All this makes a strange, eventful passage of history. The enlightened civilization of the age was beginning to be felt against Slavery, when its representatives turned madly round to confront the angel of light. The madness showed itself by degrees. Point by point it made itself manifest in Congress. The Slave-Masters forgot morals, history, and the Constitution. Their manifold pretensions resolved themselves into three, in which the others were absorbed: first, that Slavery, instead of an evil to be removed, was a blessing to be preserved; secondly, that the right of petition could not be exercised against Slavery; thirdly, that, in all that concerns Slavery, State Rights were everything, while National Rights were nothing. These three pretensions entered into Congress, like so many devils, and possessed it. The first broke forth in eulogies of Slavery, and even in blandishments for the Slave-Trade. The second broke forth in the “Atherton Gag,” under which the honest, earnest petitions from the national heart against Slavery, even in the District of Columbia, were tabled without reference, and the great Right of Petition, promised by the Constitution, became a dead letter. The third, beginning with the denial of the power of the Nation to affix upon new States the perpetual condition of Human Rights, broke forth in the denial of the power of the Nation over Slavery in the Territories or anywhere else, even within the national jurisdiction. These three pretensions all had a common origin, and one was as offensive and unreasonable as another. The praise of Slavery and the repudiation of the Right of Petition by the enraged Slave-Masters were not worse than the pretension of State Rights against the power of the Nation to prohibit Slavery in the national jurisdiction, or to affix righteous conditions upon new States.