Syracuse University Library
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Gerrit Smith Broadside and Pamphlet Collection

Personal liberty bill : March 1859.

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874.

Digital Edition.

This digitization project was supported by Regional Bibliographic Databases and Interlibrary Resources Sharing Program funds, awarded by the New York State Library.

Call number: Smith 520

PERSONAL LIBERTY BILL.

MARCH 1859.

Among the many important duties of the New York Legislature there are three which are incomparably more important than all the others.

1st. To shut up the dramshops, and thus restore tens of thousands of people to sanity.

2d. To do what it can toward relieving the State Constitution of the deep disgrace of making a white skin one of the conditions of suffrage.

3d. To protect all innocent persons within the limits of the State - especially the weary and heartbroken fugitive slaves.

Unspeakably gratifying is the prospect that the last mentioned duty will be performed. If it shall not be, it will be owing solely to the delusion that the Federal Constitution is proslavery. Not only however is it antislavery, but full of power to abolish every part of American slavery. Conclusive arguments to this end have often been made by WILLIAM GOODELL, LYSANDER SPOONER, GERRIT SMITTH and others. The following extracts from Mr. SMITH'S Speech in Milwaukee June 17 1857 will be read at this time with fresh interest.

Having now said for what I did not, I will proceed to say for what I did, come here. It was for only one thing; and that is, to beseech you to know no law for Slavery, and to trample under foot whatever claims to be a law for Slavery. Possibly, however, there are persons in this assembly who would stop me on the very threshold of my argument by telling me that the Constitution is for Slavery. But what if it is? What if, from beginning to end, it is all for Slavery? That does not make Slavery a law. That does not make the Constitution a law for Slavery. That but proves that the Constitution itself is no law. The first thing in regard to any statute, constitution or decree, is not to determine by means of it what other things are or are not law, but whether itself is or is not law. Preliminary to applying the yard-stick to the measurement of the cloth is the inquiry whether it is a yard-stick-whether it is a true measure.

The Constitution cannot be a law for Slavery. It cannot be, if for no other reason than that so far as it may be for Slavery, it is void. Just so far it is void for absurdity. Not less, but infinitely more, absurd would the Constitution be in, declaring man a chattel than in declaring wood stone or stone wood. But surely you would not regard as law the declaration that wood is stone or stone wood. How much less then should you suffer the declaration that man is a chattel to command your respect and obedience! We are surprised and amused by the historical fact that a Roman challenged for his favorite horse the honors due only to a man. But wherein is it more absurd to count a horse for a man as did the Roman, than to count a man for a horse, as does the slaveholder ?

Again, so far as the Constitution might be for Slavery, it would be void for blasphemy. For if classing with brutes and sinking into chattelhood and putting on the auction-block beings made in God's own image is not blasphemy, what then can be ? For if to make Him vile by making them vile is not to insult Him, how then can He be insulted?

Is it claimed that the Constitution is a law for Slavery on the ground that it is a bargain between the whites and blacks for making one the slaves of the other? But such a bargain would be void for lack of mutuality and consideration. It is not credible that the blacks came into it; and if they did, it is not possible that they received an equivalent, or, indeed, any return whatever for consenting to be reduced to Slavery. Such a reduction does of itself incapacitate for receiving any, even the least measure of compensation. In the very selling of his manhood the seller puts it out of his power to receive the purchase money.

He cannot be paid for making himself a chattel. Every attempted bargain for unmanning himself is necessarily void. Perhaps it will be said that the bargain in question was not between the whites and blacks, but between the whites and the whites the whites of the North and the whites of the South. But quite as emphatically in such case as in the other would the bargain

lack validity. For certainly it is not competent for two parties to annul the rights of a third. They may enter into a compact to confirm but not to destroy his rights. To say that the Constitution is a bargain between two descriptions of persons to take away all the rights, ay, even all the manhood of a third, is to say that the Constitution is the guiltiest and foulest of all conspiracies, and at the very furthest remove from all possibility of being law.

