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 Copy 1 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OP 
 
 n HON. THEOPHILUS C. CALLICOT 
 
 OF KINGS, 
 
 AGAINST THE 
 
 PERSONAL LIBERTY BILL. 
 
 IN ASSEMBLY, MARCH 14, 1860. 
 
 ALBANY : 
 
 COMSTOCK & CASSIDY, PRINTEES, 
 1860. 
 
 N v 
 
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 SPEECH 
 
 IN ASSEMBLY, Febetjabt 3, 1860. 
 Introduced on notice by Mr. POWERS — read twice and referred to a select 
 committee — reported favorably from said committee, and committed to the com- 
 mittee of the whole. 
 
 AN ACT 
 To secure freedom to all persons within this State. 
 
 The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as 
 follows : 
 
 Section 1. Every person who shall come or be brought into this State shall be 
 free. 
 
 § 2. Every person who shall hold, or attempt to hold, in this state, any person as 
 a slave in anv form, or under any pretence, or for any time, however short, shall be 
 deemed guilty of felony, and confined in the state prison, at hard labor, for a term 
 not less than two, nor more than ten years, and shall also be liable to the party 
 aggrieved for damages in the sum of one thousand dollars. 
 
 § 3. This act shall take effect immediately. 
 
 In Assembly, March 14, 1860. 
 
 The above bill commonly known as the " personal liberty bill," 
 being the special order for this day, and the House having re- 
 solved itself into committe of the whole thereon, 
 
 Mr. Callicot said : — I have not deemed it proper to waste the 
 time of the committee, Mr. Chairman, by attempting to amend this 
 bill, but I now move to strike out the enacting clause. A measure 
 so thoroughly and so radically wrong is past all amendment, and 
 should be wholly rejected. The fact that similar statutes have 
 been enacted in some of the other States in the Union, is no excuse 
 for staining the pages of our statute book by such an enactment. 
 
Let us not forget the Latin proverb, aliena optimum frui insanict, 
 that it is best to profit by the madness of others, and let us give 
 to the world a new proof of the Horatian maxim — 
 
 Aliena opprobria scepe 
 Absierrent vitiis — 
 
 that the disgrace of others deters us from crime. If the fanatics of 
 New England and other abolitionized States, have legislated to 
 nullify the constitutional act of Congress, let us not follow their 
 traitorous example, let us not share in their shame and disgrace, 
 but rather let us remember that we are Americans as well as New 
 Yorkers — that we are law-abiding citizens of the United States, as 
 well as of the State of New York ; let us take an honest and a 
 patrotic pride in declaring that our great State yields a loyal and 
 cheerful and ready obedience to the federal law, and is faithful to 
 the letter and the spirit of the federal constitution. 
 
 Sir, the law-making power of this State, so far a.s it can be con- 
 stitutionally exercised in regard to the subject matter of this bill, 
 lias already been exhausted. Our law now provides that even- 
 person brought into this State as a slave shall be free. If gentle- 
 men will take the trouble to look at the Revised Statutes, (Part 
 I, chapter xx title 7, section 1 ) they will find these words : — 
 
 "No person held as a slave shall be imported, introduced or 
 brought into this State on any pretence whatever. 
 Every Buch person shall be tree. Every person held as a slave 
 who hath been introduced or brought into this State contrary to 
 
 the laws in force at tlie time shall bo free." 
 
 Prior to the year L841, there were two exceptions to this statute. 
 The first exception provided that persons emigrating into this State 
 and bringing with them any person lawfully held in slavery in the 
 State from whence they emigrated, might retain Buch persons, not 
 as slaves, bul as apprentices, until they arrived at of 
 
 twenty-one. The other exception was that any person, not being 
 an inhabitant of the State, who should be travelling to or from 
 or passing through the State, might bring with him any person 
 lawfully held by him in slavery in the Statu from whence be came, 
 and mighl take Buch person with him from this State ; but the 
 person so held in slavery should not reside or continue in this 
 
State, more than nine months, and if such residence was continued 
 beyond that time such person should be free. 
 
 It was in reference to this last mentioned exception that William 
 H. Seward wrote his famous letter to William Jay and Gerrit 
 Smith, in October, 1848. when he said : — 
 
 " I am not convinced that it would be either wise, expedient or 
 humane to declare to our fellow citizens of the Southern and South- 
 western States that if they travel to or from or pass through the 
 State of New York, they shall not bring with them the attendants 
 whom custom or education or habit may have rendered necessary 
 to them. I have not been able to discover any good object to be 
 attained by such an act of inhospitality." 
 
