approach you in behalf of millions of their fellow-men,
held in bondage in the United States. Those millions are
denied, not only the immunities enjoyed by the citizens
of your great republic generally, and of the equal
privileges and the impartial protection of the civil
law, but are deprived of their personal rights, so that
they cease to be regarded and treated, under your
otherwise noble institutions, as MEN, except in the
commission of crime, when the utmost rigor of your penal
statutes is invoked and enforced against them; but are
reduced to the degraded condition of "chattels personal
in the hands of their owners and possessors, to _all
intents, constructions, and purposes, whatsoever_."

"'This is the language and the law of slavery; and under
this law, guarded with jealousy by their political
institutions, the slaveholders of the South rest their
claims to property in man But, sir, there are claims
anterior to all human laws, and superior to all
political institutions, which are immutable in their
nature,--claims which are the birthright of every human
being, of every clime, and of every color,--claims which
God has conferred, and which man cannot destroy without
sacrilege, or infringe without sin. Personal liberty is
among these, the greatest and best, for it is the root
of all other rights, the conservative principle of human
associations, the spring of public virtues, and
essential to national strength and greatness.

"'The monstrous and wicked assumption of power by man,