upon marble.  Why have you done this?  Is it not mockery?  Or is it to remind us continually of the wickedness and danger of slavery?  I never pass that statue without new and increased veneration for the man it represents, and increased repugnance and sorrow that he did not succeed in driving slavery entirely from the country.  Sir, if I am an abolitionist, Jefferson made me so; and I only regret that the disciple should be so far behind the master, both in doctrine and practice.  But, sir, other reasons and other causes have combined to fix and establish my principles in this matter, never, I trust, to be shaken.  A free State was the place of my birth; a free Territory the theatre of my juvenile actions.  Ohio is my country, endeared to me by every fond recollection.  She gave me political existence, and taught me in her political school; and I should be worse than an unnatural son did I forget or disobey her precepts.  In her Constitution it is declared, “That all men are born equally free and independent,” and “that there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the State, otherwise than for the punishment of crimes.”  Shall I stand up for slavery in any case, condemned as it is by such high authority as this?  No, never!  But this is not all, Indiana, our younger Western sister, endeared to us by every social and political tie, a State formed in the same country as Ohio, from whose territory slavery was forever excluded by the ordinance of July, 1787—­she too, has declared her abhorrence of slavery in more strong and empathic terms than we have done.  In her constitution, after prohibiting slavery, or involuntary servitude, being introduced into the State, she declares, “But as to the holding any part of the human creation in slavery, or involuntary servitude, can originate only in tyranny and usurpation, no alteration of her constitution should ever take place, so as to introduce slavery or involuntary servitude into the State, otherwise than for the punishment of crimes whereof the party had been duly convicted.”  Illinois and Michigan also formed their constitutions on the same principles.  After such a cloud of witnesses against slavery, and whose testimony is so clear and explicit, as a citizen of Ohio, I should be recreant to every principle of honor and of justice, to be found the apologist or advocate of slavery in any State, or in any country whatever.  No, I cannot be so inconsistent as to say I am opposed to slavery in the abstract, in its separation from a human being, and still lend my aid to build it up, and make it perpetual in its operation and effects upon man in this or any other country.  I also, in early life, saw a slave kneel before his master, and hold up his hands with as much apparent submission, humility, and adoration, as a man would have done before his Maker, while his master with out-stretched rod stood over him.  This, I thought, is slavery; one man subjected to the will and power