at all the protection which, consistently with the
Constitution and the laws, can be given, will be cheerfully given to
all the States when lawfully demanded, for whatever cause--as
cheerfully to one section as to another.

There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from
service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the
Constitution as any other of its provisions:

No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws
thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or
regulation therein be discharged from such service or labor, but shall
be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may
be due.

It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those who
made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; and the
intention of the lawgiver is the law. All members of Congress swear
their support to the whole Constitution--to this provision as much as
to any other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come
within the terms of this clause "shall be delivered up," their oaths
are unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in good temper,
could they not with nearly equal unanimity frame and pass a law by
means of which to keep good that unanimous oath?

There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be
enforced by National or by State authority; but surely that difference
is not a very material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can
be of but little consequence to him or to others by which authority it
is done. And should any one in any case be content that his oath shall
go unkept on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be
kept?

Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not all the safeguards of
liberty known in civilized and humane jurisprudence to be introduced,
so that a free man be not, in any case, surrendered as a slave? And
might it not be well at the same time to provide by law for the
enforcement of that clause in the Constitution which guarantees that
"the citizen of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and
immunities of citizens in the several States?"

I take the official oath to-day with no mental reservations, and with
no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any hypercritical
rules. And while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of
Congress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much