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<h3><i>ANTI-SLAVERY TRACTS. No. 9. New Series.</i></h3>

<h1>THE<br />

DUTY OF DISOBEDIENCE<br />

TO THE<br />

FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT:</h1>

<h3>AN APPEAL TO THE<br />

LEGISLATORS OF MASSACHUSETTS,</h3>

<h2>BY L. MARIA CHILD</h2>
<br />

<p>&quot;Thou shalt <i>not</i> deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped
from his master unto thee.&quot;&mdash;DEUT. 23:15.</p>
<br />

<h4>BOSTON:<br />
PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY.<br />
1860.</h4>

<hr style='width: 65%;' />

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
<center>
 <p><a href='#APPEAL'><b>APPEAL TO THE LEGISLATORS OF MASSACHUSSETTS.</b></a></p>
 <p><a href='#APPEAL_TO_THE'><b>APPEAL TO THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT.</b></a></p>
 <p><a href='#TESTIMONIES_AGAINST'><b>TESTIMONIES AGAINST THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT.</b></a></p>
 <p><a href='#VERMONT_PERSONAL_LIBERTY_LAW'><b>VERMONT PERSONAL LIBERTY LAW.</b></a></p>
</center>
<p>&nbsp;</p>


<hr style='width: 65%;' />

<a name='APPEAL'></a><h2>APPEAL<br />

TO THE<br />

LEGISLATORS OF MASSACHUSETTS.</h2>
<br />

<p>I feel there is no need of apologizing to the Legislature
of Massachusetts because a woman addresses them. Sir
Walter Scott says: &quot;The truth of Heaven was never committed
to a tongue, however feeble, but it gave a right to that
tongue to announce mercy, while it declared judgment.&quot; And
in view of all that women have done, and are doing, intellectually
and morally, for the advancement of the world, I presume
no enlightened legislator will be disposed to deny that
the &quot;truth of Heaven&quot; <i>is</i> often committed to them, and that
they sometimes utter it with a degree of power that greatly
influences the age in which they live.</p>

<p>I therefore offer no excuses on that score. But I do feel
as if it required some apology to attempt to convince men of
ordinary humanity and common sense that the Fugitive Slave
Bill is utterly wicked, and consequently ought never to be
obeyed. Yet Massachusetts consents to that law! Some
shadow of justice she grants, inasmuch as her Legislature
have passed what is called a Personal Liberty Bill, securing
trial by jury to those claimed as slaves. Certainly it is
<i>something</i> gained, especially for those who may get brown by
working in the sunshine, to prevent our Southern masters
from taking any of us, at a moment's notice, and dragging us
off into perpetual bondage. It is <i>something</i> gained to require
legal proof that a man is a slave, before he is given up
to arbitrary torture and unrecompensed toil. But is <i>that</i>
the measure of justice becoming the character of a free Commonwealth?
&quot;<i>Prove</i> that the man is property, according
<i>your</i> laws, and I will drive him into your cattle-pen with
sword and bayonet,&quot; is what Massachusetts practically says
to Southern tyrants. &quot;Show me a Bill of Sale from the
Almighty!&quot; is what she <i>ought</i> to say. No other proof
should be considered valid in a Christian country.</p>

<p>One thousand five hundred years ago, Gregory, a Bishop
in Asia Minor, preached a sermon in which he rebuked
the sin of slaveholding. Indignantly he asked, &quot;Who
can be the possessor of human beings save God? Those
men that you say belong to you, did not God create
them free? Command the brute creation; that is well.
Bend the beasts of the field beneath your yoke. But are
your fellow-men to be bought and sold, like herds of cattle?
Who can pay the value of a being created in the image of
God? The whole world itself bears no proportion to the
value of a soul, on which the Most High has set the seal
his likeness. This world will perish, but the soul of man is
immortal. Show me, then, your titles of possession. Tell
me whence you derive this strange claim. Is not your own
nature the same with that of those you call your slaves?
Have they not the same origin with yourselves? Are they
not born to the same immortal destinies?&quot;</p>

<p>Thus spake a good old Bishop, in the early years of Christianity.
Since then, thousands and thousands of noble souls
have given their bodies to the gibbet and the stake, to help
onward the slow progress of truth and freedom; a great unknown
continent has been opened as a new, free starting point
for the human race; printing has been invented, and the
command, &quot;Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto
you, do ye even so unto them,&quot; has been sent abroad in all the
languages of the earth. And here, in the noon-day light
the nineteenth century, in a nation claiming to be the freest
and most enlightened on the face of the globe, a portion
the population of fifteen States have thus agreed among
themselves: &quot;Other men shall work for us, without wages
while we smoke, and drink, and gamble, and race horses, and
fight. We will have their wives and daughters for concubines,
and sell their children in the market with horses and
pigs. If they make any objection to this arrangement, we
will break them into subjection with the cow-hide and the
bucking-paddle. They shall not be permitted to read or
write, because that would be likely to 'produce dissatisfaction
in their minds.' If they attempt to run away from us, our
blood-hounds shall tear the flesh from their bones, and any
man who sees them may shoot them down like mad dogs. If
they succeed in getting beyond our frontier, into States
where it is the custom to pay men for their work, and to protect
their wives and children from outrage, we will compel
the people of those States to drive them back into the jaws
of our blood-hounds.&quot;</p>

<p>And what do the people of the other eighteen States of
that enlightened country answer to this monstrous demand?
What says Massachusetts, with the free blood of the Puritans
coursing in her veins, and with the sword uplifted in her
right hand, to procure &quot;peaceful repose under liberty&quot;?
Massachusetts answers: &quot;O yes. We will be your blood-hounds,
and pay our own expenses. Only prove to our satisfaction
that the stranger who has taken refuge among us is
one of the men you have agreed among yourselves to whip
into working without wages, and we will hunt him back for
you. Only prove to us that this woman, who has run away
from your harem, was bought for a concubine, that you might
get more drinking-money by the sale of the children she
bears you, and our soldiers will hunt her back with alacrity.&quot;</p>

