ion within
our own borders, that its name and its miseries were unknown to us.
But this is not our lot; we live upon its borders, and in hearing of
its cries; yet we are unwilling to acknowledge, that if we enter its
territories and violate its laws, that we should be punished at its
pleasure. We do not complain of this, though it might well be
considered just ground of complaint. It is our firesides, our rights,
our privileges, the safety of our friends, as well as the sovereignty
and independence of our State, that we are now called upon to protect
and defend. The slave interest has at this moment the whole power of
the country in its hands. It claims the President as a Northern man
with Southern feelings, thus making the Chief Magistrate the head of
an interest, or a party, and not of the country and the people at
large. It has the cabinet of the President, three members of which are
from the slave States, and one who wrote a book in favor of Southern
slavery, but which fell dead from the press, a book which I have seen,
in my own family, thrown musty upon the shelf. Here then is a decided
majority in favor of the slave interest. It has five out of nine
judges of the Supreme Court; here, also, is a majority from the slave
States. It has, with the President of the Senate, and the Speaker of
the House of Representatives, and the Clerks of both Houses, the army
and the navy; and the bureaus, have, I am told, about the same
proportion. One would suppose that, with all this power operating in
this Government, it would be content to _permit_--yes I will use the
word _permit_--it would be content to permit us, who live in the free
States, to enjoy our firesides and our homes in quietness; but this is
not the case. The slaveholders and slave laws claim that as property,
which the free States know only as persons, a reasoning property,
which, of its own will and mere motion, is frequently found in our
States; and upon which THING we sometimes bestow food and raiment, if
it appear hungry and perishing, believing it to be a human being; this
perhaps is owing to our want of vision to discover the process by
which a man is converted into a THING. For this act of ours, which is
not prohibited by our laws, but prompted by every feeling, Christian
and humane, the slaveholding power enters our territory, tramples
under foot the sovereignty of our State, violates the sanctity of
private residence, seizes our citizens, and disregarding