But what was the measure which thus aroused the veteran orator, compared with that before us? It was only a transient act of wrong, small in proportions. Here is an act of wrong permanent in influence, colossal in proportions, operating in an extensive region, affecting millions of citizens, positively endangering the peace of the country, and covering its name with dishonor. Such is the character of the present attempt. I exhibit it as I see it. Others may not see it so. Of course, its supporters cannot see it so. The British Ministry did not see the measure which Chatham denounced as he saw it, and as history now sees it. Senators would not support the present proposition, if they thought it disgraceful; nor would the British Ministry have supported that earlier proposition, had they thought it disgraceful. Unhappily, they did not think it so; but I trust you will be warned by their example. With the eloquence of Chatham, another also from his place in the House of Lords held up to reprobation that apprentice system which, under the sanction of both Houses of Parliament, followed Emancipation in the British West Indies. I refer to Brougham. He did not hesitate to exclaim, “Prodigious, portentous injustice!” And then, continuing, he denounced it as “the gross, the foul, the outrageous, the monstrous, the incredible injustice of which we are daily and hourly guilty towards the whole of the ill-fated African race.”[223] But how small the injustice which aroused his reprobation, compared with that you are asked to perpetuate in Constitutional Law! The wrong he arraigned was against eight hundred thousand persons in distant islands, to whom the people of Great Britain were bound by no peculiar ties, and who were to them only fellow-men. The wrong I now arraign is against four million persons, constituting a considerable portion of the “people” of the United States, to whom we are bound by ties of gratitude, and who are to us fellow-citizens. From the moment I heard this proposition first read at the desk I have not been able to think of it without pain. The reflection that it may find place in the National Constitution, or even that it may be sanctioned by Congress, is intolerable. And this becomes more so, when I call to mind the circumstances by which we are surrounded and the exigency of the hour. Lord Bacon tells us that the highest function which men can be called to perform on earth is that of founders of states, or, as he expresses it, _conditores imperiorum_.[224] Such is our present duty. We are to help in this great work by a fundamental provision fixing the basis of our political system for an indefinite future. There are none among the great lawgivers of history who have had a sublimer task.