Under this detestable, Heaven-defying Bill, not the slave only, but the colored freeman of the North, may be swept into ruthless captivity; and there is no white citizen, born among us, bred in our schools, partaking in our affairs, voting…

Again, the Act is unconstitutional in the unprecedented and tyrannical powers it confers upon Commissioners.

These petty officers are appointed, not by the President with the advice of the Senate, but by the Courts of Law,--hold their places, not during good behavior, but at the will of the Court,--and receive for their services, not a regular…

Adding meanness to violation of the Constitution, the Commissioner is bribed by a double fee to pronounce against Freedom.

The soul sickens in the contemplation of this legalized outrage.

In the dreary annals of the Past there are many acts of shame,--there are ordinances of monarchs, and laws, which have become a byword and a hissing to the nations.

I have likened this Bill to the Stamp Act, and I trust that the parallel may be continued yet further, by a burst of popular feeling against all action under it similar to that which glowed in the breasts of our fathers.

That enormous engine, fabricated by the British Parliament, for battering down all the rights and liberties of America, I mean the Stamp Act, has raised and spread through the whole continent a spirit that will be recorded to our honor…

In every colony, from Georgia to New Hampshire inclusively, the stamp distributors and inspectors have been compelled by the unconquerable rage of the people to renounce their offices.

Earlier than John Adams, the first Governor of Massachusetts, John Winthrop, set the example of refusing to enforce laws against the liberties of the people.

This Liberty is the proper end and object of authority, and cannot subsist without it; and it is a liberty to that only which is good, just, and honest.

This liberty you are to stand for, with the hazard not only of your goods, but of your lives, if need be.

Surely the love of Freedom is not so far cooled among us, descendants of those who opposed the Stamp Act, that we are insensible to the Fugitive Slave Bill.

In those other days, the unconquerable rage of the people compelled the stamp distributors and inspectors to renounce their offices, and held up to detestation all who dared to speak in favor of the stamps.

But while it becomes me to speak with caution, I shall not hesitate to speak with plainness.

Could the same spirit which inspired the Fathers enter into our community now, the marshals, and every magistrate who regarded this law as having any constitutional obligation, would resign, rather than presume to execute it.

The magistrate who pronounces the decree of Slavery, and the marshal who enforces it, act in obedience to law.

This is their apology; and it is the apology also of the masters of the Inquisition, as they ply the torture amidst the shrieks of their victim.

Disguise it, excuse it, as they will, the fact must glare before the world, and penetrate the conscience too, that the fetters by which the unhappy fugitive is bound are riveted by their tribunal,--that his second life of wretchedness…

He may be ignorant and rude, as poor, but he is of true nobility.

In sacrificing them to this foul enactment we violate every sentiment of hospitality, every whispering of the heart, every commandment of religion.

There are many who will never shrink, at any cost, and notwithstanding all the atrocious penalties of this Bill, from effort to save a wandering fellow-man from bondage; they will offer him the shelter of their houses, and, if need be…

There is another power, stronger than any individual arm, which I invoke: I mean that irresistible Public Opinion, inspired by love of God and man, which, without violence or noise, gently as the operations of Nature, makes and unmakes…

Let this Public Opinion be felt in its might, and the Fugitive Slave Bill will become everywhere among us a dead letter.

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