South, as it certainly was in the North. Washington, in his will,
provided for the emancipation of his own slaves, and said to Jefferson
that it "was among his first wishes to see some plan adopted by which
slavery in his country might be abolished." Jefferson said, referring to
the institution: "I tremble for my country when I think that God is just;
that His justice cannot sleep forever,"--and Franklin, Adams, Hamilton,
and Patrick Henry were all utterly opposed to it. But it was made the
subject of a fatal compromise in the Federal Constitution, whereby its
existence was recognized in the States as a basis of representation, the
prohibition of the importation of slaves was postponed for twenty years,
and the return of fugitive slaves provided for. But no imminent danger
was apprehended from it till, by the invention of the cotton gin in 1792,
cotton culture by negro labor became at once and forever the leading
industry of the South, and gave a new impetus to the importation of
slaves, so that in 1808, when the constitutional prohibition took effect,
their numbers had vastly increased. From that time forward slavery
became the basis of a great political power, and the Southern States,
under all circumstances and at every opportunity, carried on a brave and
unrelenting struggle for its maintenance and extension.

The conscience of the North was slow to rise against it, though bitter
controversies from time to time took place. The Southern leaders
threatened disunion if their demands were not complied with. To save the
Union, compromise after compromise was made, but each one in the end was
broken. The Missouri Compromise, made in 1820 upon the occasion of the
admission of Missouri into the Union as a slave State, whereby, in
consideration of such admission, slavery was forever excluded from the
Northwest Territory, was ruthlessly repealed in 1854, by a Congress
elected in the interests of the slave power, the intent being to force
slavery into that vast territory which had so long been dedicated to