[69] doors. The freemen of the North are responsible for it equally with the traffickers in flesh, who haunt the shambles of the South. Nor will this responsibility cease, so long as Slavery continues to exist in the District of Columbia, in any territories of the United States, or anywhere on the high seas, beneath the protecting flag of the Republic. The fetters of every slave within these jurisdictions are bound and clasped in part by the votes of Massachusetts. Their chains, as they clank, seem to say, ‘Massachusetts helps commit this outrage.’They were not satisfied with even a complete ‘Divorce of the Federal Government from Slavery’—that it should no longer receive its sanction or support:—Federal Government must be on the side of Freedom.—In accomplishing these specific changes, a new tone would be given to the Republic. The Slave Power would be broken, and Slavery driven from its present intrenchments under the Federal Government. The influence of such a change would be incalculable. The whole weight of the Government would then be taken from the side of Slavery, where it has been placed by the Slave Power, and put on the side of Freedom, according to the original purposes and aspirations of its founders. This of itself is an end for which we should labor earnestly, in the spirit of the Constitution. Let it never be forgotten, as the pole-star of our policy, that the Federal Government must be placed openly, actively and perpetually, on the side of Freedom. It must be openly on the side of Freedom. There must be no equivocation, concealment, or reserve in its opinions. It must not, like the witches in Macbeth, ‘palter in a double sense.’ Let it avow itself distinctly and firmly as the enemy of Slavery, and thus give to the friends of Freedom, now struggling throughout the Slave States, the advantage of its countenance. It must be actively on the side of Freedom. It should not be content with bearing its testimony openly. It must act. Within the constitutional sphere of its influence, it must be felt as the enemy of Slavery. Let it now study to exert itself for Freedom as zealously and effectively as for many years it has exerted itself for slavery. It must be perpetually on the side of Freedom. It must not be uncertain, vacillating or temporary, in this beneficent policy. Let it be
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