My next reason for insisting that the Constitution cannot be a law for Slavery - that, indeed, no paper can be - and that, in short, a law for Slavery is impossible, is, that no person can administer or recognize Slavery as law without being dishonest without doing unto others as he would not have others do unto him. What man is there in my hearing who, were he to fall under the yoke of Slavery, would not rejoice to have both court and people scout the idea of law for Slavery, and liberate him, at whatever expense to the claims and honor of human enactments ? There is not one; and hence, if there is one who knows Slavery as law, he is dishonest. I say not that he is conscious of his dishonesty, and is therefore among the worst of men. I but say that he is guilty of it.

I will detain you with but one other reason against interpreting the Federal Constitution to be a law for Slavery. So to interpret it is to leave ourselves without a Federal Government. That is not government which does not promise protection in return for allegiance. That is not government, but a naked despotism, which, instead of protecting its subjects, strips them of every right, even the right to themselves; and by its outrages upon them, cancels all its claims upon them. Away, then, with those interpretations of the Constitution which go to release four millions of our countrymen from all allegiance to the Federal Government, and to prove it has not the character, and is unworthy of the name, of government! Away with those interpretations which authorize, which necessitate, these four millions to be rebels and enemies in our bosom ! To the tyranny which holds him in slavery no man owes aught but to hate it, and overturn it if he can. The lawful enemy of his country is every slave.

There is another point of view in which we could not be certain of a Federal Government, had the Constitution authorized or permitted Slavery. In each State a handful might have succeeded in reducing the masses to Slavery, and thus have left the Federal Government without citizens or subjects.

But to return to my declaration. that, even if the Constitution were from beginning to end in favor of Slavery, it nevertheless could not be a law for Slavery. Do not understand me to admit that it is in favor of it. Most emphatically do I deny that it is. Such denial is due to truth and to the memory of the men who adopted the Constitution.

The Constitution is not for Slavery unless they who adopted it meant it to be for Slavery. But there can be no evidence that they so meant, unless there is evidence that they saw Slavery in the Constitution. When the masses vote for a paper, it is never to be alleged that they vote for crime in it, unless the crime is on the face of it, and they are thereby certainly apprised of what they are doing. Hence we do our ancestors great and cruel wrong when we charge them with having established the superlative injustice of Slavery in a paper, which, at the most, but covertly alludes to it. If Slavery is openly there, then blame them; but not if it only lurks there. It is worthy of mention that the Courts concur with common sense in holding that no law is to be interpreted in behalf of palpable injustice, unless such injustice is expressed in irresistibly clear terms. Says the Supreme Court of the United States: "where rights are infringed, where fundamental principles are overthrown, where the "general system of the laws is departed from, the legislative intention must be expressed with irresistible clearness to induce a "Court of Justice to suppose a design to effect such objects ;" 2 Cranch 390. Surely he must be quite ignorant of the spirit

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which prevailed among the American masses at the close of the Revolutionary war, who believes that a Constitution expressly and clearly for Slavery would have been adopted by them.

But it is said that they who framed the Constitution intended it to be for Slavery. What if they did? The Constitution is not what the handful who framed it, but what the masses who adopted it, intended it to be. A deed of land is not what the scrivener, but what the grantor and grantee meant to have it.

I am not willing, however, that the framers of the Constitution should be misrepresented or dishonored. I see not one particle of evidence that they meant to establish Slavery, or even to spare it for another generation. They put into the Constitution many powers, any one of which is capable of being wielded for the immediate and entire overthrow of the whole system of American Slavery. Did they qualify them so as to exempt Slavery from their operation ? This they certainly would have done had they been intent to establish Slavery, or even to prolong its life beyond a few years. But they did it not. They did not say, "No person except a slave," but "No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of "law." They did not say, "The right of the people except slaves," but "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall "not be infringed." It is superfluous to remark that the masters will throw down their whips whenever Government shall obey the Constitution and protect the slaves in taking up their muskets. The framers of the Constitution did not say, "The right of the people except the slaves," but " The right of the people to be secure in their persons," &c., "shall not be violated." Nor did they confine Congress to color or condition in obtaining recruits for the army and navy. I need not say that Slavery would come to a speedy end were Congress to go among the blacks as freely as among the whites to supply the army and navy with officers and privates. It is only by observing in every direction the policy of proscribing, degrading and outraging the black man, that Slavery can be maintained. Again, in forbidding attainder, the framers of the Constitution did not except Slavery, which is the worst possible form of attainder. Nor did they provide for the defeating of the writ of habeas corpus by allowing the plea - the entirely effectual plea - of property in man. They provided for the suspension of the writ in certain specified cases; but Slavery is not one of those cases. Well did Professor Christian say, "It is this writ which makes Slavery "impossible in England."