 That was, in 1838, the deliberately expressed opinion of the 
 same William H. Seward who is now the chief leader of the party 
 represented by the majority on this floor. But the Abolitionists 
 soon became a political faction of considerable influence in the 
 State, and to secure their votes Mr. Seward found it convenient 
 to change his opinion, and he and his followers have descended 
 from bad to worse until they have finally consolidated themselves 
 with the Abolitionists and formed the Black Republican party 
 which is based upon the one idea of hospitality to the South. 
 
 Both the exceptions I have referred to were repealed by chapter 
 247 of the laws of 1841, and our statute now stands simply and 
 precisely as I have quoted. No further legislation then, is needed 
 to secure freedom to every person brought into this State as a 
 slave, and what we are asked to do by the petitioners for this so- 
 called " personal liberty bill " is to enact that every person who 
 comes into this State shall be free — that every person who comes 
 into this State as a fugitive slave or otherwise shall thereupon 
 ipso facto be emancipated and declared free. 
 
 Now, sir, let us look at the Constitution of the United States. 
 That sacred instrument which we have all sworn to support, pro- 
 vides (art. 4, sec. 2, sub. 3) that — 
 
 " 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 r on claim of the party to whom such service 
 or labor may be due." 
 
And it further provides (Art. 6, sub. 2,) that — 
 '•This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which 
 shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which 
 shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be 
 the supreme law of the land, and the Judge in every State shall 
 be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or in the laws of 
 any State to the contrary notwithstanding." 
 
 The articles I have first cited (Art. 4) was in its substance unani- 
 mously adopted by the Convention which framed the Constitution 
 (Journal of Convention 307,) and its meaning is so clear that it 
 would seem to be a work of supererogation to explain it, but since 
 the majority of the select committee who reported this bill have 
 attempted to argue that by the words " persons held to service 
 and labor " the Constitution does not mean slaves, I shall read 
 from a few authorities which are unquestionably entitled to 
 respect. 
 
 Mr. Justice Story, the most illustrious writer on jurisprudence 
 whom our country has produced, says in his learned Commentaries 
 on the Constitution of the United States, Vol. Ill, § 1805 :— 
 
 " This clause was introduced into the Constitution solely for 
 the benefit of the Blave-holding States to enable them to reclaim 
 their fugitive Blaves who should have escaped into other States, 
 where slavery was not tolerated. The want of such a provision 
 under the Confederation was felt, as a grievous inconvenience, by 
 the slave-holding States, since in many States no aid whatsoever 
 would bo allowed to the owners and sometimes indeed they met 
 with open resistance." 
 
 In Thoma Simn 8 (7 Cushing's Rep. 285,) Chief Justice 
 
 Shaw, delivering the opinion of the Supreme Judicial Court of 
 M isachusetts, at the March term, 1851, after reviewing the 
 circumstances under which this provision o[' the Constitution was 
 adopted, the relation 9 as to each other, and the 
 
 manifest object which the framere Of the Constitution had in 
 view, said : — 
 
 " We are to look at the clans.' in question to ascertain its true 
 
 meaning and effect. We think it was intended to guaranty that 
 no 81 aid make its own territory an asylum and sanctuary 
 
 for fugitive by any law or regulation by which a si 
 
 who had i waj ed fi s ate where be owed labor or service, 
 
 into such State or territory, should uvoid being reclaimed ; it wua 
 
designed also to provide a practicable and peaceable mode, by 
 which such fugitive, upon the claim of the person to whom such 
 labor or service should be due, might be delivered up. * 
 
 '* It could not but have been known, to the framers of the Con- 
 stitution, that in the States where slavery was allowed by law, 
 certain rights attached to its citizens which were recognized by 
 the law of nations, and which could not be taken away without 
 their consent. They, therefore, provided for the limited enjoy- 
 ment of that right, as it existed before, so as to prevent persons 
 owing service under the laws of one State, and escaping there- 
 from into another, from being discharged by the laws of the latter, 
 and authorized the general government to prescribe means for 
 their restoration. * * The regulation of slavery, 
 
 so far as to prohibit States by law from harboring fugitive slaves, 
 was an essential element in its formation; and the union intended 
 to be established by it was essentially necessary to the peace, 
 happiness and highest prosperity of all the States. In this spirit, 
 and with these views steadily in prospect, it seems to be the duty 
 of all judges and magistrates to expound and apply these pro- 
 visions in the Constitution and laws of the United States ; and in 
 this spirit it behoves all persons, bound to obey the laws of the 
 United States, to consider and regard them." 
 
