Sir, as Senator, I have taken at your desk the oath to support the Constitution, _as I understand it_. And understanding it as I do, I am bound by that oath, Mr. President, to oppose all enactments by Congress on the subject of fugitive slaves, as a flagrant violation of the Constitution; especially must I oppose the last act, as a tyrannical usurpation, kindred in character to the Stamp Act, which our fathers indignantly refused to obey. Here my duties, under the oath which I have taken as Senator, end. There is nothing beyond. They are all absorbed in the constant, inflexible, righteous obligation to oppose every exercise by Congress of any power over the subject. In no respect by that oath can I be compelled to duties _in other capacities, or as a simple citizen_, especially when revolting to my conscience. Now in this interpretation of the Constitution I may be wrong; others may differ from me; the Senator from Virginia may be otherwise minded, and the Senator from South Carolina also; and they will, each and all, act according to their respective understanding. For myself, I shall act according to mine. On this explicit statement of my constitutional obligations I stand, as upon a living rock; and to the inquiry, in whatever form addressed to my personal responsibility, whether I would aid, directly or indirectly, in reducing or surrendering a fellow-man to bondage, I reply again, "Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?" And, Sir, looking round upon this Senate, I might ask fearlessly, how many there are, even in this body,--if, indeed, there be a single Senator,--who would stoop to any such service? Until some one rises and openly confesses his willingness to become a Slave-Hunter, I will not believe there can be one. [_Here Mr. Sumner paused, but nobody rose._] And yet honorable and chivalrous Senators have rushed headlong to denounce me because I openly declared my repudiation of a service at which every manly bosom must revolt. "Sire, I have found in Bayonne good citizens and brave soldiers, _but not one executioner_," was the noble utterance of the Governor of that place to Charles the Ninth of France, in response to the royal edict for the massacre of St. Bartholomew;[84] and such a spirit, I trust, will yet animate the people of this country, when pressed to the service of "dogs." [84] Sismondi, Histoire de France, Tom. XIX. p. 177, note. To that other question which has been proposed, whether Massachusetts, by State laws, will carry out the offensive clause in the Constitution according to the understanding of the venerable Senator from South Carolina, I reply, that Massachusetts, at all times, has been ready to do her duty under the Constitution, as she understands it, and I doubt not will ever continue of this mind. More than this I cannot say.