" That is another one of the demands of
an extremist and rebel. The Constitution of the United States, article
four, section two, says:
"A person charged in any State with treason, felony, or other crime, who
shall flee from justice and be found in another State, shall, on demand
of the executive authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered
up to be removed to the State having jurisdiction of the crime." But the
non-slave-holding States, treacherous to their oaths and compacts, have
steadily refused, if the criminal only stole a negro, and that negro was
a slave, to deliver him up. It was refused twice on the requisition of
my own State as long as twenty-two years ago. It was refused by Kent and
by Fairfield, Governors of Maine, and representing, I believe, each
of the then Federal parties. We appealed then to fraternity, but we
submitted; and this constitutional right has been practically a dead
letter from that day to this. The next case came up between us and the
State of New York, when the present senior Senator (Mr. Seward) was
the Governor of that State; and he refused it. Why? He said it was not
against the laws of New York to steal a negro, and therefore he would
not comply with the demand. He made a similar refusal to Virginia.
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