The first charge preferred against me, in the address, is, that I said, in a letter dated on the 3d of May last, and addressed to a portion of my constituents,* that I "sympathized on different points with different parties, but was exclusively bound to none." Upon this, the address remarks, "If we understand his meaning, it is . . . . . that he cannot be our champion and defend our cause, as our true representative should, whenever and wherever called upon." No, I reply to this, I will not promise beforehand to be any man's champion," nor to defend any man's "cause," "whenever and wherever called upon." This would be to proffer championship and allegiance to men and measures whether they were right or wrong. If any man offers to vote for me on such conditions, I deny him my assistance and disdain his support. Perhaps I do not know what I was made for; but one thing I certainly never was made for, and that is, to put principles on and off, at the dictation of a party, as a lackey changes his livery at his master's command. 66 Another remark in the address is, that the compromise measures, so called, excepting the fugitive slave law, 66 were wise, and that they gave to the free states all they could reasonably ask." What a stultification, my friends, is this, of ourselves, of our party, and of every department of our state government, for the last ten years. What have you been doing, but resolving, contending, and placing your words and deeds upon the historical records of the state and the nation, against the identical measures now declared to be "wise," and all for which the free states "could reasonably ask "? I leave this point with a single remark. The address excepts the fugitive slave law from the measures it commends. Before another year is past, will not that most execrable act in modern legislation be palliated or adopted by those who voted for this address? *See ante, p. 237. A third objection to my position is, that I regard the question of the extension of slavery into our territories as paramount to those questions of a pecuniary character, on which we desire to obtain the favorable action of the government. Let this objection against me have its full force. I admit it, in all its length and breadth. I do regard the question of human freedom for our wide-extended territories, with all the public and private consequences dependent upon it, both now and in all futurity, as first, foremost, chiefest among all the questions that have been before the government, or are likely to be before it. When temporary and commercial interests are put in competition with the enduring and unspeakably precious interests of freedom for a whole race, of liberty for a whole country, and of obedience to the will of the Creator, my answer is, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added. unto you." In an address delivered by Mr. Choate, in 1848, he declared the slavery question to be of "transcendent importance;" and for this sentiment he was universally applauded. Wherein does "paramount importance" so differ from "transcendent importance," that the one is to be applauded while the other is condemned? Let me call your attention to one other remark in the address, and I will leave it. It suggests that my course in Congress on the slavery questions has been unacceptable to the south, and that we ought to send a representative who will conciliate them and obtain their good will. Fellow-citizens, do you suppose that any man can be true to the memory of the Pilgrim fathers, and to the love of liberty they bequeathed us, and at the same time true to the spirit of the Cavaliers, and to the wishes of their slave-owning posterity? Eighteen hundred years ago, it was said that no man can serve two masters; but the cupidity of modern times proposes the solution of a problem which Christ declared to be impossible. My opinion is, that the cause of all our present calamity, and of the enduring dishonor of the late measures, is this very desire to conciliate southern favor, instead of giving a manful defence to northern rights. Finally, fellow-citizens, it is our fortune to live during a great historic crisis in the affairs of the world. This is the age of the useful arts; of discoveries and inventions, which are filling with wealth the garners and the coffers of men. It is the age of commerce, of profit, of finance. One part of our nature is intensely stimulated. Let us beware of the effect of this stimulus upon that nobler portion of our being, which no splendor of opulence nor profusion of luxuries can ever satisfy; which demands allegiance to God, and justice and humanity towards our fellow-men; and which must have them, or die the second death. We may be poor; but let us deprecate and forefend the most calamitous of all poverties, a poverty of spirit. We may be subjected to great sacrifices; but let us sacrifice every thing else, nay, life itself, before we sacrifice our principles. I commend to you the language of the good Bishop Watson, who, when tempted to stifle the expression of his convictions through the hope of kingly patronage, replied, that it was "Better to seek a fortuitous sustenance from the drippings of the most barren rock in Switzerland, with freedom for his friend, than to batten as a slave at the most luxurious table of the greatest despot in the world." 33* SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE MR. CHAIRMAN ; Some time ago, I prepared a few comments upon those prominent measures of the last session, which have since arrested the attention of all the lovers of constitutional liberty, and of moral and religious men, throughout the civilized world. I am unwilling to suffer the present session to close without expressing the reflections I have formed; because I deem it but a reasonable desire that my opinions should be placed upon the records of the very Congress to whose measures they refer. Does any one ask what benefit I anticipate from a discussion of this subject at the present moment? I answer, this benefit at least that of entering a solemn protest against a grievous wrong, and of placing upon the tablets of my country's history, what I believe to be the views of a vast majority of my constituents, in common with the vast majority of the people of Massachusetts. Some of those compromise measures are destined to be of great historic importance. They will be drawn into precedent. When, in evil days, further encroachments are meditated against human rights, these old measures will be cited as a sanction for new aggressions; and, in my view, they will always be found broad enough, and bad enough, to cover almost any nameable assault upon human liberty. When bad men want authority for bad deeds, they will only have to go back to the legislation of Congress, in 1850, to find an armory full of the weapons of injustice. Sir, legislative precedents are formidable things. If created without opposition, and especially if acquiesced in without complaint, they become still more formidable. Now, if there were no other reasons for reviving this subject at the present session of Congress, this alone would be an ample justification, it forefends the argument from acquiescence. When several of these measures were passed, and particularly when one of the most obnoxious and criminal of them all was passed, I mean the Fugitive Slave bill, this House was not a deliberative body. Deliberation was silenced. Those who knew they could not meet our arguments, choked their utterance. The previous question, which was originally devised to curb the abuse of too much debate, was perverted to stop all debate. The floor was assigned to a known friend of the bill, who after a brief speech in palliation of its enormities, moved the previous question; and thus we were silenced by force, instead of being overcome by argument. For, sir, I aver, without fear of contradiction, that the bill never could have become a law, had its opponents been allowed to debate it, or to propose amendments to it. For the honor of the country, therefore, at the present time, and for the cause of truth hereafter, it is important that the hideous features of that bill, which were then masked, should be now unmasked. The arguments which I then desired and designed to offer against it, I mean to offer now. Those arguments have lost nothing of their weight by this enforced delay, and I have lost nothing of my right to present them. Mr. Chairman, I feel none the less inclined to discuss this question, because an order has gone forth that it |