enforced by fire and sword, and that the President and Senate maintain and uphold the slaveholding interests in these culminating demonstrations of their power, while the House of Representatives lacks the power, because it is wanting in the virtue, to rescue the interests of justice, freedom, and humanity? Who can wonder that federal courts in Massachusetts indict defenders of freedom for sedition, and in Pennsylvania subvert the State tribunals, and pervert the _habeas corpus_, the great writ of Liberty, into a process for arresting fugitive slaves, and construe into contempt, punishable by imprisonment without bail or mainprize, the simple and truthful denial of personal control over a fugitive female slave, who has made her own voluntary escape from bondage? Who can wonder that in Kansas lawyers may not plead or juries be empannelled in the Federal Courts, nor can even citizens vote, without first swearing to support the Fugitive Slave Law and the Kansas and Nebraska act, while citizens who discuss through the press the right of slaveholders to domineer there, are punished with imprisonment or death; free bridges, over which citizens who advocate free institutions, may pass, free taverns where they may rest, and free presses through which they may speak, are destroyed under indictments for nuisances; and those who peacefully assemble to debate the grievances of that class, and petition Congress for relief, are indicted for high treason? "Just now, the wind sets with some apparent steadiness at the North, and you will readily confess therefore that I do not exaggerate the growing aggrandizement of the slaveholding class, but you will nevertheless insist that that aggrandizement is now and may be merely temporary and occasional. A moment's reflection, however, will satisfy you that this opinion is profoundly untrue. What is now seen is only the legitimate maturing of errors unresisted through a period of more than thirty years. All the fearful evils now upon us are only the inevitable results of efforts to extinguish, by delays, concession, and compromises, a discussion to which justice, reason and humanity, are continually lending their elemental fires.