ed Slavery. He exposed its
pernicious influence upon master as well as slave, declared that the
love of justice and the love of country pleaded equally for the slave,
and that "the abolition of domestic slavery was the greatest object of
desire." He believed that "the sacred side was gaining daily recruits,"
and confidently looked to the young for the accomplishment of this
good work. In fitful sympathy with Jefferson was another honored son of
Virginia, the Orator of Liberty, Patrick Henry, who, while confessing
that he was a master of slaves, said: "I will not, I cannot justify it.
However culpable my conduct, I will so far pay my devoir to virtue as to
own the excellence and rectitude of her precepts, and lament my want
of conformity to them." At this very period, in the Legislature of
Maryland, on a bill for the relief of oppressed slaves, a young man,
afterwards by consummate learning and forensic powers acknowledged head
of the American bar, William Pinkney, in a speech of earnest,
truthful eloquence,--better for his memory than even his professional
fame,--branded Slavery as "iniquitous and most dishonorable," "founded
in a disgraceful traffic," "its continuance as shameful as its origin,"
and he openly declared, that "by the eternal principles of natural
justice, no master in the State has a right to hold his slave in bondage
for a single hour."

* * * * *

At the risk of repetition, but for the sake of clearness, review now
this argument, and gather it together. Considering that Slavery is of
such an offensive character that it can find sanction only in
"positive law," and that it has no such "positive" sanction in the
Constitution,--that the Constitution, according to its preamble,
was ordained to "establish justice" and "secure the blessings of
liberty,"--that, in the Convention which framed it, and also elsewhere
at the time, it was declared not to sanction slavery,--that, according
to the Declaration of Independence, and the Address of the Continental
Congress, the nation was dedicated to "liberty," and the "rights of
human nature,"--that, according to the principles of the common law, the
Constitution must be interpreted openly, actively, and perpetually for
freedom,--that, according to the decision of the Supreme Court, it acts
upon slaves, _not as property_, but as PERSONS,--that, at the first
organization of the national Government under Washington, Slavery had no
national favor,