Delivered on February 24, and March 1, 1841. Three or four of them are female children, incapable, in the judgment of our laws, of the crime of murder or piracy, or, perhaps, of any other crime. The Constitution no where recognizes them as property. The words slave and slavery are studiously excluded from the Constitution.
Circumlocutions are the fig-leaves under which the parts of the body politic are decently concealed.
Cinque and Graveau are uncooth and barbarous names. Call them Harmodius and Aristogiton, and go back for moral principle three thousand years to the fierce and glorious democracy of Athens. As I cast my eyes along those seats of honor and public trust, now occupied by you, they seek in vain for one of those honored and honorable persons whose indulgence listened then to my voice.