When I said that the framers of the Constitution put many powers into it that could be used effectually for the destruction of Slavery, I hope you did not understand me to claim that such use of them was their purpose. All I claim at this point is, that inasmuch as it was understood on all hands that Slavery was to cease in a few years, no care was taken and no disposition was felt, to protect it from being swept away by the principles and provisions of the Constitution.

Am I asked why the framers of the Constitution did not in terms provide for the abolition of Slavery. I answer that in the first place, inasmuch as Slavery was dying and doomed, this was not thought to be necessary; and that in the second place, they were not willing to let posterity learn from the pages of the Constitution that their country had ever been disgraced with Slavery. The silence of the Constitution respecting Slavery shows far more loathing and shame of it than could any express condemnation of it, however emphatic.

But it is said that there is history to prove that the framers of the Constitution were willing to let Slavery continue. I admit it. What is more, I admit that there are clauses in the Constitution which contribute proof of the truth of this history. Nevertheless, to go into history for the sake of interpreting these clauses in behalf of crime is, as we have already seen, wholly unwarranted by the rules of interpretation. It is its letter, and not its history, that is the Constitution. For the sake of the argument, however, I will admit that these clauses refer to Slavery.

But for how long was Slavery to continue ? Only for some twenty years were they willing to let it continue. And what is more, the mass of it was reasonably expected to be of the comparatively mild type of house and farm Slavery, and not of the severe type of plantation Slavery. The difference between the two is sufficiently marked by the fact that the price of a slave then was but one-fourth to one-sixth what it is now. His low price at that time indicates how comparatively light was his laborhow comparatively easy was his lot.

I said that the framers of the Constitution expected Slavery to continue for only some twenty years. The historical truth that, in this country as well as England, the cessation of the African slave-trade was looked to as the cessation of Slavery itself, is undisputed. Now, history is confirmed at this point by the migration and importation clause of the Constitution : that clause

protecting the trade for only twenty years. But that Slavery itself was expected to continue only so long is manifest from the fact that this protection, brief as it was, was to be enjoyed only by the then existing States. But if the new States (and remember that the Constitution expressly provides for their admission) were not to be allowed to participate in the African slave-trade, it was because they were not to be allowed to have Slavery. Having Slavery without recrniting it from Africa was a thing not then thought of. If, however, the new States were denied the right to have Slavery, it follows that the old States were not to be allowed to establish it - since that would be to allow an inequality of rights between the now and the old States. No one claims that such inequality exists in the contemplation of the Constitution.The Hon. S. A. Douglas, in his Report on Kansas to the Senate, March 12, 1856, affirms in sound logic and emphatic language the constitutional equality of the States. "The limitations," says he, "which that instrument (the Constitution) has imposed, are few, specific and uniform-applicable "alike to all the States, old and new. There is no authority for putting a restriction upon the sovereignty of a new State, which "the Constitution has not placed on the original States. Indeed, if such a restriction could be imposed on any State, it would "instantly cease to be a State within the meaning of the Federal Constitution, and in consequence of the inequality would as "similate to the condition of a province or dependency. Hence, equality among all the States of the Union is a fundamental "principle in our federative system - a principle embodied in the Constitution; as the basis upon which the American Union rests." These just views of this intellectual and distinguished Senator were doubtless held by the framers of the Constitution. And how, therefore, was it possible for them to justify this restriction upon the new States, and this virtual exclusion of Slavery from them, on any other principle than that Slavery was to be terminated, and not established, in the old States? The clear headed Senator can himself come to no other conclusion. He cannot fail to see that on any other supposition than that Slavery was to cease in a few years in all the States, the framers of the Constitution intended that it should ordain inequality of rights between the States.

