individuals and among legislators, a
disinclination to perform, fully, their Constitutional duties
in regard to the return of persons bound to service, who have
escaped into the free States. In that respect, it is my
judgment that the South is right, and the North is wrong."
* * * * "My friend at the head of the Judiciary Committee
[Mr. MASON of Virginia] has a bill on the subject now before
the Senate, with some amendments to it, WHICH I PROPOSE
TO SUPPORT, WITH ALL ITS PROVISIONS, _to the fullest
extent_."--_Idem._ p. 29.

He proceeded to assure the Senate that the North would, on
due consideration, fulfil "their constitutional obligations"
"_with alacrity_." "Therefore, I repeat, sir, that here is a
ground of complaint against the North well founded, which
ought to be removed, which it is now in the power of the
different departments of this Government to remove; which
calls for the enactment of proper laws authorizing the
judicature of this Government, in the several States, to do
all that is necessary for the recapture of fugitive slaves,
and for the restoration of them to those who claim them
Wherever I go, and whenever I speak on the subject, and when
I speak here, I desire to speak to the whole North, I say
that the South has been injured in this respect, and has a
right to complain; and the North has been too careless of
what, I think, the Constitution peremptorily and emphatically
enjoins upon her as a duty."--_Idem._ p. 30.

In a speech in the United States Senate, July 17, 1850, made with an
evident view to calm that Northern feeling which had been aroused
and excited by his 7th of March speech, beyond the power of priest
or politician wholly to subdue, Mr. WEBSTER said there were various
misapprehensions respecting the working of the proposed Fugitive
Slave Bill:--

"The first of these misapprehensions," he said, "is an
exaggerated sense of the actual evil of the reclamation of
fugitive slaves, felt by Massachusetts and the other New
England States. What produced that? The cases do not exist.
There has not been a case within the knowledge of this
generation, in which a man has been taken back from
Massachusetts into slavery by process of law, not one."
* * * * "Not only has there been no case, so far as I can
learn, of the reclamatio