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antislavery conventions in Ohio, Massachusetts, and at Syracuse, in the
State of New York. What do they say? "That, so help them God, no colored
man shall be sent from the State of New York back to his master in
Virginia!" Do not they say that? And, to the fulfilment of that they
"pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor." Their
sacred honor! They pledge their sacred honor to violate the
Constitution; they pledge their sacred honor to commit treason against
the laws of their country!

I have already stated, Gentlemen, what your observation of these things
must have taught you. I will only recur to the subject for a moment, for
the purpose of persuading you, as public men and private men, as good
men and patriotic men, that you ought, to the extent of your ability and
influence, to see to it that such laws are established and maintained as
shall keep you, and the South, and the West, and all the country,
together, on the terms of the Constitution. I say, that what is demanded
of us is to fulfil our constitutional duties, and to do for the South
what the South has a right to demand.

Gentlemen, I have been some time before the public. My character is
known, my life is before the country. I profess to love liberty as much
as any man living; but I profess to love American liberty, that liberty
which is secured to the country by the government under which we live;
and I have no great opinion of that other and higher liberty which
disregards the restraints of law and of the Constitution. I hold the
Constitution of the United States to be the bulwark, the only bulwark,
of our liberties and of our national character, I do not mean that you
should become slaves under the Constitution. That is not American
liberty. That is not the liberty of the Union for which our fathers
fought, that liberty which has given us a right to be known and
respected all over the world. I mean only to say, that I am for
constitutional liberty. It is enough for me to be as free as the
Constitution of the country makes me.

Now, Gentlemen, let me say, that, as much as I respect the character of
the people of Western New York, as much as I wish to retain their good
opinion, if I should ever hereafter be placed in any situation in public
life, let me tell you now that you must not expect from me the slightest
variation, even of a hair's breadth, from the Constitution of the United
States. I am a Northern man. I was born at the North