Address on the annexation of Texas, and the aspect of slavery in the United States, in connection therewith: delivered in Boston November 14 and 18, 1845 Page: 26 of 56
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26
equal throughout all the States, by securing to the slave the
enjoyment of the right as soon as he can possess it for himself,
but not conferring upon his master, in consideration of
his being a slave-holder, an extension of the electoral privilege
far beyond what is or should be allowed to any propertyholder
in a Free State. That such an amendment should have
been proposed by the concurrence of all parties in two successive
legislatures is a fact which shows somewhat conclusively
that all amongst us have felt this encroachment upon
our political rights; and it is scarcely to be presumed
that the reception of the amendment in Congress, and the
action upon it in the Slave States, will have abated the conviction,
that our duty to ourselves requires of us to be prepared
to meet the conflict which slavery in so many directions
is forcing upon us.
That slavery is no abstraction, and that the Free States
have something to do with it, may be shown, perhaps, still
more clearly by passing from the consideration of the specific
provisions of the Constitution to a brief review of the
policy and operation of the government, as it has been for a
long time administered. I have stated my impression that
the framers of the Constitution could have scarcely designed
or anticipated any thing more than the temporary continuance
of slavery in a few of the original States, and its gradual
abolition. If so, how remarkably, how wofully, have
their anticipations been disappointed, and their purposes
defeated ! So far from being limited to a few of the original
States, and expiring there, it is the lamentable fact of our
national history, that, from the adoption of the Constitution,
slavery has made a constant and rapid progress, spreading
and increasing in many of the old States, growing with the
growth of the States immediately descended from them, and
extending itself over nearly the whole of the foreign territory
which has been acquired for the purpose of forming new
States. It is also a fact with which we are especially concerned,
that, with the extension of slavery, its political power
has been gradually augmented, until since 1820, when the
Missouri compromise was engrafted upon the Constitution,
it has become, as it were, stipulated and agreed that the
number of Free States shall never exceed the number of Slave
States, - that the President or Vice-President for the time
being shall always be a slave-holder, - that at least one half
of the members of the Cabinet shall be taken from the Slave
States, -that in all subordinate appointments the claims of
the Slave States shall be allowed in a ratio far exceeding
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Phillips, Stephen C. Address on the annexation of Texas, and the aspect of slavery in the United States, in connection therewith: delivered in Boston November 14 and 18, 1845, book, January 1, 1845; Boston. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth2361/m1/26/: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.