ens, so as to give additional security to its interest. It
demands to be heard in its own person in the hall of our Legislature,
and mingle in debate there. Sir, in every stage of these oppressions
and abuses, permit me to say, in the language of the Declaration of
Independence--and no language could be more appropriate--we have
petitioned for redress in the most humble terms, and our repeated
petitions have been answered by repeated injury. A power, whose
character is marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit
to rule over a free people. In our sufferings and our wrongs we have
besought our fellow-citizens to aid us in the preservation of our
constitutional rights, but, influenced by the love of gain or
arbitrary power, they have sometimes disregarded all the sacred rights
of man, and answered in violence, burnings, and murder. After all
these transactions, which are now of public notoriety and matter of
record, shall we of the free States tauntingly be asked what we have
to do with slavery? We should rejoice, indeed, if the evils of slavery
were removed far from us, that it could be said with truth, that we
have nothing to do with slavery. Our citizens have not entered its
territories for the purpose of obstructing its laws, nor do we wish to
do so, nor would we justify any individual in such act; yet we have
been branded and stigmatized by its friends and advocates, both in the
free and slave States, as incendiaries, fanatics, disorganizers,
enemies to our country, and as wishing to dissolve the Union. We have
borne all this without complaint or resistance, and only ask to be
secure in our persons, by our own firesides, and in the free exercise
of our thoughts and opinions in speaking, writing, printing and
publishing on the subject of slavery, that which appears to us to be
just and right; because we all know the power of truth, and that it
will ultimately prevail, in despite of all opposition. But in the
exercise of all these rights, we acknowledge subjection to the laws of
the State in which we are, and our liability for their abuse. We wish
peace with all men; and that the most amicable relations and free
intercourse may exist between the citizens of our State and our
neighboring slaveholding States; we will not enter their States,
either in our proper persons, or by commissioners, legislative
resolutions, or otherwise, to interfere with their slave policy or
slave laws; and we shall expect from them