s
conferred upon this nation by the Constitution, its national unity,
its swelling masses of wealth, its power, and the external prosperity
of its multiplying millions; yet the _moral_ injury that has been
done, by the countenance shown to slavery by holding over that
tremendous sin the shield of the Constitution, and thus breaking down
in the eyes of the nation the barrier between right and wrong; by so
tenderly cherishing slavery as, in less than the life of man, to
multiply her children from half a million to nearly three millions; by
exacting oaths from those who occupy prominent stations in society,
that they will violate at once the rights of man and the law of God;
by substituting itself as a rule of right, in place of the moral laws
of the universe;--thus in effect, dethroning the Almighty in the
hearts of this people and setting up another sovereign in his
stead--more than outweighs it all. A melancholy and monitory lesson
this, to all time-serving and temporising statesmen! A striking
illustration of the _impolicy_ of sacrificing _right_ to any
considerations of expediency! Yet, what better than the evil effects
that we have seen, could the authors of the Constitution have
reasonably expected, from the sacrifice of right, in the concessions
they made to slavery? Was it reasonable in them to expect that after
they had introduced a vicious element into the very Constitution of
the body politic which they were calling into life, it would not exert
its vicious energies? Was it reasonable in them to expect that, after
slavery had been corrupting the public morals for a whole generation,
their children would have too much virtue to _use_ for the defence of
slavery, a power which they themselves had not too much virtue to
_give_? It is dangerous for the sovereign power of a State to license
immorality; to hold the shield of its protection over any thing that
is not "legal in a moral view." Bring into your house a benumbed
viper, and lay it down upon your warm hearth, and soon it will not ask
you into which room it may crawl. Let Slavery once lean upon the
supporting arm, and bask in the fostering smile of the State, and you
will soon see, as we now see, both her minions and her victims
multiply apace till the politics, the morals, the liberties, even the
religion of the nation, are brought completely under her control.

To me, it appears that the virus of slavery, introduced into the
Constitution of our body politic