in which the slave-dealer is held in those portions of the country where the institution of slavery is guarded with the most jealous vigilance.

3.  Congress has no power to abridge the right of petition.  The right of the people of the non-slaveholding states to petition Congress for the abolition of slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, and the traffic of human beings among the states, is as undoubted as any right guarantied by the Constitution; and I regard the Resolution which was adopted by the House of Representatives on the 21st of December last as a virtual denial of that right, inasmuch as it disposed of all such petitions, as might be presented thereafter, in advance of presentation and reception.  If it was right thus to dispose of petitions on one subject, it would be equally right to dispose of them in the same manner on all subjects, and thus cut of all communication, by petition between the people and their representatives.  Nothing can be more clearly a violation of the spirit of the Constitution, as it rendered utterly nugatory a right which was considered of such vast importance as to be specially guarantied in that sacred instrument.  A similar Resolution passed the House of Representatives at the first session of the last Congress, and as I then entertained the same views which I have now expressed, I recorded my vote against it.

4.  I fully concur in the sentiment, that ’every principle of justice and humanity requires, that every human being, when personal freedom is at stake, should have the benefit of a jury trial;’ and I have no hesitation in saying, that the laws of this state ought to secure that benefit, so far as they can, to persons claimed as fugitives from ‘service or labor,’ without interfering with the laws of the United States.  The course pursued in relation to this subject by the Legislature of Massachusetts meets my approbation.

5.  I am opposed to all attempts to abridge or restrain the freedom of speech and the press, or to forbid any portion of the people peaceably to assemble to discuss any subject—­moral, political, or religious.

    6.  I am opposed to the annexation of Texas to the United States.

7.  It is undoubtedly inconsistent with the principles of a free state, professing to be governed in its legislation by the principles of freedom, to sanction slavery, in any form, within its jurisdiction.  If we have laws in this state which bear this construction, they ought to be repealed.  We should extend to our southern brethren, whenever they may have occasion to come among us, all the privileges and immunities enjoyed by our own citizens, and all the rights and privileges guarantied to them by the Constitution of the United States; but they cannot expect of us to depart from the fundamental principles of civil liberty for the purpose of obviating any temporal inconvenience