Excerpt from Speech of Hon. George E. Pugh, of Ohio, on the State of the Union: Delivered in the Senate of the United States, December, 20, 1860 Do you deny that you are unfavorable to the execution of the several acts of Congress, now in force, for the re delivery of fugitive slaves? What mean those various acts of legislation, in nearly all the States which you control, referring to that subject? They do not, perhaps, directly assail the. Right of a master to the service and labor of his slave; but their manifest design 1s so to encompass every claimant with penalties and snares and i pitfalls on every side, that he will abandon his claim under the Constitution and laws e 1 the United States, rather than assume such risks 1n pursuing it. Do you deny that, in the States which you control, you are in favor of conferring the 1 right of suffrage with all othe1 political rights, upon negroes and mulattoes? No such legislation prevails in any State which you do not control. I do not say that it now. Prevails in every State which you control, but certainly it prevails in most of them. It is a distinct feature of your partisan policy; so much so that, in the State of Ohio, des pite the language of our Constitution and laws, W11tten as plainly as language could be, 1 written, your partisan Cou1t has, within the last twelve months, conferred the right of. Suffrage upon a sufficient number of persons tainted with Afiican blood to control the result of our last October election. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.