he North, as the North to suppress
insurrection at the South. It was next advanced by Mr. T. that the
people of the North were taxed for the support of slavery. Now, the
fact was, that America presented the extraordinary spectacle of a
nation free of taxes altogether; free of debt, with an overflowing
Treasury, with so much money, indeed, that they did not well know what
to do with it. It was almost needless to explain that the American
revenue was at present and had been for many years past, derived
solely from the sale of public lands, and from the customs or duties
levied on imported articles of various kinds. The payment of these
duties was entirely a voluntary tax, as in order to avoid it, it was
only necessary to refrain from the use of articles on which they were
imposed. As for Mr. T's argument about the standing army, employed in
keeping down the slaves, its value might be judged from the fact,
that, though even according to Mr. T's own showing, the slave
population amounted to two and a half millions, the army was composed
of only six thousand men, scattered along three frontiers, extending
two thousand miles each. Throughout the whole slaveholding states
there were not probably fifteen hundred soldiers. The charge was, in
fact, complete humbug, founded upon just nothing at all. Mr.
Thompson's seventh charge was, that Congress refused to suppress the
internal slave-trade. This was easily answered. There was in America
not one individual among five hundred who believed that Congress had
the power to do so. And, although he (Mr. B.) believed that Congress
had power to prevent the migration of slaves from state to state, as
fully as they had to prevent the importation of them into the states
from foreign countries; and that the exercise of this power, would
prevent, in a great degree, the trade in slaves from state to state,
yet very few concurred with him even in this modified view of the
case. And it must be admitted that the exercise of such a power, if
it really exists, would be attended with such results of unmixed evil
at this time, that no one whatever would deem it proper to attempt, or
possible to enforce its exercise. It was next said, that as Missouri,
a slaveholding state, had been admitted into the Union after the full
consideration of the subject by Congress, therefore the nation had
become identified with slavery, and responsible for its existence, at
least in Missouri. But on the supposition that,