The resistance to the admission of Missouri as a State, in 1820, was
evidently not owing to any moral or constitutional considerations, but
merely to political motives; and the compensation exacted for granting
what was simply a right, was the exclusion of the South from equality in
the enjoyment of territory which justly belonged equally to both, and
which was what the enemies of the South stigmatized as "slave
territory," when acquired.
The sectional policy then indicated brought to its support the passions
that spring from man's higher nature, but which, like all passions, if
misdirected and perverted, become hurtful and, it may be, destructive.
The year 1835 was marked by the public agitation for the abolition of
that African servitude which existed in the South, which antedated the
Union, and had existed in every one of the States that formed the
Confederation. By a great misconception of the powers belonging to the
General Government, and the responsibilities of citizens of the Northern
States, many of those citizens were, little by little, brought to the
conclusion that slavery was a sin for which _they_ were answerable, and
that it was the duty of the Federal Government to abate it. Though, at
the date above referred to, numerically so weak, when compared with
either of the political parties at the North, as to excite no
apprehension of their power for evil, the public demonstrations of the
Abolitionists were violently rebuked generally at the North.
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