The argument which the lawyers call ab inconvenienti,--the argument from inconvenience,--has been pressed into the service of the slaveholder to endanger the liberties of the citizen.

I answer, there are two sides to this argument; nor was it wise in the slaveholder, or his northern friends, to suggest it.

If difficult for a slave claimant, from Texas, to prove title to his slave in Massachusetts, how infinitely more difficult for a citizen of Massachusetts to prove title to himself in Texas.

Webster says there are independent courts at the south, “always open and ready to receive and decide upon petitions or applications for freedom.” Suppose this to be true; how is a man or a woman, whose master knows that he or she is free…

Webster seems to think that as soon as a kidnapping slave dealer shall transport his human prey to the south, he will at once take him to, or allow him to go before a court of justice, or will sell him to some brother Samaritan who will do…

Does not every body know that any man, who is capable of the enormous guilt of seizing or buying a freeman, will make it impossible for that freeman to regain his birthright?

Is this the Christian standard by which to estimate the evil of encroachments upon the most sacred rights of men?

If I repose in contentment and indifference, because my own section, or state, or county, is as yet but a partial sufferer, why should I not continue contented and indifferent while I myself am safe?

Blindness to the distinction between the value and the principle of property, and the value and the principle of liberty, could alone have permitted the comparison.

It is between truth and error; and just so certain as the spirit of Good will prevail over the spirit of Evil, just so certain will Truth ultimately triumph.

Under our present relations, however, I do feel at liberty to use considerable plainness of speech.

In professing to quote, from his 7th of March speech, a passage on which I had made a criticism, he alters the passage so as to evade the criticism, and then condemns me for making it.

The original passage in his speech read as follows: “I would not take pains to reäffirm an ordinance of Nature, nor to reënact the will of God.” This was the sentiment I criticized.

Is it not as palpable a case of alteration, as to change the date of a note of hand in order to take it out of the statute of limitations, or to obliterate the description of the premises in a deed, and put a more valuable estate in its…

Webster declared it to be a natural impossibility that African slavery could ever exist “in California or New Mexico.” (p. 42.) He now defines the southern boundary of New Mexico.

Now what possible excuse can be offered for these misleading citations?

The most formidable part of this combination against you is that which originates in the slave interest.

The doctrine of the slaveholding states, in regard to their domestic institutions, is non-intervention; but with regard to yours, it is instant intervention, to set at nought the prohibition of slavery, which you brought with you into the…

The whole body of southern influence, now that mining is a mania, would combine to pour an immense colony of slaves into New Mexico.

We are informed neither of the character of the author nor of his means of information; and if this authority is as fallacious and deceptive as the preceding, it is a great deal worse than nothing.

It would be like the testimony sometimes offered in court, which ruins the cause and dishonors the counsel.

But however this may be, all accounts concur in representing New Mexico to be rich in mines; and mines are the favorite sphere for slavery, as the ocean is for commerce.

Davis, of Massachusetts, said, that however it might be with regard to employing slaves in New Mexico for raising crops of corn or cotton, there was still one purpose to which they might be applied,--the most odious of all purposes,--to…

But what must satisfy every man whose blindness is not of the soul rather than of the senses, is the fact that the people of New Mexico, in the constitution which they have just framed, have embodied a prohibition of slavery in their…

How stands the evidence, then, on the question, whether “California and New Mexico,” from their geology, their geography, or their Asiatic scenery, are inaccessible or not, to the invasion of slavery?