Page:Webster and Hayne's Celebrated Speeches.djvu/97

Rh convention meant to leave slavery, in the states, as they found it, entirely under the control of the states.

This was the state of things, sir, and this the state of opinion, under which those very important matters were arranged, and those two important things done; that is, the establishment of the constitution, with a recognition of slavery as it existed in the states, and the establishment of the ordinance, prohibiting, to the full extent of all territory owned by the United States, the introduction of slavery into those territories, and the leaving to the states all power over slavery, in their own limits. And here, sir, we may pause. We may reflect for a moment upon the entire coincidence and concurrence of sentiment between the north and the south upon these questions at the period of the adoption of the constitution. But opinions, sir, have changed—greatly changed—changed north and changed south. Slavery is not regarded in the south now as it was then. I see an honorable member of this body paying me the honor of listening to my remarks; he brings to me, sir, freshly and vividly, the sentiments of his great ancestor, so much distinguished in his day and generation, so worthy to be succeeded by so worthy a grandson, with all the sentiments he expressed in the convention of Philadelphia.

Here we may pause. There was, if not an entire unanimity, a general concurrence of sentiment, running through the whole community, and especially entertained by the eminent men of all portions of the country. But soon a change began at the north and the south, and a severance of opinion showed itself—the north growing much more warm and strong against slavery, and the south growing much more warm and strong in its support. Sir, there is no generation of mankind whose opinions are not subject to be influenced by what appears to them to be their present, emergent, selfish, and exigent interest. I impute to the south no particularly selfish view in the change which has come over her. I impute to her certainly no dishonest view. All that has happened has been natural. It has followed those causes which always influence the human mind and operate upon it. What, then, have been the causes which have created so new a feeling in favor of slavery in the south—which have changed the whole nomenclature of the south on the subject—and from being thought of and described in the terms I have mentioned and will not repeat, it has now become an institution, a cherished institution, in that quarter; no evil, no scourge, but a great religious, social, and moral blessing, as I think I have heard it latterly described? I suppose this, sir, is owing to the sudden uprising and rapid growth of the cotton plantations of the south. So far as any motive of honor, justice, and general judgment could act, it was the cotton interest that gave a new desire to promote slavery, to spread it, and to use its labor. I again say that that was produced by the causes which we must always expect to produce like effects; their whole interest became connected with it. If we look back to the history of the commerce of this country, at the early years of this government, what were our exports? Cotton was hardly, or but to a very limited extent, known. The tables will show that the exports of cotton for the years 1790 and ’91 were not more than forty or fifty thousand dollars a year. It has gone on increasing rapidly, until it may now, perhaps, in a season of great product and high prices, amount to a hundred millions of dollars. In the years I have mentioned there was more of wax, more of indigo, more of rice, more of almost every article of export from the south, than of cotton. I think I have heard it said, when