 In the U. S. Circuit Court for the Seventh Circuit, in the case 
 of Gilmer vs. Gorham et al., which was an action to recover the 
 value of certain fugitive slaves from Kentucky, who had been 
 rescued from the claimant by a force of abolitionists in Michigan, 
 Mr. Justice McLean, charging the jury, said : — 
 
 The defendants' counsel, to some extent, have discussed the 
 abstract principle of slavery. It is not the province of this Court, 
 or of this jury, to deal in abstractions of any kind. With the 
 policy of the local laws of the States, we have nothing to do. 
 However unjust and impolitic slavery may be, yet the people of 
 Kentucky, in their sovereign capacity, have adopted it. And you 
 are sworn to decide this case according to law — the law of Ken- 
 tucky as to slavery, and the provisions of the Constitution, and 
 the act of Congress in regard to the reclamation of fugitives from 
 labor. This provision of the Constitution is a guaranty to the 
 slave States that no act should be done by the free States to dis- 
 charge from service in any other State any one who might escape 
 therefrom, but that such fugitive should be delivered up on claim 
 being made. This clause was deemed so important that, as a 
 matter of history, we know the Constitution could not have been 
 adopted without it. As a part of that instrument, it is as binding 
 upon Courts and juries as any other part of it. 
 
8 
 
 In the lucid and elaborate charge delivered to the grand jury, 
 at the April term 1S51, of the Circuit Court of the United States 
 for the Southern District of New York, Mr. Justice Nelson said : 
 
 " At the time of the adoption of the Constitution by the Con- 
 vention, on the 17th of September, 1787, slavery existed, I believe, 
 to an extent more or less in each of the States then composing 
 the Confederacy. About one-fifteenth of the population of New 
 York were slaves ; the proportion in the New England States and 
 Pennsylvania was much less ; and in New Jersey about the same 
 as in New York. All the original States therefore, were interest- 
 ed more or less, in the adoption of this provision into the Con- 
 stitution, but more especially the Southern States where, speaking 
 generally and without strict accuracy, about half the population 
 consisted of this class. It was, however, anticipated that, in the 
 progress of time, slavery, while it would increase in the South, 
 would diminish and finally become extinguished in the North. 
 
 " So just was this provision regarded at the time by the mem- 
 bers of the Convention, and so necessary for the security of this 
 species of labor, and the existence of friendly relations between 
 the different members of the Union, that it was adopted without 
 opposition, and by a unanimous vote. It was of the deepest in- 
 terest to the Southern Stales, as, without this provision, every 
 non-slaveholding State in the Union would have been at liberty, 
 according to the general law of nations, to have declared free all 
 runaway slaves coming within its limits, and to have given them 
 harbor and protection against the claims of their masters. I 
 need not say, at this day, that such a state of things would have 
 led inevitably to the bitterest animosities, especially between 
 border States, and have been the source of perpetual strife, and 
 of the fiercest passions, between the Northern and Southern por- 
 tions of the Union. The evil was felt at the time by the Southern 
 portion, as the Articles of Confederation contained no such pro- 
 vision ; and it was to guard against that evil, and to lay a founda- 
 tion that would afford future security, and preserve friendly 
 
 relations and intercourse "I' the States, that the provision was 
 incorporated into the fundamental law. No one conversant with 
 the history of the Convention, and particularly with the difficul- 
 ties that surrounded this subject in almost every Btage of its pro- 
 ceedings, can doubt for a moment, thai without this, or some 
 equivalent provision, the constitution would never have been 
 torme. l. [t was of the la.-t importance to the Southern portion 
 of the Qnion, and could cot have been surrendered without 
 endangering their whole interest in this species* of property. It 
 it not surprising, then-tore, that it is still adhered to with unyield- 
 ing resolution, and is made the groundwork of a question upon 
 
which the continual existence of a Union thus formed is made to 
 depend." 
 
 But, sir, there is another and a later authority on this point — 
 an authority to which it is probable the majority on this floor 
 will bow with greater deference than to our wisest jurists and 
 highest tribunals — I mean the Hon. William H. Seward. In his 
 elaborate speech delivered before the U. S. Senate on the 29th of 
 February of the present year, — a speech of which I observe, 
 thousands of copies are being distributed through the post-office 
 here by the Republican members of this Assembly at the expense 
 of the State Treasury, — he says: — 
 
