Washington Telegraph

MASSACHUSETTS AND THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. The anti-fugitive slave resolutions pending in the Massachusetts Senate has been qualified by the adoption of the following amendment:

Resolved, That while Massachusetts entertains these views of that law she claims no right under the federal Constitution to nullify, disregard, or forcibly resist the provisions of an act of Congress; that she has already, when such right was claimed by the State of South Carolina, expressed her opinion upon it, and she now reaffirms and repeats the following then passed by her Legislature, namely:

"That the Constitution of the United States of America is a solemn social compact, by which the people of the said States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for themselves and their posterity, formed themselves into one body politic, under a common government; that this Constitution, and the laws of the United States made in pursuance thereof, and all the treaties made under the authority of the same, are the supreme law of the land, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding; and that no citizen, State, or any other member of the body politic, has a right in any shape, or under any pretext, to annul or prevent the execution of the said Constitution, laws, or treaties, or any of them, excepting in such extreme cases as justify a violent resistance to the laws, on the principle of the natural and indefeasible prerogative of self-defence against intolerable oppression."