In the second place, when a claimant comes from Virginia to New York, to say that one A or one B has run away, or is a fugitive from service or labor, he brings with him a record of the court of the county from which he comes, and that record must be sworn to before a magistrate, and certified by the county clerk, and bear an official seal.  The affidavit must state that A or B had departed under such and such circumstances, and had gone to another State; and that record under seal is, by the Constitution of the United States, entitled to full credit in every State.  Well, the claimant or his agent comes here, and he presents to you the seal of the court in Virginia, affixed to a record of his declaration, that A or B had escaped from service.  He must then prove that the fugitive is here.  He brings a witness; he is asked if this is the man, and he proves it; or, in nine cases out of ten, the fact would be admitted by the fugitive himself.

Such is the present law; and, much opposed and maligned as it is, it is more favorable to the fugitive slave than the law enacted during Washington’s administration, in 1793, which was sanctioned by the North as well as by the South.  The present violent opposition has sprung up in modern times.  From whom does this clamor come?  Why, look at the proceedings of the antislavery conventions; look at their resolutions.  Do you find among those persons who oppose this Fugitive Slave Law any admission whatever, that any law ought to be passed to carry into effect the solemn stipulations of the Constitution?  Tell me any such case; tell me if any resolution was adopted by the convention at Syracuse favorable to the carrying out of the Constitution.  Not one!  The fact is, Gentlemen, they oppose the constitutional provision; they oppose the whole!  Not a man of them admits that there ought to be any law on the subject.  They deny, altogether, that the provisions of the Constitution ought to be carried into effect.  Look at the proceedings of the antislavery conventions in Ohio, Massachusetts, and at Syracuse, in the State of New York.  What do they say?  “That, so help them God, no colored man shall be sent from the State of New York back to his master in Virginia!” Do not they say that?  And, to the fulfilment of that they “pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.”  Their sacred honor!  They pledge their sacred honor to violate the Constitution; they pledge their sacred honor to commit treason against the laws of their country!

I have already stated, Gentlemen, what your observation of these things must have taught you.  I will only recur to the subject for a moment, for the purpose of persuading you, as public men and private men, as good men and patriotic men, that you ought, to the extent of your ability and influence, to see to it that such laws are established and maintained as shall keep you, and the South, and the West, and all the country, together, on the terms of the Constitution.  I say, that what is demanded of us is to fulfil our constitutional duties, and to do for the South what the South has a right to demand.