 " Each State reserved to itself exclusive political power over the 
 subject of slavery within its own borders. Nevertheless, it un- 
 avoidably presented itself in their consultations on a bond of Fede- 
 ral Union. The new government was to be a representative one. 
 Slaves were capital in some States, in others capital had no in- 
 vestments in labor. Should those slaves be represented as capi- 
 tal or as persons, taxed as capital or as persons, or should they 
 not be represented or taxed at all ? The fathers disagreed, de- 
 bated long, and compromised at last. Each State, they determined, 
 shall have two Senators in Congress. Three-fifths of the slaves 
 shall be elsewhere represented and be taxed as persons. What 
 should be done if the slave should escape into a labor State ? 
 Should that State confess him to be a chattel, and restore him as 
 such, or might it regard him as a person and harbor and protect 
 him as a man 1 They compromised again, and decided that no 
 person held to labor or service in one State, by the laws thereof, 
 escaping into another, shall, by any law or regulation of that 
 State, be discharged from such labor or service, but shall be de- 
 livered up on claim to the person to whom such labor or service 
 shall be due." 
 
 Even Mr. Seward is obliged to admit this much, and he cannot 
 be brought forward to sustain the majority of the select committee 
 who reported this bill, in their assertion that the clause of the 
 Constitution respecting persons held to service and labor does not 
 relate to fugitive slaves. 
 
 The fugitive slave law of 1850, which is now the supreme law of 
 the land, is amendatory of and supplementary to the act of Con- 
 gress entitled " An Act respecting fugitives from justice and per- 
 sons escaping from the service of their masters," approved Febru- 
 ary 12th, 1793. That act was a contemporaneous exposition of the 
 2 
 
constitutional provision. It was " a law approved by Washington 
 and Adams and enacted by the fathers and founders of the repub- 
 lic." It was passed about four years after the adoption of the Con- 
 stitution, by a Congress which included some of the most distin- 
 guished members of the Convention, and it would be absurd to 
 suppose that they did not understand the true meaning and intent 
 of the instrument they had framed, better than the wisest and most 
 learned of the members of this House. With all due respect to 
 the honorable gentleman from Ontario, (Mr. Powell,) the honorable 
 gentleman from Chautauqua (Mr. H. Smith,) and the honorable 
 gentleman from Washington (Mr. Savage,) who reported favorably 
 upon this bill, I cannot prefer their construction of the Constitu- 
 tion to that which was placed upon it by the very men who par- 
 ticipated in its formation. If I am to be guided by modern lights, 
 I choose to follow the judiciary rather than laymen whose know- 
 ledge of constitutional law is so questionable. I look to the Courts 
 as the best and safest exponents. 
 
 In the 12th of Wendell, page 316, I find that in a case which 
 arose in 1834, under the fugitive slave law of 1793, our Supreme 
 Court held that — 
 
 " The claim or title of the owner remains as perfect within the 
 jurisdiction of the State to which the fugitive has fled, after his 
 arrival and during his continuanco, as it was in and under the laws 
 of the State from which ho escaped. The service there due and 
 the escape being established, so explicit are the terms of the Con- 
 stitution, n<> rightful authority can be exercised by tho Stat' 
 vary the relation existing between the parties." 
 
 And again, the Court held in tho same case, (Jack vs. Martin,) 
 that tho clause of tho Constitution under which the fugitive slavo 
 law was passed, is " prohibitory upon tho States, and forbids tho 
 enactmenl of any law, or the adoption of any regulation in the 
 case of a fugitive slave, by which he may bo discharged from tho 
 service of his master : and this prohibition upon the State power 
 L8 unqualified and complete.'" In tho more rocont caso of Henry 
 v. Lowell, reported in the 10th volume of Barbour, page 208, tho 
 Supremo Court, in general term at Oswego, April 1853, Justico 
 Gridley, W. F. Allen, Hubbard and Pratt being present, unani- 
 mously decided that tho fugitivo slavo law of 1850 was constitu- 
 
11 
 
 tional. Mr. Justice G-ridley, who delivered the opinion of the 
 
 court, said : — 
 
 " It is insisted by the plaintiffs counsel that the act of Congress 
 known as the fugitive slave act is unconstitutional and void j and 
 therefore that the defendant cannot justify under it. It is not, 
 however, explained in what respect, or on what grounds, the act 
 in question is in violation of the Constitution. The former act of 
 1793 was adjudged to be in harmony with the Constitution in the 
 case of Prigg vs. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, (16 Peters, 
 239,) by the highest tribunal known to our law, and that decision 
 has been re-affirmed in the 5th of Howard's Rep., 215. No impor- 
 tant distinction has been pointed out by the counsel between that 
 act and the act of 1850, and we do not perceive any bearing on the 
 question of constitutionality. In several cases that have occurred, 
 the provisions of the present law have been drawn in question, and 
 the act has been declared constitutional by Justice Curtis and 
 Justice Nelson of the Supreme Court of the United States, by the 
 Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and by other eminent Judges 
 before whom the question has been raised. This uniform current 
 of authority may well excuse us from a discussion of the question 
 upon principle." 
 
