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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Letter to the Hon. Samuel Eliot,
+Representative in Congress From the City of Boston, In Reply to His Apology For Voting For the Fugitive Slave Bill., by Hancock
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Letter to the Hon. Samuel Eliot, Representative in Congress From the City of Boston, In Reply to His Apology For Voting For the Fugitive Slave Bill.
+
+Author: Hancock
+
+Release Date: February 5, 2010 [EBook #31191]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTER TO HON. SAMUEL ELIOT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Meredith Bach, Odessa Paige Turner and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+(This book was produced from scanned images of public
+domain material from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  A
+  LETTER
+  TO
+
+THE HON. SAMUEL A. ELIOT,
+
+REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE CITY OF BOSTON,
+
+in reply to his
+
+  APOLOGY FOR VOTING FOR THE FUGITIVE
+  SLAVE BILL.
+
+BY HANCOCK
+
+
+  BOSTON:
+  WM. CROSBY & H. P. NICHOLS,
+  111 WASHINGTON STREET.
+  1851.
+
+
+
+
+CAMBRIDGE:
+
+METCALF AND COMPANY,
+
+PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.
+
+
+
+
+A LETTER, &c.
+
+
+SIR;--
+
+An English courtier procured a colonial judgeship for a young dependant
+wholly ignorant of law. The new functionary, on parting with his patron,
+received from him the following sage advice,--"Be careful never to
+assign reasons, for whether your judgments be right or wrong, your
+reasons will certainly be bad." You have cause to regret that some
+friend had not been equally provident of your reputation, and intimated
+that it was only expected of you to vote for Mr. Webster's measures, but
+by no means to assist him in vindicating them. You did, indeed, vote
+precisely as those who procured your nomination intended you should;
+yet, on your return home, you found your name had become a byword and a
+reproach in your native State. Another election approached, but you
+declined submitting your recent course to the judgment of the electors,
+and withdrew from the canvass. But although the people were thus
+prevented from voting against you, they persisted in speaking and
+writing against you. Anxious to relieve yourself from the load of
+obloquy by which you were oppressed, in an evil hour you rashly appealed
+to the public through the columns of a newspaper, and gave the "reasons"
+of your vote for the Fugitive Slave Law. You had a high and recent
+example of the kind of logic suited to your case. You might have
+indulged in transcendental nonsense, and talked about the climate,
+soil, and scenery of New England and the wonders of physical geography,
+and, assuming that negroes were created free, you might have contended
+that, in voting for a law to catch and enslave them, you had avoided the
+folly of reënacting the law of God. Reasons of this sort, you and others
+had declared, "had convinced the understanding and touched the
+conscience of the nation." Instead of following an example so
+illustrious and successful, you assign "reasons" so very commonplace,
+that the most ordinary capacity can understand them, and so feeble, that
+the slightest strength can overthrow them.
+
+Your first "reason" is, that the delivery of fugitives is a
+constitutional obligation. By this you mean, that, by virtue of the
+construction of a certain clause in the Constitution by the Supreme
+Court, Congress has the power to pass a law for the recovery of fugitive
+slaves. Well, Sir, does this constitutional obligation authorize
+Congress to pass _any_ law whatsoever on the subject, however atrocious
+and wicked? Had you voted for a law to prevent smuggling, in which you
+had authorized every tide-waiter to shoot any person suspected of having
+contraband goods in his possession, would it have been a good "reason"
+for such an atrocity, that the collection of duties was "a
+constitutional obligation"? You are condemned for voting for an
+arbitrary, detestable, diabolical law,--one that tramples upon the
+rights of conscience, outrages the feelings of humanity, discards the
+rules of evidence, levels all the barriers erected by the common law for
+the protection of personal liberty, and, in defiance of the
+Constitution, and against its express provisions, gives to the courts
+the appointment of legions of slave-catching judges. And your "reason"
+for all this is, that the delivery of fugitives is "a constitutional
+obligation"! The "obligation" is not in issue. Please to understand,
+Sir, that it is not denied. It is for the _manner_ in which you profess
+to have discharged the obligation that you are censured, and be it
+remembered, that not one of the obnoxious provisions of your law is
+required by the Constitution. You go on and attempt to enlighten your
+constituents as to the history of this constitutional obligation. As the
+obligation affords you no apology for the iniquitous features of your
+law, its history is, of course, mere surplusage, and serves no other
+purpose than to divert the attention of your readers from yourself.
+About two thirds of your apology is occupied with an historical
+disquisition, which has as much to do with your vindication as the
+question respecting the existence of a lunar atmosphere. I will not,
+however, withhold from you whatever benefit you may derive from either
+your logic or your history, but will give each a fair and honest
+examination. You inform the public that, at the time the Constitution
+was formed,
+
+     "Slavery had been abolished in some of the States, and still
+     existed in others. Here seemed an insurmountable incompatibility of
+     interests, and nothing perplexed the wise men of that day--and they
+     were _very_ wise men--so much as this topic. At last they agreed
+     that the new Constitution should have nothing to do with it; that
+     the word _slavery_ should not be mentioned in it, and that it
+     should be left to the States themselves to establish, retain, or
+     abolish it, just as much after the adoption of the Constitution as
+     before. But in order to secure the existence of the institution to
+     those States who preferred it, it was agreed that the persons
+     escaping from labor to which they were bound, in one commonwealth,
+     and found in another, should be returned to the State from which
+     they had fled. The provision was necessary for the preservation of
+     this interest _in statu quo_. It did not extend slavery. It kept it
+     where it already was, and where it could not have continued if
+     every slave who escaped North was at once free and irreclaimable.
+     The members of the confederacy from the South saw this distinctly,
+     and _deliberately declared_ that they could not and would not enter
+     a union with States who would tempt away their slaves with the
+     prospect of immediate and permanent freedom.... The Constitution
+     was adopted with this provision, and it could not have been adopted
+     without it."
+
+Thus we learn from you, Sir, that when the Constitution was formed,
+"slavery had been abolished in some of the States." It is a pity you did
+not vouchsafe to tell us which of the States had thus early and
+honorably distinguished themselves. Of the thirteen American States in
+1787, how many, Sir, had _by law_ abolished slavery? NOT ONE. Your "some
+States" consisted of MASSACHUSETTS alone. And how was slavery abolished
+there? Not by any express prohibition in her constitution, nor by any
+act of her legislature. Fortunately, her constitution, like that of most
+other States, contained a general declaration of human rights, somewhat
+similar to the "rhetorical abstraction" in the Declaration of
+Independence. Two or three years before the Federal Convention
+assembled, a young lawyer, perceiving that the declaration in the
+constitution had inadvertently made no exclusion of the rights of men
+with dark complexions, brought an action for a slave against his master
+for work done and performed. An upright and independent court, not
+having the fear of our Southern brethren before their eyes, decided that
+the slave was a MAN, and therefore entitled to the rights which the
+constitution declared belonged to _all_ men, and gave judgment for the
+plaintiff. In this way, Sir, was slavery abolished in Massachusetts, and
+hence the delegates from Massachusetts in the Convention were the only
+ones who represented a _free_ State. And now, Sir, what becomes of your
+"insurmountable incompatibility of interests" arising from the fact that
+"slavery had been abolished in some States and still existed in others,"
+which you tell us so much perplexed the wise men of that day? We shall
+see, Sir, that on questions touching human bondage the Massachusetts
+delegation seem to have been slaveholders in heart, and did not partake
+of the perplexity which troubled the wise men. With the exception of
+that delegation, there were not probably half a dozen members of the
+convention who were not slaveholders.
+
+It would seem from your historical review, that the clause in the
+Constitution respecting fugitive slaves was the grand compromise
+between the North and the South, without which "the Constitution could
+not have been adopted"; and that to this clause we owe our glorious
+slave-catching Union. You fortify this wonderful historical discovery by
+appealing to the "deliberate declarations" of Southern members, that
+they "would not enter a union with States who would tempt away their
+slaves," &c. It is to be regretted that you have not deemed it expedient
+to refer to the records of these declarations, as other students of our
+constitutional history are wholly ignorant of them. Suffer me, Sir, to
+enter into a few historical details, for the purpose of vindicating the
+liberty I take to differ with you as to the accuracy of your statements.
+
+The Convention met in Philadelphia, 25th May, 1787. On the 29th of the
+same month, Mr. Randolph, of Virginia, submitted a plan of government.
+It contained no allusion to fugitive slaves. On the same day, Mr.
+Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina, submitted another plan. This last
+provided for the surrender of fugitive criminals, but was silent about
+fugitive slaves. On the 15th of June, Mr. Patterson, of New Jersey,
+submitted a third plan. This also provided for the surrender of
+fugitives from justice, but not from bondage. On the 18th, Mr. Hamilton
+announced his plan, but the fugitive slave found no place in it. On the
+26th of June, the Convention, having agreed on the general features of
+the proposed Constitution in the form of resolutions, referred them to
+"a committee of detail," for the purpose of reducing them to the form of
+a Constitution. In these resolutions, there was not the most distant
+allusion to fugitive slaves. On the 6th of August, the committee
+reported the draft of a Constitution, and yet, strange as you may deem
+it, the provision without which, you tell us, the Constitution could not
+have been adopted, was not in it, although there was in it a provision
+for the surrender of fugitive criminals. For three months had the
+Convention been in session, and not one syllable had been uttered about
+fugitive slaves. At last, on the 29th of August, as we learn from the
+minutes, "It was moved and seconded to agree to the following
+proposition, to be inserted after the 15th article: 'If any person,
+bound to service or labor in any of the United States, shall escape into
+another State, he or she shall not be discharged from such service or
+labor in consequence of any regulation subsisting in the State to which
+they escape, but shall be delivered up to the person justly claiming
+their service or labor,' _which passed unanimously_." Really, Sir, I
+find in this record but little evidence of the perplexity which
+distressed our wise men, or of the great compromise between the North
+and South, on which you dwell. The 15th article, referred to above, was
+the article providing for the surrender of fugitives from justice, and
+this suggested the idea, that it would be well to provide, also, for the
+surrender of fugitive slaves. In an assembly consisting almost
+exclusively of slaveholders, the idea was exceedingly relished; and
+without a word of opposition, the suggestion was unanimously adopted.
+From Mr. Madison's report we learn that, the day before, Messrs. Butler
+and Pinckney had informally proposed that fugitive slaves and servants
+should be delivered up "like criminals." "Mr. Wilson [of Penn.]. This
+would oblige the Executive of the State to do it at the public expense.
+Mr. Sherman [of Conn.] saw no more propriety in the public seizing and
+surrendering a slave or servant than a horse." (_Madison Papers_, p.
+1447.) The subject was here dropped. The next day the motion was made in
+form, and, as Mr. Madison says, "agreed to, _nem. con._" From the
+phraseology of the motion, and the objections of Messrs. Wilson and
+Sherman, it was perfectly understood that the obligation of delivery was
+imposed on the States, and that no power was intended to be conferred on
+Congress to legislate on the subject. Messrs. Wilson and Sherman's
+objections arose from no moral repugnance to slave-catching, but from
+the inconvenience they apprehended the _State_ authorities would be
+subjected to; and Mr. Wilson perhaps spoke from experience, as his own
+State had at that very time a law for catching and returning fugitive
+slaves from other States. The idea, therefore, that this agreement was a
+_compromise_ between the North and South is wholly imaginary, and you,
+Sir, must have mistaken some recent fulminations from the Southern
+chivalry for the "deliberate declarations" which you suppose were made
+in the Convention. Believe me, Sir, no members of the Convention ever
+declared they would not enter into the Union, unless it was agreed to
+surrender fugitive slaves, for the obvious reason, that the Northern
+slaveholders required no threats from their Southern brethren to consent
+to a compact convenient to both. It is very true, Sir, that there were
+compromises, and that there were "deliberate declarations," but they had
+no reference to the surrender of runaway slaves. I have pointed out your
+historical mistake, not because it has the remotest bearing on your
+justification, but because you seem to think that it has.
+
+The first great compromise was between, not the North and the South, but
+the small and the large States. The one claimed, and the other refused,
+an equality of suffrage in the national legislature. It was at last
+agreed, that the suffrage should be equal in one house, and according to
+population in the other. This was the first compromise. Then came the
+question, What should constitute the representative population? The
+Southern States had more slaves than the Northern, and the former
+insisted that slaves should be included in the representative
+population. This would have given the Southern States an unfair
+preponderance in Congress. Moreover, a portion of the Southern States
+were engaged in the African slave-trade, and, of course, every slave
+landed on their shores would increase their political power in Congress.
