West Winfield, Feb. 2, 1848,

Dear Friend Douglass:—In your account of the meeting in our place, you refer to my remarks, and I think you did not fully understand me. You will recollect that the meeting took a different turn from what many had anticipated, and that a desultory discussion was for some time carried on between our Disunion and Liberty Party friends, on the character of the U.S. Constitution, and that I stated that my views did not agree with either of them; that I believed that there were some offices that an honest man could not accept of, and others that he could. I stated that I believed an oath was to be judged of by the obligations a person taking the oath thereby took upon himself; that the obligations were to be ascertained by the expressed requirements (of the government or people) of the person qualifying. I contended that a qualified assesser of the town of Winfield did not take upon himself, by the qualifying oath, any more obligation to go and put down a slave insurrection, than rested upon him before he was so qualified; and that the powers that be, so acknowledged it, by the absence of all special requirement on such person to do such act. I stated that if S. S. Foster resided in Winfield, and a call was alike made on him and an assessor to go and help put down an insurrection of the slaves, and should both refuse to go, for aught I knew, the powers that be might chain them together, and force them where they were ordered; but that I knew no law that would inflict one-half a hair’s weight of punishment upon the assessor, for such refusal, than upon friend Foster; and for the reason that the powers that be had never considered that they had placed said assessor under special obligation to go, or that he had placed himself under any special obligations by his oath to go. I stated that mere assertions that you have sworn to go, and that the oath means so and so, were mere assertions; that an oath was to be judged of the world over by the obligations thereby incurred, and that the governments were not slow to define what the obligations vested on those qualifying were, by expressed requirements. I stated that the State of Massachusetts had forbidden her State officers, under pains and penalties, from obstructing the flight or arrest of the fugitive on our soil, which law, I am informed, was passed in accordance with the decision of the U.S.S. Court, in the Prigg case. Now I believe that we were badly cheated when our fathers made the constitutional bargain, and that slavery has taken, and can take away, constitutionally, many of our rights. But for this I do not wish to give up other rights, unless it be shown plainly, and not by mere assertion, that it is wrong to enjoy them. I love liberty more than this Union, and if slavery must continue to live and gain strength from it, the sooner it is dissolved the better. But I very much doubt if this result will be obtained the sooner by our giving up rights and privileges, the enjoyment of which does not ne-