housand slaves; but if this law is a true
exponent of the Constitution, this Government, ordained for justice
and liberty, holds four millions of slaves.

No, Sir! no! for the honor of the fathers of my country, I appeal
from the bloody slaveholding statute to the liberty-loving
Constitution. While these fathers lived, State after State, in
carrying out the spirit of the Constitution, put an end to the
dreadful system. The great Washington, in his last will and testament,
carried out the spirit of the Constitution.

But, sir, the law under which you may sentence me violates both the
letter and the spirit of the Constitution. I have a word to say upon
the articles of the Constitution which it is claimed the Fugitive
Slave Law is designed to carry out.

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

That is the provision that is claimed transforms the Government into a
monster of iniquity. I have read, over and over, that article,
interpreted by all laws of language known to a plain man. How these
three or four lines can transform this Government, ordained to secure
justice, into a mean tool to aid the plunderers of cradles, the
destroyers of home, the ravishers of women, and the oppressors of men,
to carry on their hellish work--how it can do this thing, I cannot
see. That article binds the several States separately not to pass a
certain law, but where in it do we find a Fugitive Slave Law? Where do
you find a Commissioner? Where do you find that the Government is to
hunt up and return, at its own expense, a slave that flees from his
cruel and bloody master? Where in those lines is the authority to
compel me to be a partaker in the crimes of the man-stealer? The
General Government is not once mentioned; but the States in their
separate sovereignties are named. But, Sir, this article expressly
provides that the party making the claim shall have owed him service,
or labor due from the party claimed. If Jim Gray owed service, or
labor, or money, to Phillips, I am the last man in the world to raise
my voice or hand to prevent Phillips, or any man, from obtaining his
dues. What I would grant to the devil himself, I would not withhold
even from the slaveholder--h