It was the sending of the issue to the Senate committee that prompted Calhoun to stress that Congress had no place interfering with the basic right to own slaves guaranteed by the Constitution. To go down the route of abolition would mean that the slaveholding and non-slaveholding states would live under different political systems. “The conflicting elements would burst the Union asunder, powerful as are the links which hold it together. Abolition and the Union cannot coexist.” Instead of defending slavery as a necessary evil, he asserts that black slavery is, in fact, a positive good for both races. “Never before has the black race of Central Africa,” he claims, “…attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually.”