+To reconcile the North to slave representation, it was offered that
+_direct taxation_ should be proportioned to representation. But the
+North was reluctant, and, as usual, was bullied into a compromise. Mr.
+Davie, of North Carolina, made a "deliberate declaration":--"He was
+sure that North Carolina would never confederate on any terms that did
+not rate them (the slaves) at least as three fifths. If the Eastern
+States meant, therefore, to exclude them (the slaves) altogether, the
+business was at an end." (_Madison Papers_, p. 1081.) This threat, and
+others like it, settled the matter. The compromise, of three fifths of
+the slaves to be included in the representative population, was accepted
+on the motion of _a New England member_; and the consequence is, that
+the slave States have now twenty-one members in the lower house of
+Congress more than they are entitled to by their free population. This
+was the second compromise. There was still a third, far more wicked and
+detestable, and effected by the "deliberate declarations" of Southern
+members. The "committee of detail" has been already mentioned. It
+consisted of Messrs. Rutledge of South Carolina, Randolph of Virginia,
+Wilson of Pennsylvania, Ellsworth of Connecticut, and Gorham of
+Massachusetts. This committee, it will be recollected, were to reduce to
+the _form_ of a Constitution the resolutions agreed on by the
+Convention. Neither in the resolutions themselves, nor in the
+discussions which preceded their adoption, had any reference been made
+to a guarantee for the continuance of the African slave-trade.
+Nevertheless, this committee, of their own will and pleasure, inserted
+in their draft the following clause:--"No tax or duty shall be laid by
+the legislature on articles exported from any State, _nor on the
+migration or importation of such persons as the several States shall
+think proper to admit, nor shall such migration or importation be
+prohibited_." To understand the cunning wickedness of this clause, it
+must be recollected that Congress was to have power to regulate foreign
+commerce, and commerce between the States; and hence it might, at a
+future time, suppress both the foreign and domestic commerce in human
+flesh, or it might burden this commerce with duties. Hence this artfully
+expressed perpetual restriction on the power of Congress to interfere
+with the traffic in human beings. As this grand scheme was concocted in
+the committee, and not in the Convention, it may be interesting to
+inquire into its paternity.
+
+In the debates which ensued on this clause, Mr. Ellsworth, one of the
+committee who reported it, "was for leaving the clause as it now stands.
+_Let every State import what it pleases._ The morality or wisdom of
+slavery are considerations belonging to the States themselves. _What
+enriches a part enriches the whole_, and the States are the best judges
+of their particular interests. The old Confederation had not _meddled_
+with this point, and he did not see any greater necessity for bringing
+it within the policy of the new one." "As slaves multiply so fast in
+Virginia and Maryland that it is _cheaper_ to raise than to import them,
+whilst in the _sickly_ rice-swamps foreign supplies are _necessary_, if
+we go no farther than is urged [a proposal to permit the trade for a
+limited time], we shall be unjust towards South Carolina and Georgia.
+Let us not intermeddle." (_Madison Papers_, pp. 1389, 1391.) This
+gentleman was one of your "very wise men"; and his mantle has recently
+fallen upon other wise men from the East. Mr. Wilson, another member of
+the committee, objected. "All articles imported," said he, "are to be
+taxed; slaves alone are exempt. This is, in fact, a bounty on that
+article." The clause was referred to another committee, who modified it,
+by limiting the restriction to 1800. It was moved to guarantee the
+slave-trade for twenty years, by postponing the restriction to 1808.
+This motion was _seconded_ by Mr. Gorham, another member of the
+committee. Mr. Randolph, also of the committee, was against the
+slave-trade, and opposed to any restriction on the power of Congress to
+suppress it. Two of the committee, then, we find, were against the
+trade, and three, Messrs. Rutledge, Ellsworth, and Gorham, for
+perpetuating it. And now, Sir, what were the inducements which prevailed
+on the two wise men from the East to yield their consent to a
+proposition so wicked and abominable? We are, of course, not informed
+what passed in the committee, but we can well imagine, from the language
+used by the chairman and others in the Convention. Said Mr. Rutledge,
+"If the Convention thinks North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia
+will ever agree to this plan [the Federal Constitution] unless their
+right to import slaves be untouched, the expectation is VAIN. The people
+of those States will never be such fools as to give up so important an
+interest." In other words, "Gentlemen of the North, no Union without the
+African slave-trade." Said Mr. Charles Pinckney, "South Carolina can
+never receive the plan [of the Constitution] if it prohibits the
+slave-trade. In every proposed extension of the powers of Congress, that
+State has expressly and watchfully excepted that of meddling with the
+importation of negroes." (_Madison Papers_, p. 1389.) Mr. Charles C.
+Pinckney "thought himself bound to declare candidly, that he did not
+think South Carolina would stop her importations of slaves in any short
+time." Thus you see, Sir, that the "deliberate declarations" to which
+you allude were made in reference to the continuance of the African
+slave-trade, and not, as you suppose, to the catching of fugitive
+slaves. Two New England gentlemen of the committee yielded to these
+declarations, and sacrificed conscience and humanity for the sake of the
+Union, and the consideration that what enriched a part enriched the
+whole. Happily, in this case, Southern bluster was met by Southern
+bluster, and it is owing to Virginia, and not to the virtue and
+independence of New England, that the Constitution was rescued from the
+infamy of granting a solemn and perpetual guarantee to an accursed
+commerce.
+
+In Virginia, the slaves, as Mr. Ellsworth remarked, multiplied so fast,
+that it was _cheaper_ to raise than import them. She was then, as now, a
+breeding State for the Southern markets. Hence, her delegates were as
+ready to bluster for protection, as the South Carolina delegates were
+for a free trade in men and women. Of course, the _motives_ assigned
+were patriotic, not selfish. Mr. Randolph "could never agree to the
+clause as it stands. He would sooner RISK THE CONSTITUTION." (_Madison
+Papers_, p. 1396.) Mr. Madison would not consent to the continuance of
+the traffic till 1808. "Twenty years will produce all the mischief that
+can be apprehended from the liberty to import slaves. So long a term
+will be more dishonorable to the American character, than to say nothing
+about it in the Constitution." (_Madison Papers_, p. 1427.) Mr. Mason
+from Virginia denounced the traffic as "infernal." (_Madison Papers_, p.
+1390.) The result of all these threats on each side was, as usual, a
+compromise, by which Congress was prohibited from suppressing the
+foreign and internal commerce in slaves for twenty years, and was left
+at liberty to do as it might see fit, after that period. After twenty
+years the foreign trade was suppressed, and North and South Carolina and
+Georgia remained in the Union! Virginia, as well as the other Slave
+States, is greatly interested in the home slave-trade, and that has
+_not_ been suppressed, although Congress has full power over it.
+
+It does not appear from Mr. Madison's report what reply was made in the
+Convention to the Virginia objections, but in his speech in the
+Convention of his own State, he tells us,--"The gentlemen from South
+Carolina and Georgia argued in this manner: We have now liberty to
+import this species of property, and much of the property now possessed
+had been purchased or otherwise acquired in contemplation of improving
+it by the assistance of imported slaves. What would be the consequence
+of hindering us in this point? The _slaves_ of Virginia would rise in
+value, and we should be obliged to go to your markets." (_Elliott's
+Debates_, III. 454.) Certainly, Sir, these South Carolina and Georgia
+delegates were "very wise men," and their predictions are now history,
+and the planters of Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana
+buy slaves of the Virginia breeders. But what shall I say of the wise
+men from the East? This horrible compromise, this guarantee of the
+African slave-trade for twenty years, was carried by the votes of the
+Massachusetts and Connecticut delegates, and would have been defeated,
+had they had the courage and virtue to have voted against it.
+
+I have indulged in this long digression, to show that the clause in the
+Constitution respecting fugitive slaves was not, as you represent it,
+the great compromise of the Constitution, the key-stone of the Union,
+and that our slaveholding fathers were not, as you suppose, greatly
+perplexed, nor their consciences deeply wounded, by the existence of
+slavery in all the States of the confederacy with one exception. Having
+disposed of your history, I return to your logic.
+
+Whether the constitutional injunction to surrender fugitive slaves was a
+compromise or not, is of no practical importance. The clause speaks for
+itself, and prescribes no mode by which the title of the claimant shall
+be ascertained, while it expressly implies that the title shall be
+established before the surrender is made. Hence, the fair presumption
+is, that the title to a MAN shall be proved, with at least as much
+certainty and formality as the title to a horse. Had you, Sir, in your
+law, provided that a Virginian shall not come to Boston, and there seize
+and carry off a husband, wife, or child but by the same process, and on
+as strong evidence, as he may now seize and carry off a horse which you
+claim as your own, instead of finding your name a byword and a reproach,
+you would have been honored and applauded by your fellow-citizens, and
+returned to Congress by a triumphant vote; nor is there a syllable in
+the Constitution which prohibits or discountenances such a mode of
+deciding the title to a human being. It is in vain, then, Sir, that you
+plead your "constitutional obligation" in justification of your most
+detestable law. But, as if one wrong could justify another, you plead in
+your excuse the law of 1793, and you ask in your simplicity of those who
+condemn your law if they do not perceive that they are "denouncing their
+fathers." Well, Sir, were our fathers infallible? Pity it is, Sir, that
+you were not on the floor of Congress when that body declared the
+African slave-trade to be PIRACY. You might then, Sir, have risen in
+your place, and inquired, "Do you not perceive that you are denouncing
+your fathers, who were very wise men, and who guaranteed for twenty
+years the very traffic which you now proclaim to be piracy?" Pity it is,
+Sir, that you did not stand by the side of your patron on Plymouth Rock,
+and whisper in his ear, "Do you not perceive that you are denouncing our
+fathers?" when he declared, "In the sight of our law the African
+slave-trader is a PIRATE and a FELON, and in the sight of Heaven an
+offender beyond the ordinary depth of human guilt." Mr. Webster is
+better versed in constitutional history than you are, and he well knew
+that some of our fathers "deliberately declared they would not enter a
+Union" in which they were to be debarred from pursuing this piratical,
+felonious, guilty traffic. Our fathers were mostly slaveholders, and yet
+you, Sir, unconsciously denounce both their morality and intelligence,
+when you affirm the institution of slavery to be "wrong and unwise." And
+yet all who presume to find fault with your cruel, unjust, wicked law
+are guilty forsooth of denouncing their fathers!
+
+You tell us that the Convention of 1787 "_agreed that the new
+Constitution should have nothing to do with slavery_." I have not been
+so fortunate as to find the record of this agreement, but if such a
+compact was indeed made, then seldom, if ever, has a solemn covenant
+been more grossly and wickedly violated. Is it, Sir, in virtue of this
+agreement, that you voted to fine and imprison every conscientious,
+humane citizen who may refuse, at the command of a minion of a
+commissioner, to join in a slave hunt? Did this agreement confer on the
+holders of slaves an enlarged representation in Congress? Was it in
+pursuance of this agreement that the importation of slaves was
+guaranteed for twenty years? Did this agreement authorize the Federal
+government to enter into negotiations with Great Britain and Mexico for
+a mutual surrender of runaway slaves? Was it in pursuance of this same
+agreement, that our government negotiated with Russia and Spain to
+prevent emancipation in Cuba,--a traitorous conspiracy with despots
+against the rights of man? How, Sir, was this agreement illustrated,
+when Daniel Webster, as Secretary of State under John Tyler of glorious
+memory, made a demand on Great Britain for the surrender of the slaves
+of the Creole, who had gallantly achieved their liberty, and taken
+refuge in the West Indies? How comes it, Sir, that under this agreement
+an act of Congress secures to the Slave States officers in the navy in
+proportion to the number of their slaves? How is it, that under this
+agreement colored men are seized in the District of Columbia, under "the
+exclusive jurisdiction" of the Federal government on the _suspicion_ of
+being slaves, and, when that suspicion is rebutted by the non-appearance
+of any claimant, are sold as slaves for life, to pay their jail-fees?
+Perhaps it would be denouncing our fathers, to say that Messrs. Webster
+and Cass may search the archives of Austria in vain for any act so
+utterly diabolical as this, perpetrated by a government which it was
+agreed "should have nothing to do with slavery." Was it to carry out
+this famous agreement that the Federal government officially declared
+through its Secretary, Mr. Calhoun, that Texas was annexed to preserve
+the institution of slavery from the perils that threatened it?
