there can be for them no other Law but the Constitution to determine their reciprocal rights and corresponding duties as well as the measure and use of them, in all matters which in that Instrument have been contemplated and provided for. The Union, as it is, cannot exist without the Constitution. Either both, or neither.

Will they mix the qualities of citizen and man together, and act in both capacities; holding, as it were, the Constitution in one hand and the alleged Higher Law in the other? But, these being, as they say, in opposition to each other with regard to Slavery, the necessary result of such a mixture, if it could take place, should be that the energies of both would be paralyzed, and all things must consequently remain, within the Union, in the same condition which they were in before.

And since what these people have said and done during so many years, conclusively shows that they have either overlooked, or been unable to see, things so clear and simple as these, which to any capacity must appear self-evident; how can they be thought justly to comprehend, appreciate, and apply the alleged general Law of Mankind in its details; the right in the Slave to Liberty; the duty in the Master to make him free; and, above all, their own right to compel the Master to do it?

We cannot, on this occasion, forbear doing justice to those among the Abolitionists, who, in denouncing us and the Constitution, on account of Slavery, did also plainly advocate and urge the separation of the North from the South as a necessary measure. For this they have been held up almost as madmen; but yet, although we cannot approve such separation, and less what they intimated to be their intention of doing afterward, we deem it only justice to say that, so far as their recommendation to break up the Union may be concerned, they spoke like men of sense, and were consistent with themselves.

And who prevented the Free States from openly declar

ing that they detested the Union and the Constitution; that their abhorrence for Slavery is so intense and deeply rooted, that any further connection with the Slaveholding States was absolutely impossible, and therefore that they must part? This is, on the contrary, the only thing they should have done when they first began their attacks against the South.

I said "the only thing," because, when they should have parted, there should they have stopped, and not assumed upon themselves to abolish Slavery from the South. In abolishing it from within their own limits, they have used their right; but can they also go to a stranger and bid him do the same, or do it themselves, if he will not? If they have, and rely on, material power, this is a very good thing when connected with right, and does injury to nobody; whereas any movement of the North tending to abolish Slavery from the South cannot be made without manifest and manifold injuries to the slaveholders. The very attempt of meddling in other people's affairs, is itself a great injury. Indeed, there is among men no higher Law than Justice, and the first part of Justice is to mind one's own business.

Therefore, if you intend to make inquiries as citizen of the United States, we are willing to hear and answer you; but, if your questions turn outside the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution, we must decline both to hear and answer, although we might know how to do it.

BOST.-It is as citizen of the United States I appeal to you; for we intend to maintain the Union, and obey the Constitution; but, with regard to Slavery, times are now greatly changed from what they were before; and so are the opinions of a large number of men even in the United States.

WASH.-But Truth is not, nor is the Constitution changed; and, we believe, never shall be. Cease to exist it may; but not be altered in any of its substantial parts.

And you lay upon us an unjust charge by saying that, in your efforts to abolish Slavery, you interpret our sentiments and design to carry out our intentions. We never had any such intentions. How could we think of abolishing Slavery, when we received into the Union Slaveholding States, and accounted slaveholders citizens of the United States? Nay, when almost all the States who formed the Confederation were slaveholding? But for them, there would have been no Union.

Besides, you make us contradict ourselves, which figure we do not like to make before the world. And we deserved the less such treatment at your hands, because you make our supposed intentions, not only stand against, but overrule our words and solemn facts, resulting from all we did, and, above all, from the Constitution. This, I repeat, is the Instrument which binds all of you citizens, in whatever concerns your political rights and relations with one another. This only you must look and firmly stick to.

Whatever might have been our personal sentiments; whatever might we have said or written about, or even against, Slavery, could not serve your purpose. It were confounding matters separated from each other in their very essence, to make use of our intentions and personal sentiments, even if known, as arguments to annul any part of what we have established in the solemn act which we have declared to be the bond of Union and the measure of the reciprocal rights and corresponding duties between the States and between their citizens respectively.

You could not suppose that we thought, or desired, to abolish Slavery, seeing we expressly permitted the importation of slaves for twenty years, running from the date of the Constitution. If for delicacy's sake, out of regard toward some member of the Confederacy, we chose not to call them slaves, we designated them unmistakably by styling them imported persons, which appellation is fully equivalent to the word slaves. No freeman can be imported; but one may, who is regarded as property, and has a price. And

when Congress three years afterward proposed the form of a schedule for the "distinct enumeration of the inhabitants of the United States," one column in it was assigned to slaves. But that very delicacy which induced us to suppress their name is a further evidence of our positive determination in what we ordained concerning them.

If we limited their importation to twenty years, and authorized Congress to prohibit it afterward, we meant that Congress might forbid it, not that they must. And when that power should have been made use of, yet those slaves who might have been previously imported, or existed already in the United States, and their descendants, ought to have remained in their condition.

And where we provided for the proposing and making amendments to the Constitution, we did expressly, though it was unnecessary, reserve this importation of slaves, forbidding it to be the subject of amendment, should any be made "prior to the year 1808." So far we were from wishing to abolish Slavery.

The same thing we plainly declared when we ordained, "No person held to service or labor in one State under the laws thereof, escaping in 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."

BOST.-Far from delivering up such persons, we have enticed them to leave their master; taking them away from him, as it were, at his very house. And some one having once escaped into our city, and a claim being duly presented in behalf of his master, our people rose up to his rescue in great tumult, and a man, who had him in charge to safely conduct him to his destination, was killed by the mob.

WASH.-Were they not punished for it? Otherwise we should conclude the doing of the mob to have been connived at, perhaps encouraged and instigated, by those who are not called mob.

The above recited clause obliged you to give up the slave, even though by an express law in your State you might otherwise have had the right to refuse his delivery. This is the clear import of the words, "in consequence of any law or regulation therein," which must be understood as if they had been expressed in the usual phrase, “any law or regulation obtaining therein to the contrary notwithstanding." By this the Constitution did ipso facto declare null, and make void, all laws whatever which might have existed before, or be enacted afterward, in any particular State, whose observance might have been an impediment to the prompt execution of what that clause prescribes.

Hence you may know the purport, and characterize the nature, of" The Personal Liberty Bill," which should with truth and propriety be called "The Open Defiance to the Constitution Bill;" by which the Legislatures of your State and that of Vermont forbid the capture of a fugitive slave who might escape into either of them, and inflict a heavy penalty in money and imprisonment on "any Judge of any Court, any Justice of the Peace, or other Magistrate, any Sheriff, Deputy Sheriff, High Bailiff, Constable, or Jailer, or any Citizen," who should aid in the delivery and restoration of a fugitive slave to his master who claims him.

While doing this they use the address of sparing the name of the Constitution (out of regard to us, we suppose), and profess to make their laws against only the acts of Congress; as if the acts of Congress in this particular could be anything else but a necessary provision to establish the mode and means for securing the execution of what the Constitution has so positively and expressly commanded. I omit to say that the acts of Congress themselves are not nothing.

But to unmask them, and discover the real value of their respect for us, it were enough to divide a page into two columns, and print