_Resolved_, That it was understood in the times of the Declaration and the Constitution that the existence of slavery in some of the States was in derogation of the principles of American liberty, and a deep stain upon the character of the country and the implied faith of the States; and the nation was pledged that slavery should never be extended beyond its then existing limits, but should be gradually, and yet at no distant day, wholly abolished by State authority. _Resolved_, That the faith of the States and the nation thus pledged was most nobly redeemed by the voluntary abolition of slavery in several of the States, and by the adoption of the ordinance of 1787 for the government of the territory northwest of the river Ohio, then the only territory in the United States, and consequently the only territory subject in this respect to the control of Congress, by which ordinance slavery was forever excluded from the vast regions which now compose the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and the Territory of Wisconsin, and an incapacity to bear up any other than free men was impressed on the soil itself. _Resolved_, That the faith of the States and nation thus pledged has been shamefully violated by the omission on the part of many of the States to take any measures whatever for the abolition of slavery within their respective limits; by the continuance of slavery in the District of Columbia and in the Territories of Louisiana and Florida; by the legislation of Congress; by the protection afforded by national legislation and negotiation to slaveholding in American vessels, on the high seas, employed in the coastwise slave traffic; and by the extension of slavery far beyond its original limits, by acts of Congress admitting new Slave States into the Union. _Resolved_, That the fundamental truth of the Declaration of Independence, that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, was made the fundamental law of our National Government by that amendment of the Constitution which declares that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. _Resolved_, That we recognize as sound the doctrine maintained by slaveholding jurists, that slavery is against natural rights and strictly local, and that its existence and continuance rest on no other support than State legislation, and not on any authority of Congress. _Resolved_, That the General Government has, under the Constitution, no power to establish or continue slavery anywhere, and therefore that all treaties and acts of Congress establishing, continuing, or favoring slavery in the District of Columbia, in the Territory of Florida, or on the high seas, are unconstitutional, and all attempts to hold men as property within the limits of exclusive national jurisdiction ought to be prohibited by law.