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in whose midst it exists; for it is a state institution. It presents difficulties of fearful magnitude to the statesman and philanthropist. These difficulties present themselves unquestionably in a formidable shape, even upon the supposition that slavery, receding from the central portions of our republic, is to extend itself southward into new regions. But I am one of those who believe that this great problem presents difficulties not less formidable upon a supposition that a teeming slave population, multiplying in a fearful ratio of rapidity, is to be coerced and concentrated by Federal legislation within the limits of the present slave states. Yet one of these evils must be met. For myself, I confess some feeling of relief when I see a prospect that slavery may recede from our midst, and extend itself toward the southern portions of our Union, and finally escape from it in a region still further south, where the negro, in a congenial climate, may find himself in contact with a mixed race, accustomed, in some degree, to free institutions, and not dissevered from him by the iron barriers of lineage and of color. In this view I am, perhaps, more willing than I might otherwise be to invoke the entire, real, and sincere ‘neutrality' of the Federal government upon the subject.

"After our patriotic ancestors had achieved our independence, and had assembled in Convention, fresh from the battle-fields of the Revolution, for the purpose of forming our present Constitution, negro slavery was the apple of discord, and came near causing that august and patriotic convention to separate without forming our present Union. It was upon that memorable occasion that the great and good Franklin recommended prayers that wisdom might be given to them from on high. The consequence was, that moderate and pacific councils prevailed, a compromise took place, and the present Union was the result. To preserve that Union, the same spirit must guide the deliberations of Congress upon the subject. At the time of the formation of our Constitution, slavery was anthorized by law in all the states. All had been engaged in importing slaves into the country: the South got far the most, because the soil and climate of that region were best suited for slave labor. Northern people engaged in taking them there, for it was a profitable business. All, therefore, are involved in the guilt, if guilt it be. We now have near 3,000,000 of slave population, and the increase is very great, for it is a law of human population that the oppressed always increase faster than their oppressors. We have the difficult problem of two races coexisting under the same Constitution and inhabiting the same country. Mr. Jefferson, in 1820, when speaking of the embarrassing question, said, We have got the wolf by the ears, and can neither hold nor let him go with safety.' To free the negroes of the Southern States at once would be the greatest calamity which could happen to the whites, as well as the blacks. Thousands and tens of thousands of them would go to the free states, particularly to Pennsylvania. Our jails and almshouses would not hold the poor and vicious, and the poor laboring freemen and women would be without employment, for the blacks would work cheaper and live on less. Besides, it would be degrading for our free people to labor with them. And if they did get into the free states, how much better off would be their condition? We can not permit them to vote and sit in the jury-box; we can not admit them to terms of political and social equality: and what is freedom worth without those privileges? The truth is, they are a nuisance, whether slave or free; and yet they are a part of the human family-have the human form, the human voice, and souls to save. There is a great deal too much fanaticism, as well in the North as the South, upon the subject of these negroes. Old Pennsyl vania (God bless her! for it was there where my cradle was rocked, and where my coffin shall be buried), occupying an important position between the dividing interests of the North and the South, always moderate in pretense and in council, but greatly in demand when power, either in intellect or in arms, is required,

must, with honest steadiness of purpose, restrain the fanaticism of both, and thus prevent the North and the South from coming to blows, and thereby causing a dismemberment of this now happy Union. This Union I hold to be of more value than the freedom of all the negroes that ever lived in it. And yet we hear gentlemen, whenever this slavery question is brought forward, calculating the Union's value and the Constitution's obligation. They ought to remember that they

"but teach bloody instructions,

Which may return to plague the inventors.'

“This constant talk about the dissolution of the Union has a tendency to familiarize the public mind with the idea, and lead people to believe that such an event is possible. Sir, this Union should be broken only with the last pulsation of a nation's heart."

Mr. Brodhead is now about thirty-four years of age, tall and athletic-complexion dark-hair black. He is represented as enjoying the confidence of his constituents, secured to him by watchful attention to their rights and interests during a public service of many years' duration.

