[1] They have multiplied their slaves by millions, and are
every day increasing their numbers, and extending their field into
the wilderness. Under these circumstances, are we bound to be their
field-drivers and pound-keepers any longer? Answer me, people of
Massachusetts! Are you the sons of the men of 1776? Or do you 'lack
gall, to make oppression bitter?'
[Footnote 1: The Hon. Josiah Quincy, while in Congress, always
opposed the annexation of foreign territory to the United States, on
the ground of its unconstitutionality.]
"I have pointed out your burden. I have shown you that it is
insupportable. I shall be asked how we are to get rid of it. It is
not for a private individual to point the path which a State is to
pursue, to cast off an insupportable burden; it belongs to the
constituted authorities of that State. But this I will say, that if
the people of Massachusetts solemnly adopt, as one man, in the
spirit of their fathers, the resolve that they will no longer submit
to this burden, and will call upon the Free States to concur in this
resolution, and carry it into effect, the burden will be cast off;
the fugitive-slave clause will be obliterated, not only without the
dissolution of the Union, but with a newly-acquired strength to the
Union.
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