Just here I would say that this migration and importation clause was insisted on by the representatives of two States only. They pleaded for the continuance of the African slave-trade on the ground that South Carolina and Georgia were not so well supplied with servants as the other States; and that it was therefore due to equity and to the equality of the States to allow them to get further supplies for a few years from the Coast of Africa. Indeed, but for its unwillingness to distinguish these States invidiously and to mortify their pride, the Convention would have expressly confined the trade to Georgia and South Carolina.

Another proof that Slavery was allowed only a brief duration is to be found in the Ordinance for the North-West Territory. That and the Constitution were framed at nearly the same time, and to some extent by the same men. The Ordinance provides for the recapture of fugitive servants; and, inasmuch as it speaks expressly of Slavery, we will assume that fugitive slaves are included. But the Ordinance, like the migration and importation clause in the Constitution, confines its benefits at this point (if benefits they may be called) to the old States. It was only those who had escaped from "any one of the original States" that might be recaptured. Hence, like that clause, the Ordinance also shows that the new States were not to have Slavery at all, and that the old States were not to have it after the few years allowed them in which to bring it to a peaceful and gradual close.

But I may be asked why, since the Ordinance and the migration and importation clause both prove so clearly the policy and purpose of abolishing Slavery, there is nothing in the fugitive servant clause of the Constitution to prove the like policy and purpose. Why does not this clause, like that in the Ordinance, limit the right of recapture to "the original States?" The simple and sole explanation is that this clause in the Constitution does not refer to slaves. Is it strange that it does not? No. It is not at all strange that they, who might consent to have the common territory of the nation made a slave hunting ground for the few years of its territorial existence, should refuse to offend the dignity and insult the self-respect of a State by making it one also.

The fact that this clause does not limit its use to the old States, utterly forbids the putting of a Proslavery interpretation upon it. If the Convention intended to have it apply to slaves, why did they not qualify it so as to make it correspond with the Ordinance and the migration and importation clause ?

Again, the language of the fugitive servant clause in the Constitution makes it wholly inapplicable to slaves. The persons referred to to this clause are debtors. Service is due from them. But the slave being a more chattel, and, therefore, incapable

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of making a contract, can owe nothing. Says Justice Best: "A slave is incapable of compact." The slave codes all declare that lie can own nothing. But manifestly, he who can own nothing can owe nothing.

Then the history as well as the letter of this clause proves that it has no reference to slaves. The pretence that it is a Proslavery compromise of the Constitution is preposterous. In none of all the numerous plans of a Constitution before the Convention, were fugitive servants of any kind referred to. Not only was there but little running away of slaves at that time, but, of course, very little account was made of their running away when their price ranged from only $100 to $300; and when it was universally understood that all American Slavery was to cease in some twenty years. It would have so ceased but for the calamitous invention of the cotton gin.

It was only twenty days before the Convention closed its labors that the subject of fugitive slaves was mentioned. A motion was then made to provide in the Constitution for their recapture - a motion in terms for the recapture of fugitive slaves.

It was immediately and indignantly scouted out of the Convention. The motion of the next day, which spoke not of slaves, but of persons who owe service, was instantly adopted. There was not one word of discussion, and not one dissenting vote. And yet, although so directly in the face of its history and letter, we are unceasingly told that this fugitive servant clause applies to slaves. Shame to those who tell the impudent falsehood, and shame to those who believe them?

I cannot leave this clause without adding one more proof that the Convention did not intend to have it apply to slaves. It is admitted that there is much historical proof that the apportionment clause in the Constitution, as well as its clause on migration and importation, refers to slaves. Now the Constitution positively forbids that the latter clause shall be amended before the year 1808, and, in effect, positively forbids that the former, so far as it relates to Slavery, shall be amended before that time. In other words, the Constitution provides that Slavery shall until 1808 - the expected time of its death - not fail to have the benefits of these two clauses. In studying the Constitution at this point for yourselves, you will, of course, remember that at that time the forbidding of capitation and direct taxes was tantamount to the forbidding of all means to defray the expenses of Government.

