THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.--This officer has the
appointment of all committees, and exerts an immense influence on the
legislation of the country. During 31 of the 34 years from 1811 to 1845
the Speakers were all slave-holders.

The slave power, having thus the whole machinery of government under
its control, can at any time bring all the resources of the nation to
bear upon the preservation and extension of the "peculiar institution."
While Florida, for instance, belonged to Spain, it furnished an asylum
for runaway slaves from the neighbouring States. It must therefore be
purchased by the Union, and five millions of dollars were paid for it.
Still the native Indians, those children of the forest, afforded a
shelter to fugitives from slavery. They must therefore be either
exterminated or exiled. A war was waged against them. They were driven
from the homes of their fathers, and the negroes among them hunted and
shot like wild beasts. At the urgent recommendation of Zachary
Taylor--the person who in March next will doubtless mount the
presidential chair--blood-hounds were purchased as AUXILIARIES to the
army, at a cost of five thousand dollars; and blood-hounds and
soldiers and officers marched together under the "star-spangled banner"
in pursuit of the panting fugitives from Southern oppression. In this
expedition they captured 460 negroes, each one at the cost of the lives
of two white men, and at a further expense of at least eighty thousand
dollars per head. The whole outlay of the war was _forty millions of
dollars_, most of which was drawn from the pockets of Northern people.

The Annexation of Texas and the Mexican War--all for the perpetuation
and extension of slavery--are fresh in your remembrance.

And here I quit the land of "The Bond and the Free."