Is not money lent in all those cities on the same principle that wreckers send a rope’s end to a drowning man,--for as much as they can extort?

For which practice have our cities been conspicuous,--for their obedience to these laws or for their violation of them?

I do not cite the above cases from among a thousand similar ones, as any justification or apology for forcible and organized resistance to law by those who even constructively can be said to have given it their consent.

But the words of a preacher do not “come mended from his tongue,” when his name is a scandal among men for his violation of all the precepts he enjoins.

And now, sir, when I am called upon to support such a law as this, or to desist from opposing it in all constitutional ways, while it lasts, my response is, repeal the law, that I may no longer be called upon to support it.

In the name of my constituents, and by the memory of that “old man eloquent,” in whose place it is my fortune to stand, I demand its repeal.

Because it is a law which wars against the fundamental principles of human liberty.

Because it is a law which conflicts with the constitution of the country, and with all the judicial interpretations of that constitution, wherever they have been applied to the white race.

Because it is a law which introduces a fatal principle into the code of evidence, and into judicial practice,--a principle, before which no man’s liberties and no man’s rights of any kind can stand.

Because it is a law which is abhorrent to the moral and religious sentiments of a vast majority of the community that is called upon to enforce it.

Because the life and character of so many of its apologists and supporters are themselves potent arguments against whatever they may advocate.

Because it is a law which, if executed in the free states, divests them of the character of free states, and makes them voluntary participators in the guilt of slaveholding.

Because it is a law which disgraces our country in the eyes of the whole civilized world, and gives plausible occasion to the votaries of despotic power to decry republican institutions.

Because it is a law which forbids us to do unto others as we would have them do to us, and which makes it a crime to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, and to visit and succor the sick and the imprisoned.

Because the advocates and defenders of this law have been compelled to place its defence upon the express ground that the commandments of men are of higher authority than the ordinances of God.

Now, sir, with these glorious attributes of “law,” I say the Fugitive Slave law of the last session possesses not one quality in common, nor in similitude.

To say that the seat of such a law is in the “bosom of God,” is the intensest blasphemy.

To say that it is “the harmony of the world,” is to declare that the world is a sphere of ubiquitous and omnipotent wrong, uncheckered by any thought of justice, and devoid of any emotion of love.

To say that “all things in heaven do homage” to such a law, is to affirm of the realms of light what is true only of the realms of darkness.

The “least” do not “feel its care,” but tremble and wail beneath its cruelty; while the “greatest” and the strongest are “exempt from its power;” for they made it not for themselves but for others.

To no class of “creatures,” rational or irrational, human or divine, can it prove to be the “mother of peace and joy;” but wherever it extends, and as long as it exists, it will continue to be an overflowing Marah of bitterness and strife.

The election of a member of Congress, indeed, is not an extraordinary event; but it is extraordinary that principles of the most vital importance to the honor of Massachusetts, and to the cause of human liberty throughout the world, should…

But truth compels me to acknowledge that, during the last three quarters of a century, our course, in this country, has been downward.

While among the other nations of Christendom the altar-fires of liberty have been kindling and burning with a brighter flame, ours have been waning.

At the foundation of our government an institution existed amongst us utterly irreconcilable with the fundamental principles of the government itself.