no power left
to the States to quell an insurrection of slaves, as it was wholly
vested in congress, George Nicholas asked:--

"Have they it now? If they have, does the constitution take it away?
If it does, it must be in one of those clauses which have been
mentioned by the worthy member. The first part gives the general
government power to call them out when necessary. Does this take it
away from the States? No! but _it gives an additional security_;
for, beside the power in the State government to use their own
militia, it will be _the duty of the general government_ to aid
them WITH THE STRENGTH OF THE UNION, when called for."

This solemn guaranty of security to the slave system, caps the
climax of national barbarity, and stains with human blood the
garments of all the people. In consequence of it, that system has
multiplied its victims from five hundred thousand to nearly three
millions--a vast amount of territory has been purchased, in order to
give it extension and perpetuity--several new slave States have been
admitted into the Union--the slave trade has been made one of the
great branches of American commerce--the slave population, though
over-worked, starved, lacerated, branded, maimed, and subjected to
every form of deprivation and every species of torture, have been
over awed and crushed,--or, whenever they have attempted to gain
their liberty by revolt, they have been shot down and quelled by the
strong arm of the national government; as, for example, in the case
of Nat Turner's insurrection in Virginia, when the naval and military
forces of the government were called into active service. Cuban
bloodhounds have been purchased with the money of the people, and
imported and used to hunt slave fugitives among the everglades of
Florida. A merciless warfare has been waged for the extermination or
expulsion of the Florida Indians, because they gave succor to those
poor hunted fugitives--a warfare which has cost the nation several
thousand lives, and forty millions of dollars. But the catalogue
of enormities is too long to be recapitulated in the present address.

We have thus demonstrated that the compact between the North and the
South embraces every variety of wrong and outrage,--is at war with
God and man, cannot be innocently supported, and deserves to be
immediately annulled. In behalf of the Society which we represent,
we call upon all our fellow-citizens, who believe it is right to
ob