The Hon. Charles Sumner, always true to the right, as the needle to the pole, in his learned and able speech in Congress, 1852, said:—"The true principles of our political system, the history of the National Convention, the natural interpretation of the Constitution, all teach that this Act is a usurpation by Congress of powers that do not belong to it, and an infraction of rights secured to the States. It is a sword, whose handle is at the National Capital, and whose point is every where in the States. A weapon so terrible to personal liberty the nation has no power to grasp." * * * "In the name of the Constitution, which it violates; of my country, which it dishonors; of humanity, which it degrades; of Christianity, which it offends, I arraign this enactment, and now hold it up to the judgment of the Senate and the world." * * * *
"The Slave Act violates the Constitution, and shocks the public conscience. With modesty, and yet with firmness, let me add, it offends against the Divine Law. No such enactment can be 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 above question, is to claim for their fallible authors infallibility. To assume that they are always in conformity with those of God, is presumptuously and impiously to exalt man to an 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 demand 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 can any agreement constrain us against God. Such is the rule of morals. And now the rule is commended to us. The good citizen, as he thinks of the shivering fugitive, guilty of no crime, pursued, hunted down like a beast, while praying for Christian help and deliverance, and as he 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.' Let me speak frankly. Not rashly would I set myself against any provision 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." * * * "For the sake of peace and tranquillity, cease to shock the public conscience! For the sake of the Constitution, cease to exercise a power which is nowhere granted, and which violates inviolable rights expressly secured. 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! Be admonished by these words of Oriental piety: 'Beware of the groans of the wounded souls. Oppress not to the utmost a single heart; for a solitary sigh has power to overset a whole world.'"
Robert Rantoul, Jr., whose large heart was so true to Democratic principles, that the party wanted to expel him from their ranks, (as parties are prone to do with honest men,) opposed the Fugitive Slave Bill with all the power of his strong intellect. In a speech delivered in 1851, he said: "I am as devotedly attached as any other man to the Union of these States, and the Constitution of our government; but I admire and love them for that which they secure to us. The Constitution is good, and great, and valuable, and to be held for ever sacred, because it secures to us what was the object of the Constitution. I love the Union and the Constitution, not for themselves, but for the great end for which they were created—to secure and perpetuate liberty; not the liberty of a class, superimposed upon the thraldom of groaning multitudes: not the liberty of a ruling race, cemented by the tears and blood of subject races, but human liberty, perfect liberty, common to the whole people of the United States and to their posterity. It is because I believe all this, that I love the Union and the Constitution. If it were not for that, the Union would be valueless, and the Constitution not worth the parchment on which it is written. God-given Liberty is above the Union, and above the Constitution, and above all the works of man."
TESTIMONIES AGAINST
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT.
The Hon. Josiah Quincy, senior, whose integrity, noble intellect, and long experience in public life, give great weight to his opinions, made a speech at a Whig Convention in Boston, 1854, from which I extract the following:—"The circumstances in which the people of Massachusetts are placed are undeniably insupportable. What has been seen, what has been felt, by every man, woman and child in this metropolis, and in this community? and virtually by every man, woman and child in Massachusetts? We have seen our Court House in chains, two battalions of dragoons, eight regiments of artillery, twelve companies of infantry, the whole constabulary force of the city police, the entire disposable marine of the United States, with its artillery loaded for action, all marching in support of a Praetorian Band, consisting of one hundred and twenty friends and associates of the U.S. Marshal, with loaded pistols and drawn swords, and in military costume and array; and for what purpose? To escort and conduct a poor trembling slave from a Boston Court House to the fetters and lash of his master!
"This scene, thus awful, thus detestable, every inhabitant of this metropolis, nay, every inhabitant of this Commonwealth, may be compelled again to witness, at any time, and every day in the year, at the will or the whim of the meanest and basest slaveholder of the South. Is there a man in Massachusetts with a spirit so low, so debased, so corrupted by his fears, or his fortune, that he is prepared to say this is a condition of things to be endured in perpetuity by us? and that this is an inheritance to be transmitted by us to our children, for all generations? For so long as the fugitive-slave clause remains in the Constitution, unobliterated, it is an obligation perpetual upon them, as well as upon us.
"The obligation incumbent upon the Free States must be obliterated from the Constitution, at every hazard. I believe that, in the nature of things, by the law of God, and the laws of man, that clause is at this moment abrogated, so far as respects common obligation. In 1789, the Free States agreed to be field-drivers and pound-keepers for the Slaveholding States, within the limits, and according to the fences, of the old United States. But between that year and this A.D. 1854, the slaveholders have broken down the old boundaries, and opened new fields, of an unknown and indefinite extent.[1] They have multiplied their slaves by millions, and are every day increasing their numbers, and extending their field into the wilderness. Under these circumstances, are we bound to be their field-drivers and pound-keepers any longer? Answer me, people of Massachusetts! Are you the sons of the men of 1776? Or do you 'lack gall, to make oppression bitter?'