Individuals retain their citizenship on going there, as they do on going to Great Britain, or France; but a slave has just as much right to a portion of the public lands in California, when he gets there, as his master.

Again; if the master carries into California the legal right to hold slaves, which he possessed at home, does not the slave also retain his legal rights when he is transferred there?

Now, how can a Georgian import slaves into California from Georgia, when the very laws of his own state, under which he claims to hold slaves, and under which laws he claims to carry slaves with him, forbid their importation?

In South Carolina, the ownership of ten slaves constitutes a property qualification for being a member of the legislature.

It is a right in every owner of ten slaves, that no man who does not own ten slaves, (or some legal equivalent,) shall be a member of the legislature.

The inference is inevitable, that if the inhabitants of the fifteen slave states can carry slaves into California by virtue of the laws of their respective states, then they must also carry all the incidents of slavery known to their…

On one side of the line, down to the nadir and up to the zenith, the blackness of the slave code pervades all things; but, on the other side, as high above and as deep below, is the purity of freedom.

So neither Virginia, nor all the fifteen slave states combined, can extend their slave laws one hair’s breadth into the new territories; and for the same reason,--the territories are beyond their jurisdiction.

On its very face, the constitution meets this pretension with a denial.

Having, as I trust, refuted the argument of the slaveholder, that the prohibition of slavery in the territories is an act of injustice to his rights, I will consider his next assertion, that it is an insult to his feelings.

We are told that the exclusion of slavery from the territories is an affront to the honorable sensibilities of the south; and that acquiescence in this exclusion would involve their dishonor and degradation.

Now, it is infinitely far from the purpose of the north to offer any indignity to the south by excluding slavery from the territories.

Their hostility to slavery grows out of an honest allegiance to what they believe to be the highest moral and religious duty; it is fortified by the opinions of mankind; and is perfectly compatible with the most fraternal feelings towards…

However erroneous, then, their language or their sentiments may be, they are not affrontive nor contumelious; and, when all such purpose is disavowed, those who aspire to stand on the footing of gentlemen cannot reiterate the charge.

So, if a usurper of human rights takes away from a child the faculties of knowledge, or the means and opportunities to know, it is precisely the same to that child as though all the beauties and the wonders, all the magnificence and the…

To one who is permitted to know nothing of the charms and sublimities of science, all science is non-existent.

To one whose mind is not made capacious of the future, and opened to receive it, all the great interests of futurity have less of reality than a dream.

I say, therefore, in strict, literal, philosophical truth, that whoever denies knowledge to children works devilish miracles.

Such a destroyer of knowledge dims the highest moral splendor of the universe.

And still further, sir, I affirm, in words as true and literal as any that belong to geometry, that the man who withholds knowledge from a child not only works diabolical miracles for the destruction of good, but for the creation of evil…

He who shuts out truth, by the same act opens the door to all the error that supplies its place.

Ignorance breeds monsters to fill up all the vacuities of the soul that are unoccupied by the verities of knowledge.

He who dethrones the idea of law, bids chaos welcome in its stead.

Superstition is the mathematical complement of religious truth; and just so much less as the life of a human being is reclaimed to good, just so much more is it delivered over to evil.

So far from facilitating the increase of individual or national wealth, slavery retards both.