of
obloquy by which you were oppressed, in an evil hour you rashly appealed
to the public through the columns of a newspaper, and gave the "reasons"
of your vote for the Fugitive Slave Law. You had a high and recent
example of the kind of logic suited to your case. You might have
indulged in transcendental nonsense, and talked about the climate,
soil, and scenery of New England and the wonders of physical geography,
and, assuming that negroes were created free, you might have contended
that, in voting for a law to catch and enslave them, you had avoided the
folly of reenacting the law of God. Reasons of this sort, you and others
had declared, "had convinced the understanding and touched the
conscience of the nation." Instead of following an example so
illustrious and successful, you assign "reasons" so very commonplace,
that the most ordinary capacity can understand them, and so feeble, that
the slightest strength can overthrow them.

Your first "reason" is, that the delivery of fugitives is a
constitutional obligation. By this you mean, that, by virtue of the
construction of a certain clause in the Constitution by the Supreme
Court, Congress has the power to pass a law for the recovery of fugitive
slaves. Well, Sir, does this constitutional obligation authorize
Congress to pass _any_ law whatsoever on the subject, however atrocious
and wicked? Had you voted for a law to prevent smuggling, in which you
had authorized every tide-waiter to shoot any person suspected of having
contraband goods in his possession, would it have been a good "reason"
for such an atrocity, that the collection of duties was "a
constitutional obligation"? You are condemned for voting for an
arbitrary, detestable, diabolical law,--one that tramples upon the
rights of conscience, outrages the feelings of humanity, discards the
rules of evidence, levels all the barriers erected by the common law for
the protection of personal liberty, and, in defiance of the
Constitution, and against its express provisions, gives to the courts
the appointment of legions of slave-catching judges. And your "reason"
for all this is, that the delivery of fugitives is "a constitutional
obligation"! The "obligation" is not in issue. Please to understand,
Sir, that it is not denied. It is for the _manner_ in which you profess
to have discharged the obligation that you are censured, and be it
remembered, that not one of the obnoxious provisions of your law is
required by t