the American people. That the
existence of slavery within the United States is a great evil and one
for which an adequate remedy is, of all national objects the most to
be desired, is a truth in which the whole body of our fellow-citizens
have for a long time acquiesced; but whether its ultimate and entire
removal is ever to be affected, compatibly with that justice to the
parties concerned upon which it should be based, is a problem that
remains to be solved, but to which philanthropists are now daily
directing their attention.

The success, however which has attended the efforts of many of the
States of the Union, who at an early period of our national history
were encumbered by the same evil in a lesser degree but who have since
been successful in removing it, induce a hope in your memorialists
that slavery may be abolished in the District of Columbia. That if
possible it _ought_ to be, some interesting considerations of a local
character, peculiarly dictate. The significant and peculiar silence
discovered upon the face of the constitutional compact of the land,
upon the great subject of human servitude with which the country then
was burthened, the care which was observed by the sages, who framed
the instrument, not to employ a term in its structure which might in
after years and in times of universal freedom, be appealed to for the
purpose of accusation or reproach, enjoin it, we think as a strong and
imperative duty to their successors to remove this growing evil from
the seat of the counciles of the nation and the limits emphatically of
the national domain. Without therefore attempting to interfere with
the exclusive duties of state sovereignties, it is incumbent we think
upon national legislators, to give effect to the noble and benign
spirit of the great charter under which they are convened, by devising
and enacting measures for the gradual emancipation of all who are in a
state of servitude in the District of Columbia. Nor can we for a
moment believe that it is a subject upon which local situation can
give rise to any diversity of sentiment among Americans at large. The
dictates of patriotic pride and of national consistency must have the
same force with all of them.

The people of these states have cause to be distinguished for numerous
occasions upon which, and that too in many instances by discarding all
interested considerations they have sought the establishment of great
national principles. Without a