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The Missouri Compromise: Or, The Extension Of The Slave Power, James Appleton

Maine Bicentennial

Slavery exerted no slight influence over the public mind at the period when the Federal Constitution was framed; but it has continually increased in power, and become more and more malignant, from that time until the present. In proof of this, I might advert to many of the leading measures of the National Government, and to much of the history of our country, since the adoption of the Constitution; but I choose to illustrate this position, by referring to the prevailing opinion of those who framed the Constitution, and to a single subsequent act of the Government, viz., “The Missouri …