<p>Shame on my native State! Everlasting shame! Blot
out the escutcheon of the brave old Commonwealth! Instead
of the sword uplifted to protect liberty, let the slave-driver's
whip be suspended over a blood-hound, and take for your
motto, Obedience to tyrants is the highest law.</p>

<p>Legislators of Massachusetts, can it be that you really understand
what Slavery <i>is</i>, and yet consent that a fugitive
slave, who seeks protection here, shall be driven back to that
dismal house of bondage? For sweet charity's sake, I must
suppose that you have been too busy with your farms and
your merchandise ever to have imagined yourself in the situation
of a slave. Let me suppose a case for you; one of a
class of cases occurring by hundreds every year. Suppose
your father was Governor of Carolina and your mother was
a slave. The Governor's wife hates your mother, and is ingenious
in inventing occasions to have you whipped. <i>You</i>
don't know the reason why, poor child! but your mother
knows full well. If they would only allow her to go away
and work for wages, she would gladly toil and earn money to
buy you. But that your father will not allow. His laws
have settled it that she is his property, &quot;for all purposes
whatsoever,&quot; and he will keep her as long as suits his convenience.
The mistress continually insists upon her being sold
far away South; and after a while, she has her will. Your
poor mother clings to you convulsively; but the slave-driver
gives you both a cut of his whip, and tells you to stop your
squalling. They drive her off with the gang, and you never
hear of her again; but, for a long time afterward, it makes
you very sad to remember the farewell look of those large,
loving eyes. Your poor mother had handsome eyes; and
that was one reason her mistress hated her.</p>

<p>You also are your father's property; and when he dies,
you will be the property of your whiter brother. You
black his shoes, tend upon him at table, and sleep on the floor
in his room, to give him water if he is thirsty in the night.
You see him learning to read, and you hear your father read
wonderful things from the newspapers. Very naturally, you
want to read, too. You ask your brother to teach you the
letters. He gives you a kick, calls you a &quot;damned nig,&quot; and
informs his father, who orders you to be flogged for insolence.
Alone on the hard floor at night, still smarting from
your blows, you ponder over the great mystery of knowledge
and wonder why it would do <i>you</i> any more harm than it does
your brother. Henceforth, all scraps of newspapers you can
find are carefully laid by. Helplessly you pore over them, at
stolen moments, as if you expected some miracle would reveal
the meaning of those printed signs. Cunning comes to your
aid. It is the only weapon of the weak against the strong.
When you see white boys playing in the street, you trace a
letter in the sand, and say, &quot;My young master calls that B.&quot;
&quot;That ain't B, you dammed nigger. That's A&quot;! they
shout. Now you know what shape is A; and diligently you
hunt it out wherever it is to be found on your scraps of newspaper.
By slow degrees you toil on, in similar ways, through
all the alphabet. No student of Greek or Hebrew ever deserved
so much praise for ingenuity and diligence. But the
years pass on, and still you cannot read. Your master-brother
now and then gives you a copper. You hoard them,
and buy a primer; screening yourself from suspicion, by
telling the bookseller that your master wants it for his sister's
little boy. You find the picture of a cat, with three letters
by its side; and now you know how cat is spelt. Elated
with your wonderful discovery, you are eager to catch a minute
to study your primer. Too eager, alas! for your mistress
catches you absorbed in it, and your little book is
promptly burned. You are sent to be flogged, and your
lacerated back is washed with brine to make it heal quickly.
But in spite of all their efforts, your intelligent mind is too
cunning for them. Before twenty years have passed, you
have stumbled along into the Bible; alone in the dark, over
a rugged road of vowels and consonants. You keep the precious
volume concealed under a board in the floor, and read
it at snatches, by the light of a pine knot. You read that
God has created of one blood all the nations of the earth;
and that his commandment is, to do unto others as we would
that they should do unto us. You think of your weeping
mother, torn from your tender arms by the cruel slave-trader;
of the interdicted light of knowledge; of the Bible
kept as a sealed book from all whose skins have a tinge of
black, or brown, or yellow; of how those brown and yellow
complexions came to be so common; of yourself, the son of
the Governor, yet obliged to read the Bible by stealth, under
the penalty of a bleeding back washed with brine. These
and many other things revolve in your active mind, and your
unwritten inferences are worth whole folios of theological
commentaries.</p>

