Governor McDuffie, in his speech of 1834 to the South Carolina Legislature, characterized the Federal Constitution as "that miserable mockery of blurred, and obliterated, and tattered parchment." Judging from their conduct, the slaveholders, while fully concurring with the Governor in his contempt for the national parchment, have quite as little respect for their own State Constitution and Laws. The "tattered parchment" of which Mr. McDuffie speaks, declares that "the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States." Art. IV. Sec. 2. Notwithstanding this express provision, there are in almost every slave State, if not in all, laws for seizing, imprisoning, and then selling as slaves for life, citizens having black or yellow complexions, entering within their borders. This is done under pretence that the individuals are supposed to be fugitives from bondage. When circumstances forbid such a supposition, other devices are adopted, for nullifying the provision we have quoted. By a law of Louisiana, every free negro or mulatto, arriving on board any vessel as a _mariner_ or passenger, shall be immediately imprisoned till the departure of the vessel, when he is to be compelled to depart in her. If such free negro or mulatto returns to the State, he is to be imprisoned for FIVE years. The jailor of Savannah some time since reported TEN STEWARDS as being in his custody. These were free citizens of other States, deprived of their liberty solely on account of the complexion their Maker had given them, and in direct violation of the express language of the Federal Constitution. If any free negro or mulatto enters the State of Mississippi, for any cause however urgent, any white citizen may cause him to be punished by the Sheriff with thirty-nine lashes, and if he does not immediately thereafter leave the State, he is SOLD AS A SLAVE. In Maryland, a free negro or mulatto, coming into the State, is fined $20, and if he returns he is fined $500, and on default of payment, is sold AS A SLAVE. Truly indeed have the slaveholders rendered the Constitution a blurred, obliterated, and tattered parchment. But whenever this same Constitution can, by the grossest perversion, be made instrumental in upholding and perpetuating human bondage, then it acquires, for the time, a marvellous sanctity in their eyes, and they are seized with a holy indignation at the very suspicion of its profanation. The readiness with which Southern Governors prefer the most false and audacious claims, under color of Constitutional authority, exhibits a state of society in which truth and honor are but little respected.