Produced by Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive.) THE SLAVERY QUESTION. SPEECH OF HON. JOHN M. LANDRUM, OF LA., DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, APRIL 27, 1860. The House being in the Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union-- Mr. LANDRUM said: Mr. CHAIRMAN: That we are now threatened with great and alarming evils, no one who will take a calm and unprejudiced survey of the condition of the country can for a moment doubt. In the formation of this Government there existed a spirit of harmony and concession from the citizens of each State in this Union towards the citizens of every other State; and this spirit was so plainly exhibited in the convention which framed the Constitution of the United States--that it was so adjusted, so adapted to the wants of all the States entering into the Confederacy--that it received the almost unanimous support of the Convention. Harmony and concord and good feeling reigned throughout the whole Confederacy. The citizen of South Carolina rejoiced in the prosperity and commended the virtues of the citizen of Massachusetts; and the citizen of Massachusetts responded to the feeling of the citizen of South Carolina. That was the feeling which pervaded the citizens of this common country when the Constitution was formed; and that was the spirit which pervaded it for the thirty years afterwards during which the Government was administered by the fathers of the Republic. But now, Mr. Chairman, what state of things does this country exhibit? A people discordant; a great sectional party formed, and the whole history of the country ransacked in a search for subjects of denunciation on the part of citizens of one portion of the Confederacy against citizens of the other. In that convention which framed the Constitution, which is the basis of our Government, slave States were admitted without objection. Concessions were made to slave States on every point that they demanded, and which they deemed essential to the preservation and protection of their rights in this Union. Ay, there was no objection then to the admission of a State into the Union because she permitted slavery. So far from that, the Constitution abounds with express provisions for the protection of their property, and for the security of their rights. It was not objected to a free State that she should form a member of the Confederacy because she did not tolerate slavery. But the patriotic founders of the Republic looked to the interests of the whole country, and sacrificed prejudices whenever sacrifices were necessary, "_in order to form a more perfect union_."