be the duty of some definitely to prepare for separation, amicably if they can, violently if they must.” And when the war measures, in 1815, pressed heavily upon Massachusetts and other New England States, they met in convention, at Hartford, Connecticut, to consider how they might obtain relief. The convention, in considering the rights of the several States, declared, "That Acts of Congress, in violation of the Constitution, are absolutely void, is an indisputable position. It does not, however, consist with the respect from a confederate State towards the general Government, to fly to open resistance upon every infraction of the Constitution. The mode and the energy of the opposition should always conform to the nature of the violation, the intention of the authors, the extent of the evil inflicted, the determination manifested to persist in it, and the danger of delay. But in case of deliberate, dangerous, and palpable infractions of the Constitution, affecting the sovereignty of the State and liberties of the people, it is not only the right, but the duty, of each State to interpose its authority for their protection, in the manner best calculated to secure that end. When emergencies occur which are either beyond the reach of judicial tribunals or too pressing to admit of the delay incident to their forms, States, which have no common umpire, must be their own judges, and execute their own decisions."

Having thus asserted the right of each State to redress its own wrongs inflicted by the working of the Federal Government, and that the State is to judge for itself when it is wronged, the convention proceeds to suggest amendments to the Constitution which would prevent the New England States from being oppressed, in future, by the working of the Federal Government in the hands of a majority from some other section of the country. The first amendment proposed was to lessen the relative power of the Southern States, by taking from them any representation in Congress based upon their slaves. The second amendment proposed was to prevent the admission of any new State into the Union without the concurrence of two-thirds of both houses of Congress. "The admission of new States into the Union [said the convention] formed at pleasure in the Western region, has destroyed the balance of power which existed among the original States, and deeply affects their interests. . . . . None of the old States can find an interest in creating prematurely an overwhelming Western influence, which may hereafter discern (as it has heretofore) benefits to be derived to them by wars and commercial restrictions."

It was now the year 1819, and so dominant had been the influence of the Southern States in the working of the Federal Government, that all the Presidents, as we have seen, except one, had been elected

from a slave State. And the exceptional one was defeated for the second term. The New England States, therefore, determined to persist in their policy begun in 1803, and declared in the Hartford Convention in 1815, of resisting the admission of any new State into the Union which would be adverse to their relative power in the working of the Federal Government. When, therefore, Missouri, which was a slave` territory identified with the Southern States because of slavery, asked for admission, as a State, into the Union, the New England States opposed it, unless she would, by her Constitution, abrogate slavery forever. William Pinkney, the great lawyer, was then a Senator from Maryland in the Congress of the United States, and stood forth as the champion of the equality and sovereignty of a State when admitted into the Union. Rufus King, a Senator from New York and a man of great ability and high honor, was the leader of the party which wished to introduce States into the Union manacled by Federal authority. Such was the marvellous power of Pinkney's vindication of the right of States to be admitted, if admitted at all, into the Union on no other conditions than those imposed by the Constitution of the United States, that the enemies of State sovereignty quailed under his mighty blows. And Rufus King, while yet subdued by Pinkney's Titanic strength, remarked to John Nelson, whom I have mentioned as my preceptor in the law,

then just elected a representative in Congress, that the speech of Pinkney had enlarged his admiration of the capacity of the human mind.

The argument of Pinkney so far prevailed, that political managers on both sides settled the question, for the time, by the Missouri compromise-an Act of Congress which provided that slavery should not be carried into any territory north of a certain geographical line. Upon this settlement, Missouri was admitted as a slave State into the Union in 1820.

This was the first direct attack, made by the representatives of New England civilization, upon the provisions of the Constitution which guarantee equal rights to the slave States. Because slave labor was not profitable in the New England States, slaves had gradually passed from those States, by sale, to the Southern States. The question of the balance of power in the politics of the country was, therefore, becoming a sectional question between slave-holding and non-slaveholding States. That the question was, at this time, rather a question of political power than of hostility to slavery, is shown by the fact that while the New England States were opposing the admission of Missouri into the Union, some of their prominent citizens were engaged in the African slave-trade, and Judge Story was, throughout his circuit, charging the grand juries, by elaborate arguments, to bring the nefarious traffickers to punishment. The African slave

trade had been made a crime by Act of Congress. But before the Act, and from the first settlement of the country, the colonies, and afterwards the States, both of New England and of the South, had acted upon the principle that a negro has no rights which a white man is bound to respect. All the wealth of New England, and all her institutions, have their roots in the nefarious traffic of men and women torn from their African homes, and subjected to the sufferings and cruelties of a prison-ship, to be sold into perpetual slavery to a different people.

"The Boston Gazette and Country Journal," on Monday, July 22d, 1776, then published at Watertown, contains the Declaration of Independence and the proceedings of many towns in Massachusetts in regard to it; and it also contains the following advertisement:

"TO BE SOLD.

"A stout, strong, healthy negro man, about twentyfive years of age; has had the small-pox; can turn his hand to almost anything. He likes farming business the best he is well clothed. The pay may be on interest, giving security. Inquire of the printer."

When the Federal Constitution was established, in 1789, it recognized in a special manner the institution of slavery, founding upon it even the relative sectional representation in Congress, and by an express provision gave the authority and guaranteed the right to