But if the Constitution was so made as to prohibit the amending of itself in these respects during that period, which was looked upon as the whole lifetime of Slavery, why was not the prohibition extended to the fugitive servant clause also? If the framers of the Constitution intended that this clause should authorize the recapture of fugitive slaves; if, as is so persistingly represented, they intended it to be "one of the Proslavery compromises of the Constitution," why then was not the amendment of this clause as well as the others forbidden? There can be but one reasonable explanation. The Convention did not purpose the application of the clause to slaves. Whatever two or three of the members may have hoped from its operation howver confident they may have been that they had succeeded in smuggling Slavery into it - there is no ground for believing that the great body of the Convention expected that the clause would be used for recovering fugitive slaves. In point of fact not one slave was taken back under it until many years after - not until Slavery had to no small extent come to be regarded as a permanent system, and the price of slaves had risen accordingly.

And there is still one other reason why we should believe that the framers of the Constitution did not intend to help Slavery live, and why we should believe that they committed themselves to no guiltier policy - guilty I admit it was - than that of allowing the dying demon a few years in which to die. It is, that to believe the contrary involves them in the grossest hypocrisy. They began the Constitution with the solemn declaration that they intended it to "secure the blessings of liberty ;" and when they had finished it, and were about to submit it to the people, they unanimously struck from it the word "servitude," and supplied its place with service, for the avowed reason that servitude denotes the condition of slaves, and service the obligations of freemen. For one, I am not prepared to call them hypocrites, as all virtually do who impute to them Pro-Slavery purposes.

I will, at this stage of my remarks, speak of the Proslavery interpretations of the Constitution by Antislavery men. Coming from such a source, they are peculiarly pernicious. The mass of the American people are worshipers of the Constitution. They recognize no higher authority. For Anti-Slavery men, therefore, to tell them it is Proslavery, is to bring them under a mighty influence to uphold Slavery. Most lamentable, therefore, is it that so many of these sincere lovers of freedom should be taxing their ingenuity to prove that the Constitution is Proslavery. I have often wondered why certain distinguished Antislavery prints should persist in their Proslavery construction of the Constitution, and in thereby giving such abundant comfort and efficient help to the enemy. Is it because they feel the obligations of honor and courtesy ? But never were honor and courtesy less called for. No such comparatively petty considerations - no such social conventionalisms - are so much as to be thought of, when everlasting justice is laying her sternest commands upon us, and is bidding us draw up our poor brother out of the pit of Slavery, and deal faithfully with the crime of putting and keeping him there.

Great folly and great wrong are they guilty of, who allow honor and courtesy, or any other considerations, to tempt them to trample on the canon of interpretation for the sake of sheltering the greatest, crime. Of this folly and wrong was one of these prints guilty when a few weeks ago it went into history for proof that the words, "No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law," are not a limitation on State as well as Federal powers. What right had it to serve the most flagrant form of injustice at the expense of the established rules of legal interpretation? We may go into history to help a law speak for Justice, but never to help it speak for Injustice. Injustice can claim nothing from a law, save from its surface and obvious letter. Justice may wring all it can from law - Injustice nothing. Now, this print knows as well as we do, that the language of the Constitution in the present case is just as applicable to a State as to the Nation just as much fitted to impose restrictions and negations upon the one as upon the other. It knows as well as we do, that the Constitution is as obviously a paper for limiting the powers of a State Government, as those of the Federal Government.

Lest what I have said should be construed into my admission that the voice of history at this point is on the side of Slavery. I expressly deny that it is. This print can hardly have read the Congressional discussions on the Amendments of the Constitution. Let it read there; and it will then be better able to judge of the history of the Amendments. Especially instructed will it be by Mr. Madison's wise words in favor of restraints upon State as well as national sovereignty.

