Even those who cherished it most were ashamed of it; and in those provisions of the constitution which were designed for its temporary protection, a common regard for decency forbade the mention of its name.

Fatally to our own peace and honor, that which was then regarded as temporary and local, now threatens to be abiding and universal.

From speaking of slavery with hushed breath, its bold abettors now shout forth its praises.

It surges up against the free states themselves, and all the dikes and barriers of that constitutional law which we have been enacting for seventy-five years, cannot stay its flood.

We thought that Massachusetts was the impregnable citadel of freedom; but unconstitutional and inhuman laws, dictated by slaveholders, are now enforced amongst us, and at our very doors; and our services are commanded for their execution.

Thank God, there is a part of our people who, while they suffer, resist.

Only a portion amongst us have reached that lowest depth of degradation, where they surrender, not their limbs only, but their wills, to the hateful service of their masters.

Slavery has done its perfect work only when the soul is enslaved.

I rejoice to believe that we have not only seven thousand in this our Massachusetts Israel, who have not bowed the knee to Baal, but seven hundred thousand; and recent events foretell not only an increasing number, but a more determined…

Why is it, fellow-citizens, that Massachusetts stands first, or among the first, in 1851, in her hostility to the Fugitive Slave law?

I answer, for the very reason that she stood first in her hostility to the encroachments of the British crown in 1776.

Let all young men beware not to be seduced by any temptations of immediate profit or mistaken honor, to lift a hand in defence of this law.

If they do, then, before they have lived out half their lives, they will be as ready as old Cranmer to thrust the offending member into the flames, and to say with him, “This hand, this wicked hand, has offended.

Whatever influence they exert must flow from their zeal, their talents, and their private character; for they derive none from numerical force.

I regard these ever-repeated appeals made to Massachusetts men and to New England men to stand by the Union, as not merely obtrusive, but as affrontive and insulting.

Besides, when a man undertakes the mission of going round the country, preaching honesty, or temperance, or chastity, he provokes the inquiry whether he is more honest, temperate, or continent than those whom he exhorts.

If the union of these states now is, or has ever been verging towards a point of danger, it is solely and only because ambitious men and mercenary men at the north have given it that direction by recognizing southern threats and bravadoes…

Let the greatest coward see that his threats are acknowledged as verities, and he will adopt the cheap mode of threatening instead of the hazardous one of acting.

I say, then, if the union of these states ever has been in any proximity to danger, it was not from menaces uttered by the south, but from northern indorsement of them.

If northern leaders had dishonored instead of indorsing this spurious paper, it never would have got into circulation.

This side of a just cause for revolution, they will yield submission to all laws enacted by the government, with one single exception.

The exception I mean, embraces those laws of men which are clearly contrary to the law of God.

And I trust the time is not now, and never will be, when the children of the Puritans will obey any commandment of human origin if it conflicts with a divine command, though they have to lie down in lions’ dens or walk through furnace…

But with this sentiment of reverence for law is another sentiment, which is its proper attendant and brother,--I mean a desire and a determination to know what that is which is called law; what it is that claims this prerogative of…

It is in this spirit that they have discussed and mean to discuss the Fugitive Slave law, and to bring it, Protestant fashion, to the test of individual judgment and conscience.