e States, over which it has jurisdiction. As improper,
in the judgment of an eminent statesman, and of a no less eminent
divine, to destroy what they both admit to be a system of
unrighteousness, as to establish it! As improper to restrain as to
practice, a violation of God's law! What will other countries and coming
ages think of the politics of our statesmen and the ethics of
our divines?

But, besides its immorality, Congress has no Constitutional right to
create slavery. You have not yet presumed to deny positively, that
Congress has the right to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia;
and, notwithstanding the intimation in your speech, you will not presume
to affirm, that Congress has the Constitutional right to enact laws
reducing to, or holding in slavery, the inhabitants of West Point, or
any other locality in the free States, over which it has exclusive
jurisdiction. I would here remark, that the law of Congress, which
revived the operation of the laws of Virginia and Maryland in the
District of Columbia, being, so far as it respects the slave laws of
those States, a violation of the Federal Constitution, should be held of
no avail towards legalizing slavery in the District--and the subjects of
that slavery, should, consequently, be declared by our Courts
unconditionally free.

You will admit that slavery is a system of surpassing injustice:--but
an avowed object of the Constitution is to "establish justice." You will
admit that it utterly annihilates the liberty of its victims:--but
another of the avowed objects of the Constitution is to "secure the
blessings of liberty." You will admit, that slavery does, and
necessarily must, regard its victims as _chattels_. The Constitution, on
the contrary, speaks of them as nothing short of _persons_. Roger
Sherman, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a framer of the
Federal Constitution, and a member of the first Congress under it,
denied that this instrument considers slaves "as a species of property."
Mr. Madison, in the 54th No. of the Federalist admits, that the
Constitution "regards them as inhabitants." Many cases might be cited,
in which Congress has, in consonance with the Constitution, refused to
recognize slaves as property. It was the expectation, as well as the
desire of the framers of the Constitution, that slavery should soon
cease to exist is our country; and, but for the laws, which both
Congress and the slave States, have, in flagrant vi