delivery? "This right of the master," says Mr. Chief
Justice Taney, "being given by the Constitution of the United States,
NEITHER CONGRESS NOR A STATE LEGISLATURE CAN BY ANY LAW OR REGULATION
IMPAIR IT OR RESTRICT IT." If this be sound doctrine,--and such we hold
it to be,--then Congress has no constitutional power to impair or
restrict the right in question, by giving the fugitive slave a trial by
jury in the State to which he may have fled. This would not be to give a
"prompt and immediate delivery," such as the Supreme Court declares the
master is entitled to by the Constitution itself; it would be either to
give no delivery at all, or else one attended with such delays,
vexations, and costs, as would materially impair, if not wholly
annihilate, the right in question.

It is right and proper, we think, that questions arising exclusively
under our own laws should be tried in our own States and by our own
tribunals. Hence we shall never consent, unless constrained by the
judicial decision of the Supreme Court of the Union, to have such
questions tried in States whose people and whose juries may, perhaps, be
hostile to our interests and to our domestic institutions. For we are
SOVEREIGN as well as they.

Only conceive such a trial by jury in a Northern State, with such an
advocate for the fugitive slave as Mr. Chase, or Mr. Sumner, or some
other flaming abolitionist! There sits the fugitive slave,--"one of the
heroes of the age," as Mr. Sumner calls him, and the very embodiment of
persecuted innocence. On the other hand is the master,--the vile
"slave-hunter," as Mr. Sumner delights to represent him, and whom, if
possible, he is determined "to blast with contempt, indignation, and
abhorrence." The trial begins. The advocate appeals to the prejudices
and the passions of the jury. He denounces slavery--about which neither
he nor the jury know any thing--as the epitome of all earthly wrongs, as
the sum and substance of all human woes. Now, suppose that on the jury
there is _only one man_, who, like the Vermont judge, requires "a bill
of sale from the Almighty" before he will deliver up a fugitive slave;
or who, like Mr. Seward, sets his own private opinion above the
Constitution of his country; or who, like Mr. Sumner, has merely sworn
to support the supreme law as he understands it; and who, at the same
time, possesses his capacity to understand it just exactly as he
pleases: then what chance would the master have for a