whatsoever, to prevent Slavery entering any territory of the Republic; and it is against this rendering of the Constitution that the Republicans are now struggling. When they get into office they will soon establish a different meaning for that instrument. In process of time they will have the opportunity of appointing lawyers of their own party to vacant judgeships of the Supreme Court, and the Dred Scott judgment will be reversed. Maybe they will become frightened at the possibility of the Constitution being twisted into meaning anything but freedom, and forthwith insert a peg in that instrument which shall prevent any further twisting, in the shape of an additional clause to the Constitution. To alter or modify this document, however, requires the votes of two-thirds of both Houses of Congress; but the future is promising, and many years will not roll over before the Constitution of the United States declares explicitly that the four millions of coloured men, in the Southern States, cannot, shall not, be deprived of those rights which God has given them, which the civilized world recognizes, and which a tyrannical gang of some three hundred and fifty thousand Slaveholders have most blasphemously deprived them of.

Six years ago, the opposition to the Slave-holding

interest took the form of simple Slavery limitation, but it has already assumed nobler proportions. Scarcely a day passes, but some Representative from the North denounces the system in Congress, dealing with the institution as a national disgrace. On the 5th of last April, Mr. Lovejoy, of Illinois, addressed the House of Representatives at Washington in the following eloquent language:

"The question is, whether Slavery is to extend beyond its present limits? They say that is the only question over which we have not exclusive jurisdiction. Slavery is called an 'institution;' but it is no institution. Sir, it is simply a practice, as polygamy is a practice. The question now is, what are the influences and what are the elements of the practice of Slavery? The morality of Slavery has been settled long ago. The ethics of it are no longer discussed. Ages and ages ago it has been settled by the priests; and now, in gorgeousness and glory, it appears like the fresh bright glows which gather round a summer's sunset. We are told that wherever Slaveholding will pay, there it will go, precisely on the same principle that wherever robbery will pay, there robbery will go wherever piracy will pay, there piracy will go. And wherever human flesh is cheaper than thieving, cannibalism will prevail, because it will pay. Than robbery, than piracy, than polygamy, Slaveholding is worse, more wicked, more criminal, more inglorious to man, and more abhorrent to God. Slaveholding has been justly called the sum of all crime.' You put every crime into the moral

crucible, every wickedness perpetrated among men-put all the crime on the catalogue into the moral crucible, and then dissolve them all, and the result will be Slaveholding. It has all the violence of robbery. I am speaking earnestly before God, and what I utter is God's truth. It has all the violence of robbery; it has the bloody course of piracy; it has all the offensiveness and brutalizing lusts of polygamy, all combined and concentrated in itself, with the aggravating circumstances of each and every crime that was ever known or dreamt of. Now, sir, the justification of Slavery is placed upon three grounds-the inferiority of the enslaved race, the fact that Slavery imparts Christianity and civilization to the Slaves, and the plea that it is guaranteed by the Constitution. These are the three main arguments that are presented to justify Slavery in itself, and consequently it is these which are claimed to justify its expansion. The extreme men upon this question are not the only men who have logical argument on their side. I must be right in my position, or the extreme fire-eaters must be right. If Slavery is right in Virginia, it must be right in Kansas. If wrong in Kansas, it must be wrong everywhere. Now, with reference to the first point-the inferiority of the enslaved race. We concede, as a matter of fact, the inferiority. Does it follow from that that it is right to enslave a man simply because he is inferior to me? Sir, this is a most abhorrent doctrine. This gives over the weak to the mercy of the strong-the poor to the mercy of the rich. This doctrine places those who are weak in intellect in the mercy of those who are gifted. This principle of

enslaving men because of their inferiority is the most revolting that was ever presented to the world. If a man is old and weak, and bowed down with years, you strike him down. If he is idiotic, you take advantage of him— if a child, you deceive him. Why, sir, this is the doctrine of the Democrats. But it is, sir, the doctrine of devils as well. (Sensation.) According to this inhuman doctrine, the strong would enslave the weak everywhere—just as the angels might enslave men because they are superior to men-just as the archangels might enslave the inferior angels. Sir, this horrible doctrine, on the same principle, would transfer the great Jehovah himself into an infernal Juggernaut, who would enslave the world under the huge rolling wheels of his omnipotence."

This speech was received by the pro-Slavery Members with marks of fierce disapprobation. The greatest confusion ensued, and Mr. Lovejoy was in imminent peril for his personal safety: crowds of Democratic Representatives rushed upon him shaking their fists and canes in his face, until the Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms was called in to restore order. With great difficulty this was effected, and Mr. Lovejoy continued his remarks by referring to the numbers of Northern females engaged in the work of education in Southern schools, asserting that but for them the South would return to barbarism. He was again interrupted, and the following scene ensued:

:

"Mr. Singleton, of Mississippi, said that he would not allow such insinuations upon Southern women to pass. If the Member persisted in that course of remark, he (Mr. Singleton) would hold him personally accountable.

"Mr. Lovejoy said that in the 4,000,000 of Slaves, there was not one legal husband or wife, father or child, and spoke about a Presbyterian elder down South having the Gospel whipped into him with the broadside of a handsaw, and of a young girl in this city being whipped until the blood came out of her nostrils, and then sent to the garret to die. He had sworn to support the Constitution because he loved it, but he did not interpret it in the way Southerners did.

"Mr. Bonham, of South Carolina (Democrat): 'You violate it.'

"Mr. Ashmore, of South Carolina (Democrat): 'And perjure yourself.'

"Mr. Singleton: ' And are a negro thief into the bargain.' "Mr. Barksdale: 'I hold no parley with a perjured negro.' (Calling a white man 'a negro' is the harshest term of reproach amongst Southern men.)

"Mr. Lovejoy said: 'When Daniel Webster spoke of the imposition of Austria on Hungary, he remarked that the earthquake and tornado have powers, and the thunder has power, but greater than these was the power of public opinion, and before this he proposed to arraign Austria. He (Lovejoy) proposed to hold up to the retribution of public sentiment, Slaveholding in all its atrocity and hideousness, just as gentlemen had here polygamy. Public sentiment will burn and scour out Slavery, and the proper