These outspoken and persistent attempts of great states to repudiate
their obligations to the constitution and to nullify the laws of
Congress had a most reactionary influence upon slaveholders and their
sympathizers in Virginia and the South and filled the minds of
thoughtful men with the gravest forebodings for the peace and
preservation of the Union.
President Buchanan in his message to Congress, December, 1860, refers
to the action of the states in nullifying the Fugitive Slave Law
enacted by Congress, as "the most palpable violation of constitutional
duty which has yet been committed."
Governor Banks in his address before the Legislature of Massachusetts
which assembled on the first Wednesday in January, 1861, referring to
the statute enacted in that state antagonistic to the act of Congress
for the return of fugitive slaves, and the consequent imputation which
it brought upon the loyalty of Massachusetts to the Union and its
constitution, said:
"It is because in the face of her just claims to high honor I do not
love to hear unjust reproaches passed upon her fame—that I say as I
do, in the presence of God and with a heart filled with
responsibilities that must rest upon every American citizen in these
distempered times, I cannot but regard the maintenance of a statute,
although it may be within the extremest limits of constitutional
power, which is so unnecessary to the public weal and so detrimental
to the public peace as an inexcusable public wrong. I hope by common
consent it may be removed from the statute book and such guarantees
as individual freedom demands be sought in new legislation."[299]