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any individuals, to give legal existence any Territory of the United States." Such is the

torial Legislature, or of

to Slavery in

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

stitution acts

upon

all points,

whether the Con-

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 TerriThus torial Government is organized, under the Constitution. confirmed by the Conis Territories the of the normal condition

stitution,

which,

when extended over them,

renders Slavery im-

and engraves upon the possible, while Freedom, without disimpartial of law the everywhere rock it

writes

upon the

soil

tinction of color or race.

Mr. President, this argument is now closed. Pardon me for It is long since I have made any the time I have occupied. Pardon me, also, if I have attention. such claim upon your have said. I have spoken not to ought said any thing which I yet only with the severely, if heart the frankly and from

severity of a sorrowful candor, calling things

names, and

letting historic facts tell their

I have spoken in the

patriotic

by

their right

unimpeachable

hope of contributing

story.

to the wel-

my country, and also in the assured conviction that I besaid will find a response in generous souls. I have what wellsustained by not is which nothing said that I have lieve founded argument or well-founded testimony, nothing which fare of

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 Then will the act, by -the admission of Kansas as a Free State. 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