S ADDRESS

AT NORTH BRIDGEWATER, NOVEMBER 6, 1844.

The benefits of the Constitution of the United States, were the
restoration of credit and reputation, to the country--the revival of
commerce, navigation, and ship-building--the acquisition of the means
of discharging the debts of the Revolution, and the protection and
encouragement of the infant and drooping manufactures of the country.
All this, however, as is now well ascertained, was insufficient to
propitiate the rulers of the Southern States to the adoption of the
Constitution. What they specially wanted was _protection_.--Protection
from the powerful and savage tribes of Indians within their borders,
and who were harassing them with the most terrible of wars--and
protection from their own negroes--protection from their
insurrections--protection from their escape--protection even to the
trade by which they were brought into the country--protection, shall I
not blush to say, protection to the very bondage by which they were
held. Yes! it cannot be denied--the slaveholding lords of the South
prescribed, as a condition of their assent to the Constitution, three
special provisions to secure the perpetuity of their dominion over
their slaves. The first was the immunity for twenty years of
preserving the African slave-trade; the second was the stipulation to
surrender fugitive slaves--an engagement positively prohibited by the
laws of God, delivered from Sinai; and thirdly, the exaction fatal to
the principles of popular representation, of a representation for
slaves--for articles of merchandise, under the name of persons.

The reluctance with which the freemen of the North submitted to the
dictation of these conditions, is attested by the awkward and
ambiguous language in which they are expressed. The word slave is most
cautiously and fastidiously excluded from the whole instrument. A
stranger, who should come from a foreign land, and read the
Constitution of the United States, would not believe that slavery or a
slave existed within the borders of our country. There is not a word
in the Constitution _apparently_ bearing upon the condition of
slavery, nor is there a provision but would be susceptible of
practical execution, if there were not a slave in the land.

The delegates from South Carolina and Georgia distinctly avowed that,
without this guarantee of protection to their property in slaves, they
would not yield their assent to the Constitution; and the freem