s of all other persons_"--that is to say, _slaves_, for
once called "persons!" Here is a positive premium on slave-holding.
This constitutes an aristocracy of the most monstrous character, and
introduces into the social fabric an element as absurd as it is
perilous. Talk of the aristocracy of England, and the undue influence
of landed proprietors! You have nothing half so unjust and vicious as
this. Suppose the Southern States have two millions and a half of
slaves: for that amount of property they have one million and a half of
additional votes; while in the free States there is no property
representation whatever. Or look at the question in another aspect. Two
citizens have each a capital of 5,000_l._ to invest. The one invests in
shipping or commerce in New York, and at the time of the election,
counts _one_; the other invests in slaves in South Carolina, obtaining
for the sum mentioned a whole gang of 100 human beings of both sexes
and of all ages, and at the time of the election he counts
_sixty-one_,--swamping with his 100 slaves the votes of sixty-one
respectable merchants in a free State! This it is which has constituted
an aristocracy of about 200,000 slaveholders in the South, the ruling
power in the United States. It has made the preservation and extension
of slavery the vital and moving principle of the national policy. So
that ever since 1830 slavery, slave-holding, slave-breeding, and
slave-trading have enjoyed the special and fostering care of the
Federal Government. As to the _quid pro quo_--the taxation that was to
be connected with the representation of "three-fifths of all other
persons," that has been almost entirely evaded. "There has not been,"
says a New England Reviewer, "if we mistake not, but in one instance,
and then in a very light degree, an assessment of direct taxation."

Art. I., sect. 8, says, "Congress shall have power"--among other
things--"to suppress _insurrections_." And Art. IV., sect. 4, says,
"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a
republican form of government; and shall protect each of them against
invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive
(when the legislature cannot be convened), against _domestic
violence_."

These clauses pledge the whole force of the United States' army, and
navy too, if needs be, to the maintenance of slavery in any or in all
the States and Districts in which it may exist. But for this, the
system cou