The bill was finally passed without a division,, advantages from the passage of this bill. the Senate refusing to call the Yeas and Nays.

SPEECH OF WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

The following speech was delivered by Hon. William H. Seward, in the Senate of the United States, on the night of the final passage of the Nebraska Bill, May 26, 1854.

MR. PRESIDENT:-I rise with no purpose of further resisting or even delaying the passage of this bill. Let its advocates have only a little patience, and they will soon reach the object for which they have struggled so earnestly and so long. The sun has set for the last time upon the guaranteed and certain liberties of all the unsettled and unorganized portions of the American continent that lie within the jurisdiction of the United States. To-morrow's sun will rise in dim eclipse over them. How long that obscuration shall last, is known only to the Power that directs and controls all human events. For myself, I know only this-that now no human power will prevent its coming on, and that its passing off will be hastened and secured by others than those now here, and perhaps by only those belonging to future generations.

I do

not find it necessary to be censorious, nor even unjust to others, in order that my own course may be approved. I am sure that the honorable Senator from Illinois [Mr. DOUGLAS] did not mean that the slave States should gain an advantage over the free States, for he disclaimed it when he introduced the bill. I believe, in all candor, that the honorable Senator from Georgia, [Mr. TOOMBS,] who comes out at the close of the battle as one of the chiefest leaders of the victorious party, is sincere in declaring his own opinion that the slave States will gain no unjust advantage over the free States, because he disclaims it as a triumph in their behalf. Notwithstanding all this, however, what has occurred here and in the country, during this contest, has compelled a conviction that Slavery will gain something, and Freedom will endure a severe, though I hope not an irretrievable loss. The slaveholding States are passive, quiet, content, and satisfied with the prospective boon, and the free States are excited and alarmed with fearful forebodings and apprehensions. The impatience for the speedy passage of the bill manifested by its friends betrays a knowledge that this is the condition of public sentiment in the free States. They thought in the beginning that it was necessary to guard the measure by inserting the Clayton amendment, which would exclude unnaturalized foreign inhabitants of the Territories from the right of suffrage. And now they seem willing, with alSir, it would be almost factious to offer further most perfect unanimity, to relinquish that saferesistance to this measure here. Indeed, suc-guard, rather than to delay the adoption of the cessful resistance was never expected to be made principal measure for at most a year, perhaps in this Hall. The Senate floor is an old battle for only a week or a day. Suppose that the Senground, on which have been fought many con- ate should adhere to that condition, which so tests, and always, at least since 1820, with fortune lately was thought so wise and so importantadverse to the cause of equal and universal what then? The bill could only go back to the freedom. We were only a few here who engaged House of Representatives, which must either in that cause in the beginning of this contest. yield or insist! In the one case or in the other, All that we could hope to do-all that we did a decision in favor of the bill would be secured; hope to do was to organize and to prepare the for even if the House should disagree, the Senate issue for the House of Representatives, to which would have time to recede. But the majority the country would look for its decision as author-will hazard nothing, even on a prospect so ceritative, and to awaken the country that it might tain as this. They will recede at once, without a be ready for the appeal which would be made, moment's further struggle, from the condition, whatever the decision of Congress might be. We and thus secure the passage of this bill now, toare no stronger now. Only fourteen at the first, night. Why such haste? Even if the question it will be fortunate if, among the ills and accidents were to go to the country before a final decision which surround us, we shall maintain that num- here, what would there be wrong in that? There ber to the end. is no man living who will say that the country anticipated, or that he anticipated, agitation of this measure in Congress, when this Congress was elected, or even when it assembled in December last.

We are on the eve of the consummation of a great national transaction-a transaction which will close a cycle in the history of our countryand it is impossible not to desire to pause a moment and survey the scene around us and the prospect before us. However obscure we may individually be, our connection with this great transaction will perpetuate our names for the praise or for the censure of future ages, and perhaps in regions far remote. If, then, we had no other motive for our actions but that of an honest desire for a just fame, we could not be indifferent to that scene and that prospect. But individual interests and ambition sink into insignificance in view of the interests of our country and of mankind. These interests awaken, at least in me, an intense solicitude.

