The first two pretensions have disappeared. These two devils have been cast out. Nobody dares to praise Slavery; nobody dares to deny the Right of Petition. The third pretension has disappeared only so far as it denied the power of the Nation over Slavery in the Territories; and we are still doomed to hear, in the name of State Rights, the old cry against conditions upon new States. This devil is not yet entirely cast out. Pardon me, if I insist upon putting the national rights over the Territories and the national rights over new States before their admission in the same category. These rights not only go together, but they are one and the same. They are not merely companion and cognate, but they are identical. The one is necessarily involved in the other. Prohibition in the Territories is prolonged in conditions upon new States. The Ordinance of 1787, which is the great example, asserts the _perpetuity_ of all its prohibitions; and this is the rule alike of law and statesmanship. Vain were its prohibitions, if they fell dead in presence of State Rights. The pretension is too irrational. The Missouri Act takes up the rule asserted in the Ordinance, and declares that in certain Territories Slavery shall be prohibited _forever_. A territorial existence terminating in State Rights is a short-lived _forever_. Only by recognizing the power of the Nation over the States formed out of the Territory can this _forever_ have a meaning above the prattle of childhood or the vaunt of Bombastes.