_Resolved_, That slavery is a violation of the rights of man as man; that the law of nature, which is the law of liberty, gives to no man rights superior to those of another; that God and nature have secured to each individual the inalienable right of equality, any violation of which must be the result of superior force; and that slavery therefore is a perpetual war upon its victims; that whether we regard the institution as first originating in captures made in war, or the subjection of the debtor as the slave of his creditor, or the forcible seizure and sale of children by their parents or subjects by their king, and whether it be viewed in this country as a "_necessary evil_" or otherwise, we find it to be, like imprisonment for debt, but a relic of barbarism as well as an element of weakness in the midst of the State, inviting the attack of external enemies, and a ceaseless cause of internal apprehension and alarm. Such are the lessons taught us, not only by the histories of other commonwealths, but by that of our own beloved country. _Resolved_, That the history of the formation of the constitution, and particularly the enactment of the ordinance of July 13, 1787, prohibiting slavery north of the Ohio, abundantly shows it to have been the purpose of our fathers not to promote but to prevent the spread of slavery. And we, reverencing their memories and cherishing free republican faith as our richest inheritance, which we vow, at whatever expense, to defend, thus publicly proclaim our determination to oppose by all the powerful and honorable means in our power, now and henceforth, all attempts, direct or indirect, to extend slavery in this country, or to permit it to extend into any region or locality in which it does not now exist by positive law, or to admit new slave States into the Union.