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[12] their fugitive slaves in any part of the North. Hence, he is willing to vote for an amendment of the Constitution, declaring that under no circumstances shall Congress have the power to abolish or interfere with slavery in any State. Hence, his readiness to enact laws subjecting future John Browns to the punishment of death for seeking to deliver the slaves Bunker-Hill fashion, and after the example of Lafayette, Kosciusko, Pulaski, and DeKalb, as pertaining to our own Revolutionary struggle. Yet, in another speech delivered at Madison, Wisconsin, not long since, Mr. Seward solemnly declares:
By no word, no act, no combination into which I might enter, shall any one human being of all the generations to which I belong, much less of any class of human beings of any race or kindred be oppressed, or kept down in the least degree in their efforts to rise to a higher state of liberty and happiness. . . . Whenever the Constitution of the United States requires of me that this hand shall keep down the humblest of the human race, then I will lay down power, place, position, fame, everything, rather than adopt such a construction or such a rule.

What shall we think of the consistency or veracity of Mr. Seward in this matter of freedom? He knows, he concedes, in the speech we are criticising, that, under the United States Constitution, the fugitive slave is not entitled to safety or protection in any Northern State; and those who rush to the rescue of the enslaved millions at the South, as John Brown and his associates did, he is for hanging as felons under that same Constitution. It is time for him to lay down power, place, and position!

Look at the present state of the country! The old Union breaking up daily, its columns falling in every direction—four1 Southern States already out of it, and all the others busily and openly preparing to follow—the national Government paralyzed through indecision, cowardice, or perfidy—the national flag trampled upon and discarded by the traitors, and a murderous endeavor on their part, by firing heavy shot, to sink a Government vessel entering the harbor of Charleston upon a2 lawful errand, compelling her to flee in disgrace and to avoid3 certain destruction—treason and traitors everywhere, in every slave State, in every free State, at the seat of Government, in both houses of Congress, in the army and navy, in the Executive department, at the head of the press, audacious, defiant, diabolical—the United States arsenals and fortifications already seized, or rapidly falling into the hands of the Southern conspirators, through the blackest perfidy—every movement contemplating

1 S. C. Miss., Fla., Ala.

2 Star of the West.

3 Jan. 9, 1861.

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