Such was the aspect of affairs with reference to this question at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. The spirit of affection created and fostered by the revolution--the cords binding together a common country in a common struggle and a common destiny--were too strong in the breasts of our revolutionary fathers for them to countenance the feeble efforts even of those prompted by motives of humanity for the immediate emancipation of the slaves, and by almost the entire North of that period they were regarded with general disfavor, as an unwarrantable interference with an already established institution of the country. The consequence was that they sank into disrepute, and the country was blessed with and prospered under their comparative cessation for a number of years. This hostile feeling long lay dormant, and it was not until the year 1818, when Missouri applied for admission into the Union as a State, that the period of quiet was interrupted, and the little streams of abolitionism that had been quietly forming, merged into the foul and noisome current which is now devastating the land, has undermined and destroyed the Union, and is exerting its blighting influence upon every department of the political and social fabric. SECOND EPOCH. CHAPTER III. History of the Missouri Compromise, 1820--Benjamin Lundy and the "_Genius of Universal Emancipation_"--Insurrection at Charleston, S. C.--The result of agitation in Congress--British Influence and Interference--Abolition in the East and West Indies--Remarkable opinion of Sir Robert Peel--Letter from Lord Brougham on the Harper's Ferry Insurrection. Probably there has never been in the history of the United States, except at the present time, a more critical moment, arising from the violence of domestic excitement, than the agitation of the Missouri question from 1818 to 1821. On the 18th day of December, 1818, the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States presented before that body a memorial of the Legislature of the Territory of Missouri, praying that they might be admitted to form a Constitution and State government upon "an equal footing with the original States." Here originated the difficulty. Slavery existed in the Territory proposed to be erected into an independent State. The proposition was therefore to admit Missouri as a slave State, which involved three very essential and important features. These were:-- 1. The recognition of slavery therein as a State institution by the national sovereignty. 2. The guarantee of protection to the ownership of her slave property by the laws of the United States, as in the original States under the Constitution. 3. That the right of representation in the National Legislature should be apportioned on her slave population, as in the original States. This was a recognition of slavery, which at once aroused the interest of the people in every section of the Union.