the District of Columbia. Vermont also protested
against the annexation of Texas. The legislature
of Connecticut repealed the "black laws." The
anti-slavery movement began to make itself felt as
a power on the political field.

At the same time the South became painfully
sensible of the growing superiority of the North in
population and wealth. In 1838 a "commercial
convention" of the Southern States was held,
which, after instituting some gloomy historical and
statistical comparisons, formed the conclusion that
the South was becoming impoverished and " trib-
utary" to the North; that this was owing to the
tariff, internal improvements, and abuses of gov-
ernment; and that, as a remedy, the South should
"open a direct trade between Southern and foreign
ports." The convention did not seem to suspect
that slavery was at the bottom of it all, and that
they pronounced the doom of slavery by their very
complaints. On the contrary, the more fatal the
evil became, the more blindly and passionately
they hugged it.

In December, 1837, when petitions for the aboli-
tion of slavery in the District of Columbia were
presented in the Senate, Clay, whose democratic
instinct was keenly stirred, inquired of the Sen-
ator presenting them "whether the feeling of abo-
lition in the abstract was extending itself" in
the states from which the petitions were arriving,
"or whether it was not becoming mixed up with
other matters, such, for instance, as the belief that

-153-