sider, is as sensitive as it is powerful-possessing a power to shake the whole land with a sensitiveness that shrinks and trembles at the touch. But, while things may properly prompt me to caution and reserve, they cannot change my duty, or my determination to perform it. For this I willingly forget myself, and all personal consequences. The favor and good-will of my fellow-citizens, of my brethren of the Senate, sir — grateful to me as it justly is—I am ready, if required, to sacrifice. All that I am or may be, I freely offer to this cause.

And here allow me, for one moment, to refer to myself and my position. Sir, I have never been a politician. The slave of principles, I call no party master. By sentiment, education, and conviction, a friend of Human Rights, in their utmost expansion, I have ever most sincerely embraced the Democratic Idea; not, indeed, as represented or professed by any party, but according to its real significance, as transfigured in the Declaration of Independence, and in the injunctions of Christianity. In this Idea I saw no narrow advantages merely for individuals or classes, but the sovereignty of the people and the greatest happiness of all secured by equal laws. Amidst the vicissitudes of public affairs, I trust always to hold fast to this Idea, and to any political party which truly embraces it.

Party does not constrain me; nor is my independence lessened by any relations to the office which gives me a title to be heard on this floor. And here, sir, I may speak proudly. By no effort, by no desire of my own, I find myself a Senator of the United States. Never before have I held public office of any kind. With the ample opportunities of private life I was content. No tombstone for me could bear a fairer inscription than this: "Here lies one who, without the honors or emoluments of public station, did something for his fellowman." From such simple aspirations I was taken away by the free choice of my native Commonwealth, and placed in this responsible post of duty, without personal obligation of any kind, beyond what was implied in my life and published words. The earnest friends, by whose confidence I was first designated, asked nothing from me, and, throughout the long conflict which ended in my election, rejoiced in the position

which I most carefully guarded. To all my language was uniform, that I did not desire to be brought forward; that I would do nothing to promote the result; that I had no pledges or promises to offer; that the office should seek me, and not I the office; and that it should find me in all respects an independent man, bound to no party and to no human being, but only, according to my best judgment, to act for the good of all. Again, sir, I speak with pride, both for myself and others, when I add that these avowals found a sympathizing response. In this spirit I have come here, and in this spirit I shall speak to-day.

Rejoicing in my independence and claiming nothing from party ties, I throw myself upon the candor and magnanimity of the Senate. I now ask your attention; but I trust not to abuse it. I may speak strongly; for I shall speak openly and from the strength of my convictions. I may speak warmly; for I shall speak from the heart. But in no event can I forget the amenities which belong to debate, and which especially become this body. Slavery I must condemn with my whole soul; but here I need only borrow the language of slaveholders themselves; nor would it accord with my habits or my sense of justice to exhibit them as the impersonation of the institution - Jefferson calls it the "enormity" — which they cherish. Of them I do not speak; but without fear and without favor, as without impeachment of any person, I assail this wrong. Again, sir, I may err; but it will be with the Fathers. I plant myself on the ancient ways of the Republic, with its grandest names, its surest landmarks, and all its original altar-fires about me.

And now, on the very threshold, I encounter the objection. that there is a final settlement, in principle and substance, of the question of Slavery, and that all discussion of it is closed. Both the old political parties of the country, by formal resolutions, have united in this declaration. On a subject which for years has agitated the public mind; which yet palpitates in every heart and burns on every tongue; which, in its immeasurable importance, dwarfs all other subjects; which, by its

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constant and gigantic presence, throws a shadow across these Halls; which at this very time calls for appropriations to meet extraordinary expenses it has caused, they have imposed the rule of silence. According to them, sir, we may speak of everything except that alone, which is most present in all our minds.

To this combined effort I might fitly reply, that, with flagrant inconsistency, it challenges the very discussion which it pretends to forbid. Such a declaration, on the eve of an election, is, of course, submitted to the consideration and ratification of the people. Debate, inquiry, discussion, are the necessary consequence. Silence becomes impossible. Slavery, which you profess to banish from the public attention, openly by your invitation enters every political meeting and every political convention. Nay, at this moment it stalks into this Senate, crying, like the daughters of the horseleech, "Give! give!"

