faith of freedom to maintain and
perpetuate the tyranny of the master; and grossly unequal and impolitic,
by admitting that slaves are at once enemies to be kept in subjection,
property to be secured and returned to their owners, and persons not to
be represented themselves, but for whom their masters are privileged
with nearly a double share of representation. The consequence has been
that this slave representation has governed the Union. Benjamin's
portion above his brethren has ravined as a wolf. In the morning he has
devoured the prey, and in the evening has divided the spoil. It would be
no difficult matter to prove, by reviewing the history of the Union
under this constitution, that almost everything which has contributed to
the honor and welfare of this nation has been accomplished in despite of
them, or forced upon them; and that everything unpropitious and
dishonorable, including the blunders of their adversaries, may be traced
to them. I have favored this Missouri compromise, believing it to be all
that could be effected under the present constitution, and from extreme
unwillingness to put the Union at hazard. But perhaps it would have been
a wiser and bolder course to have persisted in the restriction on
Missouri, until it should have terminated in a convention of the states
to revise and amend the constitution. This would have produced a new
Union of thirteen or fourteen states unpolluted with slavery, with a
great and glorious object, that of rallying to their standard the other
states, by the universal emancipation of their slaves. If the Union must
be dissolved, slavery is precisely the question upon which it ought to
break. For the present, however, this contest is laid asleep."

Again he says: "Mr. King is deeply mortified at the issue of the
Missouri question, and very naturally feels resentful at the imputations
of the slaveholders, that his motives on this occasion have been merely
personal aggrandizement,--'close ambition varnished o'er with zeal.' The
imputation of bad motives is one of the most convenient weapons of
political, and indeed of every sort of controversy. It came originally
from the devil.--'Doth Job serve God for naught?' The selfish and the
social passions are intermingled in the conduct of every man acting in a
public capacity. It is right that they should be so. And it is no just
cause of reproach to any man, that, in promoting to the utmost of his
power the public good, he is desir