gislature cannot be convened) _against
domestic violence_.

The first of these clauses, relating to representation, gives to
10,000 inhabitants of Carolina equal weight in the government with
40,000 inhabitants of Massachusetts, provided they are rich enough
to hold 50,000 slaves:--and accordingly confers on a slaveholding
community additional political power for every slave held among them,
thus tempting them to continue to uphold the system.

Its result has been, in the language of John Quincy Adams, "to make
the preservation, propagation, and perpetuation of slavery the vital
and animating spirit of the National Government;" and again, to
enable "a knot of slaveholders to give the law and prescribe the
policy of the country." So that "since 1830 slavery, slaveholding,
slavebreeding, and slavetrading have formed the whole foundation of
the policy of the Federal Government." The second and the last
articles relating to insurrection and domestic violence, perfectly
innocent in themselves--yet being made with the fact directly in
view that slavery exists among us, do deliberately pledge the whole
national force against the unhappy slave if he imitate our fathers
and resist oppression--thus making us partners in the guilt of
sustaining slavery: the third is a promise, on the part of the whole
North, to return fugitive slaves to their masters; a deed which
God's law expressly condemns, and which every noble feeling of our
nature repudiates with loathing and contempt.

These are the clauses which the abolitionist, by voting or taking
office, engages to uphold. While he considers slaveholding to be sin,
he still rewards the master with additional political power for
every additional slave that he can purchase. Thinking slaveholding
to be sin, he pledges to the master the aid of the whole army and
navy of the nation to reduce his slave again to chains, should he at
any time succeed a moment in throwing them off. Thinking
slaveholding to be sin, he goes on, year after year, appointing by
his vote judges and marshals to aid in hunting up the fugitives, and
seeing that they are delivered back to those who claim them! How
beautifully consistent are his _principles_ and his _promises_!

OBJECTIONS.

OBJECTION I.

Allowing that the clause relating to representation and that relating
to insurrections are immoral, it is contended that the article which
orders the return of fugitive slaves was not meant to apply to slave