fully, it must be borne in mind that slavery, as it exists in the
Southern States, involves _not only the relation of master and
slave, but also the social and political relation of the two races_,
of nearly equal numbers, from different quarters of the globe, and
the most opposite of all others in every particular that distinguishes
one race of men from another."

The whole report was replete with accusations against the North,
and full of warning as to what the South would do should its demands
not be complied with. The bill brought in by the committee was
more remarkable than the report itself, and wholly inconsistent
with its doctrine.

The bill provided high penalties for any postmaster who should
knowingly receive and put into the mail any publication or picture
_touching the subject of slavery_, to go into any State or Territory
in which its circulation _was forbidden by state law_.

The report concluded:

"Should such be your decision, by refusing to pass this bill, I
shall say to the people of the South, look to yourselves.

"But I must tell the Senate, be your decision what it may, the
South will never abandon the principles of this bill. . . . We have
a remedy in our own hands."

Clay, Webster, Benton, and others ably and effectually combated
both the report and the bill, and the latter failed (25 to 19) in
the Senate.

Besides denying the doctrine of the report, they showed the evil
was not in mailing, but in taking from the mails and circulating
by their own citizens the supposed objectionable publications.

Benton, himself a slaveholder, then and in subsequent years assailed
and pronounced the doctrine of this report as the "_birth of
disunion_." He has also shown that Calhoun delighted over the
agitation of slavery more than he deprecated it; that he profoundly
hoped that on the slavery question the South would be united and
a Slave-Confederacy formed.(50)

In support of this Mr. Benton quotes from a letter of Mr. Calhoun
to a gentleman in Alabama (1847) in which he says:

"I am much gratified with the tone and views of your letter, and
concur entirely in the opinion you express, that instead of shunning,
we ought to court the issue with the North on the slavery question.
I would even go one step further and add that it is our duty _to
force the issue_ on the North. We are now stronger relatively than
we shall be hereafter, politically and morally. Unless we bring
on the issue, delay to