+
+Once more, Sir. We all know that the slaveholders regard the free blacks
+as dangerous to the subordination of their slaves, and are contemplating
+their forcible removal. Think you, Sir, Mr. Webster was mindful of the
+agreement you have discovered, when, on the 7th of last March, in his
+place in the Senate, he proposed his magnificent scheme of taxing the
+whole nation untold millions to give additional security to property in
+human beings? "If," said the Massachusetts Senator, "any gentleman from
+the _South_ shall propose a scheme of colonization to be carried on by
+_this government_ upon a large scale, for the transportation of free
+colored people to any colony or _any place in the world_, I should be
+quite disposed to incur almost any degree of expense to accomplish the
+object." The magnitude of the scheme, and the cost at which it is to be
+accomplished, are thus hinted:--"There have been received into the
+treasury of the United States EIGHTY MILLIONS of dollars, the proceeds
+of the sales of the public lands ceded by Virginia. If the residue
+should be sold at the same rate, the whole aggregate will exceed TWO
+HUNDRED MILLIONS of dollars. If _Virginia and the South_ see fit to
+adopt any proposition to _relieve_ themselves from the free people of
+color among them, they have my free consent that the _government_ shall
+pay _them_ any sum of money out of the proceeds which may be adequate
+for the purpose." Will you, Sir, please to point out the article of the
+agreement of 1787, which, while it restricts Congress from having any
+thing to do with slavery, sanctions an appropriation not exceeding two
+hundred millions of dollars, for the purpose of strengthening the
+institution of slavery, by _relieving_ the slaveholders from the
+presence of free people of color, and forcibly transporting to any place
+in the world hundreds of thousands of native-born Americans, who have as
+good a constitutional right to the pursuit of life, liberty, and
+happiness on their native soil, as Mr. Webster himself? Mr. Webster, it
+seems, now views the subject of negro colonization in precisely the same
+light that he did thirty years since, although his _intentions_ on this,
+as on various other points, have undergone marvellous changes. We learn
+from a Massachusetts paper (_Congregationalist_, 6 July, 1849), that
+this gentleman was in 1822 appointed by a public meeting to draft a
+constitution for the State Colonization Society. After considerable
+discussion in the committee he rose and said, "I must leave. I
+understand the whole project. It is a scheme of the slaveholders to get
+rid of their free negroes. I will have nothing to do with it."
+
+And how, Sir, as a member of Congress, have _you_ fulfilled this
+agreement to have nothing to do with slavery? Not only have you required
+"good citizens," when commanded, to hunt and catch slaves, but you have
+even fixed a money value on every slave. If a master fails to recover
+his fugitive slave through the agency, "direct or indirect," of any
+citizen, you give him an action for damages. In all other cases of
+trespass, the damages sustained by the plaintiff are assessed by a jury
+according to the evidence. You kindly save the master the trouble of
+proving the value of his lost property, and give him out of the pockets
+of the defendant $1,000, no matter whether the slave was sick or well,
+young or old. If a woman escapes with a child at the breast, the master
+is to have $2,000! Recollect, Sir, this is for _damages_ to the
+slaveholder; the trespasser is to pay to the government, which was to
+have nothing to do with slavery, another thousand dollars, and to be
+incarcerated six months. Either, Sir, you have wholly mistaken the
+nature of the "agreement," or the slaveholders, through the aid of their
+Northern auxiliaries, have, in defiance of the agreement, rendered the
+Federal government a mighty engine in protecting, extending, and
+perpetuating the stupendous iniquity of human bondage.
+
+Your first excuse for voting for the recent slave-catching law, after
+relying on your "constitutional obligation," is, that it is
+"_practically more favorable to the fugitive than the law of 1793_"!!!
+The Southern lawyers, then, who drafted the bill, were a set of
+blunderers, and your constituents are blockheads for blaming you for
+legislating against human rights, when, in fact, you were loosening the
+bonds of the oppressed, and facilitating escape from the prison-house.
+Your assertion may well excite astonishment at the South as well as the
+North, till your _proof_ is known, and then, indeed, astonishment will
+be exchanged for ridicule. You tell us, "the _evidence_ of such an
+assertion may be found in the fact, that by the old law every magistrate
+in Massachusetts, amounting to several hundreds, and so in the other
+States, were authorized and required to cause the arrest of any
+fugitive, examine into his case, and deliver him to the claimant, if he
+was proved to be a slave; while under the new law that power is
+_limited_ to the justices of the United States' courts, and to the
+commissioners appointed by them, not exceeding, perhaps, on an average,
+six or eight persons in each State." So it seems the slave-catchers had
+formerly no difficulty in finding a magistrate among hundreds to aid
+them, but that now, before they hunt a slave, they must hunt and catch a
+United States judge, or a commissioner of six or eight in a whole State.
+Truly a hard case, and yet the slaveholders themselves set the very trap
+in which they have been caught, and thus it is that, through their
+folly, and your generosity in not pointing out to them the blunder they
+were committing, the new law is more favorable to the fugitive than the
+old one. Surely, Sir, it could not have been more perilous to the young
+West Indian judge to meddle with "reasons," than it is for you. Either,
+Sir, you voted for the law without reading it, or you have forgotten its
+provision. Be assured, the Southern lawyers were as well acquainted as
+yourself with the fact, that a few individuals, termed "commissioners,"
+had been appointed by the United States courts to perform certain
+ministerial acts; and that, as these men were now to be promoted to the
+office of slave-catching judges, they would be wholly inadequate in
+number to lend efficient aid to the hunters of men. Hence, they inserted
+in the third section of the bill, the following enactment, which has
+strangely escaped your recollection, viz.:--"And it is further enacted,
+that the Circuit Courts of the United States, and the Superior Courts of
+_each_ organized Territory of the United States, SHALL from time to time
+ENLARGE THE NUMBER OF COMMISSIONERS with a view to afford reasonable
+facilities to reclaim fugitives from labor, and to the prompt discharge
+of the duties imposed by this act." So that, instead of six or eight
+commissioners in a State, we are to have as many hundreds, if needed.
+Nor is this all. By the second section, the power possessed by the
+Circuit Courts to appoint commissioners is for the first time conferred
+on the _Territorial_ courts, so that there shall be no lack of
+slave-catching judges in Oregon, Utah, and New Mexico. Instead of your
+six or eight commissioners in a State, your law contemplates that there
+shall be one or more in _each county_; for the fifth section provides,
+that, "the better to enable the said commissioners to execute their
+duties faithfully and efficiently, ... they are hereby authorized and
+empowered, within their _counties respectively_," to appoint one or more
+persons to execute their warrants. So it seems we are to have an
+unlimited number of judges and executioners. These executioners,
+expressly appointed to catch slaves, and of course among the most
+worthless and degraded of the community, are one and all invested with
+the power of a high sheriff to call out the _posse comitatus_, not
+merely in his own county, but in every hamlet in the State, and require
+"good citizens," under pain of fine and imprisonment, to join him in his
+execrable hunt. Really, Sir, your "evidence" that the new law is more
+favorable to the fugitive than the old one falls short of demonstration.
+
+You thus apologize for not giving the alleged fugitive a trial by jury.
+"There was no more trial by jury provided for under the old law than
+under the new law. The claim of a jury trial is entirely _new_; never
+thought of till modern discussions of the subject begun. For fifty-seven
+years our fathers and we have been living under the laws which provided
+no such thing, and now one which makes no such provision is denounced in
+unmeasured terms as cruel and inhuman. Where have we all been living for
+half a century?" Surely, Sir, it is a most logical reason for not
+changing a wicked law, that it has been in force for fifty-seven years.
+Strange that the legislators of Massachusetts did not perceive the force
+of this reasoning when they abolished the laws for hanging witches and
+whipping Quakers. Permit me, Sir, to ask, Where had _you_ been living
+when _you_ declared it to be the _duty_ of Congress to give the fugitive
+a trial by jury, although for fifty-seven years such a trial had been
+denied him? You probably forgot, Sir, when giving the above "reason,"
+that, not long before you took your seat in Congress, you had, as a
+member of the Massachusetts Legislature, voted for the following
+resolution, viz.:--"We hold it to be the duty of that body [Congress] to
+pass such laws only in regard thereto as will be maintained by the
+public sentiment of the free States, where such laws are to be enforced,
+and which shall especially secure all persons, whose surrender may be
+claimed as having escaped from labor and service in other States, the
+right of having the validity of such claim determined by a jury in the
+State where such claim is made." So it seems that, while in Boston, you
+esteemed it the _especial duty_ of Congress to grant the fugitive a
+trial by jury, but that in the atmosphere of Washington you acquired new
+views of moral philosophy.
+
+Suffer me, Sir, also to inquire, Where had Mr. Webster been "living for
+half a century," when, on the 3d of last June, he introduced into the
+Senate a bill amendatory of the act of 1793, granting the alleged
+fugitive a trial by jury whenever he shall make oath that he is not the
+slave of the claimant?
+
+Another of your "reasons" is, that your law does _not_ suspend the
+_habeas corpus_, and in proof of its innocence in this respect, you
+refer to the opinion of "legal authority of the highest kind," viz. Mr.
+Crittenden, of Kentucky. It is very true that the words _habeas corpus_
+are omitted in your law, as the word _slave_ is in the Constitution, but
+in neither case is the omission of any practical importance. You must be
+aware, Sir, that whenever a person is in the custody of another, if
+sufficient ground be shown to render it probable that the custody is
+illegal, the writ is granted as a matter of right. But why is it
+granted? That the court may at its discretion, according to
+circumstances, remand or discharge the prisoner. Take away from the
+court the discretionary power to discharge, and the writ is rendered an
+idle form. Your law, you say, does not suspend the _habeas corpus_; it
+is guiltless of such an enormity. A man who is carrying off one of our
+citizens in chains, may indeed be served with the writ, and he brings
+his prisoner before the court, and he produces a paper for which he paid
+$10, and reads from your law, that this paper, called a certificate,
+"shall be conclusive," and "shall prevent all molestation of said person
+or persons by any _process_ issued by any court, judge, or magistrate,
+or other person whomsoever." It is because the word _process_, instead
+of _habeas corpus_, is used, that your law does not suspend the writ of
+freedom! In vain may the prisoner plead that he is not the person
+mentioned in the certificate; in vain may he offer to show that the
+certificate is a forgery; in vain may he urge that the man who signed
+the certificate was not a commissioner. The little piece of paper
+costing ten dollars is to save the slave-catcher from "all molestation,"
+not because the writ of _habeas corpus_ is suspended,--O, no! but in
+consequence of the words "any process"!
+
+You refer to two objections, which you say are made to your law, and
+endeavour to refute them; viz. the onerous obligations imposed upon the
+marshal, and the penalties attached to an attempt "to assist in the
+rescue of the slave after he has been proved to be such." You have
+evinced your discretion in confining yourself to only four objections
+made to your law; viz. the denial of a jury trial, the suspension of the
+_habeas corpus_, the duties of the marshal, and the penalties imposed on
+an attempt to rescue the slave _after_ judgment. With what success, and
+with what "reasons," you have combated the first two has already been
+seen. As to the last two, they scarcely merit an answer, and hence you
+have selected them. If the obligations of the marshal are onerous, he
+has voluntarily assumed them by accepting the office. If, in a civilized
+country, a man attempts forcibly to rescue a prisoner in the custody of
+the law, he must expect to be punished. There are many weighty
+objections to your law which you have not thought it expedient to
+notice. Permit me to supply your omission, and to tell you why your law
+is so intensely odious. And here let me again remind you of the true
+issue between you and the people. It is not now the constitutional power
+of Congress under the decision of the Supreme Court to pass a law for
+the recovery of fugitive slaves,--this is conceded. The odium you have
+experienced, and against which you have appealed to the public, is
+caused by your having voted for a law which, in its details, violates
+the Constitution, and outrages justice and humanity. Throughout your
+long and labored apology, you avoid grappling with these charges. You
+vindicate the denial of a jury trial only on the ground that it has been
+denied for fifty-seven years, and on the authority of Mr. Crittenden
+affirm that the _habeas corpus_ is not suspended; but you avoid the
+constitutional and moral objections urged against your law.
