; by the Constitution,
which I have sworn to support, I am bound to disobey this Act.
Never, in any capacity, can I render voluntary aid in its execution.
Pains and penalties I will endure; but this great wrong I will not
do." * * * "For the sake of peace and tranquillity, cease to shock
the public conscience! For the sake of the Constitution, cease to
exercise a power which is nowhere granted, and which violates
inviolable rights expressly secured. Repeal this enactment! Let its
terrors no longer rage through the land. Mindful of the lowly, whom
it pursues; mindful of the good men perplexed by its requirements;
in the name of charity, in the name of the Constitution, repeal this
enactment, totally, and without delay! Be admonished by these words
of Oriental piety: 'Beware of the groans of the wounded souls.
Oppress not to the utmost a single heart; for a solitary sigh has
power to overset a whole world.'"

Robert Rantoul, Jr., whose large heart was so true to Democratic
_principles_, that the _party_ wanted to expel him from their ranks,
(as parties are prone to do with honest men,) opposed the Fugitive
Slave Bill with all the power of his strong intellect. In a speech
delivered in 1851, he said: "I am as devotedly attached as any other
man to the Union of these States, and the Constitution of our
government; but I admire and love them for that which they secure to
us. The Constitution is good, and great, and valuable, and to be
held for ever sacred, because it secures to us what was the _object_
of the Constitution. I love the Union and the Constitution, not for
_themselves_, but for the great _end_ for which they were
created--to secure and perpetuate _liberty_; not the liberty of a
_class_, superimposed upon the thraldom of groaning multitudes: not
the liberty of a _ruling race_, cemented by the tears and blood of
subject races, but _human_ liberty, _perfect_ liberty, common to the
whole people of the United States and to their posterity. It is
because I believe all this, that I love the Union and the
Constitution. If it were not for that, the Union would be valueless,
and the Constitution not worth the parchment on which it is written.
God-given Liberty is above the Union, and above the Constitution,
and above all the works of man."

* * * * *

TESTIMONIES AGAINST THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT.

The Hon. Josiah Quincy, senior, whose integrity, noble intellect,
and long experience i