Cupidity will be found,
in the last analysis, to be at the bottom of much of the law-breaking
spirit so unfortunately characteristic of the American people.
The Friends kept up an unceasing petition to Congress to ameliorate
the condition of the slaves or to emancipate them. It was said by some
of the British advocates of emancipation, who began to let their voices
be heard in the States, that the destruction of the public buildings
at Washington during the War of 1812 was a judgment of God upon a
people who permitted a slave market almost within the shadow of the
Capitol. Slavery was always at base an economic question and was now
awaiting some national economic issue before it would manifest its
ugly self. The emancipation plans which had been adopted by the Northern
States were emphasising slavery as a sectional issue. It would make
even more difficult the task of balancing the two sections. So rapidly
had public sentiment accepted the inevitable in the matter of sections,
that by 1820 it was easy to repeat the fearful phrase, "preserving the
balance between the two sections."
It had been possible to preserve this balance in the Senate, where
State representation is equal, by admitting a Northern and a Southern
State contemporaneously.
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