Excerpt from A Discourse on Slavery: Delivered Before the Anti-Slavery Society in Littleton, N. H., February 22, 1839, Being the Anniversary of the Birth of Washington Negro slavery still exists in this republic in the District of Columbia, all the southern states and territories and to that we will direct our atten tion. I now proceed to speak of the political relation between slavery and our country; and consider the position that the constitution assumed towards that institution. When the convention assembled at Philadelphia, in May, 1787, the laws of every state except Massachusetts tolerated slavery. In this state of things it could not well be that the constitution proposed by such an assembly should not recognize slavery in some form or another. Yet nothing is clearer than that the heroes and patriots who had just been so much engaged in the struggle for their own liberties, expected that negro slavery would soon cease, and be out-rooted from our republic. During this struggle they had remembered those in bonds as bound with them. They could not well raise their hands and hearts to pray God to assist them, without resolving, as soon as they should have suc ceeded in their cause, to commence a course of measures that should result in freedom for every man in the country, whether black or white. Persecuted sects always preach toleration; and so the oppressed preach universal freedom. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.