<p>As youth ripens into manhood, life bears for you, as it
does for others, its brightest, sweetest flower. You love
young Amy, with rippling black hair, and large dark eyes,
with long, silky fringes. You inherit from your father, the
Governor, a taste for beauty warmly-tinted, like Cleopatra's.
You and Amy are of rank to make a suitable match; for you
are the son of a Southern Governor, and she is the daughter
of a United States Senator, from the North, who often
shared her master's hospitality; her handsome mother being
a portion of that hospitality, and he being large-minded
enough to &quot;conquer prejudices.&quot; You have good sympathy
in other respects also, for your mothers were both slaves;
and as it is conveniently and profitably arranged for the masters
that &quot;the child shall follow the condition of the <i>mother</i>,&quot;
you are consequently both of you slaves. But there are
some compensations for your hard lot. Amy's simple admiration
flatters your vanity. She considers you a prodigy of
learning because you can read the Bible, and she has not the
faintest idea how such skill can be acquired. She gives you
her whole heart, full of the blind confidence of a first love.
The divine spark, which kindles aspirations for freedom in the
human soul, has been glowing more and more brightly since
you have emerged from boyhood, and now her glances kindle
it into a flame. For her dear sake, you long to be a free man,
with power to protect her from the degrading incidents of a
slave-girl's life. Wages acquire new value in your eyes,
from a wish to supply her with comforts, and enhance her
beauty by becoming dress. For her sake, you are ambitious
to acquire skill in the carpenter's trade, to which your, master-brother
has applied you as the best investment of his human
capital. It is true, he takes all your wages; but then,
by acquiring uncommon facility, you hope to accomplish
your daily tasks in shorter time, and thus obtain some extra
hours to do jobs for yourself. These you can eke out by
working late into the night, and rising when the day dawns.
Thus you calculate to be able in time to buy the use of your
own limbs. Poor fellow! Your intelligence and industry
prove a misfortune. They charge twice as much for the machine
of your body on account of the soul-power which moves
it. Your master-brother tells you that you would bring
eighteen hundred dollars in the market. It is a large sum.
Almost hopeless seems the prospect of earning it, at such odd
hours as you can catch when the hard day's task is done.
But you look at Amy, and are inspired with faith to remove
mountains. Your master-brother graciously consents to receive
payment by instalments. These prove a convenient addition
to the whole of your wages. They will enable him to
buy a new race horse, and increase his stock of choice wines.
While he sleeps off drunkenness, you are toiling for him,
with the blessed prospect of freedom far ahead, but burning
brightly in the distance, like a Drummond Light, guiding the
watchful mariner over a midnight sea.</p>

<p>When you have paid five hundred dollars of the required
sum, your lonely heart so longs for the comforts of a home,
that you can wait no longer. You marry Amy, with the resolution
of buying her also, and removing to those Free
States, about which you have often talked together, as invalids
discourse of heaven. Amy is a member of the church,
and it is a great point with her to be married by a minister.
Her master and mistress make no objection, knowing that
after the ceremony, she will remain an article of property,
the same as ever. Now come happy months, during which
you almost forget that you are a slave, and that it must be a
weary long while before you can earn enough to buy yourself
and your dear one, in addition to supporting your dissipated
master. But you toil bravely on, and soon pay another
hundred dollars toward your ransom. The Drummond Light
of Freedom burns brighter in the diminished distance.</p>

<p>Alas! in an unlucky hour, your tipsy master-brother sees
your gentle Amy, and becomes enamored of her large dark
eyes, and the rich golden tint of her complexion. Your
earnings and your ransom-money make him flush of cash.
In spite of all your efforts to prevent it, she becomes his
property. He threatens to cowhide you, if you ever speak to
her again. You remind him that she is your wife; that you
were married by a minister. &quot;Married, you damned nigger!&quot;
he exclaims; &quot;what does a slave's marriage amount
to? If you give me any more of your insolence, you'll get
a taste of the cowhide.&quot;</p>

<p>Anxious days and desolate nights pass. There is such a
heavy pain at your heart, it is a mystery to yourself that you
do not die. At last, Amy contrives to meet you, pale and
wretched as yourself. She has a mournful story to tell of degrading
propositions, and terrible threats. She promises to
love you always, and be faithful to you till death, come what
may. Poor Amy! When she said that, she did not realize
how powerless is the slave, in the hands of an unprincipled
master. Your interview was watched, and while you were
sobbing in each other's arms, you were seized and ordered to
receive a hundred lashes. While you are lying in jail, stiff
with your wounds, your master-brother comes to tell you he
has sold you to a trader from Arkansas. You remind him
of the receipt he has given you for six hundred dollars, and
ask him to return the money. He laughs in your face, and
tells you his receipt is worth no more than so much brown
paper; that no contracts with a slave are binding. He
coolly adds, &quot;Besides, it has taken all my spare money to buy
Amy.&quot; Perhaps you would have killed him in that moment
of desperation, even with the certainty of being burnt to cinders
for the deed, but you are too horribly wounded by the
lash to be able to spring upon him. In that helpless condition,
you are manacled and carried off by the slave-trader.
Never again will Amy's gentle eyes look into yours. What
she suffers you will never know. She is suddenly wrenched
from your youth, as your mother was from your childhood.
The pall of silence falls over all her future. She cannot
read or write; and the post-office was not instituted for
slaves.</p>

<p>Looking back on that dark period of desolation and despair,
you marvel how you lived through it. But the nature
of youth is elastic. You have learned that law offers colored
men nothing but its <i>penalties</i>; that white men engross all
its <i>protection</i>; still you are tempted to make another bargain
for your freedom. Your new master seems easy and good-natured,
and you trust he will prove more honorable than
your brother has been. Perhaps he would; but unfortunately,
he is fond of cards; and when you have paid him two
hundred dollars, he stakes them, and you also, at the gaming-table,
and loses. The winner is a hard man, noted for severity
to his slaves. Now you resolve to take the risk of running
away, with all its horrible chances. You hide in a
neighboring swamp, where you are bitten by a venomous
snake, and your swollen limb becomes almost incapable of
motion. In great anguish, you drag it along, through the
midnight darkness, to the hut of a poor plantation-slave, who
binds on a poultice of ashes, but dares not, for fear of his
life, shelter you after day has dawned. He helps you to a
deep gully, and there you remain till evening, half-famished
for food. A man in the neighborhood keeps blood-hounds,
well trained to hunt runaways. They get on your track, and
tear flesh from the leg which the snake had spared. To
escape them, you leap into the river. The sharp ring of
rifles meets your ear. You plunge under water. When
you come up to take breath, a rifle ball lodges in your shoulder
and you plunge again. Suddenly, thick clouds throw
their friendly veil over the moon. You swim for your life,
with balls whizzing round you. Thanks to the darkness and
the water, you baffle the hounds, both animal and human.
Weary and wounded, you travel through the forests, your eye
fixed hopefully on the North Star, which seems ever beckoning
you onward to freedom, with its bright glances through
the foliage. In the day-time, you lie in the deep holes of
swamps, concealed by rank weeds and tangled vines, taking
such rest as can be obtained among swarms of mosquitoes
and snakes. Through incredible perils and fatigues, footsore
and emaciated, you arrive at last in the States called
Free. You allow yourself little time to rest, so eager are
you to press on further North. You have heard the masters
swear with peculiar violence about Massachusetts, and you
draw the inference that it is a refuge for the oppressed.
Within the borders of that old Commonwealth, you breathe
more freely than you have ever done. You resolve to rest
awhile, at least, before you go to Canada. You find friends,
and begin to hope that you may be allowed to remain and
work, if you prove yourself industrious and well behaved.
Suddenly, you find yourself arrested and chained. Soldiers
escort you through the streets of Boston, and put you on
board a Southern ship, to be sent back to your master.
When you arrive, he orders you to be flogged so unmercifully,
that the doctor says you will die if they strike another
blow. The philanthropic city of Boston hears the bloody
tidings, and one of her men in authority says to the public:
&quot;Fugitive slaves are a class of foreigners, with whose rights
Massachusetts has nothing to do. It is enough for <i>us</i>, that
they have no right to be <i>here</i>.&quot;<a name='FNanchor_1_1'></a><a href='#Footnote_1_1'>[1]</a> And the merchants of
Boston cry, Amen.</p>