It was said by some in the beginning, and it has been said by others later in this debate, that it was doubtful whether it would be the cause of Slavery or the cause of Freedom that would gain

Under such circumstances, and in the midst of agitation, and excitement, and debates, it is only fair to say that certainly the country has not decided in favor of the bill. The refusal, then, to let the question go to the country, is a conclusive proof that the slave States, as represented here, expect from the passage of this bill what the free States insist that they will lose by it, an advantage, a material advantage, and not a mere abstraction. There are men in the slave States, as in the free States, who insist always too pertinaciously upon mere abstractions. But that is not the policy of the slave States to-day. They are in earnest in seeking for and securing an object, and an important one. I believe they are going to have it. I do not know how long the advantage gained will last, nor how great or

comprehensive it will be. Every Senator who compact, as to admit Missouri a new slave State; agrees with me in opinion must feel as I do-that but upon the express condition, stipulated in under such circumstances he can forego nothing favor of the free States, that Slavery should be that can be done decently, with due respect to forever prohibited in all the residue of the existdifference of opinion, and consistently with the ing and unorganized Territories of the United constitutional and settled rules of legislation, to States lying north of the parallel of 36 deg. 80 m. place the true merits of the question before the north latitude. Certainly, I find nothing to win country. Questions sometimes occur, which seem my favor toward the bill in the proposition of to have two right sides. Such were the questions the Senator from Maryland [Mr. PEARCE] to rethat divided the English nation between Pitt and store the Clayton amendment, which was struck Fox-such the contest between the assailant and out in the House of Representatives. So far the defender of Quebec. The judgment of the from voting for that proposition, I shall vote world was suspended by its sympathies, and against it now, as I did when it was under conseemed ready to descend in favor of him who sideration here before, in accordance with the should be most gallant in conduct. And so, when opinion adopted as early as any political opinboth fell with equal chivalry on the same field, the ions I ever had, and cherished as long, that the survivors united in raising a common monument right of suffrage is not a mere conventional to the glorious but rival memories of Wolfe and right, but an inherent natural right, of which no Montcalm. But this contest involves a moral Government can rightly deprive any adult man question. The slave States so present it. They who is subject to its authority, and obligated to maintain that African Slavery is not erroneous, its support.

not unjust, not inconsistent with the advancing! I hold, moreover, sir, that inasmuch as every cause of human nature. Since they so regard it, man is, by force of circumstances beyond his I do not expect to see statesmen representing own control, a subject of Government somethose States indifferent about a vindication of where, he is, by the very constitution of human this system by the Congress of the United States. society, entitled to share equally in the conferOn the other hand, we of the free States regard ring of political power on those who wield it, if Slavery as erroneous, unjust, oppressive, and he is not disqualified by crime; that in a destherefore absolutely inconsistent with the prin- potic Government he ought to be allowed arms, ciples of the American Constitution and Govern-in a free Government the ballot or the open vote, ment. Who will expect us to be indifferent to the as a means of self-protection against unenduradecisions of the American people and of mankind ble oppression. I am not likely, therefore, to on such an issue?

restore to this bill an amendment which would Again: there is suspended on the issue of this deprive it of an important feature imposed upon contest the political equilibrium between the free it by the House of Representatives, and that one, and the slave States. It is no ephemeral ques- perhaps, the only feature that harmonizes with tion, no idle question, whether Slavery shall go my own convictions of justice. It is true that the on increasing its influence over the central power House of Representatives stipulates such sufhere, or whether Freedom shall gain the ascend-frage for white men as a condition for opening it ency. I do not expect to see statesmen of the to the possible proscription and slavery of the slave States indifferent on so momentous a ques-African. I shall separate them. I shall vote for tion, and as little can it be expected that those the former, and against the latter, glad to get of the free States will betray their own great universal suffrage of white men, if only that cause. And now it remains for me to declare, can be gained now, and working right on, full in view of the decision of this controversy so of hope and confidence, for the prevention or near at hand, that I have seen nothing and the abrogation of slavery in the Territories hereheard nothing during its progress to change the after. opinions which at the earliest proper period I deliberately expressed. Certainly, I have not seen the evidence then promised, that the free States would acquiesce in the measure. As certainly, too, I may say that I have not seen the fulfilment of the promise that the history of the last thirty years would be revised, corrected, and amended, and that it would then appear that the country, during all that period, had been resting in prosperity and contentment and peace, not upon a valid, constitutional, and irrevocable compromise between the slave States and the free States, but upon an unconstitutional and false, and even infamous, act of Congressional usurpation.

