, her actions spring
from the deepest recesses of the human heart. Denounce her as you
will, you cannot deter her from her duty. Pain, sickness, want,
poverty and even death itself form no obstacles in her onward march.
Even the tender Virgin would dress, as a martyr for the stake, as for
her bridal hour, rather than make sacrifice of her purity and duty.
The eloquence of the Senate, and clash of arms, are alike powerful
when brought in opposition to the influence of pure and virtuous
woman. The liberty of the slave seems now to be committed to her
charge, and who can doubt her final triumph? I do not.--You cannot
fight against her and hope for success; and well does the Senator know
this; hence this appeal to her feelings to terrify her from that which
she believes to be her duty. It is a vain attempt.

The Senator says that it was the principles of the Constitution which
carried us through the Revolution. Surely it was; and to use the
language of another Senator from a slave State, on a former occasion,
these are the very principles on which the abolitionists plant
themselves. It was the principle that all men are born FREE AND EQUAL,
that nerved the arm of our fathers in their contest for independence.
It was for the natural and inherent rights of _man_ they contended. It
is a libel upon the Constitution to say that its object was not
liberty, but slavery, for millions of the human race.

The Senator, well fearing that all his eloquence and his arguments
thus far are but chaff, when weighed in the balance against truth and
justice, seems to find consolation in the idea, and says that which
opposes the ulterior object of abolitionists, is that the general
government has no power to act on the subject of slavery, and that the
Constitution or the Union would not last an hour if the power claimed
was exercised by Congress. It is slavery, then, and not liberty, that
makes us one people. To dissolve slavery, is to dissolve the Union.
Why require of us to support the Constitution by oath, if the
Constitution itself is subject to the power of slavery, and not the
moral power of the country? Change the form of the oath which you
administer to Senators on taking seats here, swear them to support
slavery, and according to the logic of the gentleman, the Constitution
and the Union will both be safe. We hear almost daily threats of
dissolving the Union, and from whence do they come? From citizens of
the free States? No! From th