Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/123

CALHOUN efforts now made to exclude the South from the newly acquired Territories succeed, will stand, before the end of the decade, twenty Northern States to fourteen Southern (considering Dela- ware as neutral), and forty Northern senators to twenty-eight Southern. This great increase of senators, added to the great increase of mem- bers of the House of Representatives and the Electoral College on the part of the North, which must take place under the next decade, will effectually and irretrievably destroy the equilibrium which existed when the government commenced. Had this destruction been the operation of time without the interference of government, the South would have had no reason to complain ; but such was not the fact. It was caused by the legislation of this government, which was ap- pointed as the common agent of all and charged with the protection of the interests and security of all. The legislation by which it has been effected may be classed under three heads: The first is that series of acts by which the South has been excluded from the common territory belonging to all the States as members of the federal Union — which have had the effect of extending vastly the portion allotted to the Northern section, and re- stricting within narrow limits the portion left the South. The next consists in adopting a system of revenue and disbursements by which an undue proportion of the burden of taxation has been IX— 8 lis