| Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. It claimed the constitutional right to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, the forts, arsenals, dock-yards, and other places ceded to the United States within the bounds of the slaveholding States. It proposed a prohibition of the slave-trade between the States, thereby crowding the slaves together, and preventing the exit south until they became unprofitable to such an extent that it would force the owner finally to abandon them in self-defence. It has, by the deliberate legislative enactments of a large majority of the Northern States, openly and flagrantly nullified the clause of the Constitution which provided for the return of fugitive slaves. |
