ncorporating the slave system into the government. In the expressive
and pertinent language of scripture, it was "a covenant with death,
and an agreement with hell"--null and void before God, from the first
hour of its inception--the framers of which were recreant to duty, and
the supporters of which are equally guilty.

It was pleaded at the time of the adoption, it is pleaded now, that,
without such a compromise there could have been no union; that,
without union, the colonies would have become an easy prey to the
mother country; and, hence, that it was an act of necessity,
deplorable indeed when viewed alone, but absolutely indispensable to
the safety of the republic.

To this see reply: The plea is as profligate as the act was
tyrannical. It is the jesuitical doctrine, that the end sanctifies the
means. It is a confession of sin, but the denial of any guilt in its
perpetration. It is at war with the government of God, and subversive
of the foundations of morality. It is to make lies our refuge, and
under falsehood to hide ourselves, so that we may escape the
overflowing scourge. "Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, Judgment
will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet; and the hail
shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the
hiding place." Moreover, "because ye trust in oppression and
perverseness, and stay thereon; therefore this iniquity shall be to
you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose
breaking cometh suddenly at an instant. And he shall break it as the
breaking of the potter's vessel that is broken in pieces; he shall not
spare."

This plea is sufficiently broad to cover all the oppression and
villany that the sun has witnessed in his circuit, since God said,
"Let there be light." It assumes that to be practicable, which is
impossible, namely, that there can be freedom with slavery, union with
injustice, and safety with bloodguiltiness. A union of virtue with
pollution is the triumph of licentiousness. A partnership between
right and wrong, is wholly wrong. A compromise of the principles of
Justice, is the deification of crime.

Better that the American Union had never been formed, than that it
should have been obtained at such a frightful cost! If they were
guilty who fashioned it, but who could not foresee all its frightful
consequences, how much more guilty are they, who, in full view of all
that has resulted from it, clamor for its perpe