"Higher Law"

The congregational debate of 1850 was not over, the young guards from the North were yet to have their say. They were more interested in purifying and purging then patching and preserving the union. William H. Seward a senator from New York, was the spokesman for the northern radicals. A strong antislaveryite he did not like concession and argued earnestly that Christian legislators must obey God's moral law more than man's law. He therefore appealed , with referance to excliuding slavery in the territories , to an even "higher law" than the constitution.