nd the government entered upon a system of
negotiation with all the powers of the world for the ultimate
extinction of slavery throughout the globe.

"The utter and unqualified inconsistency of slavery, in any of its
forms, with the principles of the North American Revolution, and the
Declaration of our Independence, had so forcibly struck the Southern
champions of our rights, that the abolition of slavery and the
emancipation of slaves was a darling project of Thomas Jefferson
from his first entrance into public life to the last years of his
existence. But the associated wealth of the slaveholders outweighed
the principles of the Revolution, and by the constitution of the
United States a compromise was established between slavery and
freedom. The extent of the sacrifice of principle made by the North
in this compromise can be estimated only by its practical effects.
The principle is that the House of Representatives of the United
States is a representation only of the persons and freedom of the
North, and of the persons, property, and slavery, of the South. Its
practical operation has been to give the balance of power in the
house, and in every department of the government, into the hands of
the minority of numbers. For practical results look to the present
composition of your government in all its departments. The President
of the United States, the President of the Senate, the Speaker of
the House, are all slaveholders. The Chief Justice and four out of
the nine Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States are
slaveholders. The commander-in-chief of your army and the general
next in command are slaveholders. A vast majority of all the
officers of your navy, from the highest to the lowest, are
slaveholders. Of six heads of the executive departments, three are
slaveholders; securing thus, with the President, a majority in all
cabinet consultations and executive councils. From the commencement
of this century, upwards of forty years, the office of Chief Justice
has always been held by slaveholders; and when, upon the death of
Judge Marshall, the two senior justices upon the bench were citizens
of the free states, and unsurpassed in eminence of reputation both
for learning in the law and for spotless integrity, they were both
overlooked and overslaughed by a slaveholder, far infer