<a name='Footnote_1_1'></a><a href='#FNanchor_1_1'>[1]</a><div class='note'>Said by the U.S. Commissioner, George Ticknor Curtis, at a Union
Meeting, in the Old Cradle of Liberty.</div>

<p>Legislators of Massachusetts! if <i>you</i> had been thus continually
robbed of your rights by the hand of violence, what
would <i>you</i> think of the compact between North and South to
perpetuate your wrongs, and transmit them to your posterity?
Would you not regard it as a league between highwaymen,
who had &quot;no rights that you were bound to respect&quot;? I put
the question plainly and directly to your consciences and your
common sense, and they will not allow you to answer, No.
Are you, then, doing right to sustain the validity of a law
for <i>others</i>, which you would vehemently reject for <i>yourselves</i>
in the name of outraged justice and humanity?</p>

<p>The incidents I have supposed might happen to yourselves
if you were slaves, are not an imaginary accumulation of
horrors. The things I have described are happening in this
country every day. I have talked with many &quot;fugitives
from injustice,&quot; and I could not, within the limits of these
pages, even hint at a tithe of the sufferings and wrongs they
have described. I have also talked with several slaveholders,
who had emancipated themselves from the hateful system.
Being at a safe distance from lynching neighbors, they
could venture to tell the truth; and their statements fully
confirm all that I have heard from the lips of slaves. If you
read Southern Laws, you will need very small knowledge of
human nature to be convinced that the practical results must
inevitably be utter barbarism. In view of those <i>laws</i>, I have
always wondered how sensible people could be so slow in
believing the actual state of things in slaveholding communities.</p>

<p>There are no incidents in history, or romance, more thrilling
than the sufferings, perils, and hair-breadth escapes of
American slaves. No Puritan pilgrim, or hero of '76, has
manifested more courage and perseverance in the cause of
freedom, than has been evinced, in thousands of instances, by
this persecuted race. In future ages, popular ballads will be
sung to commemorate their heroic achievements, and children
more enlightened than ours will marvel at the tyranny of
their white ancestors.</p>

<p>All of you have doubtless read some accounts of what
these unhappy men and women have dared and endured. Did
you never put yourselves in their stead, and imagine how <i>you</i>
would feel, under similar circumstances? Not long ago, a
young man escaped from slavery by clinging night and day to
the under part of a steamboat, drenched by water, and suffering
for food. He was discovered and sent back. If the
Constitution of the United States sanctioned such an outrage
upon <i>you</i>, what would <i>you</i> think of those who answered your
entreaties and remonstrances by saying, &quot;Our fathers made
an agreement with the man who robs you of your wages and
your freedom. It is law; and it is your duty to submit to [Transcriber's note:
word cut off]
patiently&quot;? I think you would <i>then</i> perceive the necessity
of having the Constitution forthwith amended; and if it were
not done very promptly, I apprehend you would appeal vociferously
to a higher law.</p>

<p>A respectable lady, who removed with her family from
Virginia to New York, some years ago, had occasion to visit
the cook's cabin, to prepare suitable nourishment for a sick
child, during the voyage. This is the story she tells: &quot;The
steward kindly assisted me in making the toast, and added a
cracker and a cup of tea. With these on a small waiter, I
was returning to the cabin, when, in passing the freight,
which consisted of boxes, bags, &amp;c., a little tawny, famished-looking
hand was thrust out between the packages. The
skeleton fingers, agitated by a convulsive movement, were evidently
reached forth to obtain the food. Shocked, but not
alarmed by the apparition, I laid the cracker on the hand,
which was immediately withdrawn. No one observed the
transaction, and I went swiftly to the cabin. In the afternoon,
I went to the steward again, in behalf of the little invalid.
Finding he was a father, I gave him presents for his
children, and so ingratiated myself into his favor, that I had
free access to the larder. Whatever I could procure, I divided
with the famished hand, which had become to me a precious
charge. As all was tranquil on board, it was evident
that I alone was aware of the presence of the fugitive. I
humbly returned thanks to God for the privilege of ministering
to the wants of this his outcast, despised and persecuted
image. That the unfortunate being was a slave, I doubted
not. I knew the laws and usages in such cases. I knew the
poor creature had nothing to expect from the captain or crew;
and again and again I asked myself the agonizing question
whether there would be any way of escape. I hoped we
should arrive in the night, that the fugitive might go on
shore unseen, under favor of the darkness. I determined to
watch and assist the creature thus providentially committed
to my charge. We had a long passage. On the sixth day,
I found that the goods were being moved to come at something
which was wanted. My heart seemed to die within
me; for the safety of the sufferer had become dear to me.
When we sat down to dinner, the dishes swam before my
eyes. The tumbling of the freight had not ceased. I felt
that a discovery must take place. At length, I heard
sudden, Hallo! Presently, the steward came and whispered
the captain, who laid down his knife and fork, and went on
deck. One of the passengers followed him, but soon returned
In a laughing manner, he told us that a small mulatto boy;
who said he belonged to Mr. &mdash;&mdash;, of Norfolk, had been
found among the freight. He had been concealed among the
lumber on wharves for two weeks, and had secreted himself
in the schooner the night before we sailed. He was going to
New York, to find his father, who had escaped two years before.
'He is starved to a skeleton,' said he, 'and is hardly
worth taking back.' Many jokes were passed as to the
manner of his being renovated, when he should fall into the
hands of his master.</p>

