It may not be found there in name; but Slavery is the very soul of the bill.

Suffice it to say, that it is an intrusive and offensive encroachment on State Rights, calculated to subvert the power of States in the protection of the citizen.

This consideration alone would be ample to secure its rejection, if the attachment to State Rights, so often avowed by Senators, were not utterly lost in stronger attachment to Slavery.

Objectionable as the bill may be on this ground, it becomes much more so when regarded as an effort to bolster up the Fugitive Slave Act.

Conceived in defiance of the Constitution, and in utter disregard of every sentiment of justice and humanity, it should be treated as an outlaw.

It may have the form of legislation, but it lacks every essential element of law.

There is an argument against it which has especial importance at this moment, when the Fugitive Act is made the occasion of new assault on State Rights.

This very Act is an assumption by Congress of power not delegated to it under the Constitution, and an infraction of rights secured to the States.

You will mark, if you please, the double aspect of this proposition, in asserting not only an assumption of power by Congress, but an infraction of State Rights.

Show me, Sir, if you can, the clause, sentence, or word in the Constitution which gives to Congress any power to legislate on this subject.

The record testifies not only that he did not reply, but that I was cut off from replying by efforts and votes of himself and his friends.

Here is a distinct assumption of right to determine the persons to whom certain words of the Constitution are applicable.

I have also left untouched the hateful character of this enactment, as a barefaced subversion of every principle of humanity and justice.

I respect the learning of judges; I reverence the virtue, more than learning, by which their lives are often adorned.

Nor learning, nor virtue, when, with mistaken force, bent to this purpose, can avail.

I assert confidently, Sir, and ask the Senate to note my assertion, that there is no court, howsoever endowed with judicial qualities or surrounded by public confidence, which is strong enough to lift this Act into permanent consideration…

Anything so entirely vile, so absolutely atrocious, would drag an angel down.

And yet, Sir, in zeal for this enormity, Senators announce their purpose to break down the recent legislation of States, calculated to shield the liberty of the citizen.

It would be easy to show, by critical inquiry, that this whole charge is without just foundation, and that all the legislation so much condemned is as clearly defensible under the Constitution as it is meritorious in purpose.

In securing to every person claimed as slave the protection of trial by jury and the Habeas Corpus, they simply provide safeguards strictly within the province of every State, and rendered necessary by the usurpation of the Fugitive Act.

In securing the aid of counsel to every person claimed as slave, they but perform a kindly duty, which no phrase or word in the Constitution can be tortured to condemn.

In visiting with severe penalties every malicious effort to reduce a fellow-man to slavery, they respond to the best feelings of the human heart.

For myself, let me say that I look with no pleasure on any possibility of conflict between the two jurisdictions of State and Nation; but I trust, that, if the interests of Freedom so require, the States will not hesitate.

President, since things are so, it were well to remove this Act from our statute-book, that it may no longer exist as an occasion of ill-will and a point of conflict.

Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.