I spoke, Sir, of the Ordinance of 1787, which prohibits slavery, in all future times, northwest of the Ohio, as a measure of great wisdom and foresight, and one which had been attended with highly beneficial and permanent consequences.  I supposed that, on this point, no two gentlemen in the Senate could entertain different opinions.  But the simple expression of this sentiment has led the gentleman, not only into a labored defence of slavery, in the abstract, and on principle, but also into a warm accusation against me, as having attacked the system of domestic slavery now existing in the Southern States.  For all this, there was not the slightest foundation, in any thing said or intimated by me.  I did not utter a single word which any ingenuity could torture into an attack on the slavery of the South.  I said, only, that it was highly wise and useful, in legislating for the Northwestern country while it was yet a wilderness, to prohibit the introduction of slaves; and I added, that I presumed there was no reflecting and intelligent person, in the neighboring State of Kentucky, who would doubt that, if the same prohibition had been extended, at the same early period, over that commonwealth, her strength and population would, at this day, have been far greater than they are.  If these opinions be thought doubtful, they are nevertheless, I trust, neither extraordinary nor disrespectful.  They attack nobody and menace nobody.  And yet, Sir, the gentleman’s optics have discovered, even in the mere expression of this sentiment, what he calls the very spirit of the Missouri question!  He represents me as making an onset on the whole South, and manifesting a spirit which would interfere with, and disturb, their domestic condition!

Sir, this injustice no otherwise surprises me, than as it is committed here, and committed without the slightest pretence of ground for it.  I say it only surprises me as being done here; for I know full well, that it is, and has been, the settled policy of some persons in the South, for years, to represent the people of the North as disposed to interfere with them in their own exclusive and peculiar concerns.  This is a delicate and sensitive point in Southern feeling; and of late years it has always been touched, and generally with effect, whenever the object has been to unite the whole South against Northern men or Northern measures.  This feeling, always carefully kept alive, and maintained at too intense a heat to admit discrimination or reflection, is a lever of great power in our political machine.  It moves vast bodies, and gives to them one and the same direction.  But it is without adequate cause, and the suspicion which exists is wholly groundless.  There is not, and never has been, a disposition in the North to interfere with these interests of the South.  Such interference has never been supposed to be within the power of government; nor has it been in any way attempted.  The slavery of the South has always