the next consists
in adopting a system of revenue and disbursements, by which an undue
proportion of the burden of taxation has been imposed upon the South,
and an undue proportion of its proceeds appropriated to the North;
and the last is a system of political measures, by which the original
character of the Government has been radically changed. I propose to
bestow upon each of these, in the order they stand, a few remarks, with
the view of showing that it is owing to the action of this Government
that the equilibrium between the two sections has been destroyed, and
the whole powers of the system centered in a sectional majority.
The first of the series of Acts by which the South was deprived of its
due share of the territories, originated with the confederacy which
preceded the existence of this Government. It is to be found in the
provision of the ordinance of 1787. Its effect was to exclude the South
entirely from that vast and fertile region which lies between the Ohio
and the Mississippi rivers, now embracing five States and one Territory.
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