Again, by the treaty with Spain, of February, 1819, the United States gained the territory from which the present State of Florida was formed, with an area of 59,268 square miles, and also the Spanish title of Oregon, from which they acquired an area of 341,463 square miles. Of this cession, Florida only has been allowed to the Southern States, while the balance—nearly six-sevenths of the whole—was appropriated by the North.

Again, by the Mexican cession, was acquired 526,078 square miles, which the North attempted to appropriate under the pretence of the Mexican laws, but which was prevented by the measures of the Compromise of 1850. Of slave territory cut off from Texas, there have been 44,662 square miles.

To sum this up, the total amount of territory acquired under the Constitution has been, by the

Of all this territory the Southern States have been permitted to enjoy only 283,713 square miles, while the Northern States have been allowed 2,083,889 square miles, or between seven and eight times more than has been allowed to the South.

The following are some of the invasions that have been from time to time proposed upon the Constitution in the halls of Congress by these agitators:

1. That the clause allowing the representation of three-fifths of the slaves shall be obliterated from the Constitution; or, in other words, that the South, already in a vast and increasing minority, shall be still further reduced in the scale of insignificance, and thus, on every attempted usurpation of her rights, be far below the protection of even a Presidential veto.

Next has been demanded the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, in the forts, arsenals, navy yards and other public establishments of the United States. What object have the abolitionists had for raising all this clamor about a little patch of soil ten miles square, and a few inconsiderable places thinly scattered over the land—a mere grain of sand upon the beach—unless it be to establish the precedent of Congressional interference, which would enable them to make a wholesale incursion upon the constitutional rights of the South, and to drain from the vast ocean of alleged national guilt its last drop? Does any one suppose that a mere microscopic concession like this would alone appease a conscience wounded and lacerated by the “sin of slavery?”

Another of these aggressions is that which was proposed under the pretext of regulating commerce between the States—namely, that no slave, for any purpose and under any circumstances whatever, shall be carried by his lawful owner from one slaveholding State to another; or, in other words, that where slavery now is there it shall remain forever, until by its own increase the slave population shall outnumber the white race, and thus by a united combination of causes—the fears of the master, the diminution in value of his property and the exhausted condition of the soil—the final purposes of fanaticism may be accomplished.

Still another in the series of aggressions was that attempted by the Wilmot Proviso, by which Congress was called upon to prohibit every slaveholder from removing with his slaves into the territory acquired from Mexico—a territory as large as the old thirteen States originally composing the Union. It appears to have been forgotten that whether slavery be admitted upon one foot of territory or not, it cannot affect the question of its sinfulness in the slightest degree, and that if every nook and corner of the national fabric were open to the institution, not a single slave would be added to the present number, or that, if excluded, their number would not be a single one the less.

We might also refer to the armed and bloody opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law, to the passage of Personal Liberty Bills, to political schemes in Congress and out, and to systematic agitation everywhere, with a view to stay the progress of the South, contract her political power, and eventually lead, at her expense, if not of the Union itself, to the utter expurgation of this “tremendous national sin.”

In short, the abolitionists have contributed nothing to the welfare of the slave or of the South. While over one hundred and fifty millions have been expended by slaveholders in emancipation, except in those sporadic cases where the amount was capital invested in self-glorification, the abolitionists have not expended one cent.

More than this: They have defeated the very objects at which they have aimed. When Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, or some other border State has come so near to the passage of gradual emancipation laws that the hopes of the real friends of the movement seemed about to be realized, abolitionism has stepped in, and, with frantic appeals to the passions of the negroes, through incendiary publications, dashed them to the ground, tightening the fetters of the slave, sharpening authority, and producing a reaction throughout the entire community that has crushed out every incipient thought of future manumission.

Such have been the obvious fruits of abolition. Church, state and society! Nothing has escaped it. Nowhere pure, nor peaceable, nor gentle, nor easily entreated, nor full of mercy and good fruits; but everywhere forward, scowling, uncompromising, and fierce, breaking peace, order and structure at every step, crushing with its foot what would not bow to its will; defying government, despising the Church, dividing the country, and striking Heaven itself if it dared to obstruct its progress; purifying, pacifying, promising nothing, but marking its entire pathway by disquiet, schism and ruin.

We come now to the train of historical facts upon which we rely in proof of the foregoing assertions.

THE FIRST EPOCH.

From 1787 to 1820.

CHAPTER II.

The first great epoch in the history of our country at which the spirit of abolitionism displayed itself was immediately preceding the formation of the present government. From the close of the Revolutionary War, in 1783, to the sitting of the Constitutional Convention, was a space of only four years. Two years more brings us to the adoption of the Constitution, in 1789. It was in the summer of 1787, and at the very time the Convention in Philadelphia was framing that instrument, that the Congress in New York was framing the ordinance which was passed on the 13th of July, 1787, by which slavery was forever excluded from all the territory northwest of the river Ohio, which, three years before, had been generously ceded to the United States by Virginia, and out of which have since been organised the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa.

According to the first census, taken in 1790, under the Constitution, when every State in the Union, with