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Page 38
Mr. President, in the excited times in which we live, there is found
to exist a state of crimination and recrimination between the North
and South. There are lists of grievances produced by each; and those
grievances, real or supposed, alienate the minds of one portion of the
country from the other, exasperate the feelings, and subdue the sense of
fraternal affection, patriotic love, and mutual regard. I shall bestow a
little attention, sir, upon these various grievances existing on the one
side and on the other. I begin with complaints of the South. I will not
answer, further than I have, the general statements of the honorable
Senator from South Carolina, that the North has prospered at the
expense of the South in consequence of the manner of administering this
Government, in the collection of its revenues, and so forth. These are
disputed topics, and I have no inclination to enter into them. But I
will allude to other complaints of the South, and especially to one
which has in my opinion, just foundation; and that is, that there has
been found at the North, among individuals and among legislators, a
disinclination to perform fully their constitutional duties in regard
to the return of persons bound to service who have escaped into the free
States. In that respect, the South, in my judgment, is right, and the
North is wrong. Every member of every Northern legislature is bound
by oath, like every other officer in the country, to support the
Constitution of the United States; and the article of the Constitution
which says to these States that they shall deliver up fugitives from
service, is as binding in honor and conscience as any other article.
No man fulfils his duty in any legislature who sets himself to find
excuses, evasions, escapes from this constitutional obligation. I
have always thought that the Constitution addressed itself to the
legislatures of the States or to the States themselves. It says that
those persons escaping to other States "shall be delivered up," and I
confess I have always been of the opinion that it was an injunction
upon the States themselves. When it is said that a person escaping into
another State, and coming therefore within the jurisdiction of that
State, shall be delivered up, it seems to me the import of the clause
is, that the State itself, in obedience to the Constitution, shall cause
him to be delivered up. That is my judgment. I have always entertained
that opinion, and I entertain it now. But when the subject, some years
ago, was before the Supreme Court of the United States, the majority
of the judges held that the power to cause fugitives from service to
be delivered up was a power to be exercised under the authority of this
Government. I do not know, on the whole, that it may not have been
a fortunate decision. My habit is to respect the result of judicial
deliberations and the solemnity of judicial decisions. As it now stands,
the business of seeing that these fugitives are delivered up resides in
the power of Congress and the national judicature, and my friend at the
head of the Judiciary Committee has a bill on the subject now before the
Senate, which, with some amendments to it, I propose to support, with
all its provisions, to the fullest extent. And I desire to call the
attention of all sober-minded men at the North, of all conscientious
men, of all men who are not carried away by some fanatical idea or some
false impression, to their constitutional obligations. I put it to all
the sober and sound minds at the North as a question of morals and
a question of conscience. What right have they, in their legislative
capacity, or any other capacity, to endeavor to get round this
Constitution, or to embarrass the free exercise of the rights secured by
the Constitution, to the person whose slaves escape from them? None at
all; none at all. Neither in the forum of conscience, nor before the
face of the Constitution, are they, in my opinion, justified in such
an attempt. Of course it is a matter for their consideration. They
probably, in the excitement of the times, have not stopped to consider
this. They have followed what seemed to be the current of thought and of
motives, as the occasion arose, and they have neglected to investigate
fully the real question, and to consider their constitutional
obligations; which, I am sure, if they did consider, they would fulfil
with alacrity. I repeat, therefore, sir, that here is a well-founded
ground of complaint against the North, which ought to be removed, which
is now in the power of the different departments of this government to
remove; which calls for the enactment of proper laws authorizing the
judicature of this Government, in the several States, to do all that is
necessary for the recapture of fugitive slaves and for their restoration
to those who claim them. Wherever I go, and whenever I speak on the
subject, and when I speak here I desire to speak to the whole North, I
say that the South has been injured in this respect, and has a right
to complain; and the North has been too careless of what I think the
Constitution peremptorily and emphatically enjoins upon her as a duty.
Complaint has been made against certain resolutions that emanate from
legislatures at the North, and are sent here to us, not only on the
subject of slavery in this District, but sometimes recommending Congress
to consider the means of abolishing slavery in the States. I should be
sorry to be called upon to present any resolutions here which could not
be referable to any committee or any power in Congress; and therefore I
should be unwilling to receive from the legislature of Massachusetts any
instructions to present resolutions expressive of any opinion whatever
on the subject of slavery, as it exists at the present moment in the
States, for two reasons: because I do not consider that I, as her
representative here, have any thing to do with it. It has become, in my
opinion, quite too common; and if the legislatures of the States do not
like that opinion, they have a great deal more power to put it down than
I have to uphold it; it has become, in my opinion, quite too common a
practice for the State legislatures to present resolutions here on all
subjects and to instruct us on all subjects. There is no public man that
requires instruction more than I do, or who requires information more
than I do, or desires it more heartily; but I do not like to have it in
too imperative a shape. * * *
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