Originating with the
Slave-holders, and sustained by the Slave-holders, this compact was
sacredly respected by them for thirty-three years; it was respected
until they had got out of it all the advantages they could, and until
Freedom was about to reap _her_ advantages,--when they began to denounce
it as unconstitutional and void. A Northern Senator--whose conduct then
we shall not characterize, as he seems now to be growing weary of the
hard service into which he entered--was made the instrument of its
overthrow. That hallowed landmark, which had lifted its awful front
against the spread of Slavery for more than an entire generation, was
obliterated by a quibble, and the morning sun of the 22d of May, 1854,
rose for the last time "on the guarantied and certain liberties of
all the unsettled and unorganized region of the American Continent."
Everything there was of honor, of justice, of the love of truth and
liberty, in the heart of the nation, was smitten by this painful blow;
the common sense of security felt the wound; the consoling consciousness
that the faith of men might be relied upon was removed by it; and to the
general imagination, in fact, it seemed as if some mighty charm, which
had stayed the issue of untold calamities, were suddenly and wantonly
broken.
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