The Fugitive Slave Bill, conceived in iniquity, and imposed upon the North as a badge of subjugation, may be repealed.

The traffic in human beings, as an article of “commerce among the States,” may be extirpated.

And, above all, that odious rule of evidence, so injurious to justice and discreditable to the country, excluding the testimony of colored persons, may be abolished, at least in national courts.

The enlistment of colored persons must be encouraged by legislation in every possible form; for enlistment is emancipation.

All these things at least may be done, and, when they are done, Heaven and Earth will be glad, for they will have assurance that all will be done.

An Amendment of the Constitution may do what courts and Congress decline to do, or, even should they act, it may cover their action with its panoply.

Such an Amendment will give completeness and permanence to Emancipation, while bringing the Constitution into avowed harmony with the Declaration of Independence.

Happy day, long wished for, destined to gladden those beatified spirits who have labored on earth to this end, but died without the sight!

It postpones till to-morrow what ought to be done to-day; and I much fear that it will be made the apology for indifference to other efforts of direct practical value,--as if it were pardonable to neglect for a day the duties we owe to…

For myself, let me confess, that, in presence of the mighty events now thronging, I feel how insignificant is any individual, whether citizen or Senator; and yet, humbly longing to do my part, I would not put off till to-morrow what ought…

Our fellow-men are in bonds: they must be relieved.

Less than this, at the present moment, when Slavery is still menacing, would be abandonment of duty.

So long as a single slave continues anywhere beneath the flag of the Republic, I am unwilling to rest.

Too well I know the vitality of Slavery with its infinite capacity of propagation, and how little Slavery it takes to make a Slave State with all the cruel pretensions of Slavery.

There is the Declaration of Independence: let its solemn promises be redeemed.

There is the Constitution: let it speak according to the promises of the Declaration.

Let it speak, and the last act of the great American tragedy will be ended, while the stage is piled with corpses.

Nor can its death be otherwise than an epoch, not only for our own country, but for mankind.

The slave was allowed to live, but without the rights of man.

Instead of death in the grave with its insensibility and decay, there was death in life with constant degradation and suffering.

How truly affecting are the words of Homer, depicting the wife of Hector toiling as bondwoman at the looms of her Grecian master,--or those other undying words which exhibit man in Slavery as shorn of half his worth!

Unhappily, the ban of color has become a certificate of Slavery, and a large portion of the human family, whose offence was a skin darkened by the hand of God, has been degraded to the condition of chattels.

The sympathies once awakened only for illustrious gifts are now bestowed upon suffering humanity, marking an advance in civilization.

In other places Slavery may linger yet a little longer; but its death here will make its continued existence impossible wherever civilization prevails.

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