t, no two gentlemen
in the Senate could entertain different opinions. But the simple
expression of this sentiment has led the gentleman, not only into a
labored defence of slavery, in the abstract, and on principle, but also
into a warm accusation against me, as having attacked the system of
domestic slavery now existing in the Southern States. For all this,
there was not the slightest foundation, in any thing said or intimated
by me. I did not utter a single word which any ingenuity could torture
into an attack on the slavery of the South. I said, only, that it was
highly wise and useful, in legislating for the Northwestern country
while it was yet a wilderness, to prohibit the introduction of slaves;
and I added, that I presumed there was no reflecting and intelligent
person, in the neighboring State of Kentucky, who would doubt that, if
the same prohibition had been extended, at the same early period, over
that commonwealth, her strength and population would, at this day, have
been far greater than they are. If these opinions be thought doubtful,
they are nevertheless, I trust, neither extraordinary nor disrespectful.
They attack nobody and menace nobody. And yet, Sir, the gentleman's
optics have discovered, even in the mere expression of this sentiment,
what he calls the very spirit of the Missouri question! He represents me
as making an onset on the whole South, and manifesting a spirit which
would interfere with, and disturb, their domestic condition!

Sir, this injustice no otherwise surprises me, than as it is committed
here, and committed without the slightest pretence of ground for it. I
say it only surprises me as being done here; for I know full well, that
it is, and has been, the settled policy of some persons in the South,
for years, to represent the people of the North as disposed to interfere
with them in their own exclusive and peculiar concerns. This is a
delicate and sensitive point in Southern feeling; and of late years it
has always been touched, and generally with effect, whenever the object
has been to unite the whole South against Northern men or Northern
measures. This feeling, always carefully kept alive, and maintained at
too intense a heat to admit discrimination or reflection, is a lever of
great power in our political machine. It moves vast bodies, and gives to
them one and the same direction. But it is without adequate cause, and
the suspicion which exists is wholly groundless. There is not