sachusetts, of any attempt on the part of Virginia, for
example, to propose an amendment to the Constitution designed to
rescind or abolish the bill of rights prefixed to our own form of
government. Yet I cannot see why such a proposition would be more
unjustifiable than any counter proposition to abolish slavery in
Virginia, as coming from Massachusetts. If I have in any way
succeeded in mastering the primary elements of our forms of
government, the first and fundamental idea is, the reservation to
the people of the respective States of every power of regulating
their own affairs not specifically surrendered in the Constitution.
The security of the State governments depends upon the fidelity
with which this principle is observed.

Even the intimation of any such interference as I have mentioned by
way of example could not be made in earnest without at once shaking
the entire foundation of the whole confederated Union. No man shall
exceed me in jealousy of affection for the State rights of Massachusetts.
So far as I remember, nothing of this kind was ever thought of
heretofore; and I see no reason to apprehend that what has not
happened thus far will be more likely to happen hereafter. But if
the time ever come when it does occur, I shall believe the
dissolution of the system to be much more certain than I do at this
moment.

For these reasons, I cannot imagine that there is the smallest
foundation for uneasiness about the intentions of any considerable
number of men in the free States to interfere in any manner whatever
with slavery in the States, much less by the hopeless mode of
amending the Constitution. To me it looks like panic, pure panic.
How, then, is it to be treated? Is it to be neglected or ridiculed?
Not at all. If a child in the nursery be frightened by the idea of a
spectre, common humanity would prompt an effort by kindness to
assuage the alarm. But in cases where the same feeling pervades the
bosoms of multitudes of men, this imaginary evil grows up at once
into a gigantic reality, and must be dealt with as such. It is at
all times difficult to legislate against a possibility. The
committee have reported a proposition intended to meet this case.
It is a form of amendment of the Constitution which, in substance,
takes away no rights whatever which the free States ever should
attempt to use, whilst it vests exclusively in the slave States the
right to use them or not, as they shall think prop