But no unanimity of politicians can uphold the baseless assumption, that a law, or any conglomerate of laws, under the name of Compromise, or howsoever called, is final. Nothing can be plainer than this; that, by no parliamentary device or knot, can any Legislature tie the hands of a succeeding Legislature, so as to prevent the full exercise of its constitutional powers. Each Legislature, under a just sense of its responsibility, must judge for itself; and, if it think proper, it may revise or amend, or absolutely undo the work of its predecesThe laws of the Medes and Persians are proverbially said to have been unalterable; but they stand forth in history as a single example of such irrational defiance of the true principles of all law.

sors.

To make a law final, so as not to be reached by Congress, is, by mere legislation, to fasten a new provision on the Constitution. Nay, more; it gives to the law a character which the very Constitution does not possess. The wise fathers did not treat the country as a Chinese foot, never to grow after infancy; but, anticipating Progress, they declared expressly that their great Act is not final. According to the Constitution itself, there is not one of its existing provisions -- not even that with regard to fugitives from labor-which may

not at all times be reached by amendment, and thus be drawn into debate. This is rational and just. Sir, nothing from man's hands, nor law, nor constitution, can be final. Truth alone is final.

Inconsistent and absurd, this effort is tyrannical also. The responsibility for the recent Slave Act and for Slavery everywhere within the jurisdiction of Congress necessarily involves the right to discuss them. To separate these is impossible. Like the twenty-fifth rule of the House of Representatives against petitions on Slavery now repealed and dishonored - the Compromise, as explained and urged, is a curtailment of the actual powers of legislation, and a perpetual denial of the indisputable principle that the right to deliberate is coextensive with the responsibility for an act. To sustain Slavery, it is now proposed to trample on free speech. In any country this would be grievous; but here, where the Constitution expressly provides against abridging freedom of speech, it is a special outrage. In vain do we condemn the despotisms of Europe, while we borrow the rigors with which they repress Liberty, and guard their own uncertain power. For myself, in no factious spirit, but solemnly and in loyalty to the Constitution, as a Senator of Massachusetts, I protest against this wrong. On Slavery, as on every other subject, I claim the right to be heard. That right I cannot, I will not abandon. "Give me the liberty to know, to utter and to argue freely, above all liberties;" these are the glowing words which flashed from the soul of John Milton, in his struggles with English tyranny. With equal fervor they should be echoed now by every American, not already a slave.

But, sir, this effort is impotent as tyrannical. The convictions of the heart cannot be repressed. The utterances of conscience must be heard. They break forth with irrepressible might. As well attempt to check the tides of Ocean, the currents of the Mississippi, or the rushing waters of Niagara. The discussion of Slavery will proceed, wherever two or three are gathered together-by the fireside, on the highway, at the public meeting, in the church. The movement against Slavery is from the Everlasting Arm. Even

now it is gathering its forces, soon to be confessed everywhere. It may not yet be felt in the high places of office and power; but all who can put their ears humbly to the ground, will hear and comprehend its incessant and advancing tread.

The relations of the Government of the United States - I speak of the National Government- to Slavery, though plain and obvious, are constantly misunderstood. A popular belief at this moment makes Slavery a national institution, and, of course, renders its support a national duty. The extravagance of this error can hardly be surpassed. An institution, which our fathers most carefully omitted to name in the Constitution, which, according to the debates in the Convention, they re. fused to cover with any "sanction,” and which, at the original organization of the Government, was merely sectional, existing nowhere on the national territory, is now above all other things blazoned as national. Its supporters plume themselves as national. The old political parties, while upholding it, claim to be national. A National Whig is simply a Slavery Whig, and a National Democrat is simply a Slavery Democrat, in contradistinction to all who regard Slavery as a sectional institution, within the exclusive control of the States, and with which the nation has nothing to do.

As Slavery assumes to be national, so, by an equally strange perversion, Freedom is degraded to be sectional, and all who uphold it, under the national Constitution, share this same epithet. The honest efforts to secure its blessings, everywhere within the jurisdiction of Congress, are scouted as sectional; and this cause, which the founders of our National Government had so much at heart, is called sectionalism. These terms, now belonging to the commonplaces of political speech, are adopted and misapplied by most persons without reflection. But herein is the power of Slavery. According to a curious tradition of the French language, Louis XIV., the grand monarch, by an accidental error of speech, among supple courtiers, changed the gender of a noun; but Slavery has done more than this. It has changed word for word. It has taught

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