<p>&quot;The unfortunate child was brought on deck, and we all
left the cabin to look at him. I stood some time in the companion-way
before I could gain strength to move forward.
As soon as he discovered me, a bright gleam passed over his
countenance, and he instantly held out to me that famished
hand. My feelings could no longer be controlled. There
stood before me a child, not more than eleven or twelve years
of age, of yellow complexion, and a sad countenance. He
was nearly naked; his back was <i>seared with scars</i>, and his
flesh was wasted to the bone. I burst into tears, and the
jeers of others were for a moment changed into sympathies.
It began, however, to be suspected that I had brought the boy
away; and in that case, the vessel must put back, in order to
give me up also. But I related the circumstances, and all
seemed satisfied with the truth of my statement.</p>

<p>&quot;I asked to be allowed to feed the boy, and the request
was granted. He ate voraciously, and, as I stood beside
him, he looked into my face at every mouthful. There was
something confiding in his look. When he had finished his
meal, as I took the plate, he rubbed his fingers softly on my
hand, and leaned his head toward me, like a weary child.
O that I could have offered him a place of rest! that I could
have comforted and protected him! a helpless <i>child</i>! a feeble,
emaciated, suffering, innocent <i>child</i>, reserved for bondage
and torture!</p>

<p>&quot;The captain informed us that the vessel had been forbidden
to enter the port with a fugitive slave on board. He
must discharge her cargo where she lay, and return, with all
possible dispatch, to Norfolk. Accordingly, we came to anchor
below the city, and the passengers were sent up in a
boat, I said to the captain, 'There is a great ado about a
poor helpless child.' He replied, 'The laws must be obeyed.'
I could not help exclaiming, 'Is this the land of boasted
freedom?' Here was an innocent child treated like a felon;
manacled, and sent back to slavery and the lash; deprived of
the fostering care which even the brute is allowed to exercise
toward its young. The slender boy was seeking the protection
of a father. Did humanity aid him? No. Humanity
was prevented by the law, which consigns one portion of the
people to the control and brutality of the other. Humanity
can only look on and weep. 'The laws must be obeyed.'&quot;</p>

<p>Legislators of Massachusetts! suppose for one moment
that poor abused boy was your own little Johnny or Charley,
what would you say of the law <i>then</i>? Truly, if we have no
feeling for the children of <i>others</i>, we deserve to have our own
children reserved for such a fate; and I sometimes think it is
the only lesson that will teach the North to respect justice
and humanity.</p>

<p>It is not long ago, since a free colored man in Baltimore
was betrothed to a young slave of eighteen, nearly white,
and very beautiful. If they married, their children would
be slaves, and he would have no power to protect his handsome
wife from any outrages an unprincipled master, or his
sons, might choose to perpetrate. Therefore, he wisely resolved
to marry in a land of freedom. He placed her in a
box, with a few holes in it, small enough not to attract attention.
With tender care, he packed hay around her, that she
might not be bruised when thrown from the cars with other
luggage. The anxiety of the lover was dreadful. Still more
terrible was it, when waiting for her in Philadelphia, he
found that the precious box had not arrived. They had happened
to have an unusual quantity of freight, and the baggage-master,
after turning the box over, in rough, railroad
fashion had concluded to leave it till the next train. The
poor girl was thrown into a most uneasy position, without the
power of changing it. She was nearly suffocated for want of
air; the hay-seed fell into her eyes and nostrils, and it required
almost superhuman efforts to refrain from sneezing or
choking. Added to this was terror lest her absence
be discovered, and the heavy box examined. In that state of
mind and body, she remained more than two hours, in the hot
sun on the railroad platform. At last, the box arrived in
Philadelphia, and the lover and his friends conveyed it to a
place of safety as speedily as possible. Those who were
present at the opening, say it was the most impressive scene
they ever witnessed. Silently, almost breathlessly, they drew
out the nails, expecting to find a corpse. When the cover
was lifted, she smiled faintly in the anxious face of her lover.
&quot;O God, she is alive!&quot; he exclaimed, and broke down in a
paroxysm of sobs. She had a terrible brain fever, and when
she recovered from it, her glossy hair was sprinkled with gray,
and the weight of ten years was added to her youthful face.
Thanks to the vigilance and secrecy of friends, the hounds of
the United States, who use the Constitution for their kennel,
did not get a chance to lap the blood of this poor trembling
hare.</p>

<p>Legislators of Massachusetts! suppose this innocent girl
had been your own Mary or Emma, would you not straightway
demand amendment of the Constitution, in no very measured
terms? And if it could not be obtained right speedily,
would you not ride over the Constitution roughshod? If you
would not, you do not deserve to have such blessings as lovely
and innocent daughters.</p>

