an element into a free constitution;
and to sacrifice the known and _declared_ rights of a third and weaker
party, in order to cement a union between two stronger ones. Such an
arrangement ought not, and could not, come to good. It has given the
slave States a controlling power which they will always keep, so long
as we remain together.

President John Adams was of opinion, that this ascendency might be
attributed to an early mistake, originating in what he called the
"Frankford advice." When the first Congress was summoned in
Philadelphia, Doctor Rush, and two or three other eminent men of
Pennsylvania, met the Massachusetts delegates at Frankford, a few miles
from Philadelphia, and conjured them, as they valued the success of the
common cause, to let no measure of importance _appear_ to originate with
the North, to yield precedence in all things to Virginia, and lead her
if possible to commit herself to the Revolution. Above all, they begged
that not a word might be said about "independence;" for that a strong
prejudice already existed against the delegates from New-England, on
account of a supposed design to throw off their allegiance to the
mother country. "The Frankford advice" was followed. The delegates from
Virginia took the lead on all occasions.

His son, John Q. Adams, finds a more substantial reason. In his speech
on the Tariff, February 4, 1833, he said: "Not three days since, Mr.
Clayton, of Georgia, called that species of population (viz. slaves)
the machinery of the South. Now that machinery had twenty odd
representatives[AB] in that hall,--not elected by the machinery, but
by those who owned it. And if he should go back to the history of this
government from its foundation, it would be easy to prove that its
decisions had been affected, in general, by less majorities than that.
Nay, he might go farther, and insist that that very representation had
ever been, in fact, _the ruling power of this government_."

[Footnote AB: There are now twenty-five _odd_ representatives--that is,
representatives of slaves.]

"The history of the Union has afforded a continual proof that this
representation of property, which they enjoy, as well in the election of
President and Vice-President of the United States, as upon the floor of
the House of Representatives, has secured to the slaveholding States the
entire control of the national policy, and, almost without exception,
the possession of the highest executive offic