+
+By the Constitution, fugitive slaves are to be restored to those, and
+those only, who are legally entitled to their services. The means of
+ascertaining whether a man is a slave, whether he has fled from his
+master, and whether the claimant is legally entitled to him, are not
+defined by the Constitution. It is now intrusted to the discretion of
+Congress to specify these means, but of course that discretion ought to
+be exercised in accordance with the Constitution, with justice, and with
+humanity. The complaint against you is, that you have voted for a law
+which outrages them all, and against this complaint you have failed to
+offer the shadow of a vindication.
+
+A Virginian comes to Boston, and there seizes one of the inhabitants as
+his slave. The man claimed declares the claim to be false and
+fraudulent. Here, then, is an issue both of law and of fact between two
+men equally entitled to the protection of law; for the man claimed is on
+every presumption of law and justice to be regarded as free, till the
+contrary is proved. The issue between these two men is, I have said, one
+of fact and of law. Is the person seized the man he is said to be? This
+is a question of fact. Admitting his identity, is he a slave, and, if
+so, does he belong to the claimant? These are both questions of law,
+resting upon facts to be proved. Those familiar with the reports of
+Southern courts know that the title to slaves is a frequent matter of
+litigation, involving intricate questions respecting the validity of
+wills, the construction of deeds, the partition of estates, and the
+claims of creditors. By carrying a slave into a free State, the owner
+forfeits his title to him while there, and cannot reclaim him; and hence
+the acts of the claimant himself may be involved in the issue. And now,
+Sir, I ask, have you ever known, or can you conceive of, any issue at
+law respecting the title to property so awfully momentous to a defendant
+as the one we are considering? Were your son or daughter the defendant
+in such an issue, would you not rejoice to purchase a favorable judgment
+by the contribution of the last cent of your great wealth? Let us, then,
+proceed to inquire what provision _you_, in the fear of God and the love
+of justice and humanity, have made for the trial of this tremendous
+issue,--an issue on the result of which all the hopes of a fellow-man
+for the life that is, and for that which is to come, are suspended.
+
+In the first place, What is the pecuniary value of the plaintiff's claim
+to _himself_?--for it would be an insult to humanity to estimate in
+dollars and cents the blessings of liberty and of the conjugal and
+parental relations to the unhappy defendant. You have yourself fixed the
+value of the plaintiff's claim at _one thousand dollars_. So far, then,
+the issue is, by your own showing, within the constitutional guarantee
+of trial by jury in all suits at common law where the matter in
+controversy is of the value of _twenty_ dollars. But is the claim made
+by the plaintiff "a suit at common law"? What is a _suit_? The Supreme
+Court thus answers the question:--"We understand it [a suit] to be the
+prosecution or pursuit of some _claim_, demand, or request. In law
+language, it is the prosecution of some demand in a court of justice."
+(6 _Wheaton_, 407.)
+
+It seems, then, that the Virginian, in claiming an inhabitant of Boston
+as his slave, in fact brings _a suit_ against him for services due worth
+one thousand dollars. Now remember, Sir, the fugitive is not to be
+delivered up, as a mass of flesh, or inanimate matter, belonging to the
+claimant, but as a debtor, in the phraseology of your own law, "_owing_
+service or labor." The suit is brought for service or labor _due_, and
+the Constitution provides that the person so owing service or labor
+shall be delivered to him to whom the same is "_due_." And now, is this
+suit for service due "a suit at _common law_"? Again let the Supreme
+Court answer. "The phrase _common law_, found in this clause [the clause
+guaranteeing a jury trial], is used in contradistinction to equity and
+admiralty and maritime jurisdiction. It is well known, that, in civil
+causes in courts of equity and admiralty, juries do not intervene, and
+that courts of equity use the trial by jury only in extraordinary cases,
+to inform the conscience of the court. When, therefore, we find that the
+amendment requires that the right of trial by jury shall be preserved in
+suits at common law, the natural conclusion is, that this distinction
+was present to the minds of the framers of the amendment. By _common
+law_, they meant what the Constitution denominated, in the third
+article, 'law'; not merely suits which the common law recognized among
+its old and settled proceedings, but suits in which legal rights were to
+be ascertained and determined, in contradistinction to those where
+equitable rights alone were recognized, and equitable remedies were
+administered.... In a just sense, the amendment, then, may be construed
+to embrace _all suits_ which are not of equity and admiralty
+jurisdiction, _whatever may be the peculiar form_ which they may assume
+to settle legal rights." (3 _Peters_, 446.)
+
+If there be meaning in words, these authorities settle the case, and
+your law is in palpable violation of the amendment to the Constitution
+securing a trial by jury in suits at common law where the matter in
+controversy exceeds twenty dollars in value. Think not, Sir, that I am
+misrepresenting the Supreme Court. I know well that the _dicta_ I have
+quoted have reference to _white_ men, and that they have been virtually
+set aside in decisions respecting black men. I well know, that, in our
+model republic, law and justice and morality are all cutaneous. But
+admitting that the Supreme Court have stultified themselves, and
+virtually denied, that, where a suit was brought for the services of a
+_black_ man, the Constitution required a jury trial, recollect, Sir,
+that not in one single instance has the court decided that the
+Constitution _prohibited_ such a trial. But if not prohibited, then
+Congress are permitted to accord such a trial, and _both you and Mr.
+Webster have declared that Congress had a right to grant such a trial,
+and ought to grant it_. In voting, therefore, for a law denying such a
+trial, you made a voluntary surrender to the slaveholder of the security
+which such a trial would have afforded to multitudes of your poor,
+ignorant, oppressed fellow-men. For this act of cruelty and injustice,
+committed against your own late conviction of duty, what is your
+justification? Why, that the blacks had been already deprived of the
+right of trial by jury fifty-seven years!
+
+Let us now see what tribunal you have substituted for a jury in the
+trial of one of the most momentous issues that can engage the attention
+of a court of justice. You have provided for the appointment of an
+indefinite number of judges, each of whom is to have exclusive
+jurisdiction of these issues, and from whose judgment there is to be no
+appeal. The Constitution declares, "The judges, both of the Supreme and
+inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behaviour, and
+shall, at stated times, receive for their services a compensation, which
+shall not be diminished during their continuance in office." These
+judges are appointed by the Senate, on the nomination of the President.
+Your herd of judges, called commissioners, are appointed by the courts,
+and hold office during pleasure, and instead of receiving a salary, are
+rewarded by a rule the infamy of which, it is believed, belongs to your
+law exclusively,--a rule which doubles their compensation whenever they
+decide in favor of the rich plaintiff, and _against_ the poor and
+friendless defendant. But perhaps you will deny that these men are
+judges; for, if judges, their appointment is palpably unconstitutional.
+Let us hear the Supreme Court, at a time when it was deemed expedient to
+maintain that the persons who executed the law of 1793 were _judges_.
+"It is plain, that, where a claim is made by the owner out of possession
+for the delivery of a slave, it must be made, if made at all, _against
+some other person_; and inasmuch as the right is a right of property,
+capable of being recognized and asserted by proceedings _before a court
+of justice between parties adverse to each other_, it constitutes, in
+the strictest sense, a _controversy_ between parties, and a case arising
+under the Constitution of the United States, within the express
+delegation of judicial power given by that instrument." (16 _Peters_,
+616.) Hence your commissioners are, in the _strictest sense_, judges,
+exercising "judicial power" delegated by the Constitution.
+
+You pronounce Mr. Crittenden "legal authority of the highest kind." This
+legal authority understands the sixth section of your law as providing
+that each commissioner "shall have judicial power and jurisdiction to
+hear, examine, and decide the case in a summary manner." Now, if a man,
+having judicial power and jurisdiction to decide controversies between
+parties adverse to each other, in controversies arising under the
+Constitution and within the express delegation of judicial power given
+by that instrument, is not a judge, do tell us who is one. Once more,
+Sir, Mr. Crittenden says, "The legal authority of every tribunal of
+exclusive jurisdiction, where no appeal lies, is of necessity
+conclusive upon every tribunal; and therefore the judgment of the
+tribunal created by this act is conclusive upon all other tribunals." So
+your commissioner is not only a judge, but he constitutes a tribunal of
+exclusive jurisdiction, and his judgment is binding even upon the
+Supreme Court of the United States. And yet, Sir, you must deny that
+this omnipotent commissioner is a judge, or you must admit, that, in the
+mode of his appointment, you have flagrantly violated the Constitution
+of your country.
+
+It has been most wickedly asserted by our proslavery presses and our
+proslavery politicians, that the surrender of fugitives from labor and
+fugitives from justice are similar proceedings. The surrender of a
+fugitive slave involves two questions, that of identity and that of
+property; and the law makes the decision of the commissioner on both
+points final and conclusive upon every State and Federal court in the
+land. The surrender of a fugitive criminal involves only the question of
+personal identity. The Governor of the State issues his warrant for the
+apprehension and delivery of a certain person proved to him to be
+charged with felony. If the officer arrests the wrong person, he does it
+at his peril, and a writ of _habeas corpus_ would immediately release
+the person wrongfully arrested. Again, it is most fraudulently
+maintained, that, if the wrong person is by the commissioner adjudged a
+slave, he may sue for his freedom in a Southern court! Should he do so,
+the exhibition of the commissioner's certificate is by law declared to
+be conclusive _upon all tribunals_. But even supposing that a Southern
+court, in defiance of law, should go behind the certificate, how is a
+free colored person from the North, working under the lash on a
+Mississippi plantation, to prove his freedom? How is he to fee a lawyer?
+How is he to get into court? If once there, where are his witnesses?
+They are his friends and acquaintances of his own color residing in the
+North. How are they to be summoned to Mississippi? Should they venture
+to enter the State, they would be imprisoned, and perhaps sold into
+slavery; or even if permitted to enter the court-room, their testimony
+would by law be excluded, against the claims of a white man. How
+despicably profligate, then, is the assumption of the advocates of your
+law, that any injustice committed under it would be repaired by Southern
+courts!
+
+It was not enough, it seems, that the wretched defendant in this
+momentous issue should be subjected to the jurisdiction of a judge
+unknown to the Constitution, holding his office by a prohibited tenure,
+incapable of being impeached, and bribed to decide in favor of the
+plaintiff by the promise of double fees, but the very trial allowed him
+must be a burlesque on all the forms and principles of juridical
+justice. The plaintiff, without notice to the defendant, prepares
+himself for trial, and when his affidavits or witnesses are all ready,
+he seizes the unsuspecting victim in the street, and puts him
+_instanter_ on his defence. Had the wretched man been accused of some
+atrocious crime, he might have demanded bail, and would have been
+permitted to go at large to seek for counsel, to look for witnesses, and
+to prepare for trial at some future day, of which he would have due
+notice. But no such privilege is allowed a man who is accused of _owing
+service_. One of your commissioners has already decided that the law
+does not permit him to bail the prisoner. The slave power rides in
+triumph over all the barriers erected by the wisdom of ages for the
+protection of human rights. The defendant is brought, generally in
+irons, before your commissioner judge, who is required "to hear and
+determine the case of _the claimant_ in a summary manner." The law seems
+not even to imagine the possibility of any defence being made on the
+part of the defendant. It makes no provision for such a defence,--no
+assignment of counsel, no summons for witnesses. We shall see presently,
+that if the plaintiff makes out a _primâ facie_ title, satisfactory to
+the commission, it is all the law requires. Let me now call your
+attention to the practical working of your diabolical law. A man named
+Rose was lately seized at Detroit, and brought before a commissioner as
+a fugitive slave. I copy from the newspaper report. "Mr. Joy (counsel
+for defendant) moved a postponement of the trial to a future day, to
+enable Rose to produce his papers to establish his right to freedom,
+which papers he had _sworn_ were in Cincinnati. The counsel for the
+claimant denied that the commissioner had any authority under the law to
+grant a postponement. The commissioner agreed with the counsel for the
+plaintiff, that _he had no authority to postpone the trial_; and he
+further declared, that, _even were the papers by which Rose was
+manumitted present, he could not under the law receive them in
+evidence_."