But the fault of these intellectual and accomplished editors to whom I have referred, is not alone that they allow themselves to be swayed by honor and courtesy in a case where there is no room for honor and courtesy. Their even greater fault is in still according rights to Slavery. Slavery has no rights, unless it be that single right of every wolf - the right to be killed. In stead of a party to be respected and treated with, it is a mere piracy. Instead of being a law, it is an outlaw. With all their Antislavery feeling, and all their love of justice, and all their appreciation of human rights, they seem never yet to have taken the gauge and dimensions of the black man's manhood. With them white manhood still appears to be one thing, and black manhood another. Not yet do they seem to have so far escaped from the general prejudices as to identify the rights and interests of a black man with those of a white one. Think you that they would go into history, or anywhere else, for such interpretations of law as would help fasten the yoke of Slavery on the necks of their white countrymen? Let them say in their columns that there might possibly be a legal enslavement of their white countrymen, and that they would recognize, honor and defend it as law, and they would quickly lose all their subscribers, unless it might be here and there a Hunker Democrat, or fossil Whig, or New-York Observer parson.

How great is the force, how blinding is the influence of habit! These editors would strenuously resist all such interpretations as would serve to cheat them out of a favorite dog; and yet they cannot break out of the editorial habit of going here and there - into this forbidden place and that - to hunt up legal interpretations which justify the slaveholder, and enable him to keep on cheating his fellow-men out of all their rights, and even out of themselves.

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One of the newspapers in question claims that we are estopped from giving an Antislavery interpretation to the Constitution, by the fact that hitherto a Proslavery interpretation has so generally been given to it. But on this same principle it might arrest every reform, even the Antislavery reform, which, to its everlasting honor, it did itself begin. Thank Heaven ! the slave has lost none of his rights by non user; and we have lost none of our pleas for him by non user; and if in the juster knowledge of human rights and juster interpretations of law, which are coming to obtain in our day, the Constitution is seen to be not for Slavery but for Liberty, then will we wield it for the deliverance of the slave, even though it were true that it has hitherto been always wielded for his destruction. "Nullum tempus occurrit regi." But if the king should lose no right by the lapse of time, much more should not the slave. If, now, at the last, the Constitution is dug up out of the big heap of Proslavery falsehoods in which it has long lain buried, and is found to be full of the principles of Liberty, and utterly destitute of all countenance to Slavery, then, now at the last, by all our high responsibilities to the slave and to Heaven, we will use the precious instrument to procure his freedom.

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Let me here say that Freedom can bear any other opposition better than this, which she encounters in the house of her friends. She can bear to be opposed by the current religion of the country, for the people are fast losing all respect for a conventional and spurious religion, which mixes itself up with Slavery, instead of sternly demanding its extinction. She can bear to be opposed by the Democratic party, which, Ahab like, has sold itself to work evil, or by such Republicans as use Freedom to serve party. But the one thing that Freedom cannot bear is to have Antislavery men, Antislavery leaders, the most distinguished and influential Antislavery newspapers, at work to rob the poor and powerless slave of the Constitution and give it to the proud and powerful slaveholder. Oh! if there is anything that belongs to the slave, it is this paper, which our fathers would not consent to stain with the word "slavery," and which they were determined should go down to posterity with a clean and fair face for liberty. * * *

After all, we should not be surprised at it. The writer of that article has evidently embraced the theory of the slaveholders and of the sham Democratic party, that the American people are still a confederation of States rather than a Nation; and that their attempt to escape from the one condition to the other was abortive. On the industrious efforts to propagate this theory is the great reliance for warding off destruction from Slavery, and resisting all interference with it. So far as his political action against Slavery is concerned, we have very little to hope for from him who is so unfortunate as to receive this false and mischievous theory. He will feel no national responsibility for Slavery, for he will deny that he is under any. The fearful words of Heaven regarding national sins will inspire him with no alarm so far as American Slavery is concerned. If, too, Georgia should enact that one half her male or one half her female children shall be put to death, he would wash his hands of all political responsibility for it. He would pronounce it the concern of no other nation but the nation of Georgia. I admit that it is of comparatively few crimes in the States that the Federal Government is to take cognizance. But of these few is Slavery. The words of the Constitution, the necessities of government, the indispensable terms of our Union, and of our continued national existence, absolutely forbid Slavery.

