On this very account we must be the more resolute against it.

I say, fixed in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence; for to these, as our guides, I look.

Follow Nature, if you would be its interpreter.

Nothing can be clearer than that these two instruments, if followed to their natural meaning, are in harmony with all the suggestions of justice and humanity; so that our duties as men are all reaffirmed by our duties as American citizens.

And, lastly, as citizens of Massachusetts our duties are identical, but reinforced by circumstances in her history; so that, if, as men, or as citizens of the United States, we hesitate, yet as citizens of Massachusetts we are not allowed…

By the example of our fathers, who laid the foundations of this Commonwealth in knowledge and in justice, who built schools and set their faces against Slavery, we are urged to special effort.

As their children, we must strive to develop and extend those principles which they had so much at heart, and which constitute their just fame.

We are told that a little leaven shall leaven the whole lump; it is the Massachusetts leaven which is now stirring the whole country.

Wherever education is organized at the public expense, or human rights are respected, there is seen the influence of Massachusetts, who has been not only schoolmaster, but chain-breaker.

But they have met at last in final grapple, and we are partakers in the holy conflict.

The question is simply between the Mayflower and the Slave-Ship,--which of the two to choose?

True to her origin, Massachusetts began at once that noble system of Common Schools which continues her “peculiar institution,” while a College was founded at Cambridge which has grown to be a light throughout the land.

Unhappily, Slavery, although in much mitigated form, came to be recognized here.

To our glory let it be known that no person could be born a slave on our soil.

This odious yoke was not transmissible in the blood.

He could also testify in courts of justice, like a white man,--which no American slave, nor colored person in a Slave State, can now do.

Here is an example, more than a century before Clarkson or Wilberforce, which blasts with just indignation the horrid crime still skulking beneath our national flag.

The government that could issue this decree was inconsistent with itself, when it allowed a single person bearing the upright form of man to be held a slave, even for life, anywhere within its jurisdiction.

Her wealth may depart, her warehouses may crumble, her ships may cease to cleave the seas with their keels, and her writers, too, may lose their charm; but this early record of justice and humanity will endure in never-failing brightness.

If all this be good for Massachusetts, if she has wisely rejected Slavery, then is it her duty to do for others within the reach of her influence what she has done for herself.

Thus constantly spoke Massachusetts, and in her voice was the voice of the Mayflower against the Slave-Ship.

And permit me to say, that this can be done now only by earnest, steadfast effort to arrest the power of Slavery, overshadowing the whole country, and menacing boundless regions with its malign influence.

And this is the very purpose of the Republican party.

Against the Republican party are arrayed three factions, differing in name, differing superficially in professions, but all concurring in hostility to the Prohibition of Slavery in the Territories, and therefore all three Proslavery.

Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.