People in the Presidential Elections of 1800
and Ensuing Terms.--South Carolina and Mr. Calhoun.--The
Compromise of 1833.--Action of Massachusetts in
1843-'45.--Opinions of John Quincy Adams.--Necessity for
Secession.

From the earliest period, it was foreseen by the wisest of our statesmen
that a danger to the perpetuity of the Union would arise from the
conflicting interests of different sections, and every effort was made
to secure each of these classes of interests against aggression by the
other. As a proof of this, may be cited the following extract from Mr.
Madison's report of a speech made by himself in the Philadelphia
Convention on the 30th of June, 1787:

"He admitted that every peculiar interest, whether in any class
of citizens or any description of States, ought to be secured as
far as possible. Wherever there is danger of attack, there ought
to be given a constitutional power of defense. But he contended
that the States were divided into different interests, not by
their difference of size, but by other circumstances; the most
material of which resulted from climate, but principally from
the effects of their having or not having slaves. These two
causes concurred in forming the great division of interests in
the United States. It did not lie between the large and small
States; it lay between the Northern and Southern; and, if any
defensive power were necessary, it ought to be mutually given to
these two interests."[105]

Mr. Rufus King, a distinguished member of the Convention from
Massachusetts, a few days afterward, said, to the same effect: "He was
fully convinced that the question concerning a difference of interests
did not lie where it had hitherto been discussed, between the great and
small States, but between the Southern and Eastern. For this reason he
had been ready to yield something, in the proportion of representatives,
for the security of the Southern.... He was not averse to giving them a
still greater security, but did not see how it could be done."[106]

The wise men who formed the Constitution were not seeking to bind the
States together by the material power of a majority; nor were they so
blind to the influences of passion and interest as to believe that paper
barriers would suffice to restrain a majority actuated by either or both
of these motives. They endeavored, therefore, to prevent the conflicts
inevitable