Cease to transcribe upon the statute book what our wisest and best men believe to be the will of God in regard to our worldly affairs, and the passions which we think appropriate to devils will soon take possession of society.

He that hath ears to hear the cry of the oppressed, let him hear!

It is, however, clear proof of wicked legislation, when humane and conscientious men cannot hold the offices it creates.

Though the alleged fugitive should disable him, though the enemies of the country should capture him, though the act of God should strike him down, though an armed mob should commit a rescue,--yet he is still liable.

Human welfare requires that claims which have long been voluntarily acquiesced in, should not be revived.

Hence our laws bar a right of action, otherwise incontrovertible, after that tacit abandonment of which the mere lapse of time is proof.

With the single exception of murder, all crimes are barred in Massachusetts by a six years’ delay to prosecute.

But the Fugitive Slave act knows no mercy or compassion of this kind.

Unrelentingly it fastens its clutch upon all cases.

While life lasts, its fangs strike into the flesh.

The alleged slave may have been amongst us for fifty years; he may have earned property, be married, and surrounded by children.

The inexorable certificate of a commissioner remands him to bondage and despair.

You and I, sir, must help pay the costs of sending a fellow-being into bondage; when we are under no more constitutional obligation to do so, than to pay the expenses of a slave dealer who ships his cargoes direct from Africa.

But the bill has become a law, and the practical question now is, how can the country be exculpated from the crime, and the dishonor.

I trust I shall never join a mob to resist a law, until I am ready for revolution.

Those who would forcibly resist the law, lose half their motive and impulse for repeal; for if we abolish it without repealing it, it will be likely to remain upon the statute book an eternal monument of the nation’s disgrace.

One liberty the slave always has,--whenever he deems it expedient, he may re-clothe himself in the rights which God and nature gave him, and which, though they may be ravished from him, can never be destroyed.

Right opposite to us is the court house, in whose forum my feeble voice was first raised, and where, I thank God, it was never raised in behalf of the oppressor, nor on the side of any cause which I believed to be wrong.

I feel assured that I do meet “old friends,”--true men, who carry their hearts in their hands, and whose lives are anchored to their convictions of duty.

We have been so often astonished and amazed, by shock after shock, and convulsion after convulsion, that I fear we are beginning to lose our moral sensibility to political catastrophes, however grand or fatal they may be.

So, I fear, it is in regard to the late commotions in Europe; and especially in regard to some of the marvellous doings of Congress in our own country.

In the old world, things seem already to be settling back into their former condition, and hopes are darkening into fears.

In this country, I still trust that we shall redeem something of the past, and secure the future.

I have watched the tide of battle with sleepless eye; and when Liberty at last was stricken down, my heart bled with hers.

Very early in our history, as a republic established to maintain the rights of man, an extent of territory was acquired equal to all we possessed before; and this addition accrued to the special advantage of those who maintain, as the…