The chief reason of this writer for holding that we are a confederacy rather than a nation, is that the members of the Convention for framing the Constitution were chosen by the States, and that the Constitution was submitted to and acted on by the States. But besides that convenience dictated this arrangement, it was absolutely necessary. For who else than the people of a State could have authority to withdraw any part of the power hitherto exercised by their State Government? and who else than the people of such State could have any part in conferring such withdrawn power upon the newly-created National or Federal Government ?

No, the Constitution is not the work of sovereign States, but of the American people. It was the American people who decided to have a General Government; and no less was it the American people who decided to have State Governments. The duties of the State Government were assigned, and its bounds established, just as fully by the whole American people as were those of the General Government. The one nation, which they agreed to become, they also agreed should be governed partly by the machinery of State Governments, and partly by that of the General Government.

Let not the thorough State-Rights men (of whom I claim to be one) be offended at this view. It does not follow from our being one nation that the State Governments are necessarily subordinate to the General Government. They may be co-ordinate with it. Nor does it follow that appeals lie from the State to the Federal Courts. Each in its sphere may be independent of the other.

I have said much to you in praise of the Constitution. Let it not be inferred, however, that I claim for it the first place in your hearts. Among all State papers, such pre-eminence belongs to the Declaration of Independence. They greatly exaggerate the merits of the Constitution who see in it the origin of the Union. As it dues itself declare, it was made "in order to forth a more perfect Union." The Union already existed. It had been entered into even before 1776. It was, however, the Paper of that memorable year - the noblest political paper ever sent over the world - that was the first to set forth, formally and authoritatively, the reasons why the American Colonies should become one nation ; and the first thus to set forth the sublime and mighty principles which were to vitalize and forever govern that nation. This is the paper which deserves to be called the first Constitution of our country; for it is the first in the order of time and the first in the degree of authority. One of the eminent statesmen (Gen. Root) of my State pronounced it "the fundamental law of the land." and another (John C. Spencer) declared it to be "above all Constitutions and all laws." The Federal Constitution should be interpreted in the light of the Declaration of Independence. But alas ! in these degenerate days, that Constitution, with all its Proslavery interpretations, is blindly worshipped, and the great and heavenly principles of the Declaration of Independence are ridiculed as "a fanfaronade of nonsense," and as "glittering generalities." The Constitution, instead of being used to disparage and make void the Declaration of Independence, should rather be viewed as supplemental to it, and as serving to carry out into detail the broad and precious principles of that first and greatest Constitution. Our fathers could have had no possible right to contravene or slight those principles. Had they, when making and adopting the Constitution, been guilty of overlooking or in any wise dishonoring them, they would therein have been guilty of the must infamous treason toward all their countrymen who bad expended treasure or periled life to establish them, and also toward the good La Fayette and the other gallant foreigners whom those principles had attracted to our shores.

I spoke of the principles of the Declaration of Independence. Prominent among them is that which asserts that "all men are created equal." This principle is the very soul of the Declaration of Independence ; and being therefore the very soul of the Constitution, it instantly annihilates all possible Proslavery interpretations of that instrument. I do not furget that, according to Chief Justice Taney's recent discovery, black men did not come within the scope of this principle, and were not a part of "all men." Nevertheless, they were men, and they voted and fought by the side of those who affirmed that "all men are created equal." Why, then, does the Chief Justice exclude them? The words of the Declaration of Independence do not intimate their exclusion. What rules of interpretation are there to authorize him to go away from the plain meaning of these plain words for the purpose of fastening the cruelest wrong upon the black man, and of involving the fathers in the deepest and basest and most hypocritical injustice? There are nine. In gross violation of the rules of legal interpretation, at the expense of blackening the fame of the fathers, and at the expense of outraging all the rights and murdering all the manhood of his equal brothers, has the Chief Justice undertaken to show that our fathers, when speaking of "all men," did not mean all men. And all this has he done notwithstanding the fathers spoke so evidently with philosophical precision, and notwithstanding, too, that they spoke with religious solemnity, and called God to witness their sincerity. But our fathers knew as well as we do that all parts of the human brotherhood are equally dear to the great heart of their common Maker. Were they, then, such brazen-faced hypocrites as to dare appeal to His knowledge of their conscious rectitude, when all the while they were guilty of the mental reservation which the Chief Justice imputes to them? - guilty of deliberately excluding a portion of their fellow-men from the equal rights of all men? - nay, guilty of denying that God has sent that portion into the world with rights equal to those of other-men?