+
+Utterly devilish as was this decision, it was sound law. The plaintiff
+had proved his title satisfactorily, and this being done, the
+commissioner was bound by the express words of the law to grant the
+certificate. He had no right to admit rebutting evidence. It was
+sufficient to prove that the prisoner had been the slave of the
+claimant's father, and that the claimant was the heir at law of his
+father. This of itself was satisfactory, and therefore the commissioner
+had no right to admit in evidence the very deed of manumission granted
+by the father to the slave. The framers of the law had been as explicit
+as they dared to be. "Upon satisfactory proof being made by deposition
+or _affidavit_, to be taken and certified, &c., or by other satisfactory
+testimony [of course, in writing, and _ex parte_], and with proof, also
+by affidavit, of the _identity_ of the person," &c., the defendant is to
+be surrendered. Not a hint is given that any testimony may be received
+to rebut the _satisfactory_ proof given by the plaintiff. You have,
+moreover, Sir, provided a species of evidence never before heard of in
+the trial of an issue. By the tenth section, the claimant may go before
+a judge or court in Texas, and there make proof by affidavit that _his_
+slave has escaped. Whereupon, the court or judge is to certify that the
+proof is satisfactory. A record of this satisfactory proof, together
+with a description of the fugitive, is to be made, and a certified
+transcript of this record, "being exhibited to any judge, commissioner,
+or other officer authorized," &c., "_shall_ be held and taken to be full
+and conclusive evidence of the fact of escape, and that the service or
+labor of the person escaping is _due_ to the party in such record
+mentioned." Here all defence is taken from the defendant. Should he
+summon a host of witnesses to prove his freedom, not one could be heard;
+should he offer a bill of sale from the claimant to another, it could
+not be received; should he produce a deed of manumission, acknowledged
+and certified in a Southern court, it would be waste paper. And thus a
+man's freedom is to be sacrificed on an affidavit made a thousand miles
+off. What, Sir, would you think of a law that would authorize the
+seizure and sale of your property to satisfy a debt which any man in
+California might think proper to swear, before a Californian judge, was
+_due_ from you to him?
+
+Such, Sir, is the _trial_ which you, the representative of Boston, a
+descendant of the Pilgrims, and "a gentleman of property and standing,"
+have accorded to the poor and oppressed. Did the Constitution require
+such a prostitution of justice, such an outrage of humanity, at your
+hands? I need not be told that some of your commissioners have not
+construed your law as strictly as did the Detroit functionary. Thanks to
+the force of public opinion, and to the zeal of some benevolent lawyers,
+whose hearts were not padded with cotton, in some instances defendants
+have been permitted to call witnesses in their behalf; and some regard
+has been paid to the ordinary principles of justice. But in all such
+instances, the spirit of the law and the intentions of its framers have
+been frustrated.
+
+And now let us listen to your "reason" for justifying all the atrocities
+and abominations of your law. You gravely tell us, "The entire
+population of the North has acquiesced in the law of 1793, without
+thinking itself exposed to the charge of barbarity, and I have only to
+say, that I do not think the charge any more just now." Certainly, Sir,
+the young colonial judge could not have given a reason less logical or
+satisfactory. You must be an inattentive observer of passing events, if
+you are ignorant that the law of 1793 has again and again been denounced
+as iniquitous, that some of the States have prohibited their officers
+from assisting in its execution, that numberless petitions have been
+presented to Congress for its repeal, and that you yourself, instead of
+acquiescing in it, solemnly declared it to be the duty of Congress so
+far to alter the law, as to grant the alleged fugitive a trial by jury.
+Yet the law of 1793, wicked as it was, was justice and mercy compared
+with yours. The trials under that were almost invariably before judges
+of the State courts, not appointed like your commissioners for the vile
+and only purpose of reducing their fellow-men to bondage. There judges
+were not confined to _ex parte_ evidence, were not compelled to receive
+"as full and conclusive" affidavits made in distant States, and by
+unknown persons. For the most part, they honestly endeavoured, by a
+patient investigation according to the ordinary rules of evidence, and
+by holding the plaintiff to strict legal proof, to supply the want of a
+jury.
+
+David Paul Brown, Esq., of Philadelphia, in a letter of last November,
+affirms that for the last thirty years he has been engaged as counsel in
+almost every important fugitive case brought before the judges and
+courts of Philadelphia, and he tells us, "thanks to those upright and
+impartial and independent judges by whom the rights of the parties were
+finally determined," he knows of no instance in which a colored person
+was, in his opinion, wrongfully surrendered. But he adds, "I have known
+HUNDREDS who have been illegally and unjustly claimed." This experienced
+lawyer, commenting on your law, justly says it allows "_ex parte_
+testimony to be received against the alleged fugitive, which, upon no
+principle known to the common law, could be received upon the claim to
+a horse or a dog." About four weeks after the date of this letter, Mr.
+Brown was called to defend an alleged fugitive "illegally and unjustly
+claimed," not before one of the "upright and impartial and independent"
+Pennsylvania judges, but before one of your ten-dollar slave-catching
+judges. I beg you to mark the result.
+
+On the 21st of December, a colored man was arrested in the street in
+Philadelphia, without warrant, and accused of stealing chickens. He was
+thrust into a carriage, driven to the State-House, carried into an upper
+room, and handcuffed. In this state he was detained till a commissioner
+arrived. The name of this executor of your law is worthy of remembrance.
+EDWARD D. INGRAHAM ought to be as much endeared to slave-catchers, as
+Judge Jeffries was to James the Second.
+
+By some means, the arrest became known, and counsel appeared for the
+prisoner. Your commissioner was informed that the prisoner had only been
+seized an hour and a half before, and had not heard the charge against
+him; that his counsel had had no time to learn the plaintiff's case, nor
+to prepare for the defence; that there were persons residing at a
+distance, some in New Jersey and some in Wilmington, who would be
+important witnesses in his behalf. On these grounds, a motion was made
+for a continuance. And what, Sir, do you suppose was the reply made by
+the slave-catching judge to this motion? "THE HEARING IS TO BE A SUMMARY
+ONE: LET IT PROCEED." No doubt you fully participate in Mr. Webster's
+indignation against Austrian barbarity; but see no barbarity in this
+accursed proceeding against a _colored_ American. The hearing did
+proceed, and James S. Price, on behalf of the plaintiff, swore that the
+prisoner was Emery Rice, the man claimed, but knew nothing further about
+his being a slave, except that he had seen him riding the claimant's
+horse. Had _heard it said_ the prisoner was a slave. This was the amount
+of the testimony on behalf of the claimant. Any honest jury, nay, any
+honest judge, would instantly have decided in favor of the prisoner.
+Not so MR. EDWARD D. INGRAHAM. The counsel for the defendant asked again
+for a postponement, and founded the motion on the _oath_ of the
+defendant, that he could procure six persons, naming them, to testify to
+his freedom. A delay of ONE HOUR was asked for. This was refused, and
+the judge(!) sent for a certificate to sign. During the delay thus
+occasioned, one of the six persons named by the defendant appeared, and
+swore that he had known the prisoner all his life. That he was not Emery
+Rice, but Adam Gibson; that he was a freeman, having been manumitted by
+the will of his late master. Mr. Brown produced a copy of the will of
+the late master, and it so far confirmed the testimony of the witness.
+Another person in the crowd now came forward, and swore that he also
+knew the prisoner, and that he was a free person, and that he was Adam
+Gibson. But all was in vain. The commissioner signed the certificate,
+and, with an obtuseness of intellect which marked him as a fit subject
+for a commission of lunacy, declared, "He had no doubt of the identity
+of the prisoner with the slave Emery Rice, and that _all other
+proceedings must be before the courts of Maryland_, whither he would
+send him."[1] And so the prisoner, without seeing his wife and children,
+whom he had that morning parted from unsuspicious of danger and
+unconscious of crime, was hurried off at the expense of our glorious
+model republic, under an escort of officers, who delivered him, not to
+the courts of Maryland, but to Mr. William S. Knight, the reputed owner.
+But Mr. Knight told the officers, "You have brought me a wrong man; this
+is not Emery Rice; this man is no slave of mine." And so Adam Gibson
+returned to Philadelphia, and is now a living illustration of the
+abominable iniquity of one of the most accursed laws to be found in the
+statute-book of any civilized nation.
+
+[1] See report in the _New York Tribune_, 25th December, 1850.
+
+You do not think your law more barbarous than that of 1793. Let me
+further enlighten you. Judge McLean of the Supreme Court, in his opinion
+delivered last May in the case of _Norris_ v. _Newton et al._,
+remarks,--"In regard to the arrest of fugitives from labor, the law [act
+of 1793] _does not impose any active duties on our citizens generally_";
+and he argues in defence of the law, that "it gives no one a just right
+to complain; he has only to refrain from an express violation of the
+law." In other words, the law only required individuals to be passive
+spectators of a horrible outrage, and did not compel them to be active
+participators in other men's villany. Now, what says your law? Why, that
+every commissioner may appoint as many official slave-catchers as he
+pleases, and that each of these menials may "summon and call to their
+aid the _by-standers_ or _posse comitatus_ of the proper county, when
+necessary to insure a faithful observance of the clause of the
+Constitution referred to in conformity with the provisions of this act,
+AND ALL GOOD CITIZENS ARE HEREBY COMMANDED TO AID AND ASSIST in the
+prompt and efficient execution of this law, whenever their services may
+be required." And what is the fate you have provided for the "good
+citizen," who, believing slavery to be sinful, cannot, in the fear of
+God, "aid and assist" in making a fellow-man a slave? Any person "who
+shall aid, abet, or assist" the fugitive "directly or indirectly"
+(cunning words) to escape from such claimant, as, for instance, refusing
+to join in a slave-hunt when required, shall be fined not exceeding
+$1,000, be imprisoned six months, and pay the claimant $1,000. I hope,
+Sir, you are now able to perceive that your law has a preëminence in
+barbarity over its predecessor. And now, Sir, please to recollect, that
+party discipline, aided by the influence of Messrs. Webster and Clay,
+and the factory and cotton interest of Boston and New York, could not
+procure for this atrocious law the votes of _one half_ the members of
+the House of Representatives. Of two hundred and thirty-two members,
+only one hundred and nine dared to place their names on an enduring and
+shameful record, while many basely deserted their seats, fearing alike
+to vote either for or against it. You, Sir, following Mr. Webster's
+advice, "conquered your prejudices," and in company with _two_ more
+Northern Whigs, one of them a native of Virginia, cast your vote for
+this bill of abominations. But, although you voted for the law, you do
+not wish your constituents to suppose you approved of it. "It will not,
+I trust, be inferred from any thing I have said, that I consider the law
+which has passed unexceptionable. There are amendments which I strongly
+desire to be introduced into it." What are the exceptionable features of
+the law, what are the amendments you desire, you refrain from
+specifying. But you tell us that you would have labored for these
+amendments "had it been possible, but every body knows that it was
+_impracticable_." You allude to the _previous question_, which prevented
+both discussion and amendments. But why, then, did you vote for an
+objectionable bill which could not be amended? Here, again, we have one
+of your unfortunate reasons. "I deem conformity to the design of the
+Constitution more important than the objectionable details of the bill."
+So, by your own confession, had there been no previous question, you
+would have swallowed the bill with all its objectionable details, out of
+reverence for the _design_ of the Constitution, although that design
+neither embraced nor required a single one of those details. Did you,
+Sir, vote _against_ the previous question? On this point you are silent,
+and the minutes afford no information; but _if_ you did, your vote was a
+most remarkable aberration from your proslavery course in Congress.
+_After_ the previous question had been seconded, it was moved to lay the
+bill on the table. Had this motion been carried, you might have
+introduced another bill, omitting the "objectionable details," but you
+voted with the slaveholders. The slaveholders then moved that the bill
+be read a third time. Had this been lost, there would have been a chance
+of correcting the "objectionable details." Again you voted with the
+slaveholders, and a third time, also, on the main question.
+
+I will now, Sir, call your attention to the disastrous influence which
+your law has exerted on the _moral sense_ of the community. Says
+Coleridge, "To dogmatize a crime, that is, to teach it as a doctrine, is
+itself a crime." Of this crime of dogmatizing crime, Mr. Webster, and
+most of our cotton politicians, and, alas! many of our fashionable,
+genteel divines, are guilty; nor are you innocent, Sir, who in your law
+require "GOOD citizens" to aid in hunting and enslaving their
+fellow-men.
