John G. Fee is driven out of his Kentucky home, and robbed of the
fruits of his life-long toil. There is no power to secure him his
home, or protect him in his rights of property or opinion. But had
John G. Fee only owned a slave, and his slave escaped, the Government,
under this law, would have followed his slave to the utmost limit of
the United States, and returned his slave to him at its own expense.
Your Honor will pardon me, (if I need pardon,) but I cannot, for the
life of me, see what there is in robbing a man of his inalienable
rights and enslaving him for life, that should entitle it to the
special and peculiar protection of national law.

I am aware, Sir, that I shall be reminded that judges, marshals,
attorneys, and many citizens, regard this law as Constitutional, and
stand ready to execute it, though it trample every principle of the
Declaration of Independence in the dust. Sir, no law can be enacted so
bad but that it will find men deluded or base enough to execute it.
The law of Egypt that consigned the new-born babe to the slaughter
found tools for its execution. The bloody decree of Herod found men
ready to obey the law of the country, though it commanded the
slaughter of the innocents of a province, Sir, tell me not of men
ready and willing to execute the law! My Redeemer, whose name I am
hardly worthy to speak, and yet whose name is all my trust, although
he knew no sin, yet he was crucified by law.

Again, Sir, it will be said that some whom the world calls Doctors of
Divinity and Doctors of Law have undertaken to prove that slavery was
guaranteed by the Constitution. If that be so, in the name of the Most
High God, tear out the red strip of blood; it was not written by the
Angel Gabriel, nor nailed to the throne of the Almighty. If slavery is