23. James Shannon, An Address Delivered before the Pro-Slavery Convention of the State of Missouri, Held in Lexington, July 13, 1855,: On Domestic Slavery, as Examined in the Light of Scripture, of Natural Rights, of Civil Government, and the Constitutional Power of Congress (St. Louis, MO: Republican Book & Job Office, 1855). (32 p.)


Defense of slavery based on both biblical, philosophic, civil, and constitutional grounds. The speaker is particularly hostile toward abolitionists. “I am free to confess,” he writes in the introduction, “that I can conceive of no better means for the accomplishment of these sublime results [of sustaining the Union] than to cure or kill free-soil fanaticism, the only hydra by which, at present, our country is in danger of being destroyed.”