tive;" and lastly, to those "who
express the opinion that it is not within the scope of either Executive
or Legislative authority, or of Constitutional Amendment;" and after
demolishing the arguments of those who held the two former of these
positions, he proceeded to rebut the assumption that Slavery could not
be abolished at all because it was not originally abolished by the
Constitution.

Continuing, he said: "Remember, now, the question is, can that
Institution, which deals with Humanity as Property, which claims to
shackle the mind, the soul, and the body, which brings to the level of
the brute a portion of the race of Man, cease to be within the reach of
the political power of the People of the United States, not because it
was not at one time within their power, but because at that time they
did not exert the power?

"What says the Preamble to the Constitution? How pregnant with a
conclusive answer is the Preamble, to the proposition that Slavery
cannot be abolished! What does that Preamble state to have been the
chief objects that the great and wise and good men had at heart, in
recommending the Constitution, with that Preamble, to the adoption of
the American People? That Justice might be established; that
Tranquillity might be preserved; that the common Defense and general
Welfare might be maintained; and, last and chief of all, that Liberty
might be secured.

"Is there no Justice in putting an end to human Slavery? Is there no
danger to the Tranquillity of the Country in its existence? May it not
interfere with the common Defense and general Welfare? And, above all,
is it consistent with any notion, which the mind of man can conceive, of
human Liberty?"

He held that the very Amendatory clause of the Constitution under which
it was proposed to make this Amendment, was probably inserted there from
a conviction of that coming time "when Justice would call so loudly for
the extinction of the Institution that her call could not be disobeyed,"
and, when "the Peace and Tranquillity of the Land would demand, in
thunder tones," its destruction, "as inconsistent with such Peace and
Tranquillity."

To the atrocious pretence that "there was a right to make a Slave of any
human being"--which he said would have shocked every one of the framers
of the Constitution had they heard it; and, what he termed, the nauseous
declaration that "Slavery of the Black race is of Divine origin," and
was intended to be perpet