slave representation in the lower House of Congress. It meant to the
Northern section indefinite Southern ascendency, prolonged Southern lead
in national legislation. All the smouldering passions of the earlier
period, of embargo, and non-intercourse, and the war of 1812, flamed
suddenly and fiercely in the heart of the free States.

The length and bitterness of that controversy excited the gravest
apprehensions for the stability of the Union. The dread of disunion led
to mutual concessions, to the Missouri Compromise. The slave-holding
section got its immediate claim allowed, and the free States secured the
erection of a line to the north of which slavery was forever prohibited.
And besides this, the admission of Maine was supposed to neutralize
whatever political advantages, which would accrue to the South from the
admission of Missouri as a slave State. Both sections were content, and
the slavery question was thought to be permanently settled. With this
final disposition of an ugly problem, the peace and permanence of the
Union were viewed universally as fixed facts. Still, considering the
gravity of the case, a little precaution would not go amiss. The slavery
question had shaken men's faith in the durability of the republic. It
was therefore adjudged a highly dangerous subject. The political
physicians with one accord prescribed on the ounce-of-prevention
principle, _quiet_, SILENCE, and OBLIVION, to be administered in large
and increasing doses to both sections. Mum was the word, and mum the
country solemnly and suddenly became from Maine to Georgia. But, alas!
beneath the ashes of this Missouri business, deep below the unnatural
silence and quiet, inextinguishable fires were burning and working again
to the surface of politics. In such circumstances a fresh outbreak of
old animosities must occur as soon as the subterranean heat should reach
the point of highest combustibility in the federal system. The tariff
proved to be that point of highest combustibility.