I will allow, that these
States were, at the time of the cession, as warmly opposed to the
abolition of slavery in the District as they are said to be now: and to
make it stronger still, I will allow, that the abolition of slavery in
the District would prove deeply injurious, not only to Virginia and
Maryland but to the nation at large. And, after all these admissions, I
must still insist, that Congress is under perfectly plain moral
obligation to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia.

They, who are deterred from favoring the abolition of slavery in the
District by the apprehension, that Virginia and Maryland, if not,
indeed, the nation at large, might suffer injurious consequences from
the measure, overlook the fact, that there is a third party in the case.
It is common to regard the nation as constituting one of the
parties--Virginia and Maryland another, and the only other. But in point
of fact, there is a third party. Of what does it consist? Of horses,
oxen, and other brutes? Then we need not be greatly concerned about
it--since its rights in that case, would be obviously subordinate to
those of the other parties. Again, if such be the composition of this
third party, we are not to be greatly troubled, that President Wayland
and thousands of others entirely overlook its rights and interests;
though they ought to be somewhat mindful even of brutes. But, this third
party is composed, not of brutes--but of men--of the seven thousand men
in the District, who have fallen under the iron hoofs of slavery--and
who, because they are men, have rights equal to, and as sacred as the
rights of any other men--rights, moreover, which cannot be innocently
encroached on, even to the breadth of one hair, whether under the plea
of "state necessity"--of the perils of emancipation--or under any other
plea, which conscience-smitten and cowardly tyranny can suggest.

If these lines shall ever be so favored, as to fall under the eye of the
venerable and beloved John Quincy Adams, I beg, that, when he shall have
read them, he will solemnly inquire of his heart, whether, if he should
ever be left to vote against the abolition of slavery in the District of
Columbia, and thus stab deeply the cause of civil liberty, of humanity,
and of God; the guilty act would not result from overlooking the rights
and interests, and even the existence itself, of a third party in the
case--and from considering the claims of the nation and those of
Vir