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diff --git a/31191-8.txt b/31191-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9dada13 --- /dev/null +++ b/31191-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2211 @@ +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 + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTER TO HON. SAMUEL ELIOT *** + +***** This file should be named 31191-8.txt or 31191-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/1/9/31191/ + +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.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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