I have claimed that the antislavery cause has, from the first, been ably and dispassionately argued, every objection candidly examined, and every difficulty or doubt anywhere honestly entertained treated with respect.  Let me glance at the literature of the cause, and try not so much, in a brief hour, to prove this assertion, as to point out the sources from which any one may satisfy himself of its truth.

I will begin with certainly the ablest and perhaps the most honest statesman who has ever touched the slave question.  Any one who will examine John Quincy Adams’ speech on Texas, in 1838, will see that he was only seconding the full and able exposure of the Texas plot, prepared by Benjamin Lundy, to one of whose pamphlets Dr. Channing, in his “Letter to Henry Clay,” has confessed his obligation.  Every one acquainted with those years will allow that the North owes its earliest knowledge and first awakening on that subject to Mr. Lundy, who made long journeys and devoted years to the investigation.  His labors have this attestation, that they quickened the zeal and strengthened the hands of such men as Adams and Channing.  I have been told that Mr. Lundy prepared a brief for Mr. Adams, and furnished him the materials for his speech on Texas.

Look next at the right of petition.  Long before any member of Congress had opened his mouth in its defence, the Abolition presses and lecturers had examined and defended the limits of this right with profound historical research and eminent constitutional ability.  So thoroughly had the work been done, that all classes of the people had made up their minds about it long before any speaker of eminence had touched it in Congress.  The politicians were little aware of this.  When Mr. Adams threw himself so gallantly into the breach, it is said he wrote anxiously home to know whether he would be supported in Massachusetts, little aware of the outburst of popular gratitude which the northern breeze was even then bringing him, deep and cordial enough to wipe away the old grudge Massachusetts had borne him so long.  Mr. Adams himself was only in favor of receiving the petitions, and advised to refuse their prayer, which was the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.  He doubted the power of Congress to abolish.  His doubts were examined by Mr. William Goodell, in two letters of most acute logic, and of masterly ability.  If Mr. Adams still retained his doubts, it is certain at least that he never expressed them afterward.  When Mr. Clay paraded the same objections, the whole question of the power of Congress over the District was treated by Theodore D. Weld in the fullest manner, and with the widest research,—­indeed, leaving nothing to be added:  an argument which Dr. Channing characterized as “demonstration,” and pronounced the essay “one of the ablest pamphlets from the American press.”  No answer was ever attempted.  The best proof of its ability is that no one since has presumed to doubt the power.  Lawyers and statesmen have tacitly settled down into its full acknowledgment.