racy have from the beginning
chosen the Presidents, and the high officers of state, and have
controlled the policy of the Government, from a question of peace or
war, to the establishment of a tariff or a bank. In the executive
department they have dictated all appointments, from a letter-carrier to
an ambassador; an amusing illustration of which I find in my recent
correspondence. A late member of the Massachusetts legislature, writes
on the Eighth Month (August) 26, 1841:

"One instance of the all-pervading _espionage_ of the slave
power I may mention. The newly appointed postmaster of
Philadelphia employed, among his numerous clerks and
letter-carriers, Joshua Coffin, who, some three years ago, aided
in restoring to liberty a free colored citizen of New York, who
had been kidnapped and sold into slavery. The appointment of the
postmaster not being confirmed, he wrote to his friends in
Congress to inquire the reason, and was told that the delay was
occasioned by the fact that he had employed Coffin as one of his
letter-carriers! Coffin was immediately dismissed, and the
senate in a few days confirmed the appointment! Is not this a
pitiful business?"

If the reader, who wishes further information, will consult William
Jay's work, entitled "A View of the Action of the Federal Government in
behalf of Slavery," he will find ample historical proof that the
internal and external administration of the Union--legislative,
executive, and diplomatic--has been employed, without any deviation from
consistency, to subserve the interests of the slave-holding States. Yet
these States are, in population, numerically weaker than those of the
North, and inferior, to a far greater degree, in wealth, intelligence,
and the other elements of political power. They are strong only in the
compactness of their union, while the citizens of the free States are
divided in interest and opinion. Here, then, is presented a distinct and
legitimate object for those of the abolitionists who regard their
political rights as a trust for the benefit of the oppressed and
helpless, to combine the scattered and divided power of the North into a
united phalanx, which shall wrest the administration of the Federal
Union from the slave-holding interest, and shall purify the general
Government from the contamination of slavery, by reversing its general
policy on that subject, and by the adoption of the specifi