On the contrary, I am now, if possible, more than ever satisfied that, after all this debate, the history of the country will go down to posterity just as it stood before, carrying to them the everlasting facts that until 1820 the Congress of the United States legislated to prevent the introduction of slavery into new Territories whenever that object was practicable; and that in that year they so far modified that policy, under alarming apprehensions of civil convulsion, by a constitutional enactment in the character of a

Sir, I am surprised at the pertinacity with which the honorable Senator from Delaware, mine ancient and honorable friend, [Mr. CLAYTON,] perseveres in opposing the granting of the right of suffrage to the unnaturalized foreigner in the Territories. Congress cannot deny him that right. Here is the third article of that convention by which Louisiana, including Kansas and Nebraska, was ceded to the United States:

"The inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the Union of the United States, and admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of the Federal Constitution, to the enjoyment of the rights, privileges, and immunities of citizens of the United States; and in the mean time they shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the religion they profess."

The inhabitants of Kansas and Nebraska are citizens already, and by force of this treaty must continue to be, and as such to enjoy the right of suffrage, whatever laws you may make to the contrary. My opinions are well known, to wit: That Slavery is not only an evil, but a local one, injurious and ultimately pernicious to society, wherever it exists, and in conflict with the con

stitutional principles of society in this country. gaining a foothold in Kansas. Congress only I am not willing to extend nor to permit the gives consent, but it does not and cannot introextension of that local evil into regions now duce slavery there. Slavery will be embarrassed free within our empire. I know that there are by its own overgrasping spirit. No one, I am some who differ from me, and who regard the sure, anticipates the possible re-establishment of Constitution of the United States as an instru- the African slave trade. The tide of emigration ment which sanctions Slavery as well as Freedom. to Kansas is therefore to be supplied there solely But if I could admit a proposition so incongruous by the domestic fountain of slave production. with the letter and spirit of the Federal Consti- But Slavery has also other regions besides Kantution, and the known sentiments of its illustrious sas to be filled from that fountain. There are all founders, and so should conclude that Slavery of New-Mexico and all of Utah already within was national, I must still cherish the opinion the United States; and then there is Cuba, that that it is an evil; and because it is a national consumes slave labor and life as fast as any one one, I am the more firmly held and bound to of the slaveholding States can supply it; and prevent an increase of it, tending, as I think it besides these regions, there remains all of Mexmanifestly does, to the weakening and ultimate ico down to the Isthmus. The stream of slave overthrow of the Constitution itself, and there-labor flowing from so small a fountain, and fore to the injury of all mankind. I know there broken into several divergent channels, will not have been States which have endured long, and cover so great a field; and it is reasonably to be achieved much, which tolerated Slavery; but hoped that the part of it nearest to the North that was not the Slavery of caste, like African Pole will be the last to be inundated. But AfriSlavery. Such Slavery tends to demoralize can slave emigration is to compete with free equally the subjected race and the superior one, emigration of white men, and the source of this It has been the absence of such Slavery from latter tide is as ample as the civilization of the Europe that has given her nations their supe- two entire continents. The honorable Senator riority over other countries in that hemisphere. from Delaware mentioned, as if it were a startSlavery, wherever it exists, begets fear, and fear ling fact, that twenty thousand European immiis the parent of weakness. What is the secret grants arrived in New-York in one month. Sir, of that eternal, sleepless anxiety in the legisla- he has stated the fact with too much moderation. tive halls, and even at the firesides, of the slave On my return to the capital, a day or two ago, I States, always asking new stipulations, new com- met twelve thousand of these immigrants who promises and abrogation of compromises, new had arrived in New-York on one morning, and assumptions of power and abnegations of power, who had thronged the churches on the following but fear? It is the apprehension that, even if Sabbath, to return thanks for deliverance from safe now, they will not always or long be secure the perils of the sea, and for their arrival in the against some invasion or some aggression from land, not of Slavery, but of Liberty. I also thank the free States. What is the secret of the humil- God for their escape, and for their coming. iating part which proud old Spain is acting at They are now on their way westward, and the this day, trembling between alarms of American news of the passage of this bill, preceding them, intrusion into Cuba on one side, and British will speed many of them towards Kansas and dictation on the other, but the fact that she has Nebraska. Such arrivals are not extraordinary cherished Slavery so long, and still cherishes it,they occur almost every week; and the immiin the last of her American colonial possessions? gration from Germany, from Great Britain, and Thus far, Kansas and Nebraska are safe, under from Norway, and from Sweden, during the Euthe laws of 1820, against the introduction of this ropean war, will rise to six or seven hundred element of national debility and decline. The thousand souls in a year. And with this tide is bill before us, as we are assured, contains a great to be mingled one rapidly swelling from Asia and principle, a glorious principle; and yet that from the islands of the South Seas. All the imprinciple, when fully ascertained, proves to be migrants, under this bill as the House of Reprenothing less than the subversion of that security, sentatives overruling you have ordered, will be not only within the Territories of Kansas and good, loyal, Liberty-loving, Slavery-fearing citiNebraska, but within all the other present and zens. Come on, then, gentlemen of the slave future new Territories of the United States. Thus it is quite clear that it is not a principle alone that is involved, but that those who crowd this measure with so much zeal and earnestness must expect that either Freedom or Slavery shall gain something by it in those regions. The case, then, stands thus in Kansas and Nebraska Freedom may lose, but certainly can gain nothing; while Slavery may gain, but as certainly can lose nothing.

