istrations, from the first organization of the government, had, in
the indirect manner already mentioned, favored slavery,--there had not
been on any previous occasion, a direct struggle between its pretensions
and the principles of liberty ingrafted on the Constitution. The friends
of the latter were induced to believe, whenever they should be arrayed
against each other, that _theirs_ would be the triumph. Tremendous
error! Mistake almost fatal! The battle was fought. Slavery emerged from
it unhurt--her hands made gory--her bloody plume still floating in the
air--exultingly brandishing her dripping sword over her prostrate and
vanquished enemy. She had won all for which she fought. Her victory was
complete--THE SANCTION OF THE NATION WAS GIVEN TO SLAVERY![B]

[Footnote A: Mr. Clay, in conducting the Missouri compromise, found it
necessary to argue, that the admission of Missouri, as a slaveholding
state, would aid in bringing about the termination of slavery. His
argument is thus stated by Mr. Sergeant, who replied to him:--"In this
long view of remote and distant consequences, the gentleman from
Kentucky (Mr. Clay) thinks he sees how slavery, when thus spread, is at
last to find its end. It is to be brought about by the combined
operation of the laws which regulate the price of labor, and the laws
which govern population. When the country shall be filled with
inhabitants, and the price of labor shall have reached a minimum, (a
comparative minimum I suppose is meant,) free labor will be found
cheaper than slave labor. Slaves will then be without employment, and,
of course, without the means of comfortable subsistence, which will
reduce their numbers, and finally extirpate them. This is the argument
as I understand it," says Mr. Sergeant; and, certainly, one more
chimerical or more inhuman could not have been urged.]

[Footnote B: See Appendix, E.]

Immediately after this achievement, the slaveholding interest was still
more strongly fortified by the acquisition of Florida, and the
establishment of slavery there, as it had already been in the territory
of Louisiana. The Missouri triumph, however, seems to have extinguished
every thing like a systematic or spirited opposition, on the part of the
free states, to the pretensions of the slaveholding South.

Arkansas was admitted but the other day, with nothing that deserves to
be called an effort to prevent it--although her Constitution attempts to
_perpetuate_ slavery,