decade, twenty Northern States to fourteen Southern (considering Delaware as neutral), and forty Northern senators to twenty-eight Southern.  This great increase of senators, added to the great increase of members of the House of Representatives and the Electoral College on the part of the North, which must take place under the next decade, will effectually and irretrievably destroy the equilibrium which existed when the Government commenced.

Had this destruction been the operation of time, without the interference of Government, the South would have had no reason to complain; but such was not the fact.  It was caused by the legislation of this Government, which was appointed as the common agent of all, and charged with the protection of the interests and security of all.  The legislation by which it has been effected may be classed under three heads.  The first is, that series of acts by which the South has been excluded from the common territory belonging to all the States as members of the Federal Union—­which have had the effect of extending vastly the portion allotted to the northern section, and restricting within narrow limits the portion left the South. the next consists in adopting a system of revenue and disbursements, by which an undue proportion of the burden of taxation has been imposed upon the South, and an undue proportion of its proceeds appropriated to the North; and the last is a system of political measures, by which the original character of the Government has been radically changed.  I propose to bestow upon each of these, in the order they stand, a few remarks, with the view of showing that it is owing to the action of this Government that the equilibrium between the two sections has been destroyed, and the whole powers of the system centered in a sectional majority.

The first of the series of Acts by which the South was deprived of its due share of the territories, originated with the confederacy which preceded the existence of this Government.  It is to be found in the provision of the ordinance of 1787.  Its effect was to exclude the South entirely from that vast and fertile region which lies between the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers, now embracing five States and one Territory.  The next of the series is the Missouri compromise, which excluded the South from that large portion of Louisiana which lies north of 36 deg. 30’, excepting what is included in the State of Missouri.  The last of the series excluded the South from the whole of Oregon Territory.  All these, in the slang of the day, were what are called slave territories,’ and not free soil; that is, territories belonging to slaveholding powers and open to the emigration of masters with their slaves.  By these several Acts the South was excluded from one million two hundred and thirty-eight thousand and twenty-five square miles—­an extent of country considerably exceeding the entire valley of the Mississippi.  To the South was left the portion