【正文】 up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be 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 members of Congress swear their support to the whole Constitutionto this provision as much as to any the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases e within the terms of this clause ”shall be delivered up“ their oaths are , 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 the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but little consequence to him or to others by which authority it is should anyone 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 enforcement of that clause in the Constitution which guarantees that ”the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States“?I take the official oath today with no mental reservations and with no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any hypercritical rules。and while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of Congress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much safer for all, both in official and private stations, to conform to and abide by all those acts which stand unrepealed than to violate any of them trusting to find impunity in having them held to be is seventytwo years since the first inauguration of a President under our National that period fifteen different and greatly distinguished citizens have in succession administered the executive branch of the have conducted it through many perils, and generally with great , with all this scope of precedent, I now enter upon the same task for the brief constitutional term of four years under great and peculiar disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is now formidably hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution the Union of these States is is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own to execute all the express provisions of our National Constitution, and the Union will endure forever, it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument : If the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as acontract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate itbreak it, so to speakbut does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that in legal contemplation the Union is perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union Union is much older than the was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in was further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was ”to form a more perfect Union.“But if destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the States be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union。that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void, and that acts of violence within any State or States against the authority of the United States are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to therefore consider that in view of the Constitution and the laws the Union is unbroken, and to the extent of my ability, I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part, and Ishall perform it so far as practicable unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means or in some authoritative manner direct the trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend and maintain doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts。but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people hostility to the United States in any interior locality shall be so great and universal as to prevent petent resident citizens from holding the Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people for that the strict legal right may exist in the Government to enforce the exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would be so irritating and so nearly impracticable withal that I deem it better to forego for the time the uses of such mails, unless repelled, will continue to be furnished in all parts of the far as possible the people everywhere shall have that sense of perfect security which is most favorable to calm thoug