The friends of emancipation would urge in the first instance an immediate
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and in the Territories
of Florida and Arkansas.

The number of slaves in these portions of the country, coming under the
direct jurisdiction of the general government, is as follows:--

District of Columbia ..... 6,119
Territory of Arkansas .... 4,576
Territory of Florida .... 15,501

Total 26,196

Here, then, are twenty-six thousand human beings, fashioned in the image
of God, the fitted temples of His Holy Spirit, held by the government in
the abhorrent chains of slavery. The power to emancipate them is clear.
It is indisputable. It does not depend upon the twenty-five slave votes
in Congress. It lies with the free states. Their duty is before them:
in the fear of God, and not of man let them perform it.

Let them at once strike off the grievous fetters. Let them declare that
man shall no longer hold his fellow-man in bondage, a beast of burden, an
article of traffic, within the governmental domain. God and truth and
eternal justice demand this. The very reputation of our fathers, the
honor of our land, every principle of liberty, humanity, expediency,
demand it. A sacred regard to free principles originated our
independence, not the paltry amount of practical evil complained of. And
although our fathers left their great work unfinished, it is our duty to
follow out their principles. Short of liberty and equality we cannot
stop without doing injustice to their memories. If our fathers intended
that slavery should be perpetual, that our practice should forever give
the lie to our professions, why is the great constitutional compact so
guardedly silent on the subject of human servitude? If state necessity
demanded this perpetual violation of the laws of God and the rights of
man, this continual solecism in a government of freedom, why is it not
met as a necessity, incurable and inevitable, and formally and distinctly
recognized as a settled part of our social system? State necessity, that
imperial tyrant, seeks no disguise. In the language of Sheridan, "What
he does, he dares avow, and avowing, scorns any other justification than
the great motives which placed the iron sceptre in his grasp."

Can it be possible that our fathers felt this state necessity strong upon
them? No; for they left open the door for emancipation, they left us the