CONGRESS, U. S. 



253 



tion and deemed it the duty of every depart- 

 ment of the government as long as the institu- 

 tion should remain, to protect it." 



Mr. Sumner : u I shall not be betrayed into 

 any extended debate ; but shall content myself 

 with replying directly to what has been said 

 on the other side. 



There is first the Senator from Ohio (Mr. 

 Sherman), who intervened to arrest the gener- 

 ous purpose of the Senate, as it -was about to 

 rote, by a proposition to keep alive the old act 

 of 1793. Strange that now, while we are in 

 deadly conflict with slavery, it should be pro- 

 posed to keep alive an ancient support of sla- 

 very. But the Senator gravely insists, and the 

 Senator from Maryland (Mr. Johnson) insists 

 with him. But the Senator from Ohio does not 

 seem to be aware of the character of the stat- 

 ute which he proposes to keep alive. Let me 

 remind him that by this statute which he cher- 

 ishes so warmly a fellow-man may be hurried 

 before a magistrate and doomed to slavery 

 without a trial by jury. Can this be constitu- 

 tional ? "Will the Senator sanction such an en- 

 actment ? 



" But the Senator from Maryland, not con- 

 tent with affirming the constitutionality of the 

 act of 1793, has plunged into a general discus- 

 sion on the fugitive clause of the Constitution. 

 He insists laboriously that it was intended to 

 cover fugitive slaves. When I reminded him 

 that its authors might have intended it to cover 

 fugitive slaves, without succeeding in their at- 

 tempts, he then insists that it does cover fugi- 

 tive slaves. Well, sir, there I meet him point- 

 blank. I insist that, whatever may have been 

 the original intention of the framers of that 

 clause, they did not succeed in making it co^er 

 fugitive slaves. It is a question of construc- 

 tion, and the language employed is not appli- 

 cable to fugitive slaves. It does not describe 

 them, and cannot by any just tribunal be ex- 

 tended to embrace them. If the prejudices of 

 the Senator were not already enlisted, I should 

 not doubt his judgment on this point, which in 

 the light of jurisprudence is so clear. 



" There is a rule of interpretation -which the 

 Senator -will not call in question. Where any 

 language is open to two constructions, one 

 favorable and the other odious, that which is 

 odious must be rejected. I do not stop to give 

 authorities. The rule is unquestionable and 

 the authorities are ample. But do not forget 

 the conclusion : that which is odious must be 

 rejected. Xow, the Senator has already ad- 

 mitted that the langiage of the clause is ap- 

 plicable to apprentices. Very well. That is 

 enough. In its . application to apprentices, re 

 demptioners, and the like, it is exhausted, so 

 that it cannot be made to cover a slave without 

 offending against the rule which requires us to 

 adopt the construction which is the least odious. 

 And, sir, if we go further and scan nicely the 

 language of the clause, we shall find that the 

 words employed are all applicable to a relation 

 of contract or debt, and not to a relation 



founded on force. The clause is applicable to a 

 'person,' and not to a thing, and this 'person' 

 is to be surrendered on the claim of the person 

 to whom his service or labor may be due. But 

 clearly no labor or service can be due from a 

 slave to a master. The whole pretension is an 

 absurdity. And, if you give to this word its 

 egitimate application, you must restrain it to 

 a case of contract or debt. In this glance I 

 omit the argument founded on history, and the 

 well-known opinions of leading minds in the 

 Convention, and confine myself to the text cf 

 the Constitution. 



" But the Senator dwelt especially on tLe 

 words ' held to service or labor in one State 

 nnder the laws thereof,' and triumphantly in- 

 sisted that slaves were included under this lan- 

 guage. Here again he is mistaken. Appren- 

 tices and redemptioners were held under 'laws; ' 

 but I need not remind the Senator of the ad- 

 mission repeatedly made on this floor by Mr. 

 Mason, that there were no 'laws' for slavery 

 in any slave State ; at least, that none could be 

 produced. Besides, as a jurist, the Senator can- 

 not have forgotten the ancient truth that injus- 

 tice cannot be 'law,' but is always to be re- 

 garded as an 'abuse' or a 'violence,' even 

 though expressed in the form of 'law.' In 

 presence of this principle, which has the sanc- 

 tion of as great a lawyer as St. Augustine, and 

 in the face of the positive assertion of Mr. 

 Mason, that no ' law ' for slavery could be found 

 in the slave States, what becomes of the argu- 

 ment of the Senator? Xo, sir. The case is 

 clear. Xo ingenuity of honest effort can make 

 the words that the Senator cites or any others 

 in that clause sanction slavery and the hunting 

 of slaves. In order to proceed with his argu- 

 ment the Senator must begin by setting aside 

 those commanding rules of interpretation which 

 are binding on him as on myself. If, where 

 words are susceptible of two significations, one 

 favorable and the other odious, the former only 

 can be taken, then must the Senator restrain 

 this clause to that signification which is not 

 odious. And again, if every word is always 

 to be construed so as most to favor liberty, then 

 must the Senator follow implicitly this rule. 

 But these two rules make it impossible to tor- 

 ture this clause into any odious or tyrannical 

 signification. They keep it clean and pure from 

 slavery. 



" Sir, I feel humbled by the necessity of this 

 discussion; that at this late day I should be 

 called to vindicate the Constitution of my 

 country against glosses and interpretations in 

 the interest of slavery. Pardon me if for a 

 moment, leaving the two Senators who seek to 

 foist slavery into the Constitution, I turn to 

 the question itself, not so much for argument 

 as for statement. If I seem to repeat, it is be- 

 cause there are certain points which I desire to 

 impress upon the Senate. To my mind noth- 

 ing is clearer than that, according to unques- 

 tionable rules of interpretation, the clause of 

 the Constitution, whatever may have been the 



