protect. Human rights, whether in a multitude or the solitary individual, are entitled to equal and unhesitating support. In this spirit, the flag of our country only recently became the impenetrable panoply of a homeless wanderer who claimed its protection in a distant sea; and, in this spirit, I am constrained to declare that there is no place accessible to human avarice or human lust or human force, whether the lowest valley or the loftiest mountaintop, whether the broad flower-spangled prairies or the snowy caps of the Rocky Mountains, where the Prohibition of Slavery, like the Commandments of the Decalogue, should not go. "1 And these words, uttered more than six years ago, are still of vital, practical force. The example of Delaware shows how little Slavery it takes to make a Slave State, giving two votes to the ascendency of the Slave Power in the Senate. Be wakeful, then, and do not disparage that enemy which for sixty years has ruled the Republic. "That man is dangerous," exclaimed the Athenian orator," who does not see danger in Philip." And I now say, that man is dangerous who does not see danger in the Slave Power. When God created man in his own image, and saw that his work was good, he did not destine his creature for endless ages to labor without wages, compelled by the lash. Such degradation we seek to arrest by careful measures under the Constitution. And this is the cause of which your candidate is the generous and noble representative. Stand by him. Let not fidelity to those principles which give dignity and glory to Massachusetts, and to our common country, be an argument against him. From the malignity of enemies, from the 1 The Landmark of Freedom: ante, Vol. III. p. 291. vacillation of timeservers, and from the weakness of friends shield him by your votes. Make him strong to commence the great work by which the Declaration of Independence shall become a living letter, and the ways of Providence shall be justified to men. "If yet ye are not lost to common sense, Assist your patriot in your own defence; 1 Swift, To the Citizens, 30-33. These words were introduced to sustain not merely the speaker, but also John A. Andrew, who was about to be nominated Governor of Massachusetts, and against whom this very accusation had been made. THE UNCONSTITUTIONALITY OF SLAVERY SHOWN FROM ITS BARBARISM. LETTER TO A POLITICAL ANTISLAVERY CONVENTION AT WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS, SEPTEMBER 9, 1860. BOSTON, September 9, 1860. EAR SIR,- With you I hate, deplore, and de the nonentity and impossibility of Slavery under the Constitution of the United States can be fully seen only when we fully see its Barbarism; so that in the Constitutional argument against Slavery the first link is its essential Barbarism, with the recognition of which no man will be so absurd as to infer or imagine that Slavery can have any basis in words which do not plainly and unequivocally declare it, even if, when thus declared, it were not at once forbidden by the Divine Law, which is above all Human Law. Therefore in much I agree with you, and wish you God-speed. But I do not agree that the National Government has power under the Constitution to touch Slavery in the States, any more than it has power to touch the twin Barbarism of Polygamy in the States, while fully endowed to arrest and suppress both in all the Territories. Therefore I do not join in your special efforts. But I rejoice in every honest endeavor to expose the Barbarism which degrades our Republic; and here my gratitude is so strong that criticism is disarmed, even where I find that my judgment hesitates. Accept my thanks for the invitation with which you have honored me, and my best wishes for all Constitutional efforts against Slavery; and believe me, my dear Sir, Very faithfully yours, A. P. BROOKS, Esq. CHARLES SUMNER. THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT MUST BE A DEAD LETTER. LETTER TO A PUBLIC MEETING AT SYRACUSE, NEW YORK, THIS meeting was one of a series, known as "Jerry Rescue Celebration," being on the anniversary of the rescue of the fugitive slave Jerry from the hands of slave-hunters. MY BOSTON, September 9, 1860. Y DEAR SIR, You know well how much I sympathize with you personally, and also how much I detest the Fugitive Slave Bill, as a flagrant violation of the Constitution, and of the most cherished human rights, shocking to Christian sentiments, insulting to humanity, and impudent in all its pretensions. Of course I agree with you that such an enactment, utterly without support in Constitution, Christianity, or reason, should not be allowed to remain on the statute-book; and so long as it is there, I trust that the honorable, freedom-loving, peaceful, good, and law-abiding citizens, acting in the name of a violated Constitution, and for the sake of law, will see that this infamous counterfeit is made a dead letter. I am happy to believe that this can be accomplished by an aroused Public Opinion, which, without violence of any kind, shall surround every "person" who treads our soil with all safeguards of the citizen, teaching the Slave-Hunter, |