master, into any other of these confederated jurisdictions, that in such case upon the certificate of one magistrate in the jurisdiction out of which the said servant fled, or upon other proof, the said servant shall be delivered, either to his master or any other that pursues, and brings such certificate or proof."

The similarity is so striking that I think we cannot mistake the origin of the different enactments. Connected with this same article in the New England Confederation, is another equally summary for the delivery of fugitives from justice, much as the two subjects are connected in the constitutional article, and in the act of 1793; and still more strikingly marking their origin. Any one who is curious on this subject may find the New England articles in Hinman's Historical Collections, pages 34 and 35-a book that may be found in the public libraries of this city, and in private libraries. The Historical Collections of Massachusetts will also show that other distant colonies, not confederated with us, as far south as Virginia, applied through their governors to the authorities of New England for the arrest of fugitives from their jurisdictions, which were returned to them as a matter of courtesy and colonial common law, even without any articles requiring it. When the act of 1793 therefore came before Congress, it is not at all surprising that it met with no serious opposition from this section of the country. It was introduced in the Senate of the United States, and is said to have been penned by Mr. Cabot, a distinguished Senator from Massachusetts, though I have not the Journal of the Senate that will enable me to speak from the record. It passed the body, however, by a unanimous vote. In the House

of Representatives, the Journal shows that it passed by the decisive vote of 48 yeas to 7 nays-the majority being composed of 26 members from northern and central States, and 22 from States holding slaves. The minority was composed. of 5 members from the North and 2 from the South. The northern and central States had a majority in the House. I find of the Connecticut delegation the names of James Hillhouse, Jeremiah Wadsworth and Amasa Learned, recorded as voting for the bill-and but one of our members, Jonathan Sturges, voting against it. This act will be found in the old edition of United States laws, bearing upon it the name of Jonathan Trumbull, who was then the Speaker of the House, and a member from Connecticut, an honored name in our history--and bearing also the approving name of one more honored-GEORGE WASHINgton. I find also among the list of those voting for it, Elbridge Gerry, Fisher Ames, and Theodore Sedgwick, men who it is to be presumed understood their

duties at least as well as those who make greater pretensions now. I find also there, the name of Elias Boudinot, the father and first President of the American Bible Society, a stainless name in a generation of christian statesmen who did honor to the age in which they lived. This law, which they passed, has been as free from abuse in practice as any other that could be passed on the subject. When the Constitution was adopted, and when this act was passed in 1793, slavery was not confined to the South, it was diffused over the Northern country also-scarcely, but still among us. It existed in Connecticut ---and although there are many in this meeting older than myself, yet I have seen, here in New Haven, a slave sold on an execution, at the post, for debt. Many of our substantial farmers owned families of slaves--and remnants of the race may now be found in some of our country towns hovering around the fire-side of the families to which their fathers belonged--holding to the very hearth-stones as it were, with family affection. If in the days to which I have alluded, a slave had escaped from this State to a neighboring State, I have no reason to doubt that the master willingly availed himself of the act of 1793, and his constitutional rights, for the recovery of the fugitive. What would then have been the feelings of men in Connecticut, had persons been found here base enough to tell these slaves to cut their master's throatsto resist to the death--that juries would probably disregard the obligations of their oaths if they were brought to trial-and at any rate a crown of martydom awaited them if they should die by the gallows? Does any one believe that our sturdy ancestors would have brooked such interference more complacently than our southern brethren now do? Immediate emancipation, now so loudly demanded in certain quarters, was not the policy which Connecticut adopted even in reference to the few slaves we had among us. We never passed a law to emancipate one who was born a slave--I say never-for the act of the General Assembly, two years ago, declaring that slavery should no longer exist here--was a mere flourish of philanthropy, after slavery had practically ceased, the cheapest way imaginable of making known our hostility to the system. We did indeed, many years ago, pass laws that the children of slaves, born after a certain time, should upon their arrival at a certain age, become free; and by this very gradual process the institution was almost imperceptibly undermined. We worked our way through the difficulty in our own good time; a work which, I believe would have been very much retarded, if not prevented, had foreign emissaries been permitted to come among us teaching and preaching, as they have since done, the modern doctrines of

immediate emancipation. If our fathers with so few slaves among them, found the subject so delicate to be dealt with, should we not draw from it a lesson of the most careful forbearance, and a faithful performance of our constitutional duties towards those States which have now hundreds and thousands of this population to be dealt with, where we had but one?

