The question was considered in the convention which framed the constitution, and after discussion the proposition to give power to the general government to enforce upon a resistant State obedience to the law was rejected. It was upon this ground of exemption from compulsion that the compact of the States became a sacred obligation; and it was upon this honorable fulfilment principally that our fathers depended for the security of the rights which the Constitution was designed to secure. [Applause.]
The fugitive slave compact in the Constitution of the United States implied that the States should fulfil it voluntarily. They expected the States to legislate so as to secure the rendition of fugitives.
And in 1788 it was a matter of complaint that the colony of Florida did not restore fugitive negroes from the United States who escaped into that colony, and a committee, composed of Hamilton, of New York, Sedgwick, of Massachusetts, and Madison, of Virginia, reported resolutions in the Congress instructing the committee for foreign affairs to address the charge d’affaires at Madrid to apply to his majesty of Spain to issue orders to his governor to compel them to secure the rendition of fugitive negroes to any one who should go there entitled to receive them. This was the sentiment of the committee, and they added, by way of example, as the States would return any slaves from Florida who might escape into their limits.
When the Constitutional requirement was imposed, who could have doubted that every State faithful to its obligations would comply without raising questions as to whether the institution should or should not exist in another community over which they had no control. Congress was at last forced by the failures of the States, to legislate on the subject, and this has been one of the causes by which you have been disturbed. You have been called upon to make war against a law which would never have been enacted, if each State had faithfully discharged the obligation imposed by the compact of the Constitution. [Cheers.]
There is another question connected with this negro agitation. It is in relation to the right to hold slaves in the Territories. What power has Congress to declare what shall be property? None, in the territory or elsewhere. Have the States by separate legislation the power to prescribe the condition upon which a citizen may enter on and enjoy the common property of the United States? Clearly not. Shall those who first go into the territory, deprive any citizen of the United States subsequently emigrating thither, of those rights which belong to him as an equal owner of the soil? Certainly not. Sovereignty jurisdiction can only pass to these inhabitants when the States, the owners of that territory, shall recognize the inhabitants as an independent community, and admit it to become an equal State of the Union. Until then the Constitution and laws of the United States must be the rules governing within the limits of a territory. The Constitution recognizes all property gives equal privileges to every citizen of the States; and it would be a violation of its fundamental principles to attempt any discrimination. [Applause.] Viewed in any of its phases, political, moral, social, general, or local, what is there to sustain this agitation in relation to other people’s negroes, unless it be a bridge over which to pass into office—a ready capital in politics available to missionaries staving at home-reformers of things which they do not go to learn—preachers without and audience—overseers without laborers and without wages—war-horses who snuff the battle afar off, and cry: “ Aha! aha! I am afar off from the battle.” [Great laughter and applause.]
Thus it is that the peace of the Union is destroyed; thus it is that brother is arrayed against brother; thus it is that the people come to consider—not how they can promote each other’s interests, but how they may successfully war upon them. And the political agitator like the vampire fans the victim to which he clings but to destroy.
Among culprits there is none more odious to my mind than a public officer who takes an oath to support the Constitution—the compact between the States binding each for the common defence and general welfare of the other—yet retains to himself a mental reservation that he will war upon the principles he has sworn to maintain, and upon the property rights the protection of which are part of the compact of the Union. [Applause.]
It is a crime too low to be named before this assembly: It is one which no man with self-respect would ever commit. To swear that he will support the Constitution—to take an office which belongs in many of its relations to all the States; and to use it as a means of injuring a portion of the States of whom he is thus the representative; is treason to every thing honorable in man. It is the base and cowardly attack of him who gains the confidence of another, in order that he may wound him. [Applause.]
But we have heard it argued—have seen it published—a petition has been circulated for signers, announcing that there was an incompatibility between the sections; that the Union had been tried long enough, and that it had proved to be necessary to separate from those sections of the Union in which the curse of slavery existed. Ah! those modern saints, so much wiser than our fathers, have discovered an incompatibility requiring separation in those relations which existed when the Union was formed. They have found the remnants only of a diversity which existed when South Carolina sent her rice to Boston, and Maryland and Pennsylvania and New York brought in their funds for her relief.
They have found the remnants only; for from that day to this the difference between the people has been constantly decreasing, and the necessity for union which then arose in no small degree from the diversity of product, and soil and climate, has gone on increasing, both by the extension of our own territory and the introduction of new tropical products; so that whilst the difference between the people has diminished, the diversity in the products has increased, and that motive for union which your fathers found exists in a higher degree than it did when they resolved to be united.