tion
from the free States foresee what a sacrifice to Moloch was hidden
under the mask of this concession.'--'The House of Representatives
of the United States consists of 223 members--all, by the _letter_ of
the Constitution, representatives only of _persons_, as 135 of them
really are; but the other 88, equally representing the _persons_ of
their constituents, by whom they are elected, also represent, under
the name of _other persons_, upwards of two and a half millions of
_slaves_, held as the _property_ of less than half a million of
the white constituents, and valued at twelve hundred millions of
dollars. Each of these 88 members represents in fact the whole of
that mass of associated wealth, and the persons and exclusive
interests of its owners; all thus knit together, like the members of
a moneyed corporation, with a capital not of thirty-five or forty or
fifty, but of twelve hundred millions of dollars, exhibiting the
most extraordinary exemplification of the anti-republican tendencies
of associated wealth that the world ever saw,'--'Here is one class
of men, consisting of not more than one fortieth part of the whole
people, not more than one-thirtieth part of the free population,
exclusively devoted to their personal interests identified with
their own as slaveholders of the same associated wealth, and
wielding by their votes, upon every question of government or of
public policy, two-fifths of the whole power of the House. In the
Senate of the Union, the proportion of the slaveholding power is yet
greater. By the influence of slavery, in the States where the
institution is tolerated, over their elections, no other than a
slaveholder can rise to the distinction of obtaining a seat in the
Senate; and thus, of the 52 members of the federal Senate, 26 are
owners of slaves, and as effectively representatives of that
interest as the 88 members elected by them to the House.'--'By this
process it is that all political power in the States is absorbed and
engrossed by the owners of _slaves_, and the overruling policy of
the States is shaped to strengthen and consolidate their domination.
The legislative, executive, and judicial authorities are all in
their hands--the preservation, propagation, and perpetuation of the
black code of slavery--every law of the legislature becomes a link
in the chain of the slave; every executive act a rivet to his
hapless fate; every judicial decision a perversion of the human
intellect