"We can now say that there is no law of the United States which cannot be executed in Massachusetts. If there was any doubt before, _there can be no doubt now_; and if there be any wild enough hereafter to resort to a fancied 'Higher Law' to put down law [that is, the fugitive slave bill], they will find in your determined will a stronger law to sustain _all the laws of the United States_." "The threatened nullification comes from Massachusetts upon a law [the fugitive slave bill] which the whole South insist is _vital to the protection of their property and industry_ [much of their "property" and "industry" being addicted to running away]. _And shall Massachusetts nullify that law?_" "The question for us to-day is whether we will in good faith abide by, and carry out these _Peace Measures_ [for the rendition of fugitive slaves, the new establishment of Slavery in Utah and New Mexico, and the restoration of it to all the North] or whether we shall rush into renewed agitation," etc. "Resort is had to a new form of _moral treason_ which assumes by the mysterious power of a '_Higher Law_' to trample down all law [that is, the fugitive slave bill]. Some of our fellow-citizens have avowed that the fugitive slave bill is to be treated like the _Stamp Act_, and never to be enforced in Massachusetts. If that means any thing, it means that which our fathers meant when they resisted the Stamp Act and threw the tea overboard--Revolution.[181] _It_ [opposition to the fugitive slave bill] _is revolution, or it is treason. If it only resists law, and obstructs its officers, it is treason; and he who risks it, must risk hanging for it._"[182] [Footnote 181: The learned counsel for the fugitive slave bill confounds two events. The Stamp Act was passed March 22d, 1765, and repealed the 28th of the next March. The tea was destroyed December 16th, 1773.] [Footnote 182: Report in Boston Courier of November 27th, 1850.] Gentlemen, that meeting determined to execute the fugitive slave bill "with all its provisions, to the fullest extent." It is dreadful to remember the articles in the Daily Advertiser and the Courier at that period. Some of the sermons in the Churches of Commerce on the following Thursday, Thanksgiving day, were filled with the most odious doctrines of practical atheism. The "preparatory meeting" had its effect. Soon the seed bore fruit after its kind. But some ministers were faithful to their Brother and their Lord.