supreme political control, and then to advance its own selfish interests, at the expense of free institutions.  The great danger has always been, that while numerically vastly inferior to the North, slavery has always been an unit, with a single eye to its own aggrandizement; consequently, the history of the country will show that so far from the general policy of the government being adverse to slavery, that policy has been almost exclusively upon the side of slaveholders.  The domestic institution has been ever the pet interest of the land.

In all that pertains to political power, the slaveholding interests have been in the ascendant.  Even when Lincoln was elected, it was found that the Senate and House of Representatives, as well as the Judiciary, were numerically upon the side of slavery, so that he could not, even had it been his wish, carry out any measure inimical to the South.  True, the South had not the same power as under Buchanan; they could not hope ever again to wield the resources of government to secure the ascendency of slavery in Kansas; but for all that, Lincoln was powerless to encroach upon their supposed rights, even if thus disposed.  Is it not, then, evident, that so far from the slaveholding States holding to the opinions of the framers of the Constitution, there has been within the last forty years a mighty change going on in the South, giving to slavery an essentially aggressive policy, and an extension never dreamed of by the authors of the Constitution?  The ground of the Constitution respecting slavery, was simply non-interference in the States where it already existed.  It left slavery to be curtailed, or done away with by the local legislature, but it used language the most guarded, to preclude the idea that slavery rested upon natural right, and that slaves, like other property, could be carried into the territories.  It has been said, that the position of the Constitution is that of absolute indifference, both to freedom and slavery; that it advocated neither, but was bound to protect both.  But how could the Constitution be indifferent to the very end for which it was made?  Was not its great design to secure the liberty of the country, and promote its highest welfare?  The Constitution simply tolerated the existence of slavery, and no more.  As union was impossible without the provision for the rendition of persons held to labor, escaping from one state into another, it simply accommodated itself to an evil that was thought would be restricted, and in due process of time done away with in the slave States.  To strain this provision to mean that it advocated the natural right of slavery, and recognized the slave as property, to be sold and bought like other merchandise, is simply to say that the framers of the Constitution were the greatest hypocrites in the world, originating the Declaration of Independence upon the basis of the natural right of all men to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and yet with full knowledge and purpose giving the lie to this instrument in the Constitution.  Madison thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea of property in man.  The word ‘service’ was substituted for ‘servitude,’ simply because this last encouraged the idea of property.