The Fugitive Slave Act was levelled at the Union hardly less than the batteries at Charleston, when they opened upon Fort Sumter.

Thus the representatives of Slavery, though now in open rebellion, continue, through unrepealed statute, to insult the loyal States, to degrade the Republic, and to rule the country which they tried to ruin.

And thus two audacious Rebels, one the pretended Minister of the Rebellion at London, and the other an officer in the Rebel forces, still exert among us a malignant power, while, with a long arm not yet amputated, they reach even into the…

Such a statute, thus utterly unconstitutional in every respect, and utterly mischievous in all its consequences and influences, while peculiarly obnoxious in its well-known authors, ought to be repealed without delay.

If possible to parliamentary usage, it ought to be torn from the volumes of the law, so that there should be no record of such an abuse and such a shame.

Above all, would you follow the Constitution and establish justice?

The first was that by which its continued existence was vindicated, or, if you please, the right of Slavery; the other was that of State Rights.

Happily, the first is silenced; but the other is still sounding among us, crying out against those generous efforts by which Human Rights are assured.

At every proposition concerning Slavery, at the presentation of every petition against this tyrannical wrong, at every allusion to it, the cry was heard.

And when the Rebellion broke forth, the same cry was raised against those great measures of self-defence by which Slavery, our real enemy, was assailed; and then at each stage of Reconstruction it was the same.

Not a measure of Reconstruction which has not encountered this pretension of State Rights.

It is easy for Senators who have upheld Slavery to uphold that interpretation of the Constitution which was the constant ally of Slavery; but it is incomprehensible how Senators fresh from the great battle with Slavery should continue in…

Nobody doubts the right of a State to local self-government, through which are supplied the opportunities of political education, and also of local administration adapted precisely to local wants.

But while recognizing the State as the agency for all matters properly local, it must not be allowed to interfere with those other matters, being rights and duties, which are not local, but universal.

Now, Sir, nothing can be clearer than that the Equal Rights of All must be placed under the safeguard of one uniform law which shall be the same in all parts of the nation,--the same in Charleston and New Orleans as in Boston and Chicago.

They must be the same in all the States; but this can be consummated only by the national authority.

Therefore, on grounds of reason, I repel that pretension of State Rights which would take this just prerogative from the nation.

Understand me, Sir, I do not seek to centralize, but to nationalize.

The partisans of State Rights, in their efforts to decentralize, would denationalize.

In the name of local self-government they would overthrow the nation.

If I am asked where I find these national powers, I answer, that they are in those two great title-deeds of the Republic, the Declaration of Independence and the National Constitution.

Whether viewed apart or together, these two are one and the same; but the two reinforce each other.

By this Declaration it is solemnly announced, first, that all men are equal in rights, and, secondly, that just government stands only on the consent of the governed.

Whenever Congress is called to maintain a republican government, it must be according to these universal, irreversible principles.

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