The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1854-08-03

good or bad laws by the sovereign authority OF
State, can justify its representative in DISC
beying positive instructions to vote against q
bad law here In the Senate, unless it has come
to pass in theee latter times that, contrary TO
Scripture, the servant is greater than his mas
ter. am yet to learn whether the Legislature
of Connecticut is guilty of wrong doing fer en-
acting such laws as it in its wisdom thought
best
The honorable gentleman has commented
upon some bills which the Legislature did not
enact, and upon some which they did, among
which lie gave particular prominence to an
Act for the defence Of liberty" This, IN his
Judgment conflicts with the Fugitive Act for
the safety of which be is alarmed Now, SIR,
would not do the injustice TO my honorable
colleague to compare myself with him IN legal
science; but have given some attention 20 the
law to which be has taken exception, since
saw It heralded through the country as " nulh-
fcation,u and have not been able TO discover
ANYTHING in it thai needs TO exotic the appre-
tensions of the most vigilent sentineis OF the
Fugitive ACT. | have consulted several emil
nent civilians in relation to it, all OF whom
have assured me that it conflicts with no law
Of the United States. And think l can safe
ly challenge those who assert to the contrary
to produce the proof
DuE, W1tEOub OSStblAhbK viz ENASsO - -'A~A'
point. | would here raiee the question: whether,
under the Constitution Of the United States,
Connections has not as much right TO enact
laws for the protection Of the rights of her
people as South Carolina has to enact laws for
the destruction of the rights of her people
Whether freedom may not be protected under
the Constitution as well as slavery! Cannot
Connecticut be INDUCED little with the privi-
lego of protecting the rights and liberties OF
her own people upon her own soil, when part
of them, at least, have no protection, except
such as is furnished by prison-wals IL GER
tain other States of this Union! Mr.. Presl-
dent hes it come to this, that we OF the North
are all centralized absorbed, melted ooWn,
swallowed up, consolidated into this great CEN
tral, usurping Government, and the Northern
States are nero APPENDICES, shorn and ray!ess
satellites, to revolve around this all-absorblng
centre in borrowed light? God forbid! To
this momentous question Connecticut | rejoice
to say, true to her ancient fame, as the viSiIant
champion of State rights, and mindful Of her
grand historic cminence as defender of Eber-
ty, answers No. feel somewhat as the great
friend Of America and liberty felt, when Civ
ing voice to these words In she British Psriia-
ment in 1875:
81 rejoice that America has resisted Three
millions of people so dead to all the feelings of
liberty as voluntarily to submit to slavery,
would have been fit instruments to make slaves
Of the rest"
So | do rejoice that in the great conflict be-
tween Democracy and Despotism, now begun
in good earnest, Connecticut has been so prompt
to taE her position on the side of freedom, and
to call upon US to restore this Government to
the old foundations on which her Ellsworth
and Sherman were 90 active in establishing it,
ard separate il from slavery at once and for
ever. She has done with all compromises with
the peIhdious violstors AID naughty contem-
ners of the public faith and nov says, return
50 the early policy of this Government, that of
discouraging, restricting, and misunderstanding
slavery everywhere under it's jurisdiction. She
calls upon ne to discard the vile and contempt
ible dogma, that tho Constitution of the United
States ia shield Of slavery, or anywise ooun-
tenGnces that most cruel and terrific despotism
that has ever crushed humanity--e despotism
which denies the natural right of man to his
own body; of husband to his own wife; of a
father to his own child which sells husband,
wife, and child, separate or together, in the
which asserts chsttel-slavery
TO be Divine and Democratic institution and
avows its base purpose indefinitely to extend
and forever to perpetuate the terrific curse
| thank God, sir, Connecticut is washing her
hands from this blood, and calls upon us, in
her old voice of freedom, to cleanse this Gov
eminent from its guilty participation in the
diabolical work of ensla7ing and imbrutinS
man. She invokes us to digsbuse the Cunsti-
Triton Of the miferable dogmas which slave
holders have foistcd into it. 70 servo their own
nefarious purposes and restore to It the original
construction in which lis iiIustrious trainers
conceived and established it-nos 80 much 80
admitting into it, according to Madison, Sher-
man, and others, the blssphemOus idea that
msn can held property in man" She iuvokcs
us to return to the original policy of this Gov
ernment as inaugurated by Jefferson, and in.
terdcs slavery On every rcd Of territory under
It's jurisdietion. She would have Us see to il:
that THE Government, President, Judges, Con.
gress and all, be speedily rescued from tie
foul embraces of Tie great Southern Syren
raised up from its low debauchment, to virtue
and freedom, vitalized anew by the inspiring
breath of liberty, and replaced On tho old
foundations upon which the great fathers es-
tablshed and lief: it, there to be res0lutely aad
actively en- TIE side Of freedom.
Ii is meet ard proper that the State Of Ells-
worth and Sherman, who would not admit
slavery into the Constitution On any terms, the
State of Putnam and Hale, who fought hero
ically for freedom, should speak out clearly at
suoh crisis, and call upon Us TO tear of from
this Government the accursed vampire of sla-
very.
My honorable colleague has undertaken, for
tho third or fourth time, to provo the Missouri
Compromise line unconstitutional. | will not
tax the patience of the Senate with any reply,
further than to Offset the opinion OF President
Monroe, together With those Of all his unrivsled
Cabinet, Calhoun, Crawford, Writ, and John
@. Adams, against the argument and opinion
of my colleague.
have the happiness to agree with my col
league in the principle of popular sovereign ~,
only we chance to have opposite views in car.
rying it out He favored the Nebraska. Kansas
bill for one CREST reason that opposed it, He
regarded it as promotive of tie principle of
popular sovereignty, whereas considered il, in
all its details and tendencies, as subsarving the
antagoniftic principle of slaveholding eoVer-
eighty and every days development, since its
passage, has been confirming the correctness
of this view
He has also animadVerted On the Fugitive
Act and he is welcome to his opinions upon
that subject | do not intend ever to DO drawn
into discussion of that measure. 1t might
have an awkward tendency toward paoifea-
ton. No, Mr.. President, am not the man to
DISCUSS eno rug1uve Act L Will not do 1t.
can never cast SO great an indignisy upon the
Constitution of my country as to admit, by the
remotest implication, the possibility that it
could kennel such Cerberean monster. Tell
me not of the constitutionality of an act which,
by one bound, vaults over ali the bulwarks of
liberty in all the States of this Union, and
strikes down, st one blow, the writ of habeas
corpus, and the righs of trial by jury which
commits the great question of personal liberty,
not to q judicial trial, but to summary pro-
cess before magistrate, appointed, not by the
President with the concurrence of the Senate,
but by the cnurt. which fnrhids the erercisa az