Slavery.

With the meanness as well as insolence of tyranny, it compelled the National Government to abstain from acknowledging the neighbor Republic of Hayti, where slaves have become freemen, and established an independent nation.

It compelled the National Government to stoop ignobly, and in vain, before the British queen, to secure compensation for slaves, who, in the exercise of the natural rights of man, had asserted and achieved their freedom on the Atlantic Ocean, and afterwards sought shelter in Bermuda.

It compelled the National Government to seek the negotiation of treaties for the surrender of fugitive slaves,—thus making the Republic assert in foreign lands property in human flesh.

It joined in declaring the foreign slave-trade piracy, but insists upon the coastwise slave-trade under the auspices of the National Government.

It has rejected for years petitions to Congress against Slavery,—thus, in order to shield Slavery, practically denying the right of petition.

It has imprisoned and sold into slavery colored citizens of Massachusetts, entitled, under the Constitution of the United States, to all the privileges of citizens.

It insulted and exiled from Charleston and New Orleans the honored representatives of Massachusetts, who were sent to those places with the commission of the Commonwealth, in order to throw the shield of the Constitution over her colored citizens.

In formal despatches by the pen of Mr. Calhoun, as Secretary of State, it has made the Republic stand before the nations of the earth as the vindicator of Slavery.

It puts forth the hideous effrontery, that Slavery can go to all newly acquired territories, and have the protection of the national flag.

In defiance of the desire declared by the Fathers to limit and discourage Slavery, the Slave Power has successively introduced into the Union Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas, Florida, and Texas, as Slaveholding States,—thus, at each stage, fortifying its political power, and making the National Government lend new sanction to Slavery.

Such are some of the usurpations and aggressions of the Slave Power. By such steps the National Government is perverted from its original purposes, its character changed, and its powers subjected to Slavery. It is pitiful to see Freedom suffer at any time from any hands. It is doubly pitiful, when she suffers from a government nursed by her into strength, and quickened by her into those activities which are the highest glory.