“ Recognizing that slavery was a state institution, with which the Federal government had no authority to interfere, he contended that slavery could only exist by a specific state enactment, that therefore slavery in the District of Columbia and in the Territories was unlawful and should be abolished, that the coastwise slave-trade in vessels flying the national flag, like the international slave-trade, should be rigidly suppressed, and that Congress had no power to pass any act which in any way could be construed as a recognition of slavery as a national institution. ”

“ GIDDINGS, JOSHUA REED (1795–1864) , American statesman, prominent in the anti-slavery conflict, was born at Tioga Point, now Athens, Bradford county, Pennsylvania, on the 6th of October 1795. In 1806 his parents removed to Ashtabula county, Ohio, then sparsely settled and almost a wilderness. The son worked on his father’s farm, and, though he received no systematic education, devoted much time to study and reading. For several years after 1814 he was a school teacher, but in February 1821 he was admitted to the Ohio bar and soon obtained a large practice, particularly in criminal cases. ”