the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress. You brought Slavery into Congress, when, at different times, you usurped a power, not given by the Constitution, over fugitive slaves, and by most offensive legislation thrust your arms into distant Northern homes. You brought Slavery into Congress, when, by express legislation, you regulated the coastwise slave trade, and thus threw the national shield over a traffic on the coast of the United States, which on the coast of Congo you justly brand as "piracy." You brought Slavery into Congress, when, from time to time, you sought to introduce new States with slaveholding Constitutions into the National Union. And, permit me to say, sir, you brought Slavery into Congress when you called upon it, as you have done even at this very session, to pay for slaves-and thus, in defiance of a cardinal principle of the Constitution, pressed the National Government to recognize property in men. And yet the Senator from Louisiana, with strange simplicity, says that the South only asks to be let alone. Sir, the honorable Senator borrows the language of the North, which, at each of these usurpations, exclaims, "Let us alone." And let me say, frankly, that peace can never prevail until you do let us alone- until this subject of Slavery is banished from Congress by the triumph of Freedom until Slavery is driven from its usurped foothold, and Freedom is made national instead of sectional and until the National Government is brought back to the precise position it occupied on the day that Washington took his first oath as President of the United States, when there was no Fugitive Act, and the national flag, as it floated over the national territory, within the jurisdiction of Congress, nowhere covered a single slave.

And now, sir, as an effort in the true direction of the Constitution; in the hope of beginning the divorce of the National Government from Slavery, and to remove all occasion for the proposed measure under consideration, I shall close what I have to say with a motion to repeal the Fugitive Act. Twice already, since I have had the honor of a seat on this floor, I have pressed that question to a vote, and I mean to press it again to-night. After the protracted discussion, involving the character of this enactment, such a motion seems logically to belong to this occasion, and may fitly close its proceedings.

At a former session, on introducing this proposition, I discussed it at length, in an argument, which I fearlessly assert has never been answered, and now, in this debate, I have already touched upon various objections. There are yet other things which might be urged. I might exhibit the abuses which have occurred under the Fugitive Act; the number of free persons it has doomed to Slavery; the riots it has provoked; the brutal conduct of its officers; the distress it has scattered; the derangement of business it has caused, interfering even with the administration of justice, changing court-houses into barracks and barracoons, and filling the streets with armed men, amidst which law is silent. All these things I might expose. But in these hurried moments, I forbear. Suffice it to say, that the proposition to repeal the existing Fugitive Act stands on adamantine grounds, which no debate or opposition can shake.

There are considerations belonging to the present period which give new strength to this proposition. Public Opinion, which, under a popular Goverment,

makes and unmakes laws, and which for a time, was passive and acquiescent, now lifts itself everywhere in the States where the act is sought to be enforced, and demands a change. Already three States, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Michigan, by formal resolutions presented to the Senate, have concurred in this demand. The tribunals of law are joining at last with the people. The Superior Court of Cincinnati has denied the power of Congress over this subject. And now, almost while I speak, comes the solemn judgment of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin a sovereign State of this Union made after elaborate argument, on successive occasions, before a single judge, and then before the whole bench, declaring this act to be a violation of the Constitution. In response to public opinion, broad and general, if not universal at the North, swelling alike from village and city, from the seaboard and lakes — judically attested, legislatively declared, and represented, also, by numerous petitions from good men without distinction of party-in response to this Public Opinion, as well as in obedience to my own fixed convictions, I deem it my duty not to lose this opportunity of pressing the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act once more upon the Senate. I move, sir, to strike out all after the enacting clause in the pending Bill, and insert instead thereof these words:

"That the Act of Congress, approved September 18, 1850, usually known as the Fugitive Slave Act,' be, and the same hereby is repealed."

And on this motion I ask the yeas and nays.

When Mr. Sumner took his seat, he was followed by Mr. Butler of South Carolina, who put a question to him, which was the occasion of the following dialogue.

Mr. SUMNER. The Senator asks me a question, and I answer, frankly, that no temptation, no inducement, would draw me in any way to sanction the return of any man to Slavery. But then I leave to others to speak for themselves. In this respect, I speak for

myself.

Mr. BUTLER. I do not rise now at all to question the right of the gentleman from Massachusetts to hold his seat, under the obligation of the Constitution of the United States, with the opinions which he has expressed; but, if I understand him, he means that, whether this law, or that law, or any other law prevails, he disregards the obligations of the Constitution of the United States.

Mr. SUMNER. Not at all. That I never said. I recognize the obligations of the Constitution.

:

Mr. BUTLER. But, sir, I will ask that gentleman one question if it devolved upon him as a representative of Massachusetts, all Federal laws being put out of the way, would he recommend any law for the delivery of a Fugitive Slave under the Constitution of the United States?

Mr. SUMNER.

Mr. BUTLER.

Never.

I knew that. Now, sir, I have got exactly what is the truth, and what I intend shall go forth to the Southern States.

WAGES OF SEAMEN IN CASE OF WRECK.

SPEECH IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, 28TH FEBRU ARY, 1855, on INTRODUCING A BILL TO SECURE WAGES TO

SEAMEN IN CASE OF WRECK.

On the 28th February, 1855, Mr. Sumner, in pursuance of previous notice, asked and obtained leave to introduce a Bill to secure wages to seamen in case of wreck, which was read twice by its title.

MR. SUMNER. - In introducing this Bill, I desire to make a brief explanation, which shall, at least, be a record of my views with regard to it.

The Bill proposes an amelioration of the existing maritime law in respect to the wages of merchant seamen, which, so far as England is concerned, has already been made by Act of Parliament, and which, in our country, can only be accomplished by Act of Congress.

By the existing maritime law, the seaman's wages depend upon a technical rule, which sometimes occasions hardships. Freight is compendiously said to bę the mother of wages. In conformity with this fanciful idea, the wages are made to depend upon the earning of freight, unless the freight has been waived by agree