<p>You have all heard of Margaret Garner, who escaped
from Kentucky to Ohio, with her father and mother, her husband
and four children. The Cincinnati papers described
her as &quot;a dark mulatto, twenty-three years of age, of an interesting
appearance, considerable intelligence, and a good
address.&quot; Her husband was described as &quot;about twenty-two
years old, of a very lithe, active form, and rather a mild,
pleasant countenance.&quot; These fugitives were sheltered by a
colored friend in Ohio. There the hounds in pay of the
United States, to which &quot;price of blood&quot; you and I and all
of us contribute, ferreted them out, and commanded them to
surrender. When they refused to do so, they burst open the
door, and assailed the inmates of the house with cudgels and
pistols. They defended themselves bravely, but were overpowered
by numbers and disarmed. When Margaret perceived
that there was no help for her and her little ones, she
seized a knife and cut the throat of her most beautiful child.
She was about to do the same by the others, when her arm
was arrested. The child killed was nearly white, and exceedingly
pretty. The others were mulattoes, and pretty
also. What history lay behind this difference of complexion,
the world will probably never know. But I have talked confidentially
with too many fugitive women not to know that
very sad histories do lie behind such facts. Margaret Garner
knew very well what fate awaited her handsome little daughter,
and that nerved her arm to strike the death-blow. It
was an act that deserves to take its place in history by the
side of the Roman Virginius.</p>

<p>The man who claimed this unfortunate family as chattels
acknowledged that they had always been faithful servants.
On their part, they complained of cruel treatment from their
master, as the cause of their attempt to escape. They were
carried to the United States Court, under a strong guard,
and there was not manhood enough in Cincinnati to rescue
them. What was called law decided that they were property,
and they were sent back to the dark dungeon of interminable
bondage. The mother could not be induced to express
any regret for the death of her child,&mdash;her &quot;pretty bird,&quot; as
she called her. With tears streaming from her eyes, she
told of her own toils and sufferings, and said, &quot;It was better
they should be killed at once, and end their misery, than to
be taken back to slavery, to be murdered by inches.&quot; To a
preacher, who asked her, &quot;Why did you not trust in God?
Why didn't you wait and hope?&quot; she answered, &quot;We did
wait; and when there seemed to be no hope for us, we run
away. God did not appear to help us, and I did the best I
could.&quot;</p>

<p>These poor wretches were escorted through the streets by
a National Guard, the chivalry of the United States. There
was not manhood enough in the Queen City of the West to
attempt a rescue; though they are very fond of quoting for
<i>themselves</i>, &quot;Give me Liberty, or give me Death!&quot; Men
satisfied themselves by saying it was all done according to
<i>law</i>. A powerful plea, truly, for a people who boast so much
of making their own laws! </p>

<p>These slaves were soon after sent down the Mississippi to
be sold in Arkansas. The boat came in collision with another
boat, and many were drowned. The shock threw Margaret
overboard, with a baby in her arms. She was too valuable a
piece of property to lose, and they drew her out of the
water; but the baby was gone. She evinced no emotion but
joy, still saying it was better for her children to die than
to be slaves.</p>

<p>The man who could not afford to let this heroic woman own
her little ones, was very liberal in supporting the Gospel, and
his wife was a member of the church. Do you think that
mother had a murderer's heart? Nay, verily. Exceeding
love for her children impelled her to the dreadful deed. The
murder was committed by those human hounds, who drove
her to that fearful extremity, where she was compelled to
choose between Slavery or Death for her innocent offspring.</p>

<p>Again I ask, what would be your judgment of this law,
if your <i>own</i> daughter and infant grand-daughter had been its
victims? You know very well, that had it been your <i>own</i>
case, such despotism, calling itself law, would be swept away
in a whirlwind of indignation, and men who strove to enforce
it would be obliged to flee the country.</p>

<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'>
<span class='i10'>&mdash;&mdash;&quot;They are slaves most base,<br /></span>
<span>Whose love of right is for <i>themselves</i>, and not for all the race.&quot;<br /></span>
</div></div>

<p>I was lately talking with Friend Whittier, whose poetry
so stirs the hearts of the people in favor of freedom and humanity.
He told me he thought the greatest pain he ever
suffered was in witnessing the arrest of a fugitive slave in
Philadelphia. The man had lived there many years; he bore
a good character, and was thriving by his industry. He had
married a Pennsylvania woman, and they had a fine family
of children. In the midst of his prosperity and happiness,
the blood-hounds of the United States tracked him out. He
was seized and hurried into court. Friend Whittier was
present, and heard the agonized entreaties of his wife and
children. He saw them clinging to the half frantic husband
and father, when the minions of a wicked law tore him away
from them for ever. That intelligent, worthy, industrious
man was ruthlessly plunged into the deep, dark grave of slavery,
where tens of thousands perish yearly, and leave no
record of their wrongs. &quot;A German emigrant, who witnessed
the scene, poured out such a tornado of curses as I
never before heard,&quot; said Whittier; &quot;and I could not blame
the man. He came here supposing America to be a free
country, and he was bitterly disappointed. Pity for that
poor slave and his bereaved family agonized my heart; and
my cheeks burned with shame that my country deserved the
red-hot curses of that honest German; but stronger than
either of those feelings was overpowering indignation that
people of the Free States were compelled by law to witness
such barbarities.&quot;</p>

