"... The Missouri territory is a new country. If its extensive and
fertile fields shall be opened as a market for slaves, the
government will seem to become a party to a traffic, which in so
many acts, through so many years, it has denounced as impolitic,
unchristian, and inhuman.... The laws of the United States have
denounced heavy penalties against the traffic in slaves, because
such traffic is deemed unjust and inhuman. We appeal to the spirit
of these laws; we appeal to this justice and humanity; we ask
whether they ought not to operate, on the present occasion, with
all their force? We have a strong feeling of the injustice of any
toleration of slavery. Circumstances have entailed it on a portion
of our community, which cannot be immediately relieved from it
without consequences more injurious than the suffering of the evil.
But to permit it in a new country, where yet no habits are formed
which render it indispensable, what is it but to encourage that
rapacity and fraud and violence against which we have so long
pointed the denunciation of our penal code? What is it but to
tarnish the proud fame of the country? What is it but to render
questionable all its professions of regard for the rights of
humanity and the liberties of mankind.
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