as plainly written in the
Constitution as any other of its provisions:--

"No person held to service or labour 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 labour, but
shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or
labour may be due."

It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those who
made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; and the
intention of the lawgiver is the law. All members of Congress swear
their support to the whole Constitution--to this provision as much as to
any other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within
the terms of this clause "shall be delivered up," their oaths are
unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in good temper, could they
not with nearly equal unanimity frame and pass a law by means of which
to keep good that unanimous oath?

There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be
enforced by national or by State authority; but surely that difference
is not a very material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be
of but little consequence to him or to others by which authority it is
done. And should any one in any case be content that his oath shall go
unkept on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be
kept?

Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not all the safeguards of
liberty known in civilized and humane jurisprudence to be introduced, so
that a free man be not, in any case, surrendered as a slave? And might
it not be well at the same time to provide by law for the enforcement of
that clause in the Constitution which guarantees that "the citizen of
each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of
citizens in the several States"?

I take the official oath to-day with no mental reservations, and with no
purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any hypercritical rules.
And while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of Congress as
proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much safer for all,
both in official and private stations, to conform to and abide by all
those acts which stand unrepealed, than to violate any of them, trusting
to find impunity in having them held to be unconstitutional.

It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a President
under our National Constit