onounced to be piracy in our foreign
intercourse, no sophistry can make honorable or justifiable in a
domestic form. For a proof of the feelings which this traffic
naturally inspires, we need but refer to the universal execration in
which the slave-dealer is held in those portions of the country
where the institution of slavery is guarded with the most jealous
vigilance.

3. Congress has no power to abridge the right of petition. The
right of the people of the non-slaveholding states to petition
Congress for the abolition of slavery and the slave-trade in the
District of Columbia, and the traffic of human beings among the
states, is as undoubted as any right guarantied by the Constitution;
and I regard the Resolution which was adopted by the House of
Representatives on the 21st of December last as a virtual denial of
that right, inasmuch as it disposed of all such petitions, as might
be presented thereafter, in advance of presentation and reception.
If it was right thus to dispose of petitions on _one_ subject, it
would be equally right to dispose of them in the same manner on
_all_ subjects, and thus cut of all communication, by petition
between the people and their representatives. Nothing can be more
clearly a violation of the spirit of the Constitution, as it
rendered utterly nugatory a right which was considered of such vast
importance as to be specially guarantied in that sacred instrument.
A similar Resolution passed the House of Representatives at the
first session of the last Congress, and as I then entertained the
same views which I have now expressed, I recorded my vote
against it.

4. I fully concur in the sentiment, that 'every principle of
justice and humanity requires, that every human being, when personal
freedom is at stake, should have the benefit of a jury trial;' and I
have no hesitation in saying, that the laws of this state ought to
secure that benefit, so far as they can, to persons claimed as
fugitives from 'service or labor,' without interfering with the laws
of the United States. The course pursued in relation to this subject
by the Legislature of Massachusetts meets my approbation.

5. I am opposed to all attempts to abridge or restrain the freedom
of speech and the press, or to forbid any portion of the people
peaceably to assemble to discuss a