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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.
On, the freedom of speech he makes this bold assertion,--
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.
