The History of Abraham Lincoln And the Overthrow of Slavery

pital At Washington -- Fugitive Slave Law Op 1793 -- Admission Of Tennessee, Alabama And Mississippi, As Slave States -- Purchase Of Louisiana And Florida -- Missouri Compromise -- Sem1nole War -- Annexation Of Texas -- Mexican War -- Wilmot Proviso -- California -- Anti-slavery Convention -- Suppression Of Riolit Of Petition -- John Quincy Adams -- Judge Hoar's Mission -- Abolition, Liberty And Freesoil Parties -- Compromise Measures Of 1850. TT is historically demonstrable that the framers of the '' Constitution in shaping that instrument, tolerated the existence of slavery as a temporary evil, which they regarded as incompatible with the principles of liberty embodied in the Declaration of Independence, upon which they intended to base our institutions. They believed that it was in the course of gradual extinction. It is clear that they never intended it should be a permanent institution, much less thatit should extend beyond the limits of the States in which it then existed. The hostility to slavery was so general, that it is believed the Fathers would have embodied abolition as a part of the Constitution, had they not supposed it would soon disappear before the peaceful moral agencies then operating against it. They confidently hoped that public opinion, expressing itself through the press, the religious organizations, public discnssion, and rendering its final verdict through the ballot, and securing favorable legislation throug...