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Show 24 committed on the person of a citizen with impunity, let the Governor break the broad seal of the Stale; he lJCars the sword in vain. 'fhc Governor of Massachusetts is a triAer: the State-house in Boston is a play-house: the General Court is a dishonorer! body: if they make laws which they cannot execute. The great-hearted Puritans have left no posterity. The rich men may walk in Stalest reet, but they walk without honor; and the farmers may brag their democracy in the country, but they arc disgraced men. If the State has no power to defend its own people in its own shipping, uecause it has delegated that power to the Federal Government, has it no representation in the Federal Government? Are those men dumb? I am no lawyer, and cannot indicate the forms applicaolc to the case, but here is something which transcends all forms. Let the senators and representatives of the State, containing a population of a million freemen, go in a body oeforc the Congress, and say, that they have a demand to make on them so imperative, that all functions of government must stop, until it is satisfied. If ordinary legislation cannot reach it, then extraordinary must be applied. The Congress should instruct the President to send to those ports of Charleston, Savannah, and New Orleans, such orders and such force, as shou ld release, forthwith, all such citizens of llfassachusells as were holden in prison without the allegation of any crime, and should set on fool the strictest inquisition to discover where such persons, brought into sla\'ery by these local laws, at any time heretofore, may now be. That first;- and then, let order be taken to indemnify all such as have been incarcerated. As for dangers to the Union, from such demands! -the Union is already at an end, when the first citizen of Massachusetts is thus outraged. Is it an union and covenant in which the State of Massachusetts agrees to be imprisoned, and the State of Carolina to imprison ? Gentlemen, I am loath to say harsh 25 things, and perhaps I I< now too little of polit ics for the smallest weight to attach to any censure of mine,- Uut I am at n loss how to charnctcrize the tumencss and silence of the two senators and the ten rcprcscntatires of the -Stntp at \Yashington. To what purpose, have we clothed each of those represen tatives with the power of seven ty thousand persons, and each senator with ncnr half a million, if they are to sit dumb at tl1eir desks, and sec their constituents capt ured and sold;- perlwps to gentlemen siuing by them in the hall? There is a scandalous rumor that has been swelling louder of late years,- perhaps it is wholly false, -that members arc bullied into silence Uy southern gentlemen. It is so cnsy to omit to speak, or even to be noscnt when delicate things arc to oc handled . . I may as well say what all men feel, that whilst our very arniaule and very innocent rcprcsc ntati\·es and senators at VVashington, are accomplished lawyers and merchants, and very eloquent at dinners and at C3ucuses, there is a disastrous want of men from New England. I would gladly make exceptions, and you will not suACr me to forget one eloquent old man, in whose veins the ulood of Massachusetts rolls, and who singly lias defended the freedom of speech, and the rights of the free, against the usurpation of the slave-holder. But the reader of Congressional tlebates, in New England, is per. plexerl to sec with what admiruule sweetness and patience the majority of the free Stales, are schooled and ridden by the minority of slave-holders. What if we should send thither representatives who were a particle less amiable and less innocent? I entreat you, sirs, let not this stain attach, let not this misery accumulate any longer. If the manage rs of our political parties arc too prudent and too cold;- if, most unhappily, the ambitious class of young men and political men have found out, that these neglected victims nrc poor and without weight; that they have no graceful hospitalities to offer; no valuaule business to throw into 4 |