article of the Constitution
which says to these States that they shall deliver up fugitives from
service, is as binding in honor and conscience as any other article.
No man fulfils his duty in any legislature who sets himself to find
excuses, evasions, escapes from this constitutional obligation. I
have always thought that the Constitution addressed itself to the
legislatures of the States or to the States themselves. It says that
those persons escaping to other States "shall be delivered up," and I
confess I have always been of the opinion that it was an injunction
upon the States themselves. When it is said that a person escaping into
another State, and coming therefore within the jurisdiction of that
State, shall be delivered up, it seems to me the import of the clause
is, that the State itself, in obedience to the Constitution, shall cause
him to be delivered up. That is my judgment. I have always entertained
that opinion, and I entertain it now. But when the subject, some years
ago, was before the Supreme Court of the United States, the majority
of the judges held that the power to cause fugitives from service to
be delivered up was a power to be exercised under the authority of this
Government. I do not know, on the whole, that it may not have been
a fortunate decision. My habit is to respect the result of judicial
deliberations and the solemnity of judicial decisions. As it now stands,
the business of seeing that these fugitives are delivered up resides in
the power of Congress and the national judicature, and my friend at the
head of the Judiciary Committee has a bill on the subject now before the
Senate, which, with some amendments to it, I propose to support, with
all its provisions, to the fullest extent. And I desire to call the
attention of all sober-minded men at the North, of all conscientious
men, of all men who are not carried away by some fanatical idea or some
false impression, to their constitutional obligations. I put it to all
the sober and sound minds at the North as a question of morals and
a question of conscience. What right have they, in their legislative
capacity, or any other capacity, to endeavor to get round this
Constitution, or to embarrass the free exercise of the rights secured by
the Constitution, to the person whose slaves escape from them? None at
all; none at all. Neither in the forum of conscience, nor before the
face of the Constitution, are they, in my opinion, justified in such