The Senator did not seem to bear in mind, through the heady currents of that moment, that, by the false interpretation he fastens upon the Constitution, he has helped to nurture there a whole kennel of Carolina bloodhounds, trained, with savage jaw and insatiable scent, for the hunt of flying bondmen.
Sumner accuses a senator of misinterpreting the Constitution, which he argues has led to the creation of a violent system for capturing escaped slaves.
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It is larger than the entire profit of all the commerce and manufactures of the world.
They belong to a system so essentially irrational, that all the admitted virtues of many of its agents cannot save it from judgment.
It is a cause which, though long kept in check throughout our country, as also in Europe, now confronts the people and their rulers, demanding to be heard.
The first is a heavenly sentiment, from God: the other is a device of this world.
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