andolph, Governor
McDowel, and others talked in 1832, and sent their remarks to the press?
We all know the fact, and we all know the cause; and every thing that
these agitating people have done has been, not to enlarge, but to
restrain, not to set free, but to bind faster, the slave population of
the South. * * *

There are also complaints of the North against the South. I need not go
over them particularly. The first and gravest is, that the North adopted
the Constitution, recognizing the existence of slavery in the States,
and recognizing the right, to a certain extent, of the representation
of slaves in Congress, under a state of sentiment and expectation
which does not now exist; and that by events, by circumstances, by
the eagerness of the South to acquire territory and extend her slave
population, the North finds itself, in regard to the relative influence
of the South and the North, of the free States and the slave States,
where it never did expect to find itself when they agreed to the compact
of the Constitution. They complain, therefore, that, instead of slavery
being regarded as an evil, as it was then, an evil which all hoped
would be extinguished gradually, it is now regarded by the South as an
institution to be cherished, and preserved, and extended; an institution
which the South has already extended to the utmost of her power by the
acquisition of new territory.

Well, then, passing from that, everybody in the North reads; and
everybody reads whatsoever the newspapers contain; and the news-papers,
some of them, especially those presses to which I have alluded, are
careful to spread about among the people every reproachful sentiment
uttered by any Southern man bearing at all against the North; every
thing that is calculated to exasperate and to alienate; and there are
many such things, as everybody will admit, from the South, or from
portions of it, which are disseminated among the reading people; and
they do exasperate, and alienate, and produce a most mischievous effect
upon the public mind at the North. Sir, I would not notice things of
this sort appearing in obscure quarters; but one thing has occurred
in this debate which struck me very forcibly. An honorable member from
Louisiana addressed us the other day on this subject. I suppose there is
not a more amiable and worthy gentleman in this chamber, nor a gentleman
who would be more slow to give offence to any body, and he did not mean
in his remark