This comes of the mistakes made at the formation of our government.

Thomas Jefferson and the fathers of the Revolution were mistaken in holding slavery wrong.

It is a rightful and natural relation, as between an inferior and superior race.

The black race is far better off here in America, in slavery, than they would be in Africa, in freedom and in paganism; and if there is something of hardship in their lot, it is only because there is hardship in the lot of every human being." These men also said: "Consequent on these erroneous views held by Thomas Jefferson and others, the settlement made as between the North and South has been wrong, from the beginning, It was wrong to close the Northwest Territory, embracing Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, against slavery.

So also it was wrong to close Kansas against this institution by what was called the Missouri Compromise Line, agreed upon on the admission of Missouri into the Union." So these men reasoned, and they said: "Now we propose to go and take by the strong hand those rights of which we have been wrongfully deprived since the beginning of the American Government.