+
+In former years, and before Mr. Webster had undergone his metamorphosis,
+he thus, in a speech at New York, expressed himself in regard to the
+antislavery agitation at the North. "It [slavery] has arrested the
+_religious feeling_ of the country; it has taken strong hold of the
+consciences of men. He is a rash man indeed, little conversant with
+human nature, and especially has he a very erroneous estimate of the
+character of the people of this country, who supposes that a feeling of
+this kind is _to be trifled with or despised_." This gentleman has
+become the rash man shadowed forth in his speech, and is trifling with
+and despising the religious feeling of the North. In his street speech
+in Boston, in favor of slave-hunting, he avowed that he was well aware
+that the return of fugitives "is a topic that must excite prejudices,"
+and that the question for Massachusetts to decide was, "whether she will
+conquer her own prejudice." In his letter to the citizens of
+Newburyport, he sneeringly alludes to the "cry that there is a rule for
+the government of public men and private men which is superior to the
+Constitution," and he scornfully intimates that Mr. Horace Mann, who had
+objected to your law as wicked, would do well "to appeal at once, as
+others do, to that high authority which sits enthroned above the
+Constitution and the laws"; and he gives an extract from a nameless
+English correspondent, in which the writer remarks, "Religion is an
+excellent thing except in politics," a maxim exceedingly palatable to
+very many of our politicians. Aware that the impiety of this sentiment
+was not exactly suited to the meridian of Massachusetts, he says his
+friend undoubtedly meant "a fantastical notion of religion." Of course,
+he regards the religious prejudice against hunting and enslaving men as
+springing from a fantastic notion of religion. Yet, with a strange
+fatuity, he confesses that "the teaching of Christ and his Apostles is a
+sure guide to duty in _politics_, as in any other concern of life,"
+utterly oblivious of the fact, that the "higher law," which he
+ridicules, was proclaimed in that very teaching. Christ taught, "Fear
+not them [magistrates] who kill the body, but are not able to kill the
+soul, but rather fear HIM who is able to destroy both soul and body in
+hell." What taught the Apostles? "We must obey God, rather than man."
+Such teaching it was, that gave birth to "the noble army of martyrs,"
+and this very teaching will induce multitudes of Christians at the
+present day to hazard fines and imprisonment rather than obey the wicked
+injunctions of your law. It was this same teaching which, on the
+publication of your law, induced numerous ministers of Jesus Christ, and
+various ecclesiastical assemblies, to denounce it as wicked, and
+obedience to it as rebellion against God. This expression of religious
+sentiment alarmed both our politicians and our merchants. How could the
+one expect Southern votes, or the other Southern trade, if the religious
+people at the North refused to catch slaves? Hence arose a mighty outcry
+against the blending of religion with politics, and most fearful were
+the anathemas against the parsons who desecrated the pulpit by preaching
+politics, that is, preaching that people ought to obey God rather than
+the Fugitive Slave Act. Such men were, in the language of one of the New
+York commercial journals, "clerical preachers of rebellion," and their
+congregations were exhorted to "leave them to naked walls." But the
+leaven was at work, and an antidote was greatly wanted. Supply of course
+follows demand, and forthwith there was a sudden advent of cotton
+clergyman, preaching against rebellion, and cunningly confounding a
+conscientious, passive disobedience with forcible resistance. Their
+sermons, in which virtually
+
+    "The image of God was accounted as base,
+    And the image of Cæsar set up in its place,"
+
+were received with mighty applause by the very men who had been striving
+to save the pulpit from all contaminating contact with politics, and the
+reverend preachers of cotton politics were elevated into patriots, and
+their disquisitions against the "higher law" were scattered on the wings
+of the commercial press broadcast over the land.[2] The theology which
+holds that the allegiance we owe to civil government binds the
+conscience to obedience to its mandates, is the same with which
+Shakspeare's assassin quieted his scruples when acting under the royal
+command,--"If a king bid a man be a villain, he is bound by the
+indenture of his oath to be one."
+
+[2] In one of the most celebrated of these sermons, we find the
+following broad assertion:--"If God _has_ left to men the choice of the
+_kind_ of government they will have, he has _not_ left it to their
+choice whether they will obey human government or not. He has
+_commanded_ that obedience." Our rulers command us, when required by a
+commissioner's agent, to aid in hunting and seizing our innocent
+fellow-men, and delivering them into the hands of their task-masters.
+That the reverend preacher would render a cheerful obedience to such a
+mandate, there is little doubt. We read that the Jewish rulers, "The
+chief priests and Pharisees, had given a _commandment_, that, if any one
+knew where he (Jesus) was, he should show it, that they might take him."
+Strange is it, that of the college of Apostles there was but one "good
+citizen," who rendered obedience to the powers ordained by God; all the
+others suffered death for their wilful, deliberate defiance of the laws
+and the magistrates of the land. As a specimen of the teaching of these
+cotton divines, I quote from this same admired sermon the following
+precious piece of information, viz.:--"Nor is it true that the _fugitive
+slave_ is made an _outlaw_, and on that ground justifiable for bloody
+and murderous resistance of law. He is under _the protection of law_;
+and if any man injures him, or kills him, the law will avenge him, just
+_as soon as it would you or me_." To deny the truth of this solemn
+declaration, made in the house of God, would be, in the reverend
+gentleman's estimation, but a portion of "that perpetual abuse of our
+Southern brethren" of which he complains. He must, however, permit us to
+call his attention to the following advertisements respecting a FUGITIVE
+SLAVE, published in the Wilmington Journal of the 18th of October last,
+in pursuance of a law of the State of North Carolina.
+
+"_State of North Carolina, New Hanover County._--Whereas complaint upon
+oath hath this day been made to us, two of the justice of the peace for
+the State and County aforesaid, by Guilford Horn, of Edgecombe County,
+that a certain male slave belonging to him, named HARRY,--a carpenter by
+trade, about 40 years old, 5 feet 5 inches high, or thereabouts, yellow
+complexion, stout built, with a scar on his left leg (from the cut of an
+axe), has very thick lips, eyes deep sunk in his head, forehead very
+square, tolerably loud voice, has lost one or two of his upper teeth,
+and has a very dark spot on his jaw, supposed to be a mark,--hath
+_absented_ himself from his master's service, and is _supposed_ to be
+lurking about in this County, committing acts of felony or other
+misdeeds: These are, therefore, in the name of the State aforesaid, to
+command said slave forthwith to surrender himself, and return home to
+his master; and we do hereby, by virtue of the act of Assembly in such
+case made and provided, intimate and declare that if the said slave
+Harry doth not surrender himself, and return home immediately after the
+publication of these presents, that any person or persons may KILL and
+DESTROY the said slave by such means as he may think fit, without
+accusation or impeachment of any crime or offence for so doing, and
+without incurring any penalty or forfeiture thereby.
+
+"Given under our hands and seals, this 29th day of June, 1850.
+
+"JAMES T. MILLER, J. P.
+
+"W. C. BENTTENCOURT, J. P.
+
+"ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS REWARD will be paid for the
+delivery of said HARRY to me at Tonsott Depot, Edgecombe County, or for
+his confinement in any jail in the State, so that I can get him; or one
+hundred and fifty dollars will be given for his HEAD. He was lately
+heard from in Newbern, where he called himself Henry Barnes (or Burns)
+and will be likely to continue the name or assume that of Coppage or
+Farmer. He has a free mulatto woman for a wife, by the name of Sally
+Bozeman, who has lately removed to Wilmington, and lives in that part of
+the town called Texas, where he will likely be lurking.
+
+"GUILFORD HORN.
+
+"_June 29, 1850._"
+
+It is amusing to observe with what awful reverence our merchants and
+brokers regard the sanctity of human law, when it commands them to catch
+slaves; a reverence not always felt by them for the statute of usury
+when the money market is tight.
+
+A vast deal of nonsense and impiety has been recently thrown upon the
+public in relation to the "higher law," by men who had political and
+pecuniary interests depending on the good-will of the slaveholders. The
+whole subject is perfectly simple and intelligible, and has been
+intentionally misrepresented and mystified.
+
+Human government is indispensable to the happiness and progress of human
+society. Hence God, in his wisdom and benevolence, wills its existence;
+and in this sense, and this alone, the powers that be are ordained by
+him. But civil government cannot exist, if each individual may, at his
+pleasure, forcibly resist its injunctions. Therefore Christians are
+required to _submit_ to the powers that be, whether a Nero or a
+slave-catching Congress. But obedience to the civil ruler often
+necessarily involves rebellion to God. Hence we are warned by Christ and
+his Apostles, and by the example of saints in all ages, in such cases,
+not to obey, but to submit and suffer. We are to hold fast our
+allegiance to Jehovah, but at the same time not take up arms to defend
+ourselves against the penalties imposed by the magistrate for our
+disobedience. Thus the Divine sovereignty and the authority of human
+government are both maintained. Revolution is not the abolition of human
+government, but a change in its form, and its lawfulness depends on
+circumstances. What was the "den" in which John Bunyan had his glorious
+vision of the Pilgrim's Progress? A prison to which he was confined for
+years for refusing obedience to human laws. And what excuse did this
+holy man make for conduct now denounced as wicked and rebellious? "I
+cannot obey, but I can suffer." The Quakers have from the first refused
+to obey the law requiring them to bear arms; yet have they never been
+vilified by our politicians and cotton clergymen, as rebels against the
+powers that be, nor sneered at for their acknowledgment of a "higher"
+than human law. The Lord Jesus Christ, after requiring us to love God
+and our neighbour, added, "There is none other commandment greater than
+these"; no, not even a slave-catching act of Congress, which requires us
+to hunt our neighbour, that he may be reduced to the condition of a
+beast of burden. Rarely has the religious faith of the community
+received so rude a shock as that which has been given it by your
+horrible law, and the principles advanced by its political and clerical
+supporters. Cruelty, oppression, and injustice are elevated into
+virtues, while justice, mercy, and compassion are ridiculed and
+vilified.
+
+But lately, the business of catching slaves was regarded as one of the
+lowest grades of scoundrelism. Now, great pains are taken by our
+gentlemen of property and standing to ennoble it; and men of eminence in
+the legal profession are stooping to take the wages of iniquity, and
+lending themselves to consign to the horrors of American slavery men
+whom they know to be innocent of crime. Nay, we have seen in New York a
+committee of gentlemen actually _raising money by voluntary
+contribution_ to furnish a slave-catcher with professional services
+gratis;--a free gift, not to mitigate human misery, but to aggravate the
+hardships of the poor and friendless a thousandfold. Can men of standing
+in the community thus openly espouse the cause of cruelty and
+oppression, and, from commercial and political views, trample upon every
+principle of Christian benevolence, without corrupting the moral sense
+of the people to the extent of their influence? When gentlemen club
+together to hire a lawyer to assist a slave-catcher, no wonder that the
+commercial press should teem with the vilest abuse of all who feel
+sympathy for the fugitive. One of the most malignant proslavery journals
+in New York is edited by your colleague and fellow-Whig, the Honorable
+Mr. Brooks, and his brother. I copy, Sir, for your consideration, the
+following article from the _New York Evening Express_, published during
+the late trial in that city of Henry Long, an alleged fugitive:--
+
+"Two fugitive cases are now before our courts; one that of the negro
+Henry Long, and the other that of three white Frenchmen, under the
+extradition treaty with France. The negro's case makes a great deal of
+noise, because he is black; the three white Frenchmen are hardly heard
+of. The three white French people pay their own counsel: they may have
+committed a robbery in Paris, or may not; are perhaps innocent, though
+possibly guilty; but here they are on trial, with no chance of a trial
+before a jury! If they are sent back, and are convicted, they go to the
+galleys, and are slaves for life. The negro, Henry Long, lucky fellow
+for being black! lives in clover here, and has one of the best speakers
+in the city, on the best fee, interests all the Abolitionists in all
+quarters, who contribute money freely for his defence, and if he is
+returned, leaves here canonized as a martyr, and goes back to the
+condition he was born in, to fatten on hog and hominy, better fed and
+better clothed than nine tenths of the farm laborers in Great Britain.
+Another consideration strikes us, and that is, the cost of defending
+Long will buy his freedom three times over. The very fee of his counsel
+would purchase his freedom. But to buy him and pay for him, _not steal_
+him, would leave no room for agitation. And where does this money come
+from, that cares for Long and neglects the three Frenchmen? From
+England, in the main, we believe. The Abolitionists here do not
+_contribute it_."
+
+It would be difficult to find in the Satanic press a more clumsy piece
+of malignant falsehood. We have here, from the same pen, and in the same
+article, the assertions, that the Abolitionists, in all quarters, we are
+assured, "contribute money freely for his defence"; and then the money,
+it is believed, comes mainly from England. "The Abolitionists here do
+not contribute it." To contribute money for the legal defence of a
+fugitive is _stealing him_. The cost of defending Long amounted to three
+times the price that would be asked for him. Long, after his return,
+sold in Richmond for $750; of course his defence cost $2,250. To whom,
+and for what, was this money paid? Long could not be bought in New York,
+all advances for the purpose being peremptorily repulsed. His counsel's
+fee was $300, being all contributed in New York, and about $100 of it
+being raised by the free colored people. While $300 were thus raised to
+give Long the chance of a legal defence, gentlemen of the New York Union
+Safety Committee, of which your colleague has the honor of being a
+member, contributed $500 to aid the slave-catcher in reducing to bondage
+a man unaccused of crime!
