or believing there is a right established under it which needs specific
legislation, you withhold that legislation? Do you not violate and
disregard your oath? I can conceive of nothing plainer in the world. There
can be nothing in the words "support the Constitution," if you may run
counter to it by refusing support to any right established under the
Constitution. And what I say here will hold with still more force against
the Judge's doctrine of "unfriendly legislation." How could you, having
sworn to support the Constitution, and believing it guaranteed the right
to hold slaves in the Territories, assist in legislation intended
to defeat that right? That would be violating your own view of the
Constitution. Not only so, but if you were to do so, how long would
it take the courts to hold your votes unconstitutional and void? Not a
moment.

Lastly, I would ask: Is not Congress itself under obligation to give
legislative support to any right that is established under the United
States Constitution? I repeat the question: Is not Congress itself bound
to give legislative support to any right that is established in the
United States Constitution? A member of Congress swears to support the
Constitution of the United States: and if he sees a right established
by that Constitution which needs specific legislative protection, can he
clear his oath without giving that protection? Let me ask you why many of
us who are opposed to slavery upon principle give our acquiescence to a
Fugitive Slave law? Why do we hold ourselves under obligations to pass
such a law, and abide by it when it is passed? Because the Constitution
makes provision that the owners of slaves shall have the right to reclaim
them. It gives the right to reclaim slaves; and that right is, as Judge
Douglas says, a barren right, unless there is legislation that will
enforce it.

The mere declaration, "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," is powerless without specific legislation to enforce it. Now,
on what ground would a member of Congress, who is opposed to slavery in
the abstract, vote for a Fugitive law, as I would deem it my duty to do?
Because there is a constitutional right which needs legislation to enforce
it. And alt