When first the Pilgrims landed on the Bay State's iron shore,
The word went forth that slavery should one day be no more.

Out from the land of bondage 'tis decreed our slaves shall go,
And signs to us are offered, as erst to Pharaoh ;

If we are blind their exodus, like Israel's of yore,
Through a Red Sea is doomed to be, whose surges are of gore.

'Tis ours to save our brethren; with peace and love to win
Their darkened hearts from error, ere they harden it to sin;
But if before his duty man with listless spirit stands,
Erelong the Great Avenger takes the work from out his hands.

WEBSTER ON THE COMPROMISES OF THE

CONSTITUTION.

[DANIEL WEBSTER, American statesman and orator, was born January 18, 1782, in Salisbury, N.H.; graduated at Dartmouth in 1801; became a leading lawyer at the then capital of New Hampshire, Portsmouth; was in Congress (1813-1815) as a Federalist; from 1816 to 1823 practiced law in Boston, and was regarded as in the foremost rank of lawyers and orators. The Dartmouth College case was argued in 1818; he was a member of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention in 1820; in December, 1820, delivered his address on the 200th anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims. In 1822 he was again elected to Congress; from 1828 to 1842 was United States senator. In the House he was chairman of the Judiciary Committee. In the Senate he delivered his reply to Hayne June 26-27, 1830. His oration on the laying of the corner stone of Bunker Hill monument was delivered June 17, 1825. He was Secretary of State (1841-1843) under Harrison and Tyler, and negotiated the Ashburton Treaty ; he resigned in 1843, and in 1845 was returned to the Senate. He opposed the annexation of Texas and the Mexican War. In 1848 he was candidate for the presidency. In 1850 he supported the compromises, including the Fugitive Slave Act, and was appointed Secretary of State by Fillmore; in 1852 was again a candidate for the presidency; and died October 24 of that year.]

MARCH 7, 1850.

MR. PRESIDENT, in the excited times in which we live, there is found to exist a state of crimination and recrimination between the north and the south. There are lists of grievances produced by each; and those grievances, real or supposed, alienate the minds of one portion of the country from the other, exasperate the feelings, and subdue the sense of fraternal connection, and patriotic love, and mutual regard. I shall bestow a little attention, sir, upon these various grievances, produced on the one side and on the other.

I begin with the complaints of the south: I will not answer, farther than I have, the general statements of the honorable senator from South Carolina, that the north has grown upon the south in consequence of the manner of administering this government, in the collecting of its revenues, and so forth. These are disputed topics, and I have no inclination to enter into them. But I will state these complaints, especially one complaint of the south, which has in my opinion just foundation; and that is, that there has been found at the north, among individuals and among legislatures of the north, a disinclination to perform, fully, their constitutional duties, in regard to the return of persons bound to service, who have escaped into the free states.

In that respect, it is my judgment that the south is right, and the north is wrong. Every member of every northern legislature is bound, by oath, like every other officer in the country, to support the constitution of the United States; and this article of the constitution, which says to these states, they shall deliver up fugitives from service, is as binding in honor and conscience as any other article. No man fulfills his duty in any legislature who sets himself to find excuses, evasions, escapes. from this constitutional obligation. I have always thought that the constitution addressed itself to the legislatures of the states themselves, or to the states themselves. It says that those persons escaping to other states shall be delivered up, and I confess I have always been of the opinion that it was an injunction upon the states themselves. When it is said that a person escaping into another state, and becoming therefore within the jurisdiction of that state, shall be delivered up, it seems to me the import of the passage is that the state itself, in obedience to the constitution, shall cause him to be delivered up. That is my judgment. I have always entertained that opinion, and I entertain it now. But when the subject, some years ago, was before the supreme court of the United States, the majority of the judges held that the power to cause fugitives from service to be delivered up was a power to be exercised under the authority of this government. I do not know, on the whole, that it may not have been a fortunate decision. My habit is to respect the result of judicial deliberations, and the solemnity of judicial decisions.

But, as it now stands, the business of seeing that these fugitives are delivered up resides in the power of congress and the

