Page:The Barbarism of Slavery.djvu/84

 Legislature, or of any individuals, to give legal existence to Slavery in any Territory of the United States." Such is the triumphant response by the aroused millions of the North, alike to the assumption of Slave-masters that the Constitution, of its own force, carries Slavery into the Territories, and also to the device of politicians, that the people of the Territories, in the exercise of a dishonest Popular Sovereignty, may plant Slavery there. This response is complete at all points, whether the Constitution acts upon the Territories before their organization, or only afterward; for, in the absence of a Territorial Government, there can be no "positive" law in words of "‘irresistible.clearness" for Slavery, as there can be no such law, when a Territorial Government is organized, under the Constitution. Thus the normal condition of the Territories is confirmed by the Constitution, which, when extended over them, renders Slavery impossible, while it writes upon the soil and engraves upon the rock everywhere the law of impartial Freedom, without distinction of color or race.

Mr. President, this argument is now closed. Pardon me for the time I have occupied. It is long since I have made any such claim upon your attention. Pardon me, also, if I have said any thing which I ought not to have said. I have spoken frankly and from the heart; if severely, yet only with the severity of a sorrowful candor, calling things by their right names, and letting historic facts tell their unimpeachable story. I have spoken in the patriotic hope of contributing to the welfare of my country, and also in the assured conviction that what I have said will find a response in generous souls. I believe that I have said nothing which is not sustained by well-founded argument or well-founded testimony, nothing which can be controverted without a direct assault upon reason or upon truth.

The two assumptions of Slave-masters have been answered. But this is not enough. Let the answer become a legislative act, by the admission of Kansas as a Free State. Then will the Barbarism of Slavery be repelled, and the pretension of property in man be rebuked. Such an act, closing this long struggle by the assurance of peace to the Territory, if not of tranquillity to the whole country, will be more grateful still as the