highly beneficial to the State, but which could not be expounded to the many. Aristides, surnamed the Just, was appointed to receive the secret, and to report upon it. His brief and memorable judgment was, that, while nothing could be more advantageous to Athens, nothing could be more unjust; and the Athenian multitude, responding at once, rejected the proposition. It appears that it was proposed to burn the combined Greek fleet, which then rested in the security of peace in a neighboring sea, and thus confirm the naval supremacy of Athens. A similar proposition is now brought before the American Senate. You are asked to destroy a safeguard of freedom, consecrated by solemn compact, under which the country is now reposing in the security of peace, and thus confirm the supremacy of slavery. To this institution and its partisans the proposition may seem to be advantageous; but nothing can be more unjust. Let the judgment of the Athenian multitude be yours.
This is what I have to say upon this head. I now pass to the second branch of the argument.
II. Mr. President, it is not only as an infraction of solemn compact, embodied in ancient law, that I arraign this bill. I arraign it also as a flagrant and extravagant departure from the original policy of our fathers, consecrated by their lives, opinions, and acts.
And here, Sir, bear with me in a brief recital of