national judicature, and my friend at the head of the judiciary committee has a bill on the subject, now before the senate, with some amendments to it, which I propose to support, with all its provisions, to the fullest extent. And I desire to call the attention of all sober-minded men, of all conscientious men, in the north, of all men who are not carried away by any fanatical idea, or by any false idea whatever, to their constitutional obligations. I put it to all the sober and sound minds at the north, as a question of morals and a question of conscience, What right have they, in all their legislative capacity, or any other, to endeavor to get round this constitution, to embarrass the free exercise of the rights secured by the constitution, to the persons whose slaves escape from them? None at all— none at all. Neither in the forum of conscience, nor before the face of the constitution, are they justified, in my opinion. Of course, it is a matter for their consideration. They probably, in the turmoil of the times, have not stopped to consider of this; they have followed what seemed to be the current of thought and of motives as the occasion arose, and neglected to investigate fully the real question, and to consider their constitutional obligations, as I am sure, if they did consider, they would fulfill them with alacrity. Therefore, I repeat, sir, that here is a ground of complaint against the north, well founded, which ought to be removed - which it is now in the power of the different departments of this government to removewhich calls for the enactment of proper laws, authorizing the judicature of this government, in the several states, to do all that is necessary for the recapture of fugitive slaves, and for the restoration of them to those who claim them. Wherever I go, and whenever I speak on the subject- and when I speak here, I desire to speak to the whole north-I say that the south has been injured in this respect, and has a right to complain; and the north has been too careless of what I think the constitution peremptorily and emphatically enjoins upon it as a duty.

Complaint has been made against certain resolutions that emanate from legislatures at the north, and are sent here to us, not only on the subject of slavery in this district, but sometimes recommending congress to consider the means of abolishing slavery in the states. I should be sorry to be called upon to present any resolutions here which could not be referable to any committee or any power in congress, and, there

fore, I should be unwilling to receive from the legislature of Massachusetts any instructions to present resolutions, expressive of any opinion whatever on the subject of slavery, as it exists at the present moment in the states, for two reasons: because first, I do not consider that the legislature of Massachusetts has anything to do with it; and next, I do not consider that I, as her representative here, have anything to do with it. Sir, it has become, in my opinion, quite too common; and if the legislatures of the states do not like that opinion, they have a great deal more power to put it down, than I have to uphold it. It has become, in my opinion, quite too common a practice for the state legislatures to present resolutions here on all subjects, and to instruct us here on all subjects. There is no public man that requires instruction more than I do, or who requires information more than I do, or desires it more heartily; but I do not like to have it come in too imperative shape.

I took notice, with pleasure, of some remarks upon this subject made the other day in the senate of Massachusetts, by a young man of talent and character, from whom the best hopes may be entertained. I mean Mr. Hillard. He told the senate of Massachusetts that he would vote for no instructions whatever to be forwarded to members of congress, nor for any resolutions to be offered, expressive of the sense of Massachusetts as to what their members of congress ought to do. He said that he saw no propriety in one set of public servants giving instructions and reading lectures to another set of public servants. To their own master, all of them must stand or fall, and that master is their constituents. I wish these sentiments could become more common a great deal more common. I have never entered into the question, and never shall, about the binding force of instructions. I will, however, simply say this: if there be any matter of interest pending in this body, while I am a member of it, in which Massachusetts has an interest of her own, not adverse to the general interest of the country, I shall pursue her instructions with gladness of heart, and with all the efficiency which I can bring to the occasion. But if the question be one which affects her interest, and at the same time affects the interests of all other states, I shall no more regard her political wishes or instructions than I would regard the wishes of a man who might appoint me an arbitrator or referee, to decide some question

of important private right, and who might instruct me to decide in his favor. If ever there was a government upon earth, it is this government; if ever there was a body upon earth, it is this body, which should consider itself as composed by agreement of all, appointed by some, but organized by the general consent of all, sitting here under the solemn obligations of oath and conscience, to do that which they think is best for the good of the whole.

Then, sir, there are those abolition societies, of which I am unwilling to speak, but in regard to which I have very clear notions and opinions. I do not think them useful. I think their operations for the last twenty years have produced nothing good or valuable. At the same time, I know thousands of them are honest and good men; perfectly well-meaning men. They have excited feelings; they think they must do something for the cause of liberty; and in their sphere of action, they do not see what else they can do, than to contribute to an abolition press, or an abolition society, or to pay an abolition lecturer. I do not mean to impute gross motives even to the leaders of these societies, but I am not blind to the consequences. I cannot but see what mischiefs their interference with the south has produced. And is it not plain to every man? Let any gentleman who doubts of that, recur to the debates in the Virginia house of delegates in 1832, and he will see with what freedom a proposition, made by Mr. Randolph, for the gradual abolition of slavery, was discussed in that body. Every one spoke of slavery as he thought; very ignominious and disparaging names and epithets were applied to it. The debates in the house of delegates on that occasion, I believe, were all published. They were read by every colored man who could read, and if there were any who could not read, those debates were read to them by others. At that time Virginia was not unwilling nor afraid to discuss this question, and to let that part of her population know as much of it as they could learn. That was in 1832.

As has been said by the honorable member from Carolina, these abolition societies commenced their course of action in 1835. It is said- I do not know how true it may be that they sent incendiary publications into the slave states; at any event, they attempted to arouse, and did arouse, a very strong feeling; in other words, they created great agitation in the north against southern slavery. Well, what was the result?