om
Georgia said that the species of property now alluded to was "the
machinery of the South." Now, that machinery had twenty odd
representatives in that hall; representatives elected, not by that
machinery, but by those who owned it. Was there such representation in
any other portion of the Union? That machinery had ever been to the
South, in fact, the ruling power of this government. Was this not
protection? This very protection had taken millions and millions of
money from the free laboring population of this country, and put it into
the pockets of the owners of Southern machinery. He did not complain of
this. He did not say that it was not all right. What he said was, that
the South possessed a great interest protected by the constitution of
the United States. He was for adhering to the bargain; but he did not
wish to be understood as saying that he would agree to it if the bargain
was now to be made over again.

This interest was protected by another provision in the constitution of
the United States, by which "no person held to service or labor in one
state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in
consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such
service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to
whom such service or labor may be due." What was this but protection to
this machinery of the South? And let it be observed that a provision
like this ran counter to all the tenor of legislation in the free
states. It was contrary to all the notions and feelings of the people of
the North to deliver a man up to any foreign authority, unless he had
been guilty of some crime; and, but for such a clause in the compact, a
Southern gentleman, who had lost an article of his machinery, would
never recover him back from the free states.

The constitution contained another clause guaranteeing protection to the
same interest. It guaranteed to every state in the Union a republican
form of government, protection against invasion, and, on the application
of the Legislature or Executive of any state, furnished them with
protection against domestic violence. Now, everybody knew that where
this machinery existed the state was more liable to domestic violence
than elsewhere, because that machinery sometimes exerted a self-moving
power. The call for this protection had very recently been made, and it
had been answered, and the power of the Union had been exerted to insure
the owners