interpretation was at the time put on the
Constitution, whatsoever the People thereby intended, two things are
plain--namely, (1.) that the language implies only such as are
_justly_ held to service, or labor, and (2.) that the People had no
moral right to deliver up any except such as were _justly_ held, and
had _unjustly_ escaped.

If the opposite interpretation be accepted, and that clause be taken
without restrictions, then see what will follow. South Carolina has
already made a law by which she imprisons all _colored_ citizens of
the free States who are found on her soil. Let us suppose she makes a
new law for reducing to perpetual slavery all the white citizens of
Massachusetts whom she finds on her soil; that a Boston vessel with
500 Boston men and women--sailing for California,--is wrecked on her
inhospitable coast, and those persons are all seized and reduced to
slavery; but some ten or twenty of the most resolute escape from the
"service or labor" to which they are held, and return to their
business in Boston. But their "owners" come in pursuit; the kidnapping
Commissioners, Curtis and Loring, with the help of the rest of the
family of men-stealers, arrest them under the fugitive slave bill. On
the mock trial, it is shown by the kidnapper that they were legally
"held to service or labor," and according to the constitution "shall
be delivered up;" that this enslavement is perfectly "legal" in South
Carolina; and the constitution says that no "law or regulation" of
Massachusetts shall set them free. They must go with Sims and Burns.
Gentlemen, you see where you are going, if you allow the Constitution
of parchment to override the Constitution of Justice.

(2.) By whom shall they "be delivered up?" Either by the Federal
Government, or else by the Government of the State into which they
have escaped. Now the Federal Government has no constitutional power,
except what the Constitution gives it. Gentlemen, there is not a line
in that Power of Attorney by which the People authorize the Federal
Government to make a man a slave in Massachusetts or anywhere else. I
know the Government has done it, as the British Government levied
ship-money, and put men to the rack, but it is against the
Constitution of the land.

Gentlemen, you will settle these constitutional questions according to
your conscience, not mine. But if the fugitive slave bill demands the
rendition of men from whom service is not _justly_ due--due by th