HUDSON, CHARLES,

Charles Hreason

Is the only son of a soldier of the Revolution, and was born

in the town of Marlborough, Massachusetts, November 14th, 1795. His father having himself enjoyed little or no opportunity for education, neglected in early years that of his son, who, at the age of twelve, went to live with a respectable farmer in his native town, where he worked on a farm till he was twenty-one years old. During this period his only means of education was that afforded by the common district school, which he attended from two to three months in the winter. He was, however, fond of books, and, after the labors of the day were over, would give his time to reading. By these means, and a single quarter at a neighboring academy, he qualified himself for school-teaching, which occupation he followed in the winter season with good success. After he arrived at the age of twenty-one, he hired out as a laborer on a farm for two seasons, teaching in the winter. He had for some time turned his attention to religious subjects; and having, in 1818, resolved upon entering the ministry, he commenced the study of theology. Near the close of 1819 he was licensed as an evangelist by the New England Convention of Universalists. After itinerating for several years, he took, in 1824, the pastoral charge of a small parish in Westminster, to which place he removed. He remained connected with this religious denomination until elected to Congress in 1811. He has been twice married.

About the time he entered the ministry, the Reverend Hosea Ballou, of Boston, one of the ablest and most prominent members of the Convention, came out with a denial of the doctrine of retribution beyond death, which doctrine had always, up to

that time, been held by the Universalists. With this new doctrine Mr. Hudson had no fellowship. After full examination, he wrote several articles, which appeared in the periodicals of the day; and in 1827 he published "a series of letters, addressed to the Reverend Hosea Ballou, being a vindication of the doctrine of future retribution against the principal arguments used by him, Mr. Balfour, and others." This work produced much sensation in the denomination, and, in the year following, drew forth an answer from Mr. Balfour, of Charlestown, Massachusetts, a Scotch clergyman, who had, about that time, become a convert to the doctrine of no future punishment, which he defended on the ground of the materiality of the soul. To this Mr. Hudson replied. The controversy contributed in no small degree to a separation of the Universalists, and the formation of a new religious denomination, called the "Restorationists," which was founded in 1831 by himself and eight or ten other clergymen.

He has always taken a deep interest in Sabbath-school instruction, and has published a series of text-books for those schools. He also commenced a series of sacred memoirs, being a history of the Scripture characters. His first volume covered the period from Adam to Joseph inclusive, and the second was confined to a history of Moses and the Jewish nation during that period. These works were favorably noticed by the periodicals of the time. In 1828 he was elected from the town of Westminster to the Lower House of the Massachusetts Legislature, where he remained four years, when he was chosen to the Senate from the county of Worcester. To this office he was returned for six years in succession. He was placed at the head of the Committee on Internal Improvements; that place he held during the whole period of six years, within which was established the system of internal improvements for which Massachusetts is now so distinguished. He also made, in the course of this period, several reports on important subjects; one, in 1837, on capital punishment; one, in 1838, on the incompetency of witnesses on account of religious belief; and another on the northeastern boundary, which received some share of public attention.

In 1837 he was appointed one of the Board of Education for his state, which office he retained for eight years; and he was

for two years chosen a state director of the Western Rail-road (from Boston to Albany). In 1839, 40, and 41, he was chosen by the Legislature as a member of the Executive Council of Massachusetts, where he remained until shortly before the extra session of 1841, when he was elected to Congress from the fifth district, to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of Governor Lincoln. Since then he has continued to hold his seat. In the twenty-seventh Congress he made two or three reports from the Committee on Public Expenditures, and in the twenty-eighth Congress one from the Committee on Manufactures, against any alteration of the tariff of 1842.

He is a man of large and powerful frame, and of dark complexion; has short black hair, slightly sprinkled with gray, and looks as if he might have been cast in a mold of iron. In debate he is calm and unruffled-always parliamentary-and in his manner exhibits something of that peculiar style of elocution indicative of his original ecclesiastical calling. House never refuses to give him its attentive ear.

The

He holds a prominent place in the Whig ranks, and is zealous in support of Whig doctrines. He has rendered himself conspicuous by his ardent advocacy of the doctrine of protection to American manufactures; for many years past it has boasted no abler champion in the popular body. His speech upon the British Corn Laws, and their effect upon the commerce of our own country, is regarded as among the most powerful arguments on his side of the question.

As an advocate of the right of petition he has scarcely been less prominent. Asserting the constitutional power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and believing, also, in the expediency of its exercise, he has at all times maintained and defended the unrestricted right of petition in relation to abolition petitions; a right which, he contends, existed previous to the Constitution; which is incident to all free governments and to all free institutions; which was not created or granted by the Constitution, but is recognized in that instrument as a right which the people already possessed, and which, it was expressly provided, should never be infringed.

He opposed from the outset the annexation of Texas, as the basis of a scheme to extend and strengthen the system of slavery; as a violation of our national faith pledged to Mexico; as

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