ow the
Constitution? Who are these hypocrites who claim the championship of
freedom and the moral leadership of the world?

"The men who sold their own slaves to us because they could not use them
with profit in a northern climate; the men who built and manned every
American slave ship that ever sailed the seas; the sons of old Peter
Faneuil of Boston who built Faneuil Hall, their cradle of liberty, out
of the profits of slave ships whose trade the Southern people had
forbidden by law; the men who have flooded Congress for two generations
with petitions to dissolve the Union; the men who threatened to secede
with the addition of every foot of territory we have added to our
Republic!

"These are the men who have denied to the manhood of the South Christian
Communion because they could not endure what they have been pleased to
style the moral leprosy of Slavery! These are the men who refuse us
permission to sojourn or even pass through the sacred precincts of a
Northern State and dare to carry our servants with us. These are the men
who deny to the South equal rights in the lands of the West bought by
Southern blood and brains and added to our inheritance against their
furious protests. These are the men who burn the sacred charters of
American Liberty in their public squares, and inscribe on their banners
the foul motto:

"'The Constitution is an agreement with Death, a covenant with Hell.'

"These are the men who dare to call us traitors! These are the men who
have deliberately passed laws in fourteen Northern States nullifying the
provisions of the Constitution of the Union which they have sworn to
defend and enforce--"

The speaker paused and lifted high above his head a little morocco bound
volume.

"Here in the presence of Almighty God--the God of our fathers, and these
witnesses, I read its solemn provisions which the laws of fourteen
Northern States have brazenly and openly defied!"

He opened the little book and slowly read:

"'Article 4, Section 2.

"'_No person held to service of labor in one State, under the laws
thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or
regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor--but shall
be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may
be due._'"

He turned suddenly to the Northern Senators:

"Your States have not only repudiated the Constitution you have sworn to
uphold, but your emissaries have invaded the pe