So far as I am concerned, the time for looking on the dark side has passed. I feel quite sure that Slavery at most can get nothing more than Kansas; while Nebraska, the wider northern region, will, under existing circumstances, escape, for the reason that its soil and climate are uncongenial with the staples of slave culturerice, sugar, cotton, and tobacco. Moreover, since the public attention has been so well and so effectually directed toward the subject, I cherish a hope that Slavery may be prevented even from

States. Since there is no escaping your challenge, I accept it in behalf of the cause of Freedom. We will engage in competition for the virgin soil of Kansas, and God give the victory to the side which is stronger in numbers as it is in right.

do

There are, however, earnest advocates of this bill, who do not expect, and who, I suppose, not desire, that Slavery shall gain possession of Nebraska." What do they expect to gain? The honorable Senator from Indiana [Mr. PETTIT] says that by thus obliterating the Missouri Compromise restriction, they will gain a tabula rasa, on which the inhabitants of Kansas and Nebraska may write whatever they will. This is the great principle of the bill, as he understands it. Well, what gain is there in that? You obliterate a Constitution of Freedom. If they write a new Constitution of Freedom, can the new be better than the old? If they write a Constitution of Slavery, will it not be a worse one? I ask the honorable Senator that! But the honorable Sen

ator says that the people of Nebraska will have the privilege of establishing institutions for themselves. They have now the privilege of establishing free institutions. Is it a privilege, then, to establish Slavery? If so, what a mockery are all our Constitutions, which prevent the inhabitants from capriciously subverting free institutions and establishing institutions of Slavery! Sir, it is a sophism, a subtlety, to talk of conferring upon a country, already secure in the blessings of Freedom, the power of self-destruction.

There cannot be a convocation of Abolitionists, however impracticable, in Faneuil Hall or the Tabernacle, though it consists of men and women who have separated themselves from all effective political parties, and who have renounced all political agencies, even though they resolve that they will vote for nobody, not even for themselves, to carry out their purposes, and though they practice on that resolution, but you take alarm, and your agitation renders necessary such compromises as those of 1820 and of 1850. What mankind everywhere want, is not the We are young in the arts of politics; you are old. removal of the Constitutions of Freedom which We are strong; you are weak. We are, therethey have, that they may make at their pleasure fore, over-confident, careless, and indifferent; Constitutions of Slavery or of Freedom, but the you are vigilant and active. These are traits privilege of retaining Constitutions of Freedom that redound to your praise. They are mentionwhen they already have them, and the removal ed not in your disparagement. I say only that of Constitutions of Slavery when they have them, there may be an extent of intervention, of agthat they may establish Constitutions of Freedom gression, on your side, which may induce the in their place. We hold on tenaciously to all ex- North, at some time, either in this or in some isting Constitutions of Freedom. Who denounces future generation, to adopt your tactics and any man for diligently adhereing to such Consti- follow your example. Remember now, that by tutions? Who would dare to denounce any one unanimous consent, this new law will be a refor disloyalty to our existing Constitutions, if pealable statute, exposed to all the chances of they were Constitutions of Despotism and Slave-the Missouri compromise. It stands an infinitely ry? But it is supposed by some that this principle worse chance of endurance than that comprois less important in regard to Kansas and Ne- mise did. braska than as a general one-a general princi- The Missouri compromise was a transaction ple applicable to all other present and future which wise, learned, patriotic statesmen agreed Territories of the United States. Do honorable to surround and fortify with the principles of a Senators then indeed suppose they are establish- compact for mutual considerations, passed and ing a principle at all? If so, I think they egre- executed, and therefore, although not irrepealgiously err, whether the principle is either good able in fact, yet irrepealable in honor and conor bad, right or wrong. They are not establish- science, and down at least until this very session ing it, and cannot establish it in this way. You of the Congress of the United States, it has had subvert one law capriciously, by making another the force and authority not merely of an act of law in its place. That is all. Will your law have Congress, but of a covenant between the free any more weight, authority, solemnity, or bind-States and the slave States, scarcely less sacred ing force on future Congresses, than the first than the Constitution itself. Now, then, who are had? You abrogate the law of your predeces- your contracting parties in the law establishing sors-others will have equal power and equal liberty to abrogate yours. You allow no barriers around the old law, to protect it from abrogation. You erect none around your new law, to stay the hand of future innovators.

