ABSTRACT
If we wish to understand the real causes which have produced such wide-spread and deep-seated discontent in the slaveholding States, we must go back beyond the recent presidential election, and trace the origin and history of the slavery agitation from the period when it first became an active element in Federal politics. The leading feature and chief merit of each was to banish the slavery agitation from the Halls of Congress and the arena of Federal politics. The sketch of the origin and progress of the slavery agitation as an element of political power and partisan warfare, covers the entire period from the organization of the Federal Government under the Constitution, in 1789. Surely the Senators and Representatives from those States do not doubt that fifty thousand people were enough to constitute a political community capable of deciding the slavery question for themselves.
