[97] trade, and gave to general scorn those who partook of it; thus preparing the way for that complete act of Abolition which was necessary to purge the National Capital of its still remaining curse and shame. It had also abolished flogging in the Navy, thus rebuking the lash wherever and by whomsoever employed. These two props and stays of slavery had been undermined by Congressional legislation. Without the slave-trade and the lash, slavery itself must fall to the earth. But other measures had passed, which the speaker contemplated only with indignation and disgust. The broad territories of New Mexico and Utah, under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress, had been organized without any prohibition of slavery. In laying the foundations there, Congress had omitted the great Ordinances of Freedom, first suggested by Jefferson, and consecrated by the experience of the Northwestern Territory. Moreover, a vast territory, larger than all New England, had been taken from New Mexico, and ten million dollars had been given to slave-holding Texas.
And still further, as if to do a deed which should ‘make heaven weep, all earth amazed,’ this same Congress, in disregard of all the cherished safeguards of Freedom, has passed a most cruel, unchristian, devilish law to secure the return into Slavery of those fortunate bondmen who have found shelter by our firesides. This is the Fugitive Slave Bill—a bill which despoils the party claimed as a slave—whether he be in reality a slave or a freeman—of the sacred right of Trial by Jury, and commits the question of Human Freedom—the highest question known by the law—to the unaided judgment of a single magistrate, on ex parte evidence it may be, by affidavits, without the sanction of crossexami-nation. And yet there are streaks of light—an unwonted dawn—in the distant West, out of which a full-orbed sun is beginning to ascend, rejoicing like a strong man to run his race. Video solem orientem in occidente. By an Act of the recent Congress, California, with a Constitution
