The whole hope of human progress is suspended on the ever-growing influence of the Bible.

Simultaneously with the establishment of the Constitution, Virginia ceded to the United States her domain, which then extended to the Mississippi, and was even claimed to extend to the Pacific Ocean.

We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them, and holding them in bondage where we can set them free.

But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes.

The right to have a slave implies the right in some one to make the slave; that right must be equal and mutual, and this would resolve society into a state of perpetual war.

I deem it established, then, that the Constitution does not recognize property in man, but leaves that question, as between the states, to the law of nature and of nations.

It would be contrary to the spirit of the American Government to use force to subjugate the South.