"We are accustomed, Sir, to praise the lawgivers of Antiquity; we help to perpetuate the fame of Solon and Lycurgus; but I doubt whether one single law of any lawgiver, ancient or modern, has produced effects of more distinct, marked, and lasting character than the Ordinance of 1787. That instrument was drawn by Nathan Dane, then and now a citizen of Massachusetts. It was adopted, as I think I have understood, without the slightest alteration; and certainly it has happened to few men to be the authors of a political measure of more large and enduring consequence. It fixed forever the character of the population in the vast regions northwest of the Ohio, by excluding from them involuntary servitude. It impressed on the soil itself, while it was yet a wilderness, an incapacity to sustain any other than freemen. It laid the interdict against personal servitude in original compact, not only deeper than all local law, but deeper, also, than all local constitutions." [101] More precisely, the seven Northern States, together with Maryland, affirmatively,--and four of the Southern States, namely, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia, negatively,--Delaware being unrepresented. * * * * * FREEDOM NATIONAL, SLAVERY SECTIONAL. SPEECH IN THE SENATE, ON A MOTION TO REPEAL THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT, AUGUST 26, 1852. Nihil autem gloriosius libertate præter virtutem, si tamen libertas recte a virtute sejungitur.--JOHN OF SALISBURY. If any man thinks that the interest of these Nations and the interest of Christianity are two separate and distinct things, I wish my soul may never enter into his secret.--OLIVER CROMWELL. Mr. Madison thought it WRONG to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men.--_Debates in the Federal Convention_, August 25, 1787. "O Slave, I have bought thee." "That is thy business," he replied. "Wilt thou run away?" "That is my business," said the slave. _Arabian Proverb._ Aliæ sunt leges Cæsarum, aliæ Christi: aliud Papinianus, aliud Paulus noster præcipit. ST. JEROME, _Epistola ad Oceanum de Morte Fabiolæ_. If the marshal of the host bids us do anything, shall we do it, if it be against the great captain? Again, if the great captain bid us do anything, and the king or the emperor commandeth us to do another, dost thou doubt that we must obey the commandment of the king or emperor, and contemn the commandment of the great captain? Therefore, if the king or the emperor bid one thing, and God another, we must obey God, and contemn and not regard neither king nor emperor. HENRY VIII., _Glasse of Truth_.