titution placed it within its reach, but she
knew also that Congress had already marked out the line of national
policy to be pursued on the subject--had committed itself before the
world to a course of action against slavery, wherever she could move
upon it without encountering a conflicting jurisdiction--that the nation
had established by solemn ordinance memorable precedent for subsequent
action, by abolishing slavery in the northwest territory, and by
declaring that it should never thenceforward exist there; and this too,
as soon as by cession of Virginia and other states, the territory came
under Congressional control. The south knew also that the sixth article
in the ordinance prohibiting slavery was first proposed by the largest
slaveholding state in the confederacy--that the chairman of the
committee that reported the ordinance was a slaveholder--that the
ordinance was enacted by Congress during the session of the convention
that formed the United States Constitution--that the provisions of the
ordinance were, both while in prospect, and when under discussion,
matters of universal notoriety and _approval_ with all parties, and when
finally passed, received the vote _of every member of Congress from each
of the slaveholding states_. The south also had every reason for
believing that the first Congress under the constitution would _ratify_
that ordinance--as it _did_ unanimously.

A crowd of reflections, suggested by the preceding testimony, press for
utterance. The right of petition ravished and trampled by its
constitutional guardians, and insult and defiance hurled in the faces of
the SOVEREIGN PEOPLE while calmly remonstrating _with their_ SERVANTS
for violence committed on the nation's charter and their own dearest
rights! Add to this "the right of peaceably assembling" violently
wrested--the rights of minorities, _rights_ no longer--free speech
struck dumb--free _men_ outlawed and murdered--free presses cast into
the streets and their fragments strewed with shoutings, or flourished in
triumph before the gaze of approving crowds as proud members of
prostrate law!

The spirit and power of our fathers, where are they? Their deep homage
always and every where rendered to FREE THOUGHT, with its _inseparable
signs--free speech and a free press_--their reverence for justice,
liberty, _rights_ and all-pervading law, where are they?

But we turn from these considerations--though the times on which we have
fallen,