The second broke forth in the “Atherton Gag,” under which the honest, earnest petitions from the national heart against Slavery, even in the District of Columbia, were tabled without reference, and the great Right of Petition, promised by…

Nobody dares to praise Slavery; nobody dares to deny the Right of Petition.

The Ordinance of 1787, which is the great example, asserts the perpetuity of all its prohibitions; and this is the rule alike of law and statesmanship.

The Missouri Act takes up the rule asserted in the Ordinance, and declares that in certain Territories Slavery shall be prohibited forever.

The whole pretension against the proposed condition is in the name of State Rights; but it cannot be doubted that it may be traced directly to Slavery.

The principal has fallen; why preserve the incident?

The wrong guarded by this pretension has yielded; why should not the pretension yield also?

Unquestionably States have rights under the Constitution, which we are bound to respect,--nay, more, which are a source of strength and advantage.

It is through the States that the people everywhere govern themselves, and our Nation is saved from a central domination.

They supply the machinery of local self-government for the convenience of life, while they ward off the attempts of an absorbing imperialism.

But there can be no State Rights against Human Rights.

I doubt if ever before any nation has attempted to deal at once with so large a mass of financial obligations, being nothing less than the whole national debt of the United States.

Because a State, constituting part of a Nation dedicated to Human Rights, may govern itself and supply the machinery of local self-government, it does not follow that such a State may deny Human Rights within its borders.

State Rights, when properly understood, are entirely consistent with the maintenance of Human Rights by the Nation.

The State is not humbled, when it receives the mandate of the Nation to do no wrong; nor can the Nation err, when it asserts everywhere within its borders the imperialism of Human Rights.

Against this righteous supremacy all pretensions of States must disappear, as darkness before the King of Day.

Is it not strange that words so constantly employed as a cover for pretensions against Human Rights cannot be found in the Constitution?

It is true, that, by the Laws of Nations, all sovereign States, great or small, are equal; but this principle has been extended without authority to States created by the Nation and made a part of itself.

There is but one active provision in the Constitution which treats the States as equal, and this provision shows how this very Equality may be waived.

And this is the whole testimony of the Constitution to that Equality of States which is now asserted in derogation of all compacts or conditions.

It is startling to find how constantly the obvious conclusions from the text of the Constitution have been overlooked.

But if this important limitation can in any way be made the subject of agreement or compact, pray, Sir, where will you stop?

What other power or prerogative of the State may not be limited also, especially where there is nothing in the Constitution against any such limitation?

A condition in favor of Human Rights cannot be a limitation on a State or on a citizen.

The mass of financial obligations should be promptly adjusted in some new form at smaller interest; taxes must be reduced; the payment of the national debt must be left in part to posterity; specie payments must be provided for.