And I say, for the North, that all we ask is to be let alone.

Hug the viper to your bosoms, if you perversely will, within your own States, until it stings you to a generous remorse, but do not compel us to hug it too; for this, I assure you, we can never do.

You brought Slavery into Congress, when, at the same period, you accepted the cession of territories from North Carolina and Georgia, now constituting States of the Union, with conditions in favor of Slavery, and thus began to sanction…

And, permit me to say, Sir, you brought Slavery into Congress, when you called upon us, as you have done even at this very session, to pay for slaves, and thus, in defiance of a cardinal principle of the Constitution, pressed the National…

And now, Sir, as an effort in the true direction of the Constitution, in the hope of beginning the divorce of the National Government from Slavery, and to remove all occasion for the proposed measure under consideration, I shall close…

Suffice it to say, that the proposition to repeal the existing Fugitive Act stands on fundamental principles which no debate or opposition can shake.

Public Opinion, which, under a popular government, makes and unmakes laws, and which for a time was passive and acquiescent, now lifts itself everywhere in the States where the Act is sought to be enforced, and demands a change.

And now, almost while I speak, comes the solemn judgment of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, delivered after elaborate argument, on successive occasions, before a single judge, and then before the whole bench, declaring this Act a violation…

Then I ask you honestly now, whether, all laws of Congress being put out of the question, you would recommend to Massachusetts to pass a law to deliver up fugitives from slavery?

The Senator asks me a question, and I answer, frankly, that no temptation, no inducement, would draw me in any way to sanction the return of any man to slavery.

The tone of Senator Butler on this occasion shows the intolerable spirit of Slavery, which would not endure Mr.

You have among you many a purchased slave, Which, like your asses, and your dogs, and mules, You use in abject and in slavish parts, Because you bought them.

Tell, if thou canst, the sum of sorrows there; Mark the fixed gaze, the wild and frenzied glare, The racks of thought, and freezings of despair!

But pause not then,--beyond the western wave, Go, view the captive bartered as a slave!

It is not for his learning and eloquence that I commend him to your respectful attention; for learning, eloquence, and even theology itself, have been prostituted in the service of an institution well described by John Wesley as the sum of…

I am to introduce to you a statesman who follows a long train of representatives and statesmen who were false to the North, false to Liberty; and then they made a complaint that there was no North!

It was because the North lost faith in her recreant children.

It lost faith in its traitors, and not in Liberty.

That a lecture on Antislavery should be repeated in New York, even before a few despised ‘fanatics,’ is an unparalleled occurrence.

But that an Antislavery lecture should be repeated night after night to successive multitudes, each more enthusiastic than the last, marks the epoch of a revolution in popular feeling; it is an era in the history of Liberty.

I was near to cry.… But you have thrown the gauntlet once more to the ‘gentlemen from the South,’ bravely, decidedly, and pitilessly.

From weakness and humility, men ascend to power and place.

From defeat and disparagement, enterprises are borne on to recognition and triumph.

The martyr of to-day is gratefully enshrined on the morrow.

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