"We have come here not to consider particular measures of government but to assert that we have a government, not to determine whether this or that law be wise or just, but to declare that there is law, and its duties and power." "Every sovereign State has and must have the right to judge _what persons from abroad_ shall be admitted." "Are not these persons [fugitive slaves] foreigners as to us--and what right have they to come here at all, _against the will of the legislative power of the State_. [Massachusetts had no legislation forbidding them!] And if their coming here or remaining here, is not consistent with the safety of the State and the welfare of the citizens _may we not_ prohibit their coming, or _send them back_ if they come?" "_To deny this_ is to deny the right of self-preservation to a State.... It ... _throws us back at once into a condition below the most degraded savages who have a semblance of government_." "You know that the great duty of justice could not otherwise be performed, [that is without the fugitive-from-labor clause in the Constitution]; that our peace at home and our safety from foreign aggression could not otherwise be insured; and that only by this means could we obtain 'the Blessings of Liberty' to the people of Massachusetts and their posterity." "In no other way could we become an example of, and security for, the capacity of man, safely and peacefully and wisely to govern himself under free and popular institutions." So the fugitive slave bill is an argument against human depravity, showing the capacity of man to govern himself "safely and peacefully and wisely." He adds, as early as 1643 the New England colonies found it necessary "to insert an article substantially like this one," for the rendition of fugitive servants, and in 1789 the Federal government demanded that the Spaniards should surrender the fugitive slaves of Georgia. Injustice, Gentlemen, has never lacked a precedent since Cain killed Abel. Mr. Curtis continues:-- "When I look abroad over 100,000 happy homes in Massachusetts and see a people, such as the blessed sun has rarely shone upon, so intelligent and educated, moral, religious, progressive, and free to do every thing but wrong--I fear to say that I should not be in the wrong to put all this at risk, because our _passionate will_ impels us to break a promise our wise and good fathers made, not to allow a _class of foreigners_ to come here, or to _send them back if they came_." So the refusal to kidnap Ellen and William Craft came of the "_passionate will_" of the people, and is likely to ruin the happy homes of a moral and religious people!