<p>Many of you have heard of William and Ellen Crafts, a
pious and intelligent couple, who escaped from bondage some
years ago. She disguised herself in male attire, and passed
for a white gentleman, taking her darker colored husband
with her as a servant. When the Fugitive Slave Act went
into operation, they received warning that the hounds were
on their track. They sought temporary refuge in the house
of my noble-hearted friend, Ellis Gray Loring, who then resided
in the vicinity of Boston. He and his family were
absent for some days; but a lady in the house invited Mr.
Crafts to come in and stay till they returned. &quot;No, I thank
you,&quot; he replied. &quot;There is a heavy fine for sheltering
fugitives; and it would not be right to subject Mr. Loring to
it without his consent.&quot; &quot;But you know he is a true friend
to the slaves,&quot; urged the lady. &quot;If he were at home, I am
sure he would not hesitate to incur the penalty.&quot; &quot;Because
he is such a good friend to my oppressed race, there is all
the more reason why I should not implicate him in my
affairs, without his knowledge,&quot; replied this nobleman of nature.
His wife had slept but little the previous night, having
been frightened by dreams of Daniel Webster chasing her
husband, pistol in hand. The evening was stormy, and she
asked him if they could not remain there till morning. &quot;It
would not be right, Ellen,&quot; he replied; and with tears in her
eyes, they went forth into the darkness and rain. Was <i>that</i>
a man to be treated like a chattel? How many white gentlemen
are there, who, in circumstances as perilous, would
have manifested such nicety of moral perception, such genuine
delicacy of feeling? England has kindly received that
worthy and persecuted couple. All who set foot on <i>her</i> soil
are free. Would to God it were so in Massachusetts!</p>

<p>It is well known that Southerners have repeatedly declared
they do not demand fugitives merely to recover articles of
property, or for the sake of making an example of them, to
inspire terror in other runaways; that they have a still
stronger motive, which is, to humiliate the North; to make
them feel that no latitude limits their mastership. Have we
no honest pride, that we so tamely submit to this? What
lethargic disease has fallen on Northern souls, that they dare
not be as bold for Freedom as tyrants are for Slavery? It
was not thus with our fathers, whose sepulchres we whiten.
If old Ben Franklin had stood as near Boston Court House
as his statue does, do you believe <i>he</i> would have remained
passive, while Sims, the intelligent mechanic, was manacled
and driven through the streets, guiltless of any crime, save
that of wishing to be free? <i>My</i> belief is that the brave old
printer of '76 would have drawn down the lightning out of
heaven upon that procession, with a vengeance.</p>

<p>What satisfactory reasons can be alleged for submitting to
this degradation? What good excuse can be offered? Shall
we resort to the Old Testament argument, that anodyne for
the consciences of &quot;South-Side&quot; divines? Suppose the descendants
of Ham were ordained to be slaves to the end of
time, for an offence committed thousands of years ago, by a
progenitor they never heard of. Still, the greatest amount
of theological research leaves it very uncertain who the descendants
of Ham are, and where they are. I presume you
would not consider the title even to one acre of land satisfactorily
settled by evidence of such extremely dubious character;
how much less, then, a man's ownership of himself!
Then, again, if we admit that Africans are descendants of
Ham, what is to be said of thousands of slaves, advertised in
Southern newspapers as &quot;passing themselves for white men,
or white women&quot;? Runaways with &quot;blue eyes, light hair,
and rosy complexions&quot;? Are these sons and daughters of
our Presidents, our Governors, our Senators, our Generals,
and our Commodores, descendants of Ham? Are <i>they</i> Africans?</p>

<p>If you turn to the favorite New Testament argument, you
will find that Paul requested Philemon to receive Onesimus,
&quot;no longer as a servant, but as a brother beloved.&quot; Is <i>that</i>
the way Southern masters receive the &quot;fugitives from injustice&quot;
whom we drive back to them? Is it the way we <i>expect</i>
they will be received? In 1851, the intelligent young mechanic,
named Thomas Sims, escaped from a hard master, who
gave him many blows and no wages. By his own courage and
energy, he succeeded in reaching our Commonwealth, where
mechanics are not compelled by law to work without wages.
But the authorities of Boston decreed that this man was
&quot;bound to such service or labor.&quot; So they ordered out their
troops and sent him back to his master, who caused him to be
tied up and flogged, till the doctor said, &quot;If you strike
another blow, you will kill him.&quot; &quot;Let him die,&quot; replied the
master. He did nearly die in prison, but recovered to be sold
farther South. Was <i>this</i> being received as &quot;a brother beloved&quot;?
Before we send back any more Onesimuses, it is
necessary to have a different set of Philemons to deal with.
The Scripture is clearly not obeyed, under present circumstances.</p>

<p>If you resort to the alleged legal obligation to return fugitives,
it has more plausibility, but has it in reality any firm
foundation? Americans boast of making their own laws,
and of amending them whenever circumstances render it necessary.
How, then, can they excuse themselves, or expect
the civilized world to excuse them, for making, or sustaining,
unjust and cruel laws? The Fugitive Slave Act has none of
the attributes of law. If two highwaymen agreed between
themselves to stand by each other in robbing helpless men,
women and children, should we not find it hard work to &quot;conquer
our prejudices&quot; so far as to dignify their bargain with
the name of <i>law</i>? That is the light in which the compact
between North and South presents itself to the minds of intelligent
slaves, and we should view it in the same way, if we
were in their position. Law was established to maintain justice
between man and man; and this Act clearly maintains
injustice. Law was instituted to protect the weak from the
strong; this Act delivers the weak completely into the arbitrary
power of the strong, &quot;Law is a rule of conduct, prescribed
by the supreme power, commanding what is right,
and forbidding what is wrong.&quot; This is the commonly received
definition of law, and obviously, none more correct
could be substituted for it. The application of it would at
once annul the Fugitive Slave Act, and abolish slavery.
That Act reverses the maxim. It commands what is wrong,
and forbids what is right. It commands us to trample on
the weak and defenceless, to persecute the oppressed, to be
accomplices in defrauding honest laborers of their wages.
It forbids us to shelter the homeless, to protect abused innocence,
to feed the hungry, to &quot;hide the outcast.&quot; Let theological
casuists argue as they will, Christian hearts <i>will</i>
shrink from thinking of Jesus as surrendering a fugitive
slave; or of any of his apostles, unless it be Judas. Political
casuists may exercise their skill in making the worse appear
the better reason, still all honest minds have an intuitive
perception that no human enactment which violates God's
laws is worthy of respect. By what law of God can we justify
the treatment of Margaret Garner? the surrender of Sims
and Burns? the pitiless persecution of that poor little &quot;famished
hand&quot;?</p>