The many petitions got up often by artful managers, and pressed upon Congress, for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, for the last few years, in the hope of affecting slavery in the States adjoining indirectly, have no doubt done much to bring the present crisis upon the country. Here, too, we have wisdom to learn from the past, for the subject of slavery in the District of Columbia, is one which any administration may be embarrassed with at all times, if the opposition is unscrupulous enough to ring the changes incessantly upon it. This subject was brought before Congress as early as 1805, not in a proposition for immediate abolition --the panacea of modern philanthropists-but merely that the children born of slave parents, belonging to citizens of the District of Columbia, should become free on their arrival. at a certain age. The administration was then in southern hands--it was during the presidency of Mr. Jefferson, who, as we all know, had in the House of Representatives a very talented and skillful opposition. The leader of that opposition was from the State of Connecticut. I allude, of course, to the late Roger Griswold, a man of commanding intellect and spotless honor. However tempting the occasion might have been to a man of less honorable bearing, to turn the anti-slavery feeling against the administration, yet he bore himself far above any such paltry policy; and when the question was taken, he with those of his colleagues from Connecticut, who were present on the occasion, voted to a man promptly against the proposition. The vote of our delegation was never censured by the freemen of Connecticut, and the whole subject was put at rest for the quarter of a century that followed. Subsequent agitation has brought us where we are. The act of 1793, formed in good faith, and for many years executed in good faith, had, by reason of constant agitation on the subject of slavery, become inoperative. It depended for its execution principally on State magistrates, over whom the general government had no control, and who could not be required to carry the law into effect, though the act gave them the power, if they chose, to exercise it. State legislation also came in to nullify their proceedings, and make the law practically a dead letter upon the statute book. This defect has been remedied by the new law, which provides for the appointment of United States Commissioners, who are to

execute it instead of State magistrates, and the penalties for obstructing the proceedings are increased from five hundred to a thousand dollars, and imprisonment not exceeding six months. It is in principle substantially the same as that of 1793.

The only question now is, my fellow-citizens, whether we will abide by and support this act with those others, which are rightly named measures of peace and compromise, as a fair, and honorable, and amicable adjustment of this distracting subject? If there was ever a time when men should step out of the ranks of party, and stand by the institutions of the country, now is the day and now is the hour. When we see the most eminent men, of both political parties, in our national councils, such men as Cass and Webster, Clay and Dickinson, Houston, and Bell, Foote, Douglass and Pearce, and others hardly less distinguished, forgetting party in one untied effort for our glorious Union, is it not time that the masses should respond to the movement throughout the length and breadth of our country? The President of the United States has on this subject, faithfully and fearlessly done his duty. Notwithstanding the division in public sentiment in the Empire State, from which he comes, he has not hesitated in the midst of the raging elements, to unfurl the flag of the Union, to breast the storm, and fling his banner to the breeze. His message at the opening of the present session, in reference to this agitating subject, does honor to his head and heart.

I say this the more willingly, because, as my fellow-citizens all know, I do not belong to the political party which assisted to place the President in the position which has led to his present advancement; and from his administration, I of course expect nothing personal to myself--I wish for nothing -I hope for nothing. But I should dispise myself, if I should permit my political preferences to deter me from doing justice to the man, of any political party, who dare be honest in the worst of times. Yes, fellow-citizens, and I should do injustice to the veteran soldier and civilian, who upheld the standard of my party in the late Presidential contest, and who in the heat of it, declared--"If we are not struck with judicial blindness, we shall cling to this Constitution, as the mariner clings to the last plank, when night and the tempest close around him." A statesman, who, notwithstanding his defeat, has dared to go with him who dare go farthest, in defence of that Union which the patriots of another age have committed to our keeping.

Let us then resolve, so far as it may depend on us, that THIS UNION SHALL BE PRESERVED.' Political martrydom would be preferable than to see this Republic dismembered, and its glories gone. Yes, better to die a thousand deaths, than

that the land of Washington, of Jefferson, and of Marshallthe land of the Pickneys and the Rutleges--the land of Jackson and of Taylor, should become foreign land to us. In the language of one who has given himself to this cause with a self-sacrificing devotion, worthy of the best days of the Republic, I will say--"better would it be to die, while the honor of the country is untarnished, and the flag of the Union still flying over our heads, than live to behold that honor gone forever, and that flag prostrate in the dust." (Mr. I. was loudly cheered throughout.)

The President now called upon E. K. FOSTER, Esq. to which Judge Foster replied as follows:

MR. PRESIDENT AND FELLOW CITIZENS. I rise to respond to the call thus made upon me, not with a view of making a speech. I have neither the ability nor the inclination to do so, and with so many before and around me, much better able than I am to interest you, it would be presumption in me to attempt. it. But I do desire to express my approbation of the objects of this meeting, and my unqualified approbation of the resolutions on the table. I believe that these resolutions involve principles upon which depend our union, happiness and freedom. I should be basely recreant to the truth, if I hesitated to answer any call to express my sentiments on these subjects. In my opinion, the time has arrived which makes a meeting of this kind necessary. I am sorry to say it, I would it were not so. I believe it is so. Murmurings and discontent are heard not only in the South but in the land of Roger Sherman, in the land of John Hancock, and even Vermont, the "north star," seems to flicker on the subject of adhering to and maintaining the Constitution and the laws! In these times, when men come forward and talk what seems to me treason, it is our duty to meet and repel them. But it is asked, what do we hope to gain? What objects do we propose to accomplish by this Union meeting? We wish to bring out public sentiment on this matter. We wish to show that it is sound; and to every voice that cries disunion, we wish to reply from ten thousand voices, No! UNION NOW, AND UNION FOREVER! (Loud applause.) If the public mind must be made familiar with the doctrine of resistance to law, it is that it may be regarded as a kind of moral treason.

The cry of infidelity to the Union, secession from the Union, resistance to laws enacted by Congress, until within a short time, was heard only from one small portion of the community. In 1832, South Carolina, putting herself in an attitude of hostility to the Union, there was but one feeling