e country. To afford
opportunity for a dignified and profitable investigation of this momentous
topic, Mr. Adams, on the 25th of Feb., 1839, proposed the following
amendments to the Constitution of the United States:--

"Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress
assembled, two-thirds of both Houses concurring therein, That the
following amendments to the Constitution of the United States be proposed
to the several States of the Union, which, when ratified by three-fourths
of the legislatures of said States, shall become and be a part of the
Constitution of the United States:--

"1. From and after the 4th day of July, 1842, there shall be throughout
the United States no hereditary slavery; but on and after that day, every
child born within the United States, their territories or jurisdiction,
shall be born free.

"2. With the exception of the territory of Florida, there shall henceforth
never be admitted into this Union, any State, the constitution of which
shall tolerate within the same the existence of slavery.

"3. From and after the 4th day of July, 1845, there shall be neither
slavery nor slave trade, at the seat of Government of the United States."

Instead of meeting and canvassing, in a manly and honorable manner, the
vitally important question involved in these propositions, the
slaveholding Representatives objected to its coming before the House for
consideration, in any form whatever. In this instance, as in most others,
where the merits of slavery are involved, the supporters of that
institution manifested a timidity, a want of confidence in its legitimacy,
of the most suspicious nature. If slavery is lawful and defensible--if it
violates no true principle among men, no human right bestowed by the
Creator--if it can be tolerated and perpetuated in harmony with republican
institutions and our Declaration of Independence--if its existence in the
bosom of the Confederacy involves no incongruity, and is calculated to
promote the prosperity and stability of the Union, or the welfare of the
slaveholding States themselves--these are facts which can be made evident
to the world, by the unsurpassed abilities of southern statesmen. Why,
then, object to a candid and fearless investigation of the subject? But if
slavery is the reverse of all this--if it is a moral poison, contaminating
and blighting everything connected with it, and containing the seeds of
its own dissolution sooner or later--w