Governments in Kansas and Nebraska, and abrogating the Missouri compromise? What are the equivalents in this law? What has the North given, and what has the South got back, that makes this a contract? Who pretends that it is anything more than an ordinary act of ordinary legislation? If, then, a law which has all the forms and solemnities recognized by common consent as a compact, and is covered with traditions, cannot stand amid this shuffling of the balance between the free States and the slave States, tell me what chances this new law that

On what ground do you expect the new law to stand? If you are candid, you will confess that you rest your assumption on the ground that the free States will never agitate repeal, but always acquiesce. It may be that you are right. I am not going to predict the course of the free States. I claim no authority to speak for them, and still less to say what they will do. But I may ven-you are passing will have? ture to say, that if they shall not repeal this law, You are, moreover, setting a precedent which it will not be because they are not strong enough abrogates all compromises. Four years ago, you to do it. They have power in the House of Rep- obtained the consent of a portion of the free resentatives greater than that of the slave States, States-enough to render the effort at immediate and, when they choose to exercise it, a power repeal or resistance alike impossible-to what we greater even here in the Senate. The free States regard as an unconstitutional act for the surare not dull scholars, even in practical political render of fugitive slaves. That was declared, strategy. When you shall have taught them that by the common consent of the persons acting in a compromise law establishing Freedom can be the name of the two parties, the slave States and abrogated, and the Union nevertheless stand, you the free States in Congress, an irrepealable law will have let them into another secret, namely:-not even to be questioned, although it violated that a law permitting or establishing Slavery can the Constitution. In establishing this new prinbe repealed, and the Union nevertheless remain ciple, you expose that law also to the chances of firm. If you inquire why they do not stand by their rights and their interests more firmly, I will tell you to the best of my ability. It is because they are conscious of their strength, and, therefore, unsuspecting, and slow to apprehend danger. The reason why you prevail in so many contests, is because you are in perpetual fear.

repeal. You not only so expose the fugitive slave law, but there is no solemnity about the articles for the annexation of Texas to the United States, which does not hang about the Missouri compromise; and when you have shown that the Missouri compromise can be repealed, then the articles for the annexation of

Texas are subject to the will and pleasure and the caprice of a temporary majority in Congress. Do you, then, expect that the free States are to observe compacts, and you to be at liberty to break them; that they are to submit to laws and leave them on the statute-book, however unconstitutional and however grievous, and that you are to rest under no such obligation? I think it is not a reasonable expectation. Say, then, who from the North will be bound to admit Kansas, when Kansas shall come in here, if she shall come as a slave State?

