ground for commercial
regulations, but ought to be strictly prohibited. I therefore believe
it is the duty of Congress, by virtue of this power, to regulate
commerce, to prohibit, at once, slaves being used as articles of
trade.

The gentleman says, the Constitution left the subject of slavery
entirely to the States. To this position I assent; and, as the States
cannot regulate their own commerce, but the same being the right of
Congress, that body cannot make slaves an article of commerce, because
slavery is left entirely to the States in which it exists; and slaves
within those States, according to the gentleman, are excluded from the
power of Congress. Can Congress, in regulating commerce among the
several States, authorize the transportation of articles from one
State, and their sale in another, which they have not power so to
authorize in any State? I cannot believe in such doctrine; and I now
solemnly protest against the power of Congress to authorize the
transportation to, and the sale in, Ohio, of any negro slave whatever,
or for any possible purpose under the sun. Who is there in Ohio, or
elsewhere, that will dare deny this position? If Ohio contains such a
recreant to her constitution and policy, I hope he may have the
boldness to stand forth and avow it. If the States in which slavery
exists love it as a household god, let them keep it there, and not
call upon us in the free States to offer incense to their idol. We do
not seek to touch it with unhallowed hands, but with pure hands,
upraised in the cause of truth and suffering humanity.

The gentleman admits that, at the formation of our Government, it was
feared that slavery might eventually divide or distract our country;
and, as the BALLOT BOX seems continually to haunt his imagination, he
says there is real danger of dissolution of the Union if
abolitionists, as is evident they do, will carry their principles into
the BALLOT BOX. If not disunion in fact, at least in feeling, in the
country, which is always the precursor to the clash of arms. And the
gentleman further says we are taught by holy writ, "that the race is
not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong." The moral of the
gentleman's argument is, that truth and righteousness will prevail,
though opposed by power and influence; that abolitionists, though few
in number, are greatly to be feared; one, as I have said, may chase a
thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight; and, as their weapons