+
+I am inclined to believe, Sir, that you have little cause to
+congratulate yourself, that, in voting for the Fugitive Slave Law, you
+have advanced the cause of truth, justice, humanity, or religion.
+
+A refusal to _obey_ your wicked law has been artfully represented as a
+determination to _resist_ its execution. Very few of our white
+population have intimated the most distant intention of resorting to
+illegal violence. Very many ecclesiastical bodies have denounced your
+law as so iniquitous, that they could not in conscience obey it; but I
+challenge you to point to a _single instance_ in which such a body has
+recommended forcible resistance. To the vast accumulation of impiety
+uttered in support of your law has been added a fiendish ridicule of the
+benevolent and Christian feeling arrayed against it. It is true, that
+some of our free blacks and fugitives have declared, that they would, at
+the hazard of their lives, defend themselves against the kidnapper.
+Whatever may be thought of the wisdom of such a determination, be
+assured it will tax your logical powers to the utmost to prove that God
+has conferred the right of self-defence exclusively upon white men. The
+slave is a prisoner of war, and instead of being protected by law, he is
+subjected by it to every conceivable outrage. When murdered, his owner
+seeks in the courts _damages_ at the hands of the murderer, as he would
+for the death of his horse. For no possible injury committed on his
+person, either by his owner or others, can he receive compensation,
+although the law may profess to punish cruelty to him as to other
+animals. Now it has never been regarded as immoral, by those who admit
+the right of self-defence, for a prisoner of war to effect his escape by
+slaying his guard. All this, I know, will horrify a certain class of
+our divines and politicians. But let them be patient. I am not laying
+down a doctrine, but stating _facts_, which they may disprove if they
+can. Let them remember, that all the slavery which they delight to find
+in the Bible was the slavery of _white_ men, and that the Roman slaves
+in the time of Christ, whose bondage, we are told, he and his Apostles
+approved, were held by the _right of war_. White Americans have been
+held as slaves by the same holy and Scriptural tenure. Let us, then,
+inquire how the escape and resistance of white slaves have heretofore
+been regarded. In 1535, the _white_ slaves in Tunis alone amounted to
+twenty thousand. Cervantes, who had himself been a slave in Algiers,
+says in his writings, "For liberty we ought to risk life itself; slavery
+being the greatest evil that can fall to the lot of man." Acting upon
+this precept, he himself, while a slave, planned a general insurrection
+of the slaves. Yet Cervantes was recognized as a faithful son of the
+Church, and the license prefixed to his works declares they contain
+nothing contrary to the Christian religion. The Annual Register for 1763
+announces, that, "last month, the Christian slaves at Algiers, to the
+number of four thousand, rose and killed their guards, and massacred all
+who came in their way." The insurrection was suppressed, but no one in
+Europe denounced the insurgents as bloodthirsty wretches, nor regarded
+their effort as an impious and anti-Christian rebellion against the
+powers ordained of God. In the reign of Elizabeth, one John Fox, a slave
+on the Barbary coast, slew his master, and, effecting his escape with a
+number of his fellow-slaves, arrived in England. The queen, instead of
+looking upon him as a murderer, testified her admiration of his exploit
+by allowing him a pension.[3]
+
+[3] For the facts on this subject, see the admirable work by Charles
+Sumner, entitled "White Slavery in the Barbary States."
+
+Washington Madison performed a similar exploit on board an American
+coast slaver, and arrived, with a large number of his fellow-slaves, in
+the British West Indies. Mr. Webster, then Secretary of State,
+officially demanded of the British government the surrender of this
+heroic man as a MURDERER.
+
+In 1793, there were one hundred and fifteen American slaves in Algiers,
+held by as perfect and Scriptural a tenure as any slave is now held in
+any part of our wide republic. Had one of these slaves made his escape
+by killing his Algerine master, would any of our patriotic divines,
+would any gentleman of the "New York Union Committee of Safety," would
+even Mr. Webster himself, have pronounced him a murderer? Had the
+captain of a British ship favored his escape, and given him a passage to
+Boston, would your colleague, the Honorable Mr. Brooks, have accused him
+of slave-stealing? Is it not possible, Sir, that, with very many of our
+casuists and moralists, questions of conscience are decided according to
+the tincture of a skin?
+
+I will now ask your attention to some of the political consequences
+resulting from the late measures in which you rejoice, and for which you
+voted. No sooner had Congress made the required concessions to the slave
+power, than the advocates of those measures claimed the glory of having
+given peace to the country, and perpetuity to the Union. Mr. Webster, as
+one of the chief agents in this blessed consummation, received the
+congratulations of a crowd in Washington. In his reply he
+observed,--"Truly, gentlemen, the last two days have been great days. A
+work has been accomplished which dissipates doubts and alarms, puts an
+end to angry controversies, fortifies the Constitution of the country,
+and strengthens the bond of the Union.
+
+    'Now is the winter of our discontent
+    Made glorious summer;....
+    And all the clouds that lowered upon our house
+    In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.'"
+
+The glorious summer anticipated by the orator proved cold and brief, and
+if the lowering clouds were indeed buried in the ocean, the sea has
+given up its dead. Never before, since the organization of the
+government, has such a tempest of indignation swept over the land. Never
+before, in a single instance, has there been manifested throughout the
+religious portion of the community, of all creeds and names, such a
+settled determination in the fear of God to withhold obedience to a law
+of the land. The sentiments of the great mass of the people of the free
+States, exclusive of the commercial cities, are briefly but emphatically
+embodied in a resolution of the Common Council of Chicago, viz.:--"The
+Fugitive Slave Act recently passed by Congress is revolting to our moral
+sense, and an outrage on our feelings of justice and humanity, because
+it disregards all the securities which the Constitution and laws have
+thrown around personal liberty, and its direct tendency is to alienate
+the people from their love and reverence for the government and
+institutions of our country."
+
+How far the clouds which hovered over our house have been dissipated,
+let the recent rout of Mr. Webster's party in Massachusetts testify. Let
+his own declaration, a month after the _peace_ measures were adopted,
+that the Union was passing through a _fiery trial_, testify.[4] How far
+the work of the two days has fortified the Constitution, let the recent
+law of Vermont, denounced as an utter nullification of the Constitution,
+because it rescues the alleged fugitive from the hands of the
+commissioner, and gives him a jury trial before a State court, testify.
+When rumors were rife that Mr. Webster intended to repudiate his own
+thunder, the Wilmot Proviso, the _New York Herald_, the chief Northern
+organ of the slaveholders, promised that, if the Senator would indeed
+pursue a course so patriotic, a grateful country would, at the next
+election, place him in the Presidential chair. But scarcely had the acts
+advocated by Mr. Webster been consummated, than the _Herald_, with
+sardonic malice, announces,--"The predictions of Mr. Clay, that the
+Compromise Bill would speedily conciliate all parties, and restore the
+era of good feeling, were exactly the reverse of the actual
+consequences. Mr. Webster has been cast overboard in Massachusetts.
+General Cass has been virtually condemned in Michigan. Mr. Dickinson,
+the President, and his cabinet, have been routed in New York. Mr. Phelps
+has been superseded in Vermont. Whilst in Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, and
+Wisconsin, the Free-Soilers have carried off the booty." And he winds up
+with declaring, that the next President "can't be Fillmore nor Webster."
+
+[4] Letter to Union Meeting in New York, 28th Oct., 1850.
+
+If the "peace measures" have strengthened the bond of the Union, what
+mean all the meetings lately held to _save the Union_? Why is the tocsin
+now sounded by the very authors and friends of the measures? How comes
+it that, in Boston itself, the chairman of a Union meeting contradicts
+the exulting and jubilant shout of triumph uttered by the Secretary of
+State, and makes the following doleful announcement:--"The Union, and
+consequently the existence of this nation, is menaced, and unless there
+is a great and general effort in their support, we may soon behold the
+mighty fabric of our government trembling over our heads, and
+threatening by its fall to crush the prosperity which we have so long
+and happily enjoyed." So relaxed has become the bond of our Union, that
+one hundred gentlemen of property and standing in New York have, under
+the style and title of "The New York Union Committee of Safety," assumed
+the onerous task of taking it into their safe-keeping. "Committees of
+safety" are associated with times of peril and anarchy, and are never
+wanted when alarms have ceased, angry discussions ended, the
+Constitution fortified, and the bond of union strengthened.
+
+In this universal panic, in this dread entertained, especially in
+Boston, by Mr. Webster's friends, of soon seeing the mighty fabric of
+our government trembling over their heads, it may, Sir, be consolatory
+to you and others to know how so dire a calamity may be averted. The
+chivalric Senator from Mississippi--the gentleman who threatens to hang
+one Senator if he dare place his foot on the soil of Mississippi, who
+draws a loaded pistol on another, and for a third bears a challenge to
+mortal combat--was lately in the city of New York. The Committee of
+Safety found him out, and lauded him for his fearless discharge of duty,
+and his fervor and devotion to the Union, and welcomed him to the
+commercial emporium in the name of all who appreciate the blessings we
+enjoy, and are willing to transmit them to their children. The worthy
+and conciliatory gentleman very appropriately communicated to the
+committee having the Union in charge the conditions on which alone it
+could be saved, notwithstanding its bond had so recently been
+strengthened. These conditions are, we learn, four in number.
+
+1. "The Fugitive Slave Bill passed by Congress shall remain the law of
+the land, and be faithfully executed."
+
+Both you and Mr. Webster admit that the Constitution permits a jury
+trial to the fugitive. Should Congress, in its wisdom, and in obedience
+to the wishes of the great mass of the Northern population, and in the
+exercise of its constitutional power, elevate property in a human being
+to the same level with that in a horse, and permit a jury to pass upon
+the title to it,--_the Union must be dissolved_.
+
+2. "The Wilmot Proviso, that monstrous thing, shall not be revived." It
+was not courteous, certainly, in Mr. Foote thus to characterize Mr.
+Webster's thunder. The claim to this thunder was made in his speech,
+September, 1847, at the Springfield Convention, which nominated him for
+President; and the Convention, in his presence, thus declared their
+devotion to his missile. "The Whigs of Massachusetts now declare, and
+put this declaration of their purpose _on record_, that Massachusetts
+will never consent that Mexican territories, however acquired, shall
+become a part of the American Union, unless on the _unalterable_
+condition that there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude,
+otherwise than in punishment for crime." The next year Mr. Webster
+launched his thunder over the Territory of Oregon, and thus in his
+speech (10th August, 1848) vindicated it from the character now given to
+it by Mr. Foote:--
+
+"Gentlemen from the South declare that we invade their rights when we
+deprive them of a participation in the enjoyment of territories acquired
+by the common services and common exertions of all. Is this true? Of
+what do we deprive them? Why, they say that we deprive them of the
+privilege of carrying their slaves as slaves into the new territories.
+Well, Sir, what is the amount of that? They say, that in this way we
+deprive them of going into this acquired territory with their property.
+Their property! What do they mean by this 'property'? We certainly do
+not deprive them of the privilege of going into those newly acquired
+territories with all that, in the general estimate of human society and
+common and universal understanding of mankind, is esteemed property. Not
+at all. The truth is just this. They have in their own States peculiar
+laws which create property in persons.... The real meaning, then, of
+Southern gentlemen, in making this complaint, is, that they cannot go
+into the territories of the United States carrying with them their own
+peculiar law, a law which creates property in persons."
+
+So the Wilmot Proviso was no monstrous thing at all, as applied to
+Oregon. When the question came up of applying this same Proviso to New
+Mexico and California, Mr. Webster discovered in these Territories a
+certain peculiarity of physical geography and Asiatic scenery which he
+had not discovered in Oregon, and which, he found, rendered it a
+physical impossibility for Southern gentlemen to carry there "a law
+which creates property in persons," and he therefore gave them full
+liberty to carry their law into those vast regions, if they could. But
+at the very moment of giving this liberty to Southern gentlemen, he
+courageously warned them that his thunder was good constitutional
+thunder, and would be used whenever necessary. "Wherever there is an
+_inch of land_ to be stayed back from becoming slave territory, I am
+ready to insert the principle of the exclusion of slavery. I am pledged
+to that from 1837,--pledged to it again and again, and I will perform
+those pledges." So, should we get another slice of Mexico, or annex Cuba
+or St. Domingo, Mr. Webster would revive the Wilmot Proviso, and then
+_he_ will be the means, if he succeeds, of dissolving the Union!
