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Page 70
* * * * *
Mr. President, I have occupied much time; but the great subject still
stretches before us. One other point yet remains, which I must not leave
untouched, and which justly belongs to the close. The Slave Act violates
the Constitution, and shocks the Public Conscience. With modesty, and
yet with firmness, let me add, Sir,it offends against the Divine Law.
No such enactment is entitled to support. As the throne of God is above
every earthly throne, so are his laws and statutes above all the laws
and statutes of man. To question these is to question God himself. But
to assume that human laws are beyond question is to claim for their
fallible authors infallibility. To assume that they are always in
conformity with the laws of God is presumptuously and impiously to exalt
man even to equality with God. Clearly, human laws are not always
in such conformity; nor can they ever be beyond question from each
individual. Where the conflict is open, as if Congress should command
the perpetration of murder, the office of conscience as final arbiter is
undisputed. But in every conflict the same queenly office is hers. By
no earthly power can she be dethroned. Each person, after anxious
examination, without haste, without passion, solemnly for himself must
decide this great controversy. Any other rule attributes infallibility
to human laws, places them beyond question, and degrades all men to an
unthinking, passive obedience.
* * * * *
The mandates of an earthly power are to be discussed; those of Heaven
must at once be performed; nor should we suffer ourselves to be drawn
by any compact into opposition to God. Such is the rule of morals.
Such, also, by the lips of judges and sages, is the proud declaration
of English law, whence our own is derived. In this conviction, patriots
have braved unjust commands, and martyrs have died.
And now, sir, the rule is commended to us. The good citizen, who sees
before him the shivering fugitive, guilty of no crime, pursued, hunted
down like a beast, while praying for Christian help and deliverance, and
then reads the requirements of this Act, is filled with horror. Here
is a despotic mandate "to aid and assist in the prompt and efficient
execution of this law." Again let me speak frankly. Not rashly would I
set myself against any requirement of law. This grave responsibility
I would not lightly assume. But here the path of duty is clear. By the
Supreme Law, which commands me to do no injustice, by the comprehensive
Christian Law of Brotherhood, by the Constitution, which I have sworn to
support, I AM BOUND TO DISOBEY THIS ACT. Never, in any capacity, can
I render voluntary aid in its execution. Pains and penalties I will
endure, but this great wrong, I will not do. "Where I cannot obey
actively, there I am willing to lie down and to suffer what they shall
do unto me"; such was the exclamation of him to whom we are indebted for
the Pilgrim's Progress while in prison for disobedience to an earthly
statute. Better suffer injustice than do it. Better victim than
instrument of wrong. Better even the poor slave returned to bondage than
the wretched Commissioner.
There is, sir, an incident of history which suggests a parallel, and
affords a lesson of fidelity. Under the triumphant exertions of that
Apostolic Jesuit, St. Francis Xavier, large numbers of Japanese,
amounting to as many as two hundred thousand,--among them princes,
generals, and the flower of the nobility,--were converted to
Christianity. Afterwards, amidst the frenzy of civil war, religious
persecution arose, and the penalty of death was denounced against all
who refused to trample upon the effigy of the Redeemer. This was the
Pagan law of a Pagan land. But the delighted historian records, that
from the multitude of converts scarcely one was guilty of this apostasy.
The law of man was set at naught. Imprisonment, torture, death, were
preferred. Thus did this people refuse to trample on the painted image.
Sir, multitudes among us will not be less steadfast in refusing to
trample on the living image of their Redeemer.
Finally, Sir, for the sake of peace and tranquility, cease to shock the
Public Conscience; for the sake of the Constitution, cease to exercise
a power nowhere granted, and which violates inviolable rights expressly
secured. Leave this question where it was left by our fathers, at the
formation of our National Government,--in the absolute control of
the States, the appointed guardians of Personal Liberty. Repeal this
enactment. Let its terrors no longer rage through the land. Mindful
of the lowly whom it pursues, mindful of the good men perplexed by its
requirements, in the name of Charity, in the name of the Constitution,
repeal this enactment, totally and without delay. There is the example
of Washington, follow it. There also are words of Oriental piety,
most touching and full of warning, which speak to all mankind, and now
especially to us: "Beware of the groans of wounded souls, since the
inward sore will at length break out. Oppress not to the utmost a single
heart; for a solitary sigh has power to overturn a whole world."
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