slaves was a
compromise or not, is of no practical importance. The clause speaks for
itself, and prescribes no mode by which the title of the claimant shall
be ascertained, while it expressly implies that the title shall be
established before the surrender is made. Hence, the fair presumption
is, that the title to a MAN shall be proved, with at least as much
certainty and formality as the title to a horse. Had you, Sir, in your
law, provided that a Virginian shall not come to Boston, and there seize
and carry off a husband, wife, or child but by the same process, and on
as strong evidence, as he may now seize and carry off a horse which you
claim as your own, instead of finding your name a byword and a reproach,
you would have been honored and applauded by your fellow-citizens, and
returned to Congress by a triumphant vote; nor is there a syllable in
the Constitution which prohibits or discountenances such a mode of
deciding the title to a human being. It is in vain, then, Sir, that you
plead your "constitutional obligation" in justification of your most
detestable law. But, as if one wrong could justify another, you plead in
your excuse the law of 1793, and you ask in your simplicity of those who
condemn your law if they do not perceive that they are "denouncing their
fathers." Well, Sir, were our fathers infallible? Pity it is, Sir, that
you were not on the floor of Congress when that body declared the
African slave-trade to be PIRACY. You might then, Sir, have risen in
your place, and inquired, "Do you not perceive that you are denouncing
your fathers, who were very wise men, and who guaranteed for twenty
years the very traffic which you now proclaim to be piracy?" Pity it is,
Sir, that you did not stand by the side of your patron on Plymouth Rock,
and whisper in his ear, "Do you not perceive that you are denouncing our
fathers?" when he declared, "In the sight of our law the African
slave-trader is a PIRATE and a FELON, and in the sight of Heaven an
offender beyond the ordinary depth of human guilt." Mr. Webster is
better versed in constitutional history than you are, and he well knew
that some of our fathers "deliberately declared they would not enter a
Union" in which they were to be debarred from pursuing this piratical,
felonious, guilty traffic. Our fathers were mostly slaveholders, and yet
you, Sir, unconsciously denounce both their morality and intelligence,
when you affirm the institution of slavery to be "wr