Marshfield, November
11, 1850.
DEAR SIR, I have
received your letter of the 7th of this month.
Experience has long
since taught me how useless it is to attempt to stop the allegations of
political adversaries by denials of their statements.
For your sake,
however, I will say, that my public speeches show my opinion to have been
decidedly in favor of a proper, efficient, and well-guarded law, for the
recovery of fugitive slaves; that while I was in the Senate, I proposed a bill,
as is well known, with provisions different from those contained in the present
law; that I was not a member of that body, when the present law passed; and
that, if I had been, I should have moved, as a substitute for it, the bill
proposed by myself.
I feel bound to add
that, in my judgment, the present law is constitutional; and that all good
citizens are bound to respect and obey it, just as freely and readily as if
they had voted for it themselves. If experience shall show that, in its
operation, the law inflicts wrong, or endangers the liberty of any whose
liberty is secured by the Constitution, then Congress ought to be called on to
amend or modify it. But, as I think, agitation on the subject ought to cease.
We have had enough of strife on a single question, and that in a great measure
merely theoretical. It is our duty, in my opinion, to attend to other great and
practical questions, in which all parts of the country have an interest.
SOURCE: Fletcher
Webster, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, Vol.
2, p. 402
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