sentatives of that interest, as
the eighty-eight members elected by them to the House."

The dominant power which the Constitution gives to the slave interest,
as thus seen and exercised in the _Legislative Halls_ of our nation,
is equally obvious and obtrusive in every other department of the
National government.

In the _Electoral colleges_, the same cause produces the same
effect--the same power is wielded for the same purpose, as in the
Halls of Congress. Even the preliminary nominating conventions, before
they dare name a candidate for the highest office in the gift of the
people, must ask of the Genius of slavery, to what votary she will
show herself propitious. This very year, we see both the great
political parties doing homage to the slave power, by nominating
each a slaveholder for the chair of the State. The candidate of one
party declares. "I should have opposed, and would continue to oppose,
any scheme whatever of emancipation, either gradual or immediate;"
and adds, "It is not true, and I rejoice that it is not true, that
either of the two great parties of this country has any design or
aim at abolition. I should deeply lament it, if it were true."[94]

[Footnote 94: Henry Clay's speech in the United States Senate in 1839,
and confirmed at Raleigh, N.C. 1844.]

The other party nominates a man who says, "I have no hesitation in
declaring that I am in favor of the immediate re-annexation of Texas
to the territory and government of the United States."

Thus both the political parties, and the candidates of both, vie
with each other, in offering allegiance to the slave power, as a
condition precedent to any hope of success in the struggle for the
executive chair; a seat that, for more than three-fourths of the
existence of our constitutional government, has been occupied by a
slaveholder.

The same stern despotism overshadows even the sanctuaries of
_justice_. Of the nine Justices of the Supreme Court of the United
States, five are slaveholders, and of course, must be faithless to
their own interest, as well as recreant to the power that gives them
place, or must, so far as _they_ are concerned, give both to law and
constitution such a construction as shall justify the language of
John Quincy Adams, when he says--"The legislative, executive, and
judicial authorities, are all in their hands--for the preservation,
propagation, and perpetuation of the black code of slavery. Every
law of the legislature