Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Speech of R. W. Thompson, of Indiana, on the Slavery Question: Delivered in the House of Representatives, January 25, 1849
Very soon after the formation of the Constitution, and before a fixed construction had been given to it by the several departments of the Government, and by the people themselves, efforts were made, by peti tions to Congress and appeals to federal legislation, to interfere with the rights that had been guarantied and secured by that instrument. A direct attempt was made to bring the power of the General Government to bear upon the institution of slavery as it existed in the several States of the Union. Congress was, at that time, composed of wise, of grave, of deliberate men, who neither acted from impulse nor passion. These men calmly and earnestly implored those who had agitated this ques tion, to let it alone, and to stand by the compromises of the Constitution. The moderation, the forbearance, the conciliation, the compromising spirit of that day triumphed over fanaticism and faction, and hushed them into silence. Men were not so accustomed then as now to nar-u row and enervate their minds with that miserable and sordid selfishness, which, if the times were not sadly out of joint, would stamp its posses sors as unfit for public trust.
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