or kills him, the Law will avenge him, just as soon as it would you
or me. He is _not_ made an outlaw: common sense knows better.

The matter before us is a very serious matter. The wicked
principles of which I have spoken, disguise it as you will, tend
directly to anarchy, confusion, and civil war! The question _is
not_, whether slavery is right, or the Fugitive Slave Law right. It
draws deeper. The question is, shall Law be put in force, and the
government of the country stand; or shall Law be resisted, and the
government of the country disobeyed, and the nation plunged into all
the horrors of civil war? If Law cannot be executed, it is time to
write the epitaph of your country!

Suffer me to utter a few words of earnest counsel to you, my beloved
people.

1. Beware of the influence of _mere feeling_ on this serious
subject. Your feelings may be with the slave,--so are mine, so are
those of most of the Southern people. We all want men to be free;
and _no more_ do we want it now, than did the inhabitants of this
country before we were born: the extravagant fanaticism and noisy
zeal of the Northern abolitionists have not increased the sentiment
of the country in favour of freedom a single item. But what can we
_do_? This is a very grave and difficult subject. One thing is
certain,--the perpetual abuse of our Southern brethren, violence,
disunion, and bloody murder will do us no good,--whether we are
bondmen or freemen. And when we think on this subject, let us aim to
be cool, unimpassioned, deliberate, and give reason and religion
their just influence over us.