The honorable Senator from Georgia, [Mr. TOOMBS,] and I know he is as sincere as he is ardent, says if he shall be here when Kansas comes as a free State, he will vote for her admission. I doubt not that he would; but he will not be here, for the very reason, if there be no other, that he would vote that way. When Oregon or Minnesota shall come here for admission -within one year, or two years, or three years from this time-we shall then see what your new principle is worth in its obligation upon the slaveholding States. No; you establish no principle, you only abrogate a principle which was established for your own security as well as ours; and while you think you are abnegating and resigning all power and all authority on this subject into the hands of the people of the Territories, you are only getting over a difficulty in settling this question in the organization of two new Territories, by postponing it till they come here to be admitted as States, slave or free.

interests of empire-of such empire as the world has never before seen. The control of the national power is the control of the great Western Continent; and the control of this continent is to be in a very few years the controlling influence in the world. Who is there, North, that hates Slavery so much, or who, South, that hates emancipation so intensely, that he can attempt, with any hope or success, to break a Union thus forged and welded together? I have always heard, with equal pity and disgust, threats of disunion in the free States, and similar threats in the slaveholding States. I know that men may rave in the heat of passion, and under great political excitement; but I know that when it comes to a question whether this Union shall stand, either with Freedom or with Slavery, the masses will uphold it, and it will stand until some inherent vice in its Constitution, not yet disclosed, shall cause its dissolution. Now, entertaining these opinions, there are for me only two alternatives, viz: either to let Slavery gain unlimited sway, or so to exert what little power and influence I may have, as to secure, if I can, the ultimate predominance of Freedom.

In doing this, I do no more than those who believe the Slave Power is rightest, wisest, and best, are doing, and will continue to do, with my free consent, to establish its complete supremacy. If they shall succeed, I still shall be, as I have been, a loyal citizen. If we succeed, I know they will be loyal also, because it will be safest, wisest, and best for them to be so. The Sir, in saying that your new principle will not question is one, not of a day, or of a year, but be established by this bill, I reason from obvious, of many years, and, for aught I know, many clear, well-settled principles of human nature. generations. Like all other great political quesSlavery and Freedom are antagonistical ele- tions, it will be attended sometimes by excitements in this country. The founders of the ment, sometimes by passion, and sometimes, Constitution framed it with a knowledge of that perhaps, even by faction; but it is sure to be antagonism, and suffered it to continue, that it settled in a constitutional way, without any viomight work out its own ends. There is a com-lent shock to society, or to any of its great intermercial antagonism, an irreconcilable one, be-ests. It is, moreover, sure to be settled rightly; tween the systems of free labor and slave labor. because it will be settled under the benign inThey have been at war with each other ever fluences of Republicanism and Christianity, acsince the Government was established, and that cording to the principles of truth and justice, as war is to continue forever. The contest, when ascertained by human reason. In pursuing such it ripens between these two antagonistic ele-a course, it seems to me obviously as wise as it ments, is to be settled somewhere; it is to be is necessary to save all existing laws and Consettled in the seat of central power, in the Fed-stitutions which are conservative of Freedom, eral Legislature. The Constitution makes it the duty of the central Government to determine questions as often as they shall arise in favor of one or the other party, and refers the decision of them to the majority of the votes in the two Houses of Congress. It will come back here, then, in spite of all the efforts to escape from it. This antagonism must end either in a separa- This, in my humble judgment, is the simple, tion of the antagonistic parties-the slavehold- easy path of duty for the American Statesman. ing States and the free States-or, secondly, in I will not contemplate that other alternative-the the complete establishment of the influence of greater ascendency of the Slave Power. I bethe slave power over the free-or else, on the lieve that if it shall ever come, the voice of Freeother hand, in the establishment of the superior dom will cease to be heard in these Halls, whatinfluence of Freedom over the interests of Sla-ever may be the evils and dangers which Slavery very. It will not be terminated by a voluntary shall produce. I say this without disrespect for secession of either party. Commercial interests Representatives of slave States, and I say it bebind the slave States and the free States together cause the rights of petition and of debate on that in links of gold that are riveted with iron, and are effectually suppressed-necessarily suppressthey cannot be broken by passion or by ambition. ed-in all the slave States, and because they are Either party will submit to the ascendency of not always held in reverence even now, in the the other, rather than yield the commercial ad- two Houses of Congress. When freedom of speech vantages of this Union. Political ties bind the on a subject of such vital interest shall have Union together-a common necessity, and not ceased to exist in Congress, then I shall expect merely a common necessity, but the common to see Slavery not only luxuriating in all new

and to permit, as far as possible, the establishment of no new ones in favor of Slavery; and thus to turn away the thoughts of the States which tolerate Slavery from political efforts to perpetuate what in its nature cannot be perpetual, to the more wise and benign policy of emancipation.