tuity! If it was sinful
at the commencement, to adopt it on the ground of escaping a greater
evil, is it not equally sinful to swear to support it for the same
reason, or until, in process of time, it be purged from its
corruption?

The fact is, the compromise alluded to, instead of effecting a union,
rendered it impracticable; unless by the term union are to understand
the absolute reign of the slaveholding power over the whole country,
to the prostration of Northern rights. In the just use of words, the
American Union is and always has been a sham--an imposture. It is an
instrument of oppression unsurpassed in the criminal history of the
world. How then can it be innocently sustained? It is not certain, it
is not even probable, that if it had not been adopted, the mother
country would have reconquered the colonies. The spirit that would
have chosen danger in preference to crime,--to perish with justice
rather than live with dishonor,--to dare and suffer whatever might
betide, rather than sacrifice the rights of one human being,--could
never have been subjugated by any mortal power. Surely it is paying a
poor tribute to the valor and devotion of our revolutionary fathers in
the cause of liberty, to say that, if they had sternly refused to
sacrifice their principles, they would have fallen an easy prey to the
despotic power of England.

II. The American Constitution is the exponent of the national compact.
We affirm that it is an instrument which no man can innocently bind
himself to support, because its anti-republican and anti-christian
requirements are explicit and peremptory; at least, so explicit that,
in regard to all the clauses pertaining to slavery, they have been
uniformly understood and enforced in the same way, by all the courts
and by all the people; and so peremptory, that no individual
interpretation or authority can set them aside with impunity. It is
not a ball of clay, to be moulded into any shape that party
contrivance or caprice may choose it to assume. It is not a form of
words, to be interpreted in any manner, or to any extent, or for the
accomplishment of any purpose, that individuals in office under it may
determine. _It means precisely what those who framed and adopted it
meant_--NOTHING MORE, NOTHING LESS, _as a matter of bargain and
compromise_. Even if it can be construed to mean something else,
without violence to its language, such construction is not to be
tolerated _against the wishes