Wherever we are responsible for Slavery, we oppose it. Our opposition is coextensive with our responsibility. In the States Slavery is sustained by local law; and although we are compelled to share the stigma upon the fair fame of the country which its presence inflicts, yet it receives no direct sanction at our hands. We are not responsible for it there. The National Government, in which we are represented, is not responsible for it there. The evil is not at our own particular doors. But Slavery everywhere under the Constitution of the United States, everywhere under the exclusive jurisdiction of the National Government, everywhere under the national flag, is at our own particular doors. The freemen of the North are responsible for it equally with the traffickers in flesh who haunt the shambles of the South. Nor will this responsibility cease, so long as Slavery continues to exist in the District of Columbia, in any Territories of the United States, or anywhere on the high seas, beneath the protecting flag of the Republic. The fetters of every slave within these jurisdictions are bound and clasped by the votes of Massachusetts. Their chains, as they clank, seem to say, "Massachusetts does this outrage."
Divorce of the National Government from Slavery.— This must not be any longer. Let the word go forth, that the National Government shall be divorced from all support of Slavery, and shall never hereafter sanction it. So doing, it will be brought back to the condition and character which it enjoyed at the adoption of the Constitution.
The National Government must be on the side of Freedom.—Accomplishing these specific changes, a new tone will be given to the Republic. The Slave Power will be broken, and Slavery driven from its present intrenchments under the National Government. The influence of such a change will be incalculable. The whole weight of the Government will then be taken from the side of Slavery, where it has been placed by the Slave Power, and put on the side of Freedom, according to the original purposes and aspirations of its founders. This of itself is an end for which to labor earnestly in the spirit of the Constitution. Let it never be forgotten, as the pole-star of our policy, that the National Government must be placed, openly, actively, and perpetually, on the side of Freedom.
It must be openly on the side of Freedom. There must be no equivocation, concealment, or reserve. It must not, like the witches in Macbeth, "palter in a double sense." It must avow itself distinctly and firmly the enemy of Slavery, and thus give to the friends of Freedom, now struggling throughout the Slave States, the advantage of its countenance.
It must be actively on the side of Freedom. It cannot be content with simply bearing its testimony. It must act. Within the constitutional sphere of its influence, it must be felt as the enemy of Slavery. It must now exert itself for Freedom as zealously and effectively as for many years it has exerted itself for Slavery.
It must be perpetually on the side of Freedom. It must not be uncertain, vacillating, or temporary, in this beneficent policy, but fixed and constant, so that hereafter it shall know no change.
In our endeavors to give the Government this elevated character we are cheered by high examples, whose opinions have already been adduced. We ask only that the Republic should once more be inspired by their spirit and be guided by their counsels. Let it join with Jefferson in open, uncompromising hostility to Slavery. Let it unite with Franklin in giving countenance to the cause of Emancipation, and in stepping to the very verge of the power vested in it for DISCOURAGING every species of traffic in the persons of our fellow-men. Let all its officers and members follow Washington, declaring, that, in any legislative effort for the abolition of Slavery, THEIR SUFFRAGES SHALL NEVER BE WANTING.