Now, my friends, it will be perceived upon an examination of these
questions and answers, that so far I have only answered that I was not
_pledged_ to this, that, or the other. The Judge has not framed his
interrogatories to ask me anything more than this, and I have answered
in strict accordance with the interrogatories, and have answered truly
that I am not _pledged_ at all upon any of the points to which I have
answered. But I am not disposed to hang upon the exact form of his
interrogatory. I am really disposed to take up at least some of these
questions, and state what I really think upon them.

As to the first one, in regard to the Fugitive Slave law, I have never
hesitated to say, and I do not now hesitate to say, that I think, under
the Constitution of the United States, the people of the Southern
States are entitled to a Congressional Fugitive Slave law. Having said
that, I have had nothing to say in regard to the existing Fugitive
Slave law, further than that I think it should have been framed so as
to be free from some of the objections that pertain to it, without
lessening its efficiency. And inasmuch as we are now not in an
agitation in regard to an alteration or modification of that law, I
would not be the man to introduce it as a new subject of agitation upon
the general question of slavery.

In regard to the other question, of whether I am pledged to the
admission of any more slave States into the Union, I state to you very
frankly that I would be exceedingly sorry ever to be put in a position
of having to pass upon that question. I should be exceedingly glad to
know that there would never be another slave State admitted into the
Union; but I must add, that if slavery shall be kept out of the
Territories during the territorial existence of any one given
Territory, and then the people shall, having a fair chance and a clear