shall be trodden down by the murderous soldiery and fiery car of war
sweeping over our land; our temples of justice laid in ashes; all the
horrors and desolations of war upon us; who, but this Convention will be
held responsible for it? and but him who shall have given his vote for
this unwise and ill-timed measure, as I honestly think and believe, shall
be held to strict account for this suicidal act by the present generation,
and probably cursed and execrated by posterity for all coming time, for
the wide and desolating ruin that will inevitably follow this act you now
propose to perpetrate? Pause, I entreat you, and consider for a moment
what reason you can give that will even satisfy yourselves in calmer
moments--what reasons you can give to your fellow-sufferers in this
calamity that it will bring upon us. What reasons can you give to the
nations of the earth to justify it? They will be the calm and deliberate
judges in the case? and what cause or one overt act can you name or point,
on which to rest the plea of justification? What right has the North
assailed? What interest of the South has been invaded? What justice has
been denied? and what claim founded in justice and right has been
withheld? Can either of you to-day name one governmental act of wrong
deliberately and purposely done by the government of Washington, of which
the South has a right to complain? I challenge the answer. While, on the
other hand, let me show the facts (and believe me, gentlemen, I am not
here the advocate of the North; but I am here the friend, the firm friend
and lover of the South and her institutions; and for this reason I speak
thus plainly and faithfully--for yours, mine, and every other man's
interest--the words of truth and soberness), of which I wish you to judge;
and I will only state facts which are clear and undeniable, and which now
stand as records authentic in the history of our country. When we of the
South demanded the slave trade or importation of Africans for the
cultivation of our lands, did they not yield the right for twenty years?
When we asked a three-fifths representation in congress for our slaves was
it not granted? When we asked and demanded the return of any fugitive from
justice, or the recovery of those persons owing labor and allegiance, was
it not incorporated in the constitution, and again ratified and
strengthened in the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. But do you reply that in
many instances they have vio