"No person held to service or labor in one State,
under the laws thereof, escaping into another,
shall in consequence of any law or regulation
therein be discharged from such service or labor,
but shall be delivered up on claim of the party
to whom such service or labor may be due."

It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those
who made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves;
and the intention of the lawgiver is the law. All members
of Congress swear their support to the whole Constitution--
to this provision as much as to any other. To the proposition,
then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms of this clause
"shall be delivered up", their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they
would make the effort in good temper, could they not with nearly
equal unanimity frame and pass a law by means of which to keep good
that unanimous oath?

There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should
be enforced by national or by State authority; but surely that
difference is not a very material one. If the slave is to be
surrendered, it can be of but little consequence to him or to others
by which authority it is done. And should any one in any case be
content that his oath shall go unkept on a merely unsubstantial
controversy as to HOW it shall be kept?

Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not all the safeguards of
liberty known in civilized and humane jurisprudence to be introduced,
so that a free man be not, in any case, surrendered as a slave?
And might it not be well at the same time to provide by law for the