Without any other
guarantee, the rapid formation of new Free States would ensure to
freedom a decisive and constantly increasing majority in Congress. It
would also be right to abrogate that bad provision of the Constitution
(a necessary compromise at the time of its first establishment)
whereby the slaves, though reckoned as citizens in no other respect,
are counted, to the extent of three fifths of their number, in the
estimate of the population for fixing the number of representatives of
each State in the Lower House of Congress. Why should the masters have
members in right of their human chattels, any more than of their oxen
and pigs? The President, in his Message, has already proposed that
this salutary reform should be effected in the case of Maryland,
additional territory, detached from Virginia, being given to that
State as an equivalent: thus clearly indicating the policy which he
approves, and which he is probably willing to make universal.
As it is necessary to be prepared for all possibilities, let us now
contemplate another.
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