t repentance, and to
the immediate restitution of justice to the oppressed.

The Declaration of Sentiments denies the right of man to hold property
in a brother man, affirms the identity in principle between the African
slave trade and American slavery, the imprescriptibility of the rights
of the slaves to liberty, the nullity of all laws which run counter to
human rights, and the grand doctrine of civil and political equality in
the Republic, regardless of race and complexional differences. It boldly
rejects the principle of compensated emancipation, because it involves a
surrender of the position that man cannot hold property in man; because
slavery is a crime, and the master is not wronged by emancipation but
the slaves righted, restored to themselves; because immediate and
general emancipation would only destroy nominal, not real, property, the
labor of the slaves would still remain to the masters and doubled by the
new motives which freedom infuses into the breasts of her children; and,
finally because, if compensation is to be given at all it ought to be
given to those who have been plundered of their rights. It spurns in one
compact paragraph the pretensions of the colonization humbug as
"delusive, cruel, and dangerous."

But lofty and uncompromising as were the moral principles and positions
of the declaration, it nevertheless recognized with perspicuity of
vision the Constitutional limitations of the Federal Government in
relation to slavery. It frankly conceded that Congress had no right to
meddle with the evil in any of the States. But wherever the national
jurisdiction reached the general government was bound to interfere and
suppress the traffic in human flesh. It was the duty of Congress,
inasmuch as it possessed the power, to abolish slavery in the District
of Columbia, the National Territories, along the coast and between the
States. The free States are the _particeps criminis_ of the slave
States. They are living under a pledge of their tremendous physical
force to rivet the manacles of chattel slavery upon millions in the
South; they are liable at any instant to be called on under the
Constitution to suppress a general insurrection of the slaves. This
relationship is criminal, "is full of danger, IT MUST BE BROKEN UP."

So much for the views and principles of the declaration, now for the
designs and measures as enumerated therein: "We shall organize
anti-slavery societies, if possible, in every city,