By the Slave Power I understand that combination of persons, or, perhaps, of politicians, whose animating principle is the perpetuation and extension of Slavery, with the advancement of Slaveholders. That such a combination exists is apparent from our history. It shows itself in the mildest, and perhaps the least offensive form, in the undue proportion of offices held by Slaveholders under the National Constitution. It is still worse apparent in a succession of acts by which the National Government has been prostituted to Slavery. Mindful of the Missouri Compromise, with its sanction of Slavery,--mindful of the annexation of Texas, with its fraud and iniquity,--mindful also of the war against Mexico, in itself a great crime, where wives and sisters have been compelled to mourn sons, husbands, and brothers untimely slain,--as these things, dark, dismal, atrocious, rise before us, may we not brand their unquestionable source as a tyranny hateful as that which sustained the Bastile? The Slave Power is the criminal. This combination is unknown to the Constitution; nay, it exists in defiance of that instrument, and of the recorded opinions uttered constantly by its founders. The Constitution was the crowning labor of the men who gave us the Declaration of Independence. It was established to perpetuate, in organic law, those rights which the Declaration had promulgated, and which the sword of Washington had secured. "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that _among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness_." Such are the emphatic words which our country took upon its lips, as it first claimed its place among the nations of the earth. These were its baptismal vows. And the preamble of the Constitution renews them, when it declares its objects, among other things, to "establish justice, promote the general welfare, and _secure the blessings of liberty_ to ourselves and our posterity." Mark: not to establish _injustice_, not to promote the welfare of a class, or of a few slaveholders, but the _general_ welfare; not to foster the curse of slavery, but to secure the blessings of _liberty_. And the declared opinions of the fathers were all in harmony with these two charters. "I can only say," said Washington, "that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery; but there is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is by legislative authority; and this, as far as my suffrage will go, shall never be wanting."[240] Patrick Henry, while confessing that he was the master of slaves, said: "I will not, I cannot justify it. However culpable my conduct, I will so far pay my devoir to Virtue as to own the excellence and rectitude of her precepts, and lament my want of conformity to them. I believe a time will come, when an