, that the property, peace, and security of no section are to
be in any wise endangered by the now incoming administration. I add, too,
that 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 citizens 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.