Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 16.djvu/259

 Address of Colonel Edward McCrady, Jr. 253

north of 36 30". But a moment's reflection will show that "the moral offence" of slavery could not have entered into the consider- ation of this compromise. For if slavery was wrong north of 36 3<D\ was it not wrong also south of it ? The opposiiion to the ad- mission of more slave States arose from the fact that such Slates, by the Constitution, had representatives in Congress and in the Electoral College, not only for the white freemen, but for three- fifths of their slaves also, which greatly added to their representation and power. That compromise was nothing more than the adjustment of the balance of political power between the States. The admission of new States upon one condition or another, however affecting the interests of the slave States, was a fair subject of discussion. There was nothing in principle why a strict State's Rights Federalist might not have resisted the admission of another slave State, nor that one of the National party should not have advocated it. From other considerations, the Northern people were for the most part Consoli- dationists and Nationalists ; while the Southern people were strict constructionists of the State's Rights school, and upheld slavery. This was a coincidence of momentous consequence, but philosophi- cally speaking, as regards slavery, it was nothing more.

And so it happened that for fifty years after the adoption of the Constitution, while the "National party" and the "Whig party" on the one hand, and the "Federal party" and the "Democratic party " on the other, warred over the principles of the government, the opponents of the institution of slavery increased in numbers and energy, but without connection with the politics of the country. But during this time this party in favor of a strong centralized National Government had, under one name or another, gathered much strength. As early as 1789 it had procured the passage of the famous 251)1 Sec- tion of the Judiciary Act, which allows an appeal from the final judg- ment of a State court to the Supreme Court of the United States in cases involving the construction of a law or treaty of the United States, thus asserting for the Federal Government the judicial con- struction of its measures as against the judicial views of the State. At the same session another point was gained by the National party. Under the provision of the Constitution that makes it the duty of the President " to take care that the laws be carefully executed," the National party carried the point that the President, without the sanc- tion of Congress, had the power to remove an officer of the govern- ment, the tenure of whose office was not fixed by the Constitution; and about the same time General Hamilton opened the question of