equal, and that all have natural rights, such as life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness. And yet, in the slave States, the interpretation
of the Constitution is such, that the free States are accused of
violating it, unless they acknowledge that it recognizes slavery as a
natural right, and an institution to be perpetuated and enlarged, and
put upon the same level with the blessing of freedom, in the
territories. Slavery virtually must be nationalized, and the
Constitution be interpreted so as to carry it all over the territories
now existing, or to be acquired, or the free States have broken the
Constitution, and the slave States may leave the Union whenever it suits
their pleasure. It is easy to see how time has brought about such a
revolution of feeling and idea respecting slavery. It can be shown that
circumstances have changed altogether the relations of slavery, and
while names have remained the same, the things which they represent have
assumed a radical difference. It can be shown that the introduction of
the cotton-gin, and the increased profits of slave labor, have given an
impetus to the domestic institution that brings with it an entire
revolution of opinion. When slavery was unprofitable to the
slaveholders; when, in the early days of the republic, the number of
slaves was comparatively small; when, all over the country, the veterans
of the Revolution existed to testify to the hardships they endured for
national independence, and eulogize even the help of the negro in
securing it, then slavery was regarded a curse, an evil to be curtailed
and in time obliterated; then the local character of slavery, as the
creature of municipal law, not to be recognized where such law does not
exist, was the opinion universally of the people. But now, with the
growing profits of slavery, with the increase of the power of this
institution, other and far different language is held. Disguise it as we
may, there do exist great motives that have silently yet powerfully
operated within the last thirty or forty years, to change the popular