ir meals on good men's names_. These spacious galleries were filled
with disloyal men, ready to applaud to the echo every threat uttered
against the Government, and every disloyal sentiment heard from this
floor.

If the Republicans here shall feel it to be their duty to discuss this
subject now; to lay bare its weakness and its wickedness; to expose the
madness and the folly of those who sustain, support, and cherish it; if
the great interests of the country have to be neglected for a time; if
ordinary legislation must be put aside, no complaint can be made against
the Republican party. That party, its principles, its men, and its
measures, have been misrepresented, and most unjustly assailed. It is
our privilege, it is our duty, to repel those assaults, that the world
may know that when the advanced guard of freedom is attacked, "our feet
shall be always in the arena, and our shields shall hang always in the
lists."

I intend to review this question for the time allowed me. I hope to do
so with fairness and candor, and not with the passion and excitement
that have characterized many speeches made this session by pro-slavery
members. I shall endeavor to show that the fathers of this Republic,
both of the North and South, were more thoroughly anti-slavery than any
political party now in the country; and that, for more than forty years
after its organization, a large majority of our prominent men were
strongly opposed to the extension of that "_patriarchal_ institution."

The debates in the Federal Convention show that the Constitution was
framed, adopted, and ratified, by anti-slavery men; that they regarded
it as an evil, yet were ashamed to acknowledge its existence in
words--thus virtually refusing to recognise property in many
Resolutions, addresses, and speeches, now to be found, establish this
very important fact, as I will show by quotations from them.

At a general meeting in Prince George county, Virginia, it was

"_Resolved_, That the African slave trade is injurious to this colony,
obstructs the population of it by free men, and prevents manufacturers
from Europe from settling among us."

At a meeting in Culpeper county, Virginia, it was

"_Resolved_, That the importation of slaves obstructs the population
with free white men and useful manufacturers."

At a meeting in Nansemond county, Virginia, it was

"_Resolved_, That the African slave trade is injurious to this colony,
obstructs the population