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The friends of emancipation would urge in the first instance an immediate
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and in the Territories
of Florida and Arkansas.
The number of slaves in these portions of the country, coming under the
direct jurisdiction of the general government, is as follows:--
District of Columbia ..... 6,119
Territory of Arkansas .... 4,576
Territory of Florida .... 15,501
Total 26,196
Here, then, are twenty-six thousand human beings, fashioned in the image
of God, the fitted temples of His Holy Spirit, held by the government in
the abhorrent chains of slavery. The power to emancipate them is clear.
It is indisputable. It does not depend upon the twenty-five slave votes
in Congress. It lies with the free states. Their duty is before them:
in the fear of God, and not of man let them perform it.
Let them at once strike off the grievous fetters. Let them declare that
man shall no longer hold his fellow-man in bondage, a beast of burden, an
article of traffic, within the governmental domain.
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