To make a law final, so as not to be reached by Congress, is, by mere legislation, to fasten a new provision on the Constitution. Nay, more; it gives to the law a character which the very Constitution does not possess. The wise Fathers did not treat the country as a Chinese foot, never to grow after infancy; but, anticipating progress, they declared expressly that their great Act is not final. According to the Constitution itself, there is not one of its existing provisions--not even that with regard to fugitives from labor--which may not at all times be reached by amendment, and thus be drawn into debate. This is rational and just. Sir, nothing from man's hands, nor law nor constitution, can be final. Truth alone is final.
Inconsistent and absurd, this effort is tyrannical also. The responsibility for the recent Slave Act, and for Slavery everywhere within the jurisdiction of Congress, necessarily involves the right to discuss them. To separate these is impossible. Like the twenty-fifth rule[104] of the House of Representatives against petitions on Slavery,--now repealed and dishonored,--the Compromise, as explained and urged, is a curtailment of the actual powers of legislation, and a perpetual denial of the indisputable principle, that the right to deliberate is coextensive with the responsibility for an act. To sustain Slavery, it is now proposed to trample on _free speech_. In any country this would be grievous; but here, where the Constitution expressly provides against abridging freedom of speech, it is a special outrage. In vain do we condemn the despotisms of Europe, while we borrow the rigors with which they repress Liberty, and guard their own uncertain power. For myself, in no factious spirit, but solemnly and in loyalty to the Constitution, as a Senator of the United States, representing a free Commonwealth, I protest against this wrong. On Slavery, as on every other subject, I claim the right to be heard. That right I cannot, I will not abandon. "Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties":[105] these are glowing words, flashed from the soul of John Milton in his struggles with English tyranny. With equal fervor they should be echoed now by every American not already a slave.