n our fellow-countrymen, who may rise, in
emulation of our revolutionary fathers, to vindicate their inalienable
"right to life, _liberty_ and the pursuit of happiness,"--this
clause of the Constitution, I say distinctly, I never will
support.

That part of the Constitution which provides for the surrender of
fugitive slaves, I never have supported and never will. I will join
in no slave-hunt. My door shall stand open, as it has long stood, for
the panting and trembling victim of the slave-hunter. When I shut it
against him, may God shut the door of his mercy against me! Under
this clause of the Constitution, and designed to carry it into effect,
slavery has demanded that laws should be passed, and of such a
character, as have left the free citizen of the North without
protection for his own liberty. The question, whether a man seized
in a free State as a slave, _is_ a slave or not, the law of Congress
does not allow a jury to determine: but refers it to the decision of
a Judge of a United States' Court, or even of the humblest State
magistrate, it may be, upon the testimony or affidavit of the party
most deeply interested to support the claim. By virtue of this law,
freemen have been seized and dragged into perpetual slavery--and
should I be seized by a slave-hunter in any part of the country
where I am not personally known, neither the Constitution nor laws
of the United States would shield me from the same destiny.

These, sir, are the specific parts of the Constitution of the United
States, which in my opinion are essentially vicious, hostile at once
to the liberty and to the morals of the nation. And these are the
principal reasons of my refusal any longer to acknowledge my
allegiance to it, and of my determination to revoke my oath to
support it. I cannot, in order to keep the law of man, break the law
of God, or solemnly call him to witness my promise that I will break
it.

It is true that the Constitution provides for its own amendment, and
that by this process, all the guarantees of Slavery may be expunged.
But it will be time enough to swear to support it when this is done.
It cannot be right to do so, until these amendments are made.

It is also true that the framers of the Constitution did studiously
keep the words "Slave" and "Slavery" from its face. But to do our
constitutional fathers justice, while they forebore--from very
shame--to give the word "Slavery" a place in the Constitution, they
did not