hell"--null and void before God, from the first
hour of its inception--the framers of which were recreant to duty,
and the supporters of which are equally guilty.

It was pleaded at the time of the adoption, it is pleaded now, that,
without such a compromise there could have been no union; that,
without union, the colonies would have become an easy prey to the
mother country; and, hence, that it was an act of necessity,
deplorable indeed when viewed alone, but absolutely indispensable to
the safety of the republic.

To this we reply: The plea is as profligate as the act was tyrannical.
It is the jesuitical doctrine, that the end sanctifies the means. It
is a confession of sin, but the denial of any guilt in its
perpetration. It is at war with the government of God, and
subversive of the foundations of morality. It is to make lies our
refuge, and under falsehood to hide ourselves, so that we may escape
the overflowing scourge. "Therefore, thus saith the Lord God,
Judgment will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet;
and the bail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters
shall overflow the hiding place." Moreover, "because ye trust in
oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon; therefore this
iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in
a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant. And he
shall break it as the breaking of the potter's vessel that is broken
in pieces; he shall not spare."

This plea is sufficiently broad to cover all the oppression and
villany that the sun has witnessed in his circuit, since God said,
"Let there by light." It assumes that to be practicable, which is
impossible, namely, that there can be freedom with slavery, union
with injustice, and safety with blood guiltiness. A union of virtue
with pollution is the triumph of licentiousness. A partnership
between right and wrong, is wholly wrong. A compromise of the
principles of Justice, is the deification of crime.

Better that the American Union had never been formed, than that it
should have been obtained at such a frightful cost! If they were
guilty who fashioned it, but who could not foresee all its frightful
consequences, how much more guilty are they, who, in full view of
all that has resulted from it, clamor for its perpetuity! If it was
sinful at the commencement, to adopt it on the ground of escaping a
greater evil, is it not equally sinful to swear to support it for the
sam