door-posts are sprinkled with the blood of sacrifice, that when the destroying angel goes forth, as go forth he will, he may pass you by.

Aside from the principle of Eternal Right, I will never consent to the admission of another slave State into the Union (unless bound to do so by some constitutional compact, and I know of none such), on account of the injustice of slave representation. By the Constitution, not only the States now in the Union, but all that may hereafter be admitted, are entitled to have their slaves represented in Congress, five slaves being counted equal to three white freemen. This is unjust to the free States, unless you allow them a representation in the compound ratio of persons and property. There are twenty-five gentlemen on this floor who are virtually the representatives of slaves alone, having not one free constituent. This is an outrage on every representative principle, which supposes that representatives have constituents, whose will they are bound to obey and whose interest they protect. . . .

I shall not now particularly refer to the features of the most extraordinary conspiracy against liberty in the Senate, called the Compromise Bill. If it should survive its puerperal fever, we shall have another opportunity of knocking the monster in the head. I pass over what is familiarly known as the "ten-million bribe," which was evidently inserted for no other purpose than to create public opinion on 'change, and carry the bill.

But it is proposed to propitiate Virginia by giving her two hundred million dollars out of the public treasury, the proceeds of the public lands. If this sum were to be given for the purpose of purchasing the freedom of her slaves, large as it is, it should have my hearty support. It is, I

think, at least fifty millions more than would pay for them all at a fair market price. But it is designed for no purpose of emancipation. The cool-headed, cool-hearted, philosophic author had no such "transcendental" object. It is to be specifically appropriated to exile her free people of color, and transport them from the land of their birth to the land of the stranger! Sir, this is a proposition not "fit to be made."

Mr. Averett of Virginia here asked: Did not New England sell slaves?

Mr. Stevens-Yes, she sold, she imported slaves; she was very wicked; she has long since repented. Go ye and do likewise.

It is my purpose nowhere in these remarks to make personal reproaches; I entertain no ill-will toward any human being, nor any brute, that I know of, not even the skunk across the way, to which I referred. Least of all would I reproach the South. I honor her courage and fidelity. Even in a bad, a wicked cause, she shows a united front. All her sons are faithful to the cause of human bondage, because it is their cause. But the North-the poor, timid, mercenary, drivelling North-has no such united defenders of her cause, although it is the cause of human liberty. None of the bright lights of the nation shine upon her section. Even her own great men have turned her accusers. She is the victim of low ambition-an ambition which prefers self to country, personal aggrandizement to the high cause of human liberty. She is offered up a sacrifice to propitiate Southern tyranny-to conciliate Southern

treason.

We are told that she has not done her duty in restoring fugitive slaves, and that more stringent laws must be passed

to secure that object. A distinguished Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Clay] says it is the duty, not only of officers in the free States, but of all the people who happen to be present, to give active aid to the slaveowner to run down, arrest, and restore the man who is fleeing from slavery. An equally distinguished Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Webster] unites with him in denouncing the aggressions of the North in this particular; and they both declare their determination to vote for the bill, with its amendments, now on file, and which has become a part of the "Compromise.

It may be well to look a little at the law as it now stands on the subject, and then at the one which has enlisted such powerful support. By the Constitution alone, without any legislation, the slaveholder may go into a free State, take with him such force as he pleases, and take his slave and carry him back. If the fact of his slavery be disputed, either by the alleged slave or any one for him, the claimant may issue his writ de homine repligiando, and unless the defendant give ample bail for his forthcoming on the final issue, and for the payment of all costs and damages (which include the value of his services in the meantime), the plaintiff may take him into his possession, and retain him until final trial by a court and jury. Is not this sufficient? It is all the right which he would have if he claimed property in a horse or other property which he might allege had strayed over the line. Why should he have any greater right when he claims property in man? Is a man of so much less value than a horse, that he should be deprived of the ordinary protection of the law? Sir, in my judgment, the remedy ought to be left where the Constitution places it, without any legislation. The odious law of 1793 ought to be repealed.

By that law, the slaveholder may not only seize his slave and drag him back, but he may command the aid of all the officers of the United States Court; take his alleged slave before the judge, and after summary examination, without trial by jury, may obtain a certificate of property; which, for the purpose of removal, is conclusive of his slavery, takes away the writ of Habeas Corpus, and the right of trial by jury, and sends the victim to hopeless bondage. If an inhabitant of a free State see a wretched fugitive, who he learns is fleeing from bondage, and gives him a meal of victuals to keep him from starving, and allows him to sleep in his outhouse, although his master is not in pursuit of him, he is liable to the penalty of five hundred dollars. A judge in Pennsylvania lately held that a worthy citizen of Indiana County incurred such penalty by giving a cup of water and a crust of bread to a famishing man whom he knew to be fleeing from bondage. A slave family escaped from Maryland, went into Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and obtained the reluctant consent of a worthy farmer to sleep in his hayloft. Their owner did not pursue them for a week afterward. It was held by a State court that the farmer was liable for the full value of the slaves, besides the five hundred dollars penalty, and a jury returned a verdiet for two thousand dollars and costs. Such are some of the provisions of the law of 1793 now in force, which these great expounders of constitutional freedom hold to be too mild! And more stringent laws are to be passed to punish Northern men who have hearts! .

The distinguished Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Clay] wishes further to make it the duty of all bystanders to aid in the capture of fugitives; to join the chase and run down the prey. This is asking more than my constituents will

ever grant. They will strictly abide by the Constitution. The slaveholder may pursue his slave among them with his own foreign myrmidons, unmolested, except by their frowning scorn. ever induce them to join the hue and cry after the trembling wretch who has escaped from unjust bondage. Their fair land, made by nature and their own honest toil as fertile and as lovely as the vale of Tempe, shall never become the hunting-ground on which the bloodhounds of slavery shall course their prey, and command them to join the hunt.

But no law that tyranny can pass will

Sir, this tribunal would be more odious than the Star Chamber-these officers more hateful than the Familiars of the Inquisition.

Can the free North stand this? Can New England stand it? Can Massachusetts stand it? If she can, she has but one step further to take in degradation, and that is to deliver her own sons in chains to Southern masters! What would the bold Barons of Runnymede have said to such defenders of liberty? What would the advocates of English freedom, at any time, have said to those who would strike down the writ of Habeas Corpus and the right of trial by jury, those vital principles of Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights? They would have driven them forth as enemies in disguise.

Sir, I am aware of the temerity of these remarks. I know how little effect they will have, coming from so obscure a quarter, and being opposed by the mighty influences that create public opinion. I was struck with the sound sense of the remark made to-day by the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Gentry]. He said that the "Compromise" Bill was winning favor with the people, most of whom had never