The life and public services of Abraham Lincoln ... together with his state papers, including his speeches, addresses, messages, letters, and proclamations, and the closing scenes connected with his life and death. By Henry J. Raymond. To which are added anecdotes and personal reminiscences of President Lincoln, by Frank B. Carpenter.

STATE PAPERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 163
their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never
been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most
ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open
to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of
him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches
when I declare that "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe
I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." Those
who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made
this and many similar declarations, and had never recanted them. And
more than this, they placed in the platformt for my acceptance, and as a law
to themselves and to me, tlhe clear and emphatic resolution which I now
read:Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States,
and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclhisively, is essential to
the balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend, and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force
of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what pretext. as
among the gravest of crimes.
I now reiterate these sentiments; and, in doing so, I only press upon
the public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case is susceptible, that the property, peace, and security of no section are to be in
anywise endangered by the now incoming Administration. I add, too,
that all the protection which, consistently with the Constitution and the
laws, can be given, will be cheerfully given o all the States, when lawfully demanded, for whatever cause-as cheerfully to one section as to
another.
There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from
service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions:
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 any other.
To the proposition, then, that slaves, whose cases come within the terms
of this clause, "shall be delivered up," their oaths are unaninlmous. 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