ed and assembled for the revision of the
Constitution, the undersigned would have assented to this section; and
in declining to vote thereon they intended to so declare to their
associates from the slaveholding States.

The undersigned thus set forth the doings of the Convention, and some
of the reasons by which their conduct was controlled. It was not their
fortune to concur with the action of the Convention. The concessions
demanded by the discontented States, seemed to be inconsistent with
honor, justice, and freedom, and calculated to render permanent the
existing causes of disturbance. A Union restored by unmanly
concessions, would be productive of bitter criminations and lasting
hostilities, and would contain within itself the seeds of a violent
death.

But the undersigned are bound to say that the differences in the
Convention were, in the main, differences of opinion, and not of
purpose. Loyalty to the Constitution and the Union was general; and
the undersigned do not doubt that the act of Virginia, in inviting a
conference with her sister States, will be productive of beneficial
results to the country.

The Commissioners from Massachusetts were much impressed by the fact,
which their personal intercourse with gentlemen from all the
slaveholding States brought to their knowledge, that the present
difficulties of the country were not caused by the pressure of
grievances supposed to be actually existing; but rather by the fear of
future interference with Southern rights, caused by entire
misapprehension of the purposes of the people of the free States.
Misrepresentation of those purposes, proceeding from among ourselves,
whether prompted by ignorance of Northern sentiment, or by sinister
motives, are greatly to be deprecated.

The undersigned entertain no doubt that the intercourse between the
different sections of the country, through their representatives in
Convention, had a most salutary influence in correcting false views of
Northern sentiment, and in assuring our brethren of the South that
there is no purpose among the people of those States, who, upon
principle, oppose the extension of slavery, to disturb or touch with
an unfriendly hand the domestic relations of any other States of the
Union.

In the present exigency of public affairs, each State should be
careful to perform its whole duty freely and faithfully to its sister
States and to the country; and then may it well and fearlessly demand,
whe