 These views of the constitutionality of the fugitive slave law 
 are in harmony with the older decisions of Chief Justice Parker, 
 of Massachusetts, (Commonwealth vs. Griffith, 2 Pick., 11 ;) Chief 
 Justice Tilghman, of Pennsylvania, (Wright vs. Deacon, 5 S. & R., 
 62,) and Mr. Justice Washington, of the U. S. Supreme Court on 
 the circuit, (Hill vs. Low, 4 Wash., C. C, 327.) As Judge McLean 
 has well said, in the case of Miller vs. Querry, (5 McLean's Rep., 
 469,) " such a weight of authority is not to be shaken. If this 
 question is not to be considered authoritatively settled, what part 
 of that instrument can ever be settled ?" 
 
 The conflict between this bill and the act of Congress is so 
 direct that if it is passed and attempted to be enforced, there 
 must be a struggle between the State and Federal authoritie s 
 which will result in the most disastrous consequences. The 
 fugitive slave law, enacted by Congress in 1850, subjects to fine 
 and imprisonment, and also to civil damages to the party ag- 
 grieved, any and every person who shall knowingly obstruct, 
 hinder or prevent the claimant, or his agent, from arresting the 
 fugitive, either with or without process, or who shall rescue or 
 
12 
 
 attempt to rescue the same from the custody of the claimant or 
 his agent, or who shall aid or assist, directly or indirectly, in the 
 escape of the fugitive, or who shall harbor or conceal the same, 
 so as to prevent the discovery and arrest, after notice that such 
 person is a fugitive from service. The bill which we are now 
 asked to pass provides that " every person who shall hold, or at- 
 tempt to hold, in this State, any person as a slave, or under any 
 pretence, or for any time, however short, shall be deemed guilty 
 of felony, and confined in the State Prison, at hard labor, for a 
 term not less than two, nor more than ten years, and shall also be 
 liable to the party aggrieved for damages, in the sum of one 
 thousand dollars." So that if this bill i3 passed, there will be a 
 State law to punish any claimant who arrests a fugitive within 
 this State, while the act of Congress declares that whoever hinders 
 the claimant from arresting the fugitive, shall be fined, imprisoned 
 mulcted in damages ! 
 
 Even supposing that a State law so obviously in conflict with 
 the Federal law, could be enforced effectually, there are reasons of 
 expediency which should deter us from its enactment. If we 
 make the State of New York a secure place of refuge for fugitive 
 slaves, we may expect an influx of colored population, which it is 
 our true policy to discourage rather than invite. If under the 
 regime of the Republican party, the Constitution is to be so amend- 
 ed as to allow all the adult male negroes in the State to vote, 
 and all tho slaves who escape from their masters, and take 
 refuge here, are to be protected from reclamation, New York will 
 become a negro paradise, and our population will be as mongrel 
 as that of Mexico or South America. 
 
 But, Sir, I will not trespass upon the time of tho committee by 
 urging considerations of expediency. I am willing to rest my 
 opposition to the bill on linn, constitutional ground. 
 
 The act of Congress being clearly constitutional, and being the 
 Supreme law of the land, tin: majority hero will violate their oaths 
 and will be morally guilty of both perjury and treason if they 
 pass this " personal liberty bill " to nullify that act. If this bill 
 i- placed on OUT statute book, it will threaten with criminal 
 
13 
 
 punishment all who dare to do their duty in obedience to the 
 federal law, it will challenge and provoke a conflict between the 
 State and federal authorities which may terminate in bloodshed 
 and all the horrors of civil war. It will be a usurpation of power, 
 openly defying and setting aside the constitutional authority of 
 the federal government, and tending to subvert the supremacy of 
 the laws and the integrity of the Union. 
 
 Let me then appeal to gentlemen to pause ere they give their 
 votes to such a disgraceful and disastrous measure. Let me en- 
 treat them to remember that they are sitting here under the 
 sanction of their constitutional oaths, and that they have a higher 
 duty to perform than any supposed obligation to a party which 
 panders to fanaticism for the purpose of securing the suffrages of 
 political abolitionists. Let me hope that there will be enough 
 votes to aid the Democracy in defeating this bill from those 
 moderate Republicans who feel that their adherance to party is 
 of less importance than their regard for the honor and welfare of 
 the State, their obedience to the supreme law of the land, their 
 fidelity to the constitution, and their duty to the whole Union. 
 
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