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States will so adhere to the Constitution, will so enact and maintain laws to preserve that instrument, that you will not only remain in the Union yourselves, but permit your brethren to remain in it ? That is the question. Will you concur in measures necessary to maintain the Union, or will you oppose such measures? That is the whole point of the case." After giving a history of the formation of the Union, Mr. Webster proceeds : " Now, I am aware that all these things are well known; that they have been stated a thousand times; but in these days of perpetual discontent and misrepresentation, to state things a thousand times is not enough, for there are persons whose consciences, it would seem, lead them to consider it their duty to deny, misrepresent, and cover up truths.
" Now, these are the words of the Constitution, fellow-citizens, which I have taken the pains to transcribe therefrom, so that he who runs may read :
" ' No person held to service or labor in one State under the laws thereof escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.'
" Is there any mistake about that ? Is there any forty shilling attor- ney here to make a question of it ? No ; I will not disgrace my profession by supposing such a thing. There is not in or out of an attorney's office in the county of Erie, or elsewhere, one who could raise a doubt, or particle of doubt, about the meaning of this pro- vision of the Constitution. He may act as witnesses do sometimes on the stand. He may wriggle and twist, and say he cannot tell or cannot remember. I have seen many such efforts in my time on the part of witnesses to falsify and deny the truth. But there is no man who can read these words of the Constitution of the United States and say they are not clear and imperative. ' No person,' the Con- stitution says, 'held to labor or service in one State under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.' Why, you may be told by forty conventions in Massachusetts, in Ohio, in New York, or elsewhere, that if a colored man comes here he comes as a freeman, that is non sequifur. It is not so. If he comes as a fugitive from labor, the Constitution says he is not a freeman, and that he shall be delivered up to those who are entitled to his service. Gentlemen, that is the Constitution. Do
