ll stand before the end of the decade,
twenty Northern States to fourteen Southern (considering Delaware as
neutral), and forty Northern senators to twenty-eight Southern. This
great increase of senators, added to the great increase of members of
the House of Representatives and the Electoral College on the part of
the North, which must take place under the next decade, will effectually
and irretrievably destroy the equilibrium which existed when the
Government commenced.

Had this destruction been the operation of time, without the
interference of Government, the South would have had no reason to
complain; but such was not the fact. It was caused by the legislation
of this Government, which was appointed as the common agent of all, and
charged with the protection of the interests and security of all. The
legislation by which it has been effected may be classed under three
heads. The first is, that series of acts by which the South has been
excluded from the common territory belonging to all the States as
members of the Federal Union--which have had the effect of extending
vastly the portion allotted to the northern section, and restricting
within narrow limits the portion left the South. the next consists
in adopting a system of revenue and disbursements, by which an undue
proportion of the burden of taxation has been imposed upon the South,
and an undue proportion of its proceeds appropriated to the North;
and the last is a system of political measures, by which the original
character of the Government has been radically changed. I propose to
bestow upon each of these, in the order they stand, a few remarks, with
the view of showing that it is owing to the action of this Government
that the equilibrium between the two sections has been destroyed, and
the whole powers of the system centered in a sectional majority.

The first of the series of Acts by which the South was deprived of its
due share of the territories, originated with the confederacy which
preceded the existence of this Government. It is to be found in the
provision of the ordinance of 1787. Its effect was to exclude the South
entirely from that vast and fertile region which lies between the Ohio
and the Mississippi rivers, now embracing five States and one Territory.
The next of the series is the Missouri compromise, which excluded the
South from that large portion of Louisiana which lies north of 36 deg. 30',
excepting what is included in the State of M