l power to
exclude it from a State as a condition of admittance to the Union. On
the other side slavery was defended not only as an industrial advantage,
but as morally right and a benefit to both blacks and whites. It was
strenuously declared that the people of each incoming State had a right
to determine their own institutions; and it was also urged that to keep
the balance of power between the two sections, it was necessary that
slave States should be admitted equally with free. It was disclosed with
startling suddenness that two systems of labor and society stood face to
face, with different ideals, different interests, and in a mutual
opposition to which no limits could be foreseen. It was plain that with
the increase of profit from slavery all idea of its abolition had been
quietly dropping from the minds of the great mass of the Southern
community. It was equally plain that the sentiment against slavery in
the North had increased greatly in distinctness and intensity. There was
apparent, too, a divergence of material interests, and a keen rivalry of
political interests. The South had been losing ground in comparison.
From an equality in population, the North had gained a majority of
600,000 in a total of 10,000,000. The approaching census of 1820 would
give the North a preponderance of thirty in the House. In wealth, too,
the North had been obviously drawing ahead. Only in the Senate did the
South retain an equality of power, and, to maintain at least this, by
the accession of new slave States, was an avowed object of Southern
politicians.

The debate was so hot, the underlying causes of opposition were so
obvious, and the avowed determination of the contestants was so
resolute, that the unity and continuance of the nation was unmistakably
threatened. State Legislatures passed resolutions for one side or the
other, according to their geographical location; only the Delaware
Legislature was superior to the sectional consideration, and voted
unanimously in favor of holding Missouri for freedom. The alarm as to
the continuance of the Union was general and great. No one felt it more
keenly than Jefferson, startled in his scholarly and peaceful retirement
at Monticello, as he said, as by "a fire-bell in the night." He wrote:
"In the gloomiest movements of the Revolutionary war, I never had an
apprehension equal to that I feel from this source." It was a grave omen
that Jefferson's sympathies were with his section rath