falsehoods, both in relation to himself and his political friends at
the South.

So far as it affected him personally their attacks were no more than
the barking of a cur, which, by its clamor, indicates the inhospitable
character of the master who keeps him. If his friends and himself
were, as had been falsely charged, Disunionists and Nullifiers, they
might naturally have looked for kinder considerations from a party
which circulates petitions for a "prompt and peaceful dissolution of
the Union" on account of the incompatibility of the sections--from a
party, which, having proved faithless to the obligation of the
constitution in relation to the fugitive from service or labor, then
declares null and void the law which their dereliction made it
necessary for Congress to enact. The fealty of himself and friends to
the constitution, and their honorable discharge of its obligations was
their rebuke to this party, in whose hostility he found the highest
commendation in their power to bestow.

By reckless fabrication, by garbling and inserting new words into
extracts, they had attempted to deceive the people here as to his
opinions, and had crowned the fraud by the absurd announcement that
his was the creed on which the people of Maine must vote next Monday.

It was due to the hospitality which he had received at their hands
that he should not interfere in their domestic affairs, and he had not
failed to remember the obligation; when republicans had introduced the
subject of African slavery he had defended it, and answered
pharisaical pretensions by citing the Bible, the constitution of the
United States and the good of society in justification of the
institutions of the State of which he was a citizen; in this he but