"This [the slave clause of the Constitution] is the Supreme law of the land, _binding ... on the conscience_ and conduct of every individual citizen of the United States." "The shout of disapprobation with which this [the fugitive slave bill] has been received by some, has been caused ... because it is an act which can be executed ... the real objection ... is to the Constitution itself, which is supposed to be void in this particular, from the effect of some 'higher law.' It is true that the number of persons whose consciences affect to be governed by such a law [that is the law of Natural Morality and Religion], is very small. But there is a much larger number who take up opinions on trust,--and have concluded this must be a very pernicious and unjust enactment, for no other reason than because the others shout their disapprobation with such violence and vituperation." "This law is Constitutional." "The question of its Constitutionality is to be settled by the Courts, [fugitive slave bill courts,] and not by conventions either of laymen or ecclesiastics." "_We are as much bound to support this law as any other._" "The jury should regard the construction of the Constitution as given them by the court as to what is the true meaning of the words _levying war_." "In treason all are principals, and a man may be guilty of aiding and abetting, though not present." He spoke of those "associations, or conventions, which occasionally or annually infest the neighboring village of West-Chester, for the purpose of railing at and resisting the Constitution and laws of the land [that is the fugitive slave bill and other laws which annihilate a man's unalienable right to his liberty], and denouncing those who execute them as no better than a Scroggs or a Jeffreys;--who stimulate and exhort poor negroes to the perpetration of offences which they know must bring them to the penitentiary or the gallows." But he thought refusing to aid the deputy marshal in kidnapping was not an act of levying war, or treason against the United States. "In so doing he is not acting the part of an honest, loyal citizen [who ought to do any wickedness which a bum-bailiff commands]; he may be _liable to be punished for a misdemeanor for his refusal to interfere_." "But he thought the government was right "in procuring an indictment for Treason." For "meetings had been held in many places in the North, denouncing the law, and advising a traitorous resistance to its execution: conventions of infuriated fanatics had invited to acts of rebellion; and even the pulpit had been defiled with furious denunciations of the law, and exhortations to a rebellious resistance to it.