I said that I came here to beseech you to know no law for Slavery; but to trample under foot whatever claims to be a law for Slavery. I honor your intelligent Judiciary for declaring the Fugitive Slave Act unconstitutional. I honor Wisconsin for standing bravely by her brave Judiciary. A good and glorious example is all this. But I am here to call on you for a still better and more glorious example. Wisconsin both her people and her Judges - must know no law, nor admit the possibility of any law, for Slavery. A statute may be in favor of Slavery ; a Constitution - even the idolized Federal Constitution - may be in favor of Slavery ; but the voice of all Wisconsin must be, that Slavery is too repugnant to justice and humanity, to reason and religion, to be capable of wearing any, even the least, semblance of law.

Men of Wisconsin! you know that what I am claiming at your hands is simply your duty; and I cannot doubt that you will joyfully confess the duty. How blessed and how numerous will be the results of your faithfully discharging it!

There will then be no more fugitive slaves in Wisconsin; for the moment they shall touch your soil, they will cease to be slaves. That moment they will be transmuted from chattels into men. It follows, that there will be no more prosecutions in your State for helping fugitive slaves; for you will not fail to make such prosecutions quite too perilous to be ventured upon. Your Booths and other good men will no more be harassed and plundered for having shown mercy to their helpless, outraged, innocent brethren. No more will they, be made criminals for doing that which endears them to the heart of God, and of every right-minded man.

Then, too, in your shutting out the Slave Power from your State, and all law for Slavery, you will give the only honest, consistent and effectual answer to the denial of citizenship to the black man by a portion of the Supreme Court of the United States. That denial is a perfectly logical deduction from the assumption that he is fit to be the subject of merchandise and to wear the yoke of Slavery. Hence it is utterly vain, not to say hypocritical also, for any who hold that the black man call be property, and his enslavement lawful, to arraign the justice or wisdom of this denial. For why should they who, though having the appearance of men, are in fact but fit to be cast into the category of chattels - why should they, any more than horses, be accounted fit for the dignity and honor of citizenship? No, it is the taking issue with Slavery itself, and denying that it can have any right or any law - it is this which constitutes the only proper answer to the denial of citizenship to the black man.****

Among the most valuable results of your ignoring all law for Slavery will be the preparation of your way to grow in the knowledge of true law - a knowledge inferior to no other in its happy influence upon the character. To whatever extent you are now guilty of recognizing in Slavery the name and obligations of law, and of thus according to the very worst thing the same name and obligations due to the very best - to that extent do you now trifle with, and twist, and blunt your moral nature. But when you shall have come to identify law with right, and to acknowledge nothing to be law which is not right - though I readily admit that there are many violations of right, and therefore many illegalities, which it is better to bear with than resist - then you will have entered a law-school, in which wisdom and goodness grow as constantly as do folly and wickedness outside of it; a law-school in which, under the teachings of truelaw, the mind expands asrapidly as it becomes dwarfed when under the influence of those conventional legalities which lack all the great elements and all the soul of true law.

I will mention but one other of the precious results of your branding Slavery as an outlaw and consecrating every foot of your soil to Freedom, and promising as full protection to the fugitive slave who steps upon it as to any other innocent person within your borders. You will then be a free State, which I dare not yet say you are. You will then have a State Government which I dare not yet say you have. Certain it is that a State is not free, and has not a government, so long as it acknowledges the paramount rule of Slavery. That is not worthy of the name of government which does not promise protection to all the innocent within its jurisdiction - to the least black baby as well as to the loftiest white aristocrat.