own person in the hall of our Legislature, and mingle in debate there.  Sir, in every stage of these oppressions and abuses, permit me to say, in the language of the Declaration of Independence—­and no language could be more appropriate—­we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms, and our repeated petitions have been answered by repeated injury.  A power, whose character is marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to rule over a free people.  In our sufferings and our wrongs we have besought our fellow-citizens to aid us in the preservation of our constitutional rights, but, influenced by the love of gain or arbitrary power, they have sometimes disregarded all the sacred rights of man, and answered in violence, burnings, and murder.  After all these transactions, which are now of public notoriety and matter of record, shall we of the free States tauntingly be asked what we have to do with slavery?  We should rejoice, indeed, if the evils of slavery were removed far from us, that it could be said with truth, that we have nothing to do with slavery.  Our citizens have not entered its territories for the purpose of obstructing its laws, nor do we wish to do so, nor would we justify any individual in such act; yet we have been branded and stigmatized by its friends and advocates, both in the free and slave States, as incendiaries, fanatics, disorganizers, enemies to our country, and as wishing to dissolve the Union.  We have borne all this without complaint or resistance, and only ask to be secure in our persons, by our own firesides, and in the free exercise of our thoughts and opinions in speaking, writing, printing and publishing on the subject of slavery, that which appears to us to be just and right; because we all know the power of truth, and that it will ultimately prevail, in despite of all opposition.  But in the exercise of all these rights, we acknowledge subjection to the laws of the State in which we are, and our liability for their abuse.  We wish peace with all men; and that the most amicable relations and free intercourse may exist between the citizens of our State and our neighboring slaveholding States; we will not enter their States, either in our proper persons, or by commissioners, legislative resolutions, or otherwise, to interfere with their slave policy or slave laws; and we shall expect from them and their citizens a like return, that they do not enter our territories for the purpose of violating our laws in the punishment of our people for the exercise of their undoubted rights—­the liberty of speech and of the press on the subject of slavery.  We ask that no man shall be seized and transported beyond our State, in violation of our own laws, and that we shall not be carried into and imprisoned in another State for acts done in our own.  We contend that the slaveholding power is properly chargeable with all the riots and disorders which take place on account of slavery.  We can live in peace with all our