There is an argument against it which has especial importance at this moment, when the Fugitive Act is made the occasion of new assault on State Rights. _This very Act is an assumption by Congress of power not delegated to it under the Constitution, and an infraction of rights secured to the States._ You will mark, if you please, the double aspect of this proposition, in asserting not only an assumption of power by Congress, but an infraction of State Rights. And this proposition, I venture to say, defies answer or cavil. Show me, Sir, if you can, the clause, sentence, or word in the Constitution which gives to Congress any power to legislate on this subject. I challenge honorable Senators to produce it. I fearlessly assert that it cannot be found. The obligations imposed by the "fugitive" clause, _whatever they may be_,[171] rest upon States, and not upon Congress. I do not now undertake to say what these obligations are,--but simply, that, whether much or little, they rest upon States. And this interpretation is sustained by the practice of Congress on another kindred question. The associate clause touching "privileges of citizens" is never made a source of power. It will be in the recollection of the Senate, that, during the last session, the Senator from Louisiana [Mr. BENJAMIN], in answer to a question from me, openly admitted that there were laws of the Southern States, bearing hard upon colored citizens of the North, which were unconstitutional; but when I pressed the honorable Senator with the question, whether he would introduce or sustain a bill to carry out the clause of the Constitution securing to these citizens their rights, he declined to answer. [171] Here, as in other places, Mr. Sumner did not recognize that the language of the Constitution was applicable to "fugitive slaves." MR. BENJAMIN. I think, Mr. President, I have a right to set the record straight upon that point. I rose in the Senate on the occasion referred to, as will be perfectly well recollected by every Senator present, and put a respectful question to the Senator from Massachusetts. Instead of a reply to my question, he put a question to me, which I answered, and then I put my question. Instead of replying to that, he again put a question to me. Considering that as an absolute evasion of the question which I put to him, I declined having anything further to say in the discussion.