. The warning
of his fall is worth more than the guidance of his success. Let us
forgive; it were wicked to forget. For fifty years no American has had
such opportunity to serve his country in an hour of need. Never has an
American so signally betrayed the trust--not once since Benedict
Arnold turned a less ignoble traitor!

Gentlemen, you know the speech of the 7th of March. You know it too
well. He proposed to support the fugitive slave bill "with all its
provisions, to the fullest extent." At that time this bill of
abominations was worse than even now; for then it left the liberty of
a man to the discretion not only of any judge or commissioner of any
Federal court, but to any clerk or marshal thereof, nay, to any
collector of the customs and every one of the seventeen thousand
postmasters in the United States! It provided that an affidavit made
before any officer empowered, by the United States or any State, to
administer oaths, should be taken as conclusive evidence to prove a
man a slave! So John Smith of some unknown town in Texas, might make
affidavit before John Jones, a justice of peace in the same place,
that Lewis Hayden, or Wendell Phillips, or his Honor Judge Curtis, was
his (Smith's) slave, and had escaped to Boston: might bring hither
John Brown, a Postmaster from Texas, or find some collector of the
customs or minion of the court in Massachusetts, seize his victim, and
swear away his liberty; and any man might be at once consigned to
eternal bondage! All that the bill provided for,--and authorized the
kidnapper to employ as many persons as he might think proper to
accomplish his purpose by force, at the expense of the United States!
All this Mr. Webster volunteered to support "to the fullest extent."

The bill was amended, here bettered, there worsened, and came to the
final vote. Gentlemen, the Money Power of the North joined the Slave
Power of the South to kidnap men in America after 1850, as it had
kidnapped them in Africa before 1808. Out of fifty Senators only
twelve said, No; while in the House 109 voted Yea. The Hon. Samuel A.
Eliot gave the vote of Beacon and State Streets for kidnapping men on
the soil of Boston. The one Massachusetts vote for man-stealing must
come from the town which once bore a Franklin and an Adams in her
bosom; yes, from under the eaves of John Hancock's house! That one
vote was not disgrace enough; his successor [Hon. William Appleton]
must take a needless delight in re