wo and a half million slaves in
the United States are held as property by about two hundred and fifty
thousand persons--giving an average of ten slaves to each slaveholder,
those twenty-five Representatives, each chosen, at most by only ten
thousand voters, and probably by less than three-fourths of that
number, were the representatives not only of the two hundred and fifty
thousand persons who chose them, but of property which, five years
ago, when slaves were lower in market, than at present, were
estimated, by the man who is now the most prominent candidate for the
Presidency, at twelve hundred millions of dollars--a sum, which, by
the natural increase of five years, and the enhanced value resulting
from a more prosperous state of the planting interest, cannot now be
less than fifteen hundred millions of dollars. All this vast amount of
property, as it is "peculiar," is also identical in its character. In
Congress, as we have seen, it is animated by one spirit, moves in one
mass, and is wielded with one aim; and when we consider that tyranny
is always timid, and despotism distrustful, we see that this vast
money power would be false to itself, did it not direct all its eyes
and hands, and put forth all its ingenuity and energy, to one
end--self-protection and self-perpetuation. And this it has ever done.
In all the vibrations of the political scale, whether in relation to a
Bank or Sub-Treasury, Free Trade or a Tariff, this immense power has
moved, and will continue to move, in one mass, for its own protection.

While the weight of the slave influence is thus felt in the House of
Representatives, "in the Senate of the Union," says JOHN QUINCY ADAMS,
"the proportion of slaveholding power is still greater. By the
influence of slavery in the States where the institution is tolerated,
over their elections, no other than a slaveholder can rise to the
distinction of obtaining a seat in the Senate; and thus, of the
fifty-two members of the federal Senate, twenty-six are owners of
slaves, and are as effectually representatives of that interest, as
the eighty-eight members elected by them to the House"

The dominant power which the Constitution gives to the slave interest,
as thus seen and exercised in the _Legislative Halls_ of our nation,
is equally obvious and obtrusive in every other department of the
National government.

In the _Electoral colleges_, the same cause produces the same
effect--the same power is wielded f