honorably distinguished themselves. Of the thirteen American States in
1787, how many, Sir, had _by law_ abolished slavery? NOT ONE. Your "some
States" consisted of MASSACHUSETTS alone. And how was slavery abolished
there? Not by any express prohibition in her constitution, nor by any
act of her legislature. Fortunately, her constitution, like that of most
other States, contained a general declaration of human rights, somewhat
similar to the "rhetorical abstraction" in the Declaration of
Independence. Two or three years before the Federal Convention
assembled, a young lawyer, perceiving that the declaration in the
constitution had inadvertently made no exclusion of the rights of men
with dark complexions, brought an action for a slave against his master
for work done and performed. An upright and independent court, not
having the fear of our Southern brethren before their eyes, decided that
the slave was a MAN, and therefore entitled to the rights which the
constitution declared belonged to _all_ men, and gave judgment for the
plaintiff. In this way, Sir, was slavery abolished in Massachusetts, and
hence the delegates from Massachusetts in the Convention were the only
ones who represented a _free_ State. And now, Sir, what becomes of your
"insurmountable incompatibility of interests" arising from the fact that
"slavery had been abolished in some States and still existed in others,"
which you tell us so much perplexed the wise men of that day? We shall
see, Sir, that on questions touching human bondage the Massachusetts
delegation seem to have been slaveholders in heart, and did not partake
of the perplexity which troubled the wise men. With the exception of
that delegation, there were not probably half a dozen members of the
convention who were not slaveholders.

It would seem from your historical review, that the clause in the
Constitution respecting fugitive slaves was the grand compromise
between the North and the South, without which "the Constitution could
not have been adopted"; and that to this clause we owe our glorious
slave-catching Union. You fortify this wonderful historical discovery by
appealing to the "deliberate declarations" of Southern members, that
they "would not enter a union with States who would tempt away their
slaves," &c. It is to be regretted that you have not deemed it expedient
to refer to the records of these declarations, as other students of our
constitutional history are wholly ignorant