_The National Government must be on the side of Freedom._--Accomplishing these specific changes, a new tone will be given to the Republic. The Slave Power will be broken, and Slavery driven from its present intrenchments under the National Government. The influence of such a change will be incalculable. The whole weight of the Government will then be taken from the side of Slavery, where it has been placed by the Slave Power, and put on the side of Freedom, according to the original purposes and aspirations of its founders. This of itself is an end for which to labor earnestly in the spirit of the Constitution. Let it never be forgotten, as the pole-star of our policy, that the National Government must be placed, openly, actively, and perpetually, on the side of Freedom. _It must be openly on the side of Freedom._ There must be no equivocation, concealment, or reserve. It must not, like the witches in Macbeth, "palter in a double sense." It must avow itself distinctly and firmly the enemy of Slavery, and thus give to the friends of Freedom, now struggling throughout the Slave States, the advantage of its countenance. _It must be actively on the side of Freedom._ It cannot be content with simply bearing its testimony. It must act. Within the constitutional sphere of its influence, it must be felt as the enemy of Slavery. It must now exert itself for Freedom as zealously and effectively as for many years it has exerted itself for Slavery. _It must be perpetually on the side of Freedom._ It must not be uncertain, vacillating, or temporary, in this beneficent policy, but fixed and constant, so that hereafter it shall know no change. In our endeavors to give the Government this elevated character we are cheered by high examples, whose opinions have already been adduced. We ask only that the Republic should once more be inspired by their spirit and be guided by their counsels. Let it join with Jefferson in open, uncompromising hostility to Slavery. Let it unite with Franklin in giving _countenance_ to the cause of Emancipation, and _in stepping to the very verge of the power vested in it for DISCOURAGING every species of traffic in the persons of our fellow-men_. Let all its officers and members follow Washington, declaring, that, in any legislative effort for the abolition of Slavery, THEIR SUFFRAGES SHALL NEVER BE WANTING. * * * * * _Other National Matters._--Such are the principles of this Convention on the _national_ question of Slavery. Other matters of national interest, on which the opinions of the party have been often expressed, are of a subordinate character. These are: cheap postage; the abolition of all unnecessary offices and salaries; election of civil officers, so far as may be practicable, by the people; retrenchment of the expenses and patronage of the National Government; improvement of rivers and harbors; and free grants to actual settlers of the public lands in reasonable portions.