chairman of the committee on the N.W. territory, reported a resolution
abolishing slavery there--that the chairman of the committee that
reported the ordinance of '87 was also a slaveholder--that the ordinance
was enacted by Congress during the session of the convention that formed
the United States' Constitution--that the provisions of the ordinance
were, both while in prospect and when under discussion, matters of
universal notoriety and _approval_ with all parties, and when finally
passed, received the vote of _every member of Congress from each of the
slaveholding states_. The South also had every reason for believing that
the first Congress under the constitution would _ratify_ that
ordinance--as it did unanimously.

A crowd of reflections, suggested by the preceding testimony, presses
for utterance. The right of petition ravished and trampled by its
constitutional guardians, and insult and defiance hurled in the faces of
the SOVEREIGN PEOPLE while calmly remonstrating _with their_ SERVANTS
for violence committed on the nation's charter and their own dearest
rights! Added to this "the right of peaceably assembling" violently
wrested--the rights of minorities, _rights_ no longer--free speech
struck dumb--free _men_ outlawed and murdered--free presses cast into
the streets and their fragments strewed with shoutings, or flourished in
triumph before the gaze of approving crowds as proud mementos of
prostrate law! The spirit and power of our fathers, where are they?
Their deep homage always and every where rendered to FREE THOUGHT, with
its _inseparable signs--free speech and a free press_--their reverence
for justice, liberty, _rights_ and all-pervading law, where are they?

But we turn from these considerations--though the times on which we have
fallen, and those toward which we are borne with headlong haste, call
for their discussion as with the voices of departing life--and proceed