these evils upon the colonies. * * * You observe, sir, that the term slave, or slavery, is not used in the Constitution.  The Constitution does not require that “fugitive slaves” shall be delivered up.  It requires that persons held to service in one State, and escaping into another, shall be delivered up.  Mr. Madison opposed the introduction of the term slave, or slavery, into the Constitution; for he said, that he did not wish to see it recognized by the Constitution of the United States of America that there could be property in men. * * *

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 parts of the country.  But soon a change began, at the North and the South, and a difference 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 appear to them to be their present emergent and exigent interests.  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 that subject, so that, from being thought 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 spoken of?  I suppose this, sir, is owing to the rapid growth and sudden extension of the cotton plantations of the South.  So far as any motive consistent with 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 this change was produced by causes which must always produce like effects.  The whole interest of the South became connected, more or less, with the extension of slavery.  If we look back to the history of the commerce of this country in the early years of this government, what were our exports?  Cotton was hardly, or but to a very limited extent, known.  In 1791 the first parcel of cotton of the growth of the United States was exported, and amounted only to 19,200 pounds.  It has gone on increasing rapidly, until the whole crop 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.  When Mr. Jay negotiated the treaty of 1794 with England, it is evident from the Twelfth Article of the Treaty, which was suspended by the Senate, that he did not know that cotton was exported at all from the United States.