So long as the cotton and slaveholding interest could be held in check and kept measurably subordinate to the supremacy of the Constitution, there was hope that eventually the steadily-increasing forces of free labor would overpower the gradually-decreasing forces of slave labor. It was believed that by the silent action of natural laws freedom would, in the long run, assert itself superior, and the ideal of our Government, universal freedom, would thus at last become a reality and fact. Such, we have been taught to believe, was the doctrine of the statesmanship of 1850. Such was the underlying argument of Webster's great 7th of March speech--the enduring monument of his unselfish patriotism, seeking only the good of his whole country. Such was his meaning when he declared that the condition of the territories was fixed by an 'irrepealable law,' needing no irritating legislation to assure their freedom. Contrary to the hopes of our fathers, the slave system had prospered and grown strong--chiefly because of the impetus given to it by the growth of cotton, as was clearly shown by Webster in the speech just noted. We suppose no candid reader of our history will deny this point. But the system had no vital force within itself, and could not withstand those laws of nature and free emigration to which we have adverted. It sought protective legislation, and got it. Still, it was hampered by limitations, notwithstanding it had present control of the cotton growth. So the question of the slave trade was mooted. Thus it came to pass that within half a century after it had expired by limitation of the Constitution, that monstrous anomaly of the Christian era was sought to be revived. And so corrupt had public sentiment become that the slave trader captain of the yacht Wanderer could not be convicted by a jury of his countrymen of violating the ordinance of the nation against this traffic.[8] Will any one dare affirm that the tone of public feeling in the South on this subject was not higher and purer in the time of Jefferson than in the time of Buchanan? To what a depth of moral degradation the nation might have sunk under the thus retrogressive influences of ungodly Mammon, setting God and Christianity at total defiance, may not easily be conjectured. But that law of action and reaction which balances the powers of nature with such equal justice, holds good also in the world of mind; and in the providence of God the time of reaction came at last, and the temper of the nation reverted to its pristine purity. That time came when defiant Mammon waxed so bold as to threaten the nation's life. Under the protective statutes of Congress, jealously watching over the local institutions of States, slavery had grown to be a dominating power in the country; and, bound by legislation and compromise, and the strict letter of the Constitution, the people could only protest, and bide the inevitable issue of such arrogant domination.