result; and of course, when the Constitution was framed and established, and adopted by you, here in New York, and by New England, it contained an express provision of security to the persons who lived in the Southern States, in regard to fugitives who owed them service; that is to say, it was stipulated that the fugitive from service or labor should be restored to his master or owner if he escaped into a free State.  Well, that had been the history of the country from its first settlement.  It was a matter of common practice to return fugitives before the Constitution was formed.  Fugitive slaves from Virginia to Massachusetts were restored by the people of Massachusetts.  At that day there was a great system of apprenticeship at the North, and many apprentices at the North, taking advantage of circumstances, and of vessels sailing to the South, thereby escaped; and they were restored on proper claim and proof.  That led to a clear, express, and well-defined provision in the Constitution of the country on the subject.  Now I am aware that all these things are well known; that they have been stated a thousand times; but in these days of perpetual discontent and misrepresentation, to state things a thousand times is not enough; for there are persons whose consciences, it would seem, lead them to consider it their duty to deny, misrepresent, falsify, and cover up truths.

Now these are words of the Constitution, fellow-citizens, which I have taken the pains to transcribe therefrom, so that he who runs may read:—­

“NO PERSON HELD TO SERVICE OR LABOR IN ONE STATE, UNDER THE LAWS THEREOF, ESCAPING INTO ANOTHER, SHALL, IN CONSEQUENCE OF ANY LAW OR REGULATION THEREIN, BE DISCHARGED FROM SUCH SERVICE OR LABOR, BUT SHALL BE DELIVERED UP ON CLAIM OF THE PARTY TO WHOM SUCH SERVICE OR LABOR MAY BE DUE.”

Is there any mistake about that?  Is there any forty-shilling attorney here to make a question of it?  No.  I will not disgrace my profession by supposing such a thing.  There is not, in or out of an attorney’s office in the county of Erie, or elsewhere, one who could raise a doubt, or a particle of a doubt, about the meaning of this provision of the Constitution.  He may act as witnesses do, sometimes, on the stand.  He may wriggle, and twist, and say he cannot tell, or cannot remember.  I have seen many such efforts in my time, on the part of witnesses, to falsify and deny the truth.  But there is no man who can read these words of the Constitution of the United States, and say they are not clear and imperative.  “No person,” the Constitution says, “held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.”  Why, you may be told by forty conventions in Massachusetts, in Ohio, in New York, or elsewhere, that, if a colored man comes here, he comes as a freeman; that is a non sequitur.  It is not so.  If he comes as a fugitive from labor, the Constitution says he is not a freeman, and that he shall be delivered up to those who are entitled to his service.