+
+3. The next condition announced to the Safety Committee is,--"No attempt
+shall be made in Congress to prohibit slavery in the District of
+Columbia."
+
+Now it is the opinion of Mr. Webster, that Congress has the
+constitutional right, not merely to attempt, but actually to effect, the
+exclusion of slavery in _all_ the Territories of the United States. The
+District of Columbia being placed by the Constitution expressly under
+"the exclusive jurisdiction" of Congress, the _constitutional_ right to
+abolish slavery there has rarely been questioned; but it has been
+contended that good faith to the States which ceded the District forbids
+such an act of constitutional power. Hence, in 1838, a resolution was
+introduced into the Senate declaring that the abolition of slavery in
+the District would be "a violation of good faith," &c. What said Mr.
+Webster? "I do not know any matter of fact, or any ground of argument,
+on which this affirmation of plighted faith can stand. I see nothing in
+the act of cession, and nothing in the Constitution, and nothing in the
+transaction, implying any limitation on the authority of Congress."[5]
+
+[5] On the 10th of January, 1838, Mr. Clay moved in the Senate the
+following resolution, viz.:--"Resolved, that the interference by the
+citizens of any of the States with a view to the abolition of slavery in
+this District, is endangering the rights and security of the people of
+this District; and that any act or measure of Congress designed to
+abolish slavery in this District would be a violation of the faith
+implied in the cession by the States of Virginia and Maryland, a just
+cause of alarm to the people of the slaveholding States, and have a
+direct and inevitable tendency to disturb and endanger the
+Union."--Passed, 38 to 8, Mr. Webster voting in the negative. _Senate
+Journal_, _2 Sess. 25 Cong._, p. 127.
+
+4. The last condition on which the Union can be preserved is,--"No State
+shall be prevented from coming into the Union on the ground of having
+slavery." This is an unkind cut at Mr. Webster, since he has again and
+again pledged himself against the admission of slave States. Even so
+early as 1819, he advocated, in a public meeting at Boston, a resolution
+declaring that Congress "possessed the constitutional power, upon the
+admission of any new State created beyond the limits of the original
+territory of the United States, to make the prohibition of the further
+extension of slavery or involuntary servitude in such new State a
+condition of admission. That, in the opinion of this meeting, it is just
+and expedient that this power should be exercised by Congress upon the
+admission of all new States created beyond the original limits of the
+United States." In his New York speech, in 1837, he averred, "When it is
+proposed to bring new members into the political partnership, the old
+members have a right to say on what terms such new partners are to come
+in, and _what they are to bring along with them_." In his Springfield
+speech, he insisted, "There is no one [he forgot Mr. Foote and his other
+Southern friends] who can complain of the North for resisting the
+increase of _slave representation_, because it gives power to the
+minority in a manner inconsistent with the principles of our
+government." So late as 1848, he proclaimed on the floor of the Senate,
+"I shall oppose all such extension [slave representation] at all times
+and under all circumstances, even against all inducements, against all
+combinations, against all compromises."
+
+The State of Georgia, in her convention of December last, added a
+_fifth_ condition to those stated by Mr. Foote as indispensable to the
+preservation of the Union, viz.:--"No act suppressing the slave-trade
+between the slaveholding States." Unfortunately for Mr. Webster, he is
+here, for the fifth time, virtually held up as a disorganizer, and an
+enemy of the Union; for in his speech in the Senate (6th February, 1837)
+he remarked,--"As to the point, the right of regulating the transfer of
+slaves from one State to another, he did not know that he entertained
+any doubt, because the Constitution gave Congress the right to regulate
+trade and commerce between the States. Trade in what? In whatever was
+the subject of commerce and ownership. If slaves were the subjects of
+ownership, then trade in them between the States was subject to the
+regulation of Congress."
+
+Mr. Webster declared, that the work of the two days in which he rejoiced
+had fortified the Constitution, and strengthened the bond of the Union;
+and yet we are now solemnly warned, by the very men and party with whom
+he is acting, that the bond is to be severed, should Congress pass any
+one of five laws, all and each of which he, the great expounder,
+declares the Constitution authorizes Congress to pass. So it seems the
+great peril to which we are exposed, the course which is to make the
+fabric of our government to tremble over the heads of the people of
+Boston, is, not the violation of the Constitution, nor the breach of its
+compromises, nor the invasion of the rights of the South, but the
+exercise by Congress of powers which Mr. Webster declares to be
+undoubtedly constitutional. The Abolitionists supposed they were
+following a safe guide when they confined themselves, in their petitions
+to Congress for legislative action against slavery, exclusively to such
+measures as they were assured, by the eminent expounder, were strictly
+constitutional. The Abolitionists have sympathized with this gentleman
+in the obloquy he incurred, in common with themselves, for holding
+opinions unpalatable to the slaveholders, and for maintaining the
+constitutional rights of Congress. Because he insisted, in the Senate,
+on the power of Congress over slavery and the slave-trade in the
+District of Columbia, Mr. Rives, of Virginia, was so unkind as to say,
+that the gentleman from Massachusetts, "if it so pleased his fancy,
+might disport himself in tossing squibs and firebrands about this hall;
+but those who are sitting upon a barrel of gunpowder, liable to be blown
+up by his dangerous missiles, could hardly be expected to be quite as
+calm and philosophic." Because he presented antislavery petitions, and
+insisted on the duty of Congress to consider them, Mr. King, of Alabama,
+affirmed that the course which the Senator from Massachusetts had taken
+had "placed him at the head of those men who are inundating Congress
+with their petitions." Strange as it may now seem, Mr. Cuthbert, of
+Georgia, told Mr. Webster to his face in the Senate, "The gentleman had
+uniformly been opposed to all those measures which tended to quiet the
+country and heal those sectional dissensions which distract the
+Union."[6] Surely, when the Abolitionists have so long made Mr. Webster
+their polar star in all constitutional questions, and have incurred with
+him the accusation of tossing squibs and firebrands, and of opposing
+measures which tended to quiet the country and settle sectional
+dissensions, they had a right to expect from his friends a larger share
+of compassion and forbearance than they have experienced.
+
+[6] Speech, June 8, 1836.
+
+It would seem, Sir, that, in the late treaty of peace between the North
+and the South, it has been agreed and understood, that every power
+granted by the Constitution, whereby slavery can be protected, extended,
+and perpetuated, is to be actively enforced; and that every power which
+might be used for curtailing human bondage, however unquestionable may
+be its grant, shall for ever remain dormant, under the penalty of an
+immediate dissolution of the Union. This, Sir, is the treaty which our
+commercial cities are glorifying; this is the treaty which has turned
+our "winter of discontent" into "glorious summer." And think you, Sir,
+that the slaveholders, having eyes, see not, and having understandings,
+perceive not, the haberdashery patriotism which rejoices in such a
+treaty, and denounces as "fanatics," "vipers," and "woolly-headed
+philanthropists," all who do not confess it to be a glorious
+consummation? The Southern papers tell us that our Union meetings are
+got up to "sell a little more tape and flannel"; and they remark, "It is
+very queer that Union meetings are held only in places which trade with
+the South." Out of regard to their Southern brethren, a member of the
+British House of Commons was insulted in Faneuil Hall by a portion of
+the Boston people, and forthwith the _New Orleans Delta_, instead of
+gratefully acknowledging the compliment, remarks, that their "good
+Union-loving friends in Boston are now solacing the South with
+sugar-plums in the shape of resolutions and speeches, and spice in the
+form of a row, got up on the occasion of the first appearance of George
+Thompson, an imported incendiary and hireling agitator. Such
+manifestation possesses an advantage which doubtless constitutes no
+small recommendation with our good brethren of Boston,--it is very
+cheap. The _cottoncratical_ clerks and warehousemen may raise a hubbub
+in Faneuil Hall, but the fanatics can slay them at the _polls_."
+
+It is some consolation to those who are now suffering all the contempt
+and opprobrium which can be thrown both upon their heads and their
+hearts, because they have refused to follow Mr. Webster in the devious
+paths in which it has lately been his pleasure to walk, that they have
+by their constancy and firmness extorted from their Southern antagonists
+a tribute which is not paid to their revilers. Said Mr. Stanley, of
+Virginia, in his speech in the House of Representatives last March,
+speaking of a certain class of Northern politicians,--"I would say, with
+a slight alteration of one of Canning's verses,--
+
+    'Give me the avowed, erect, and manly foe,
+    Open I can meet, perhaps may turn, his blow;
+    But of all the plagues, great Heaven, thy wrath can send,
+    Save, O, save me from a _dough-face friend_!'"
+
+In closing this long letter, permit me to advert to the opinion
+expressed abroad of your Fugitive Law. Mr. Webster thought it convenient
+to quote the sentiment of a nameless correspondent, as to the
+mischievous mixture of religion with politics. Possibly the opinion of
+Dr. Lushington, one of the Lords of the Privy Council, Judge of the
+Vice-Admiralty Court, and the negotiator, on the part of Great Britain,
+of a recent treaty with France, may be entitled to at least equal
+weight. This gentleman, in a private letter to an English friend, and
+not intended for publication, thus speaks of your law:--"No one can feel
+more sincerely than myself, abhorrence of the Fugitive Slave Bill,--a
+measure as cruel and unchristian as ever disgraced any country." An
+Irish liberal, writing from Dublin, says,--"I long looked to your
+country as the ark of the world's liberties. I confess I hope for this
+no longer. The Fugitive Slave Bill is a shocking sample of the depravity
+of public sentiment in the United States. So atrocious a measure could
+not have passed into a law, if the majority of the people had not
+actively assented, or passively consented. Here, by the preponderating
+influence of our aristocracy, a small, but compact body, measures are
+often carried into laws that are very distasteful to multitudes; but
+such a mean, vile law as the Fugitive Slave Bill could not pass in
+England."
+
+The English press, Whig, Tory, and Radical, is indignant at the
+atrocities of your law. The taunt of our slaveholders, that the English
+had better reform abuses at home, is thus met by a radical journal (_The
+People_):--"The Americans laugh at us when we speak of American slavery,
+so long as so many of our fellow-subjects in England and Ireland are
+perishing from starvation through monarchical and aristocratical
+tyranny. We answer, that the Americans _know_ that the men and women who
+lift up their voices against American slavery are the enemies of British
+tyranny and oppression."
+
+Your law, Sir, degrades the national character abroad; its excessive
+servility to Southern dictation excites the contempt of the slaveholders
+for the easy, selfish virtue of their Northern auxiliaries, while its
+outrages upon religion, justice, humanity, and the dearest principles of
+personal freedom, under pretence of preserving the Union, weaken the
+attachment of conscientious men for a confederacy which requires such
+horrible sacrifices for its continuance. All these evils might have been
+easily avoided by a law satisfying every requirement of the
+Constitution, and yet treating the alleged fugitive as a MAN, and
+granting him the same protection as is accorded to an alleged murderer.
+God gave you, Sir, an opportunity for which you ought to have been
+grateful, of illustrating your Puritan descent by standing forth before
+the nation as an advocate of justice and freedom, and of the rights of
+the poor and oppressed. Through a blind devotion to a political leader,
+you rejected the palm which Providence tendered to your acceptance, and
+have indelibly associated your name with cruelty and injustice. Had you
+retired from the notice of the public, as you did from the suffrages of
+the electors, you had acted wisely. In an evil hour for yourself, you
+stood forth as the champion of the Fugitive Slave Law. Its enemies
+rejoice in your rashness, for your feeble apology has rendered its
+deformities more prominent, and, by failing to vindicate, you have
+virtually confessed its abominations. May you live, Sir, to deplore the
+grievous error you have committed, and, by your future efforts in behalf
+of human freedom and happiness, atone for the wound they have received
+at your hands.
+
+HANCOCK.
+
+February, 1851.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Letter to the Hon. Samuel Eliot,
+Representative in Congress From the City of Boston, In Reply to His Apology For Voting For the Fugitive Slave Bill., by Hancock
+
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