The answer to Patrick Henry’s objection, as urged against the Constitution in the Virginia convention, that there was no power left to the States to quell an insurrection of slaves, as it was wholly vested in Congress, George Nicholas asked:—­

“Have they it now?  If they have, does the constitution take it away?  If it does, it must be in one of the three clauses which have been mentioned by the worthy member.  The first clause gives the general government power to call them out when necessary.  Does this take it away from the States?  No! but it gives an additional security; for, beside the power in the State governments to use their own militia, it will be the duty of the general government to aid them WITH THE STRENGTH OF THE UNION, when called for.”

This solemn guaranty of security to the slave system, caps the climax of national barbarity, and stains with human blood the garments of all the people.  In consequence of it, that system has multiplied its victims from seven hundred thousand to nearly three millions—­a vast amount of territory has been purchased, in order to give it extension and perpetuity—­several new slave States have been admitted into the Union—­the slave trade has been made one of the great branches of American commerce—­the slave population, though over-worked, starved, lacerated, branded, maimed, and subjected to every form of deprivation and every species of torture, have been overawed and crushed,—­or, whenever they have attempted to gain their liberty by revolt, they have been shot down and quelled by the strong arm of the national government; as, for example, in the case of Nat Turner’s insurrection in Virginia, when the naval and military forces of the government were called into active service.  Cuban bloodhounds have been purchased with the money of the people, and imported and used to hunt slave fugitives among the everglades of Florida.  A merciless warfare has been waged for the extermination or expulsion of the Florida Indians, because they gave succor to these poor hunted fugitives—­a warfare which has cost the nation several thousand lives, and forty millions of dollars.  But the catalogue of enormities is too long to be recapitulated in the present address.

We have thus demonstrated that the compact between the North and the South embraces every variety of wrong and outrage,—­is at war with God and man, cannot be innocently supported, and deserves to be immediately annulled.  In behalf of the Society which we represent, we call upon all our fellow-citizens, who believe it is right to obey God rather than man, to declare themselves peaceful revolutionists, and to unite with us under the stainless banner of Liberty, having for its motto—­“EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL—­NO UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS!”