If then the Constitution be, what these Debates show that our fathers intended to make it, and what, too, their descendants, this nation, say they did make it and agree to uphold,—­then we affirm that it is a “covenant with death and an agreement with hell,” and ought to be immediately annulled.

But if, on the contrary, our fathers failed in their purpose, and the Constitution is all pure and untouched by slavery,—­then, Union itself is impossible, without guilt.  For it is undeniable that the fifty years passed under this (anti-slavery) Constitution, shew us the slaves trebling in numbers;—­slaveholders monopolizing the offices and dictating the policy of the Government;—­prostituting the strength and influence of the Nation to the support of slavery here and elsewhere;—­trampling on the rights of the free States and making the courts of the country their tools.  To continue this disastrous alliance longer is madness.  The trial of fifty years with the best of men and the best of Constitutions, on this supposition, only proves that it is impossible for free and slave States to unite on any terms, without all becoming partners in the guilt and responsible for the sin of slavery.  We dare not prolong the experiment, and with double earnestness we repeat our demand upon every honest man to join in the outcry of the American Anti-Slavery Society,

NO UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS.

THE CONSTITUTION

A PRO-SLAVERY COMPACT.

* * * * *

Extracts from Debates in the Congress of Confederation, preserved by Thomas Jefferson, 1776.

On Friday, the twelfth of July, 1776, the committee appointed to draw the articles of Confederation reported them, and on the twenty-second, the House resolved themselves into a committee to take them into consideration.  On the thirtieth and thirty-first of that month, and the first of the ensuing, those articles were debated which determined the proportion or quota of money which each State should furnish to the common treasury, and the manner of voting in Congress.  The first of these articles was expressed in the original draught in these words:—­

“Article 11.  All charges of war and all other expenses that shall be incurred for the common defence, or general welfare, and allowed by the United States assembled, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury, which shall be supplied by the several colonies in proportion to the number of inhabitants of every age, sex and quality, except Indians not paying taxes, in each colony, a true account of which, distinguishing the white inhabitants, shall be triennially taken and transmitted to the assembly of the United States.”