ng time, lamented they had made it; and that, if it
was to do over, no earthly consideration should again tempt them
to agree to so unequal and so ruinous a compromise....

It was, sir, for the purpose of correcting this great and
unpardonable error; unpardonable, because it is a wilful one, and
the error of it is well known to the ablest of those who make it;
of denying the assertion, and proving that the contrary is the
fact, and that the concession, on that occasion, was from the
Southern and the Northern States, that, among others, I have
risen.

It is of the greatest consequence that the proof I am about to
give should be laid before this nation; for, as the inequality of
representation is the great ground on which the Northern and
Eastern States have always, and now more particularly and
forcibly than ever, raised all their complaints on this subject,
if I can show and prove that they have not even a shadow of right
to make pretences or complaints; that they are as fully
represented as they ought to be; while, we, the Southern members,
are unjustly deprived of any representation for a large and
important part of our population, more valuable to the Union, as
can be shown, than any equal number of inhabitants in the
Northern and Eastern States, can, from their situation, climate,
and productions, possibly be. If I can prove this, I think I
shall be able to show most clearly the true motives which have
given rise to this measure; to strip the thin, the cobweb veil
from it, as well as the pretended ones of religion, humanity, and
love of liberty; and to show, to use the soft terms the decorum
of debate oblige me to use, the extreme want of modesty in those
who are already as fully represented here as they can be, to go
the great lengths they do in endeavoring, by every effort in
their power, public and private, to take from the Southern and
Western States, which are already so greatly and unjustly
deprived of an important part of the representation, a still
greater share; to endeavor to establish the first precedent,
which extreme rashness and temerity have ever presumed, that
Congress has a right to touch the question and legislate on
slavery; thereby shaking the property in them, in the Southern
and Western States, to its very foun