It is not to be denied, that the sedulous care with which this great provision was made for the general prosperity has had the effect of impressing on the national character a strong spirit of acquisition. The character of a people, however, is to be judged not merely by the pursuit or the possession of wealth, but chiefly by the use which they make of it. If the inhabitants of the United States can justly claim distinction for the benevolent virtues; if the wealth that is eagerly sought and rapidly acquired is freely used for the relief of human suffering; if learning, science, and the arts are duly cultivated; if popular education is an object of lavish expenditure; if the institutions of religion, though depending on a purely voluntary support, are provided for liberally, and from conscientious motives;--then is the national spirit of acquisition not without fruits, of which it has no need to be ashamed. The objection, that the Constitution of the United States, and the immense prosperity which has flowed from it, were obtained by certain concessions in favor of the institution of slavery, results from a merely superficial view of the subject. If we would form a right estimate of the gain or loss to human nature effected by any given political arrangement, we must take into consideration the antecedent facts, and endeavor to judge whether a better result could have been obtained by a different mode of dealing with them. We shall then be able to appreciate the positive good that has been gained, or the positive loss that has been suffered. The prominent facts to be considered in this connection are, in the first place, that slavery existed, and would long exist, in certain of the States; and that the condition of the African race in those States was universally regarded as a matter of purely local concern. It could not in fact have been otherwise; for there were slaves in every State excepting Massachusetts and New Hampshire; and among the other States in which measures had been, or were likely to be, taken for the removal of slavery, there was a great variety of circumstances affecting the time and mode in which it should be finally extinguished. As soon as the point was settled, in the formation of the Constitution of the United States, that the State governments were to be preserved, with all their powers unimpaired which were not required by the objects of the national government to be surrendered to the Union, the domestic relations of their inhabitants with each other necessarily remained under their exclusive control. Those relations were not involved in the purposes of the Federal Union.