ght nor proper--it is contrary to every principle of
natural justice--that either party to this great controversy should
decide for itself. Hence, if the abolitionists will not submit to the
decisions of the Supreme Court, we shall most assuredly refuse
submission to their arrogant dictation. We can, from our inmost hearts,
respect the feelings of those of our Northern brethren who may choose to
remain passive in this matter, and leave us--by such aid as the law may
afford--to reclaim our own fugitives from labor. For such we have only
words of kindness and feelings of fraternal love. But as for those--and
especially for those in high places--who counsel resistance to the laws
and to the Constitution of the Republic, we hold them guilty of a high
misdemeanor, and we shall ever treat them as disturbers of the public
peace, nay, as enemies of the independence, the perpetuity, the
greatness, and the glory of the Union under which, by the blessing of
Almighty God, we have hitherto so wonderfully prospered.

FOOTNOTES:

[209] On this point, see page 176.

[210] XIV. Wendell, Jack v. Martin, p. 528

[211] XIV. Wendell's Reports, Jack _v._ Martin.

[212] In asserting that freedom is national, Mr. Sumner may perhaps mean
that it is the duty of the National Government to exclude slavery from
all its territories, and to admit no new State in which there are
slaves. If this be his meaning, we should reply, that it is as foreign
from the merits of the Fugitive Slave Law, which he proposed to discuss,
as it is from the truth. The National Government has, indeed, no more
power to exclude, than it has to ordain, slavery; for slavery or no
slavery is a question which belongs wholly and exclusively to the
sovereign people of each and every State or territory. With our whole
hearts we respond to the inspiring words of the President's Message: "If
the friends of the Constitution are to have another struggle, its
enemies could not present a more acceptable issue than that of a State,
whose Constitution clearly embraces a republican form of government,
being excluded from the Union because its domestic institutions may not,
in all respects, comport with the ideas of what is wise and expedient
entertained in some other State."

[213] Chap. ii Sec. x.

[214] Madison Papers, p. 1448.

[215] One member seems to have been absent from the House.

[216] Annals of Congress; 2d Congress, 1791-1793, p. 861.

[217] This error was by no mea