That
personal responsibility I accept. Before the Senate and the country let
me be held accountable for this act and for every word which I utter.
With me, Sir, there is no alternative. Painfully convinced of the
unutterable wrong and woe of Slavery,--profoundly believing, that,
according to the true spirit of the Constitution and the sentiments of
the Fathers, it can find no place under our National Government,--that
it is in every respect sectional, and in no respect national,--that it
is always and everywhere creature and dependent of the States, and never
anywhere creature or dependent of the Nation,--and that the Nation can
never, by legislative or other act, impart to it any support, under the
Constitution of the United States,--with these convictions I could
not allow this session to reach its close without making or seizing an
opportunity to declare myself openly against the usurpation, injustice,
and cruelty of the late intolerable enactment for the recovery of
fugitive slaves.
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