whose moral influence must be powerful for good or for evil.  How is it then you can assert that the North don’t want the extinction of slavery when such men as I have mentioned exert every effort to prevent its extension & not that only, but the operation of the fugitive S. law? I am aware that you stated the contrary in your letter—­that the North are ever “rigorous” in its execution; nor am I so ungallant as to doubt your veracity; but I think you have not fully informed yourself on this point, else you would have learned that in scarcely an isolated case has the Master ever recovered his property without being put to more expense & trouble than the negro was worth; although I am free to admit, that at the same time it cost the U.S. gov. an equal if not greater Amount.  Of course I refer to those negroes who have not merely crossed the limits of a Slave State, & thus been caught, but gone some distance North.  Now the obligation to restore a fugitive Slave is a constitu^l. & moral obligation; and those laws designed to prevent such restoration are unconst^l & criminal—­and worthy of all condem^n.—­and unbecoming the dignity of any Sov^n.  State.  If people of any State can’t conscientiously submit to the Constitution there are only 2 courses:  they should endeavor to have it peaceably altered, or should move out of the Country.  This is the opinion of the most learned and liberal men. They have no right to live under the protec^n. of a Const^n. & yet refuse to submit to its stipulations.  True enough, as you say, the North wish not to have the Negroes set free in their midst, to overrun and disturb them—­this they declare by their actions, for they take no care for or interest in the poor free (almost) brutes in their midst;—­yet how soon will they be ready to resist you most violently should you attempt to take even one of them back, from his then wretched abode, to his former happier place in the service of a kind Master?  “Oh! consistency, thou art a jewel!” This then has been one of the two great causes of the present troubles.  The other—­the denial of equal rights in the Territories—­is still a greater, because it involves a principle; the former was more a matter of personal interest.  The territories being purchased in common, were the com. pos. of North and South.  Each had a Const^l right to emigrate thither with their property & demand for it the protection afforded by the Const^n.  It became, in course of time, a matter of dispute whether the South could take their slaves there as property.  (As a matter of course this arose from jealousy—­the N. having no such prop, to take.) This great quest. was decided, however, by the Chief Justice in the highest Tribunal in the world, in favor of the South; viz. that slaves were property.  I refer to the “Dred Scott” Case.  This should have