many vices and crimes, public and private, still prevail, and that many of them, public crimes especially, which are so clearly offences against the Christian religion, pass without exciting particular indignation.  Thus wars are waged, and unjust wars.  I do not deny that there may be just wars.  There certainly are; but it was the remark of an eminent person, not many years ago, on the other side of the Atlantic, that it is one of the greatest reproaches to human nature that wars are sometimes just.  The defence of nations sometimes causes a just war against the injustice of other nations.  In this state of sentiment upon the general nature of slavery lies the cause of a great part of those unhappy divisions, exasperations, and reproaches which find vent and support in different parts of the Union.

But we must view things as they are.  Slavery does exist in the United States.  It did exist in the States before the adoption of this Constitution, and at that time.  Let us, therefore, consider for a moment what was the state of sentiment, North and South, in regard to slavery, at the time this Constitution was adopted.  A remarkable change has taken place since; but what did the wise and great men of all parts of the country think of slavery then?  In what estimation did they hold it at the time when this Constitution was adopted?  It will be found, Sir, if we will carry ourselves by historical research back to that day, and ascertain men’s opinions by authentic records still existing among us, that there was then no diversity of opinion between the North and the South upon the subject of slavery.  It will be found that both parts of the country held it equally an evil,—­a moral and political evil.  It will not be found that, either at the North or at the South, there was much, though there was some, invective against slavery as inhuman and cruel.  The great ground of objection to it was political; that it weakened the social fabric; that, taking the place of free labor, society became less strong and labor less productive; and therefore we find from all the eminent men of the time the clearest expression of their opinion that slavery is an evil.  They ascribed its existence here, not without truth, and not without some acerbity of temper and force of language, to the injurious policy of the mother country, who, to favor the navigator, had entailed these evils upon the Colonies.  I need hardly refer, Sir, particularly to the publications of the day.  They are matters of history on the record.  The eminent men, the most eminent men, and nearly all the conspicuous politicians of the South, held the same sentiments,—­that slavery was an evil, a blight, a scourge, and a curse.  There are no terms of reprobation of slavery so vehement in the North at that day as in the South.  The North was not so much excited against it as the South; and the reason is, I suppose, that there was much less of it at the North, and the people did not see, or think they saw, the evils so prominently as they were seen, or thought to be seen, at the South.