their repre sentative bodies, which seems to be on all sides of me assumed. Not a word of menace, not a word of anger, not an intemperate word, has been uttered in the Northern Legislatures. They firmly but calmly assert their convictions; but at the same time they assert their unqualified consent to submit to the common arbiter, and for weal or wo abide the fortunes of the Union. What if there be less of moderation in the Legislatures of the South? It only indicates on which side the balance is inclining, and that the decision of the momentous question is near at hand. I agree with those who say that there can be no peaceful dissolution-no dissolution of the Union by the secession of States; but that disunion, dissolution, happen when it may, will and must be revolution. I discover no omens of revolution. The predictions of the political astrologers do not agree as to the time or manner in which it is to occur. According to the authority of the honorable Senator from Alabama [Mr. CLEMENS], the event has already hap-orate by custom." Do the alarmists remember that pened, and the Union is now in ruins. According to the honorable and distinguished Senator from South Carolina [Mr. CALHOUN], it is not to be immediate, but to be developed by time. What are the omens to which our attention is directed? I see nothing but a broad difference of opinion here, and the exciternent consequent upon it. citizens of a metropolis like Paris, or of a region subjected to the influences of a metropolis liku France; but they are husbandmen, dispersed over this broad land, on the mountain and on the plain, and on the prairie, from the Ocean to the Rocky Mountains, and from the great Lakes to the Gulf; and this people are now, while we are discussing their imaginary danger, at peace and in their happy homes, as unconcerned and uninformed of their peril as they are of events occurring in the moon. Nor have the alarmists made due allowance in their calculations for the influence of conservative reac tion, strong in any Government, and irresistible in a rural Republic, operating by universal suffrage. That principle of reaction is due to the force of the habits of acquiescence and loyalty among the people. No man better understood this principle than MACHIAVELLI, who has told us, in regard to factions, that "no safe reliance can be placed in the force of nature and the bravery of words, except it be corrob this Government has stood sixty years already with out exacting one drop of blood?-that this Government has stood sixty years, and treason is an obsolete crime? That day, I trust, is far off when the fountains of popular contentment shall be broken up; but, whenever it shall come, it will bring forth a higher illustration than has ever yet been given of the excellence of the Democratic system; for then it will be seen how calmly, how firmly, how nobly, a great people can act in preserving their Constitu tion; whom "love of country moveth, example teacheth, company comforteth, emulation quickeneth, and glory exalteth." I have observed that revolutions which begin in the palace seldom go beyond the palace walls, and they affect only the dynasty which reigns there. This revolution, if I understand it, began in this Senate chamber a year ago, when the representatives from the Southern States assembled here and When the founders of the new Republic of the addressed their constituents on what were called South come to draw over the face of this empire, the aggressions of the Northern States. No revolu- along or between its parallels of latitude or longi tion was designed at that time, and all that has hap- tude, their ominous lines of dismemberment, soon pened since is the return to Congress of legislative to be broadly and deeply shaded with fraternal resolutions, which seem to me to be only convention-blood, they may come to the discovery then, if not al responses to the address which emanated from the Capitol. Sir, in any condition of society there can be no revolution without a cause, an adequate cause. What cause exists here? We are admitting a new State; but there is nothing new in that: we have already admitted seventeen before. But it is said that the slave States are in danger of losing political power by the admission of the new State. Well, sir, is there anything new in that? The slave States have always been losing political power, and they always will be while they have any to lose. At first, twelve of the thirteen States were slave States; now only fifteen out of the thirty are slave States. Moreover, the change is constitutionally made, and the Government was constructed so as to permit changes of the balance of power, in obedience to changes of the forces of the body politic. Danton used to say, "It's all well while the people cry Danton and Robespierre; but wo for me if ever the people learn to say, Robespierre and Danton!" That is all of it, sir. The people have been accustomed to say, "the South and the North;" they are only beginning now to say, "the North and the, South." Sir, those who would alarm us with the terrors of revolution have not well considered the structure of this Government, and the organization of its forces It is a Democracy of property and persons, with a fair approximation toward universal education, and operating by means of universal suffrage. The constituent members of this Democracy are the only persons who could subvert it; and they are not the before, that the natural and even the political connections of the region embraced such a partition ; that its possible divisions are not Northern and Southern at all, but Eastern and Western, Atlantic and Pacific; and that Nature and Commerce have allied indissolubly for weal and wo the seceders and those from whom they are to be separated; that while they would rush into a civil war to re store an imaginary equilibrium between the North ern States and the Southern States, a new equilib rium has taken its place, in which all those States are on the one side, and the boundless West is on the other. Sir, when the founders of the Republic of the South come to draw those fearful lines, they will indicate what portions of the continent are to be broken off from their connection with the Atlantic, through the St. Lawrence, the Hudson, the Delaware, the Potomac, and the Mississippi; what portion of this people are to be denied the use of the lakes, the railroads, and the canals, now constituting common and customary avenues of travel, trade, and social intercourse; what families and kindred are to be separated, and converted into enemies; and what States are to be the scenes of perpetual border warfare, aggravated by interminable horrors of servile insurrection. When those portentous lines shall be drawn, they will disclose what portion of this people is to retain the army and the navy, and the flag of so many victories; and on the other hand, what portion of the people is to be subjected to new and onerous imposts, direct taxes, and forced loans, and conscriptions, to maintain an opposing army, an op |