Instructions to ministers to the Panama Congress Speeches in Congress - Ac- - tion in Congress, on a proposition to ac- ATTEMPT TO ESTABLISH A CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS Proceedings in Charleston-Let- ter of Post-Master General -President's Message Alabama indictment -- Bill in- troduced into the Senate - Proceedings VIOLATIONS OF THE RIGHT OF PETITION AND RESPONSIBILITY OF THE FREE STATES - Inti- mate connexion between the North and the South-Power of the North in the Probable influence of the Anti-slavery agita- tion on the permanency of the Union- Rights of the South-Consequences of VIEW, & c. OUR Fathers in forming the Federal Constitution entered into a guilty compromise on the subject of Slavery, and heavily is their sin now visited upon their children. By that instrument, the continuance of the African slave-trade was guaranteed for twenty years; a larger proportional representation in Congress, and a larger vote in the election of the Executive, was accorded to the slave-holding, than to the other States:-the power of the nation was pledged to keep the slave in subjection; and should he ever escape from his fetters, his master was authorized to pursue and to seize him, in any and every of the sovereign States, composing our wide-spread confederacy. We are not about to exhibit the corrupting influence of this compact on the religious sympathies and sentiments of our countrymen, in regard to slavery; nor is it our present purpose to trace the retributive justice of Heaven in that recklessness of human life, and in that contempt of human and divine obligations, which are hurrying on the slave States to anarchy and barbarism; or in the eagerness so generally exhibited by our northern politicians and merchants, to barter the constitutional rights of themselves and their fellow-citizens, for the votes and the trade of the South.* We propose simply to take a view of the action of the Federal Government in behalf of slavery, a subject that has yet been but partially investigated; and we flatter ourselves, that in the course of our inquiries, we shall develope facts, * Before this language is condemned as harsh and exaggerated, we beg the reader to recall some of the prominent events of the last few years, connected with this subject: the Lynch clubs and cruel inflictions of the South, the sacking of the Charleston post-office, the wholesale and unpunished murders at Vicksburg, and the frequent burnings alive of negroes, and in particular, of McIntosh, taken by the citizens of St. Louis from the prison, chained to a tree, and consumed by a slow fire-and the advice of Judge Lawless to the grand jury, not to notice the diabolical atrocity, because it was in fact, the act of the community! As to the North, we point in our justification, to the innumerable mobs excited by politicians, against the friends of emancipation, -the various attempts made by the state authorities to propitiate the South, by a surrender of the freedom of speech, and of the press, -to the zeal of the merchants in our seaports, in getting up anti-abolition meetings, to the conflagration of Pennsylvania Hall, and to the martyrdom of Lovejoy. In truth, our whole land is strewed with monuments of the wickedness and tyranny of alavery monuments, which declare in no doubtful language, that our great national sin is not unheeded by Him, to whom ver geance belongeth. which, with some at least of our readers, will possess the merit of novelty. These facts for the most part, derive their origin from THE FEDERAL RATIO OF REPRESENTATION. The Constitution provides that the members of the Lower House of Congress shall be proportioned to the free inhabitants of the States they represent, except that in each State, three-fifths of the slave population shall be for this purpose considered as free inhabitants. In other words, every five slaves are to be counted as three white persons. For example, if by law every 60,000 free inhabitants may elect a representative, a district containing 45,000 whites and 25,000 slaves, becomes by the federal ratio entitled to a member. This stipulation in the Constitution has from the beginning given the slaveholders an undue weight in the national councils. A few instances will illustrate its practical effect. The whole number of the House of Representatives is at present 242; sent from 26 States. Of these, the following are slave States, viz:- Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Missouri, and Arkansas. These States with |