expect him to do so!--We may yet see whether the jurymen of our
country will regard their oath, or will follow the religious counsel
of this religious paper.

I am not justifying slavery. I am pleading obedience to the texts
before me. Slavery may be wrong. Be it so; there is still a
_righteous_ method to get rid of it. But if slavery _is_ wrong, that
does not make violence and murder _right_.

I am not justifying the fugitive-slave Law. It may be wrong: it may
be unwise and unconstitutional. I think that any wise and modest man
would hesitate much to pronounce it unconstitutional, after its
enactment by a body of men who _aimed_ to abide by the constitution,
and who studied the matter most intensely, with every opportunity
for information and with minds trained for years in the depths of
legal science. But, be it wrong--be it unwise and unconstitutional;
there are civil courts to decide upon its constitutionality, and
no man has _any right_ to decide for _himself_ that it is
unconstitutional, and act upon that decision: if he had such a
right, then every man would be his own Lawmaker, and public
Constitution and Law would be nothing but a bugbear or a bubble! Be
it wrong; there is a peaceful, prescribed way of amending both Law
and Constitution,--and a wrong in the Law does not make
false-swearing by the juryman and murder by the fugitive _right_!

It is a most marvellous thing, what a number of clergymen north of
Mason and Dixon's line, have, all of a sudden, become such great
_Constitutional lawyers_! Never before was anything like it! It is a
modern miracle! A decision upon a great constitutional question is
nothing to them! How amazingly these profound legalists, these