What reasons can you give to the nations of the earth to
justify it? They will be the calm and deliberate judges in the case; and
what cause or one overt act can you name or point, on which to rest the
plea of justification? What right has the North assailed? What interest
of the South has been invaded? What justice has been denied? And what
claim founded in justice and right has been withheld? Can either of you
to-day name one governmental act of wrong, deliberately and purposely
done by the government of Washington, of which the South has a right to
complain? I challenge the answer. While, on the other hand, let me show
the facts, of which I wish you to judge, and I will only state facts
which are clear and undeniable, and which now stand as records authentic
in the history of our country. When we of the South demanded the
slave-trade, or the importation of Africans for the cultivation of our
lands, did they not yield the right for twenty years? When we asked a
three-fifths representation in Congress for our slaves, was it not
granted? When we asked and demanded the return of any fugitive from
justice, or the recovery of those persons owing labor or allegiance, was
it not incorporated in the Constitution, and again ratified and
strengthened by the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850? But do you reply that in
many instances they have violated this compact, and have not been
faithful to their engagements? As individual and local communities, they
may have done so; but not by the sanction of government; for that has
always been true to Southern interests.
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