Not only the associations will gain by such encouragement, but the whole land will reap the advantage.

To my mind it is clear that the education of our country would be advanced by stimulating such importations rather than by discouraging them.

I would not protract the discussion at this late hour; but I must say that to my mind the proposition is not creditable to our country, and, I think, if adopted, will be mischievous.

It is to me a tax on education, and as such odious to an extent which I am hardly willing to characterize.

Because we are engaged in war, I find no reason for a tax on education.

Tax luxuries, tax necessaries, tax everything else; but do not tax education.

But this is not sufficient reason for excluding my amendment, unless the Senator is ready, for the sake of form, to sacrifice substance.

An appropriation bill is like a “through train,” and while its special office is to appropriate money, yet it may carry anything required by the public good.

I was chosen to the Senate for the first time immediately after the passage of the infamous Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

If I received from the people of Massachusetts any special charge, it was to use my best endeavors to secure the repeal of that act.

Had any such thing been tenable, had there been the least apology for it, had it not been utterly unreasonable, be assured, Sir, it would have been made the excuse for stifling the discussion.

I seek to remove from the statute-book odious provisions in support of Slavery.

Whoever is in favor of those provisions, whoever is disposed to keep alive the coastwise slave-trade, or to recognize it in our statutes, will naturally vote against my motion.

And yet let me say that I am at a loss to understand how, at this moment, at this stage of our history, any Senator can hesitate to unite with me in this work of expurgation and purification.

He must not be more severe against Freedom now than was the representative of Slavery who occupied his place when I moved the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Bill.

He is always willing to interpret the Constitution for Slavery.

But even should slaves be found for this traffic (which, thank God, cannot be the case), I am unwilling that Congress should continue to regulate the ignoble business.

Our statute-book should not be defiled by any such license.

Remove this license, and the Constitution, rightly interpreted, will do the rest.

He proceeds as if those old days still prevailed, when Slavery was installed supreme over the Supreme Court, giving immunity to Slavery everywhere.

The times have changed, and the Supreme Court will yet testify to the change.

To me it seems clear, that, under the Constitution, no person can be held as a slave on shipboard within the national jurisdiction, and that the national flag cannot cover a slave.

The Senator thinks differently, and relies upon the Supreme Court; but I cannot doubt that this regenerated tribunal will yet speak for Freedom as in times past it has spoken for Slavery.

But, at the present moment, I am willing to waive this addition, and content myself with the simple repeal, that our statute-book may no longer be degraded, trusting that the Constitution, rightly interpreted, will suffice.

And yet the positive prohibition, which the Senator seems to invite or to challenge, would not only purify the statute-book, but effectually guard against the future, so that both Constitution and Law would be arrayed against an infamous…