Liberty can be lost only by “due process of law,”--words borrowed from the ancient liberty-loving Common Law, illustrated by our master in law, Lord Coke, but best explained by the late Mr.

Such is the protection thrown by the Constitution over every “person,” without distinction of race or color, class or condition.

Clearly, on its face, it is an express guaranty of personal liberty, and an express prohibition of its invasion anywhere.

In the face of this guaranty and prohibition,--for it is both,--how can any “person” be held as slave?

Such formerly was my own impression, often avowed in this Chamber; but I never doubted its complete efficacy to render Slavery unconstitutional in all such places, so that “no person” could be held as a slave at the national capital or in…

Constitutionally, Slavery has always been an outlaw, wherever that provision of the Constitution was applicable.

All is broad and general as the Constitution itself; and since this provision is in support of human rights, it cannot be restricted by any interpretation.

There is no limitation in it, and nobody can supply any such limitation, without encountering the venerable maxim of law, Impius et crudelis qui Libertati non favet,--“Impious and cruel is he who does not favor Liberty.” Long enough have…

This conviction has brought petitioners to Congress, during the present session, asking that the Constitution shall be simply executed against Slavery, and not altered.

Ah, Sir, it would be a glad sight to see that Constitution, which we have all sworn to support, interpreted generously, nobly, gloriously for Freedom, so that everywhere within its influence the chains should drop from the slave!

And pardon me, if, when my country is in peril from Slavery, and human rights are to be rescued, I prefer to err with Patrick Henry, in assuming power for Freedom, rather than to think right with Senators who hesitate in such a cause.

Such an outrage, so offensive in every respect, not only to the Constitution, but also to the whole system of order by which the universe is governed, can be nothing but a national nuisance, which, for the general welfare, and in the name…

But at this moment, when it menaces the national life, it is not enough to treat Slavery merely as a nuisance, for it is much more.

It is a public enemy and traitor, wherever it shows itself, to be subdued, in the discharge of solemn guaranties of Government, and in the exercise of unquestionable and indefeasible rights of self-defence.

All now admit that in the Rebel States it is a public enemy and traitor, so that the Rebellion is seen in Slavery, and Slavery is seen in the Rebellion.

But Slavery throughout the country, everywhere within the national limits, is a living Unit, one and indivisible,--and thus even outside the Rebel States it is the same public enemy and traitor, lending succor to the Rebellion, and holding…

But whether national nuisance or public enemy and traitor, it is obnoxious to the same judgment, and must be abolished.

Sir Giles Overreach, attempting to draw his sword, found it “glued to the scabbard with wronged orphans’ tears.” God forbid that our soldiers shall find their swords “glued” with the tears of the slave!

One question, and only one, rises in our path,--and this simply because the national representatives have been so long drugged and drenched with Slavery, which they have taken in all forms, whether of dose or douche, that, like a…

I refer, of course, to the talk of compensation, under the shameful assumption that there can be property in man.

Thank God, that time has passed, never to return,--and simply because money is no longer needed for the purpose.

Any money as compensation must belong, every dollar, to the slave.

If the case were audited in Heaven’s chancery, there must be another allowance for prolonged denial of inestimable rights.

Loss of wages may be estimated; but where is the tariff or price-current by which to determine those greater losses which have been the lot of every slave?

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