<p>There is another consideration, which ought alone to have
sufficient weight with us to deter us from attempting to carry
out this tyrannical enactment. All history, and all experience,
show it to be an immutable law of God, that whosoever
injures another, injures himself in the process. These frequent
scuffles between despotism and freedom, with despotism
shielded by law, cannot otherwise than demoralize our
people. They unsettle the popular mind concerning eternal
principles of justice. They harden the heart by familiarity
with violence. They accustom people to the idea that it is
right for Capital to own Labor; and thus the reverence for
Liberty, which we inherited from our fathers, will gradually
die out in the souls of our children. We are compelled to disobey
our own consciences, and repress all our humane feelings,
or else to disobey the law. It is a grievous wrong done to
the people to place them between these alternatives. The inevitable
result is to destroy the sanctity of law. The doctrine
that &quot;might makes right,&quot; which our rulers consent to
teach the people, in order to pacify slaveholders, will come
out in unexpected forms to disturb our own peace and safety.
There is &quot;even-handed justice&quot; in the fact that men cannot
aid in enslaving others, and themselves remain free; that
they cannot assist in robbing others, without endangering
their own security.   </p>

<p>Moreover, there is wrong done, even to the humblest individual,
when he is compelled to be ashamed of his country.
When the judge passed under chains into Boston Court
House, and when Anthony Burns was sent back into slavery,
I wept for my native State, as a daughter weeps for the
crimes of a beloved mother. It seemed to me that I would
gladly have died to have saved Massachusetts from that sin
and that shame. The tears of a secluded woman, who has no
vote to give, may appear to you of little consequence. But
assuredly it is not well with any Commonwealth, when her
daughters weep over her degeneracy and disgrace.</p>

<p>In the name of oppressed humanity, of violated religion,
of desecrated law, of tarnished honor, of our own freedom
endangered, of the moral sense of our people degraded by
these evil influences, I respectfully, but most urgently, entreat
you to annul this infamous enactment, so far as the jurisdiction
of Massachusetts extends. Our old Commonwealth
has been first and foremost in many good works; let her lead
in this also. And deem it not presumptuous, if I ask it likewise
for my own sake. I am a humble member of the community;
but I am deeply interested in the welfare and reputation
of my native State, and that gives me some claim to be
heard. I am growing old; and on this great question of
equal rights I have toiled for years, sometimes with a heart
sickened by &quot;hope deferred.&quot; I beseech you to let me die
on Free Soil! Grant me the satisfaction of saying, ere I go
hence&mdash;</p>

<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'>
<span>&quot;Slaves cannot breathe among us. If their lungs<br /></span>
<span>Receive <i>our</i> air, that moment they are free!<br /></span>
<span>They touch <i>our</i> country, and their shackles fall!&quot;<br /></span>
</div></div>

<p>If you cannot be induced to reform this great wickedness,
for the sake of outraged justice and humanity, then do it for
the honor of the State, for the political welfare of our own
people, for the moral character of our posterity. For, as
sure as there is a Righteous Ruler in the heavens, if you
continue to be accomplices in violence and fraud, God will
<i>not</i> &quot;save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.&quot;</p>

<p><b>L. MARIA CHILD.</b></p>



<hr style='width: 65%;' />
<a name='APPEAL_TO_THE'></a><h2>APPEAL TO THE<br />
CONSTITUTIONALITY<br /> OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT.</h2>
<br />

<p>The Hon. Robert Rantoul, Hon. Horace Mann, Hon.
Charles Sumner, and other able men, have argued against the
Constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Bill, proving it to be
not only contrary to the <i>spirit</i> and <i>meaning</i> of the Constitution,
but also to be unauthorized by the <i>letter</i> of that document.
That this nefarious Bill is contrary to the <i>spirit</i> and
<i>intention</i> of the Constitution is shown by the published opinions
of those who framed it; by the debates at the time of its
adoption; and by its Preamble, which sets forth that it was
ordained to &quot;establish <i>justice</i>, ensure domestic <i>tranquillity</i>,
promote the <i>general welfare</i>, and secure the blessings of <i>liberty</i>.&quot;
The arguments adduced to prove that this bill is unauthorized
by the <i>letter</i> of the Constitution, I will endeavor to
compress into a few words.</p>

<p>Article 10 of the Amendments to the Constitution expressly
provides that</p>

<div class='blkquot'><p>&quot;<i>Powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution</i>, nor prohibited
by it to the States, <i>are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people</i>.&quot;</p></div>

<p>Article 4 of the Constitution contains four compacts.
The first is:</p>

<div class='blkquot'><p>&quot;Full faith and credit shall be given in each of the States to the public
acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State. And the
<i>Congress may, by general laws, prescribe the manner in which such acts, records
and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof</i>.&quot;</p></div>

<p>Here, <i>power is expressly delegated by the Constitution to
the United States</i>.</p>

<p>The second compact is:</p>

<div class='blkquot'><p>&quot;The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities
of citizens in the several States.&quot;</p></div>

<p>Under this provision, an attempt was made to obtain some
action of Congress for the protection of colored seamen in
slaveholding ports; but it was decided that Congress had no
power to act on the subject, because <i>the Constitution had not
delegated any power to the United States</i> in the clause
referred to. Slaveholders are very strict in adherence to the
Constitution, whenever any question of <i>protection</i> to colored
people is involved in their decisions; but for purposes of
<i>oppression</i>, they have no scruples. They reverse the principle
of Common Law, that &quot;in any question under the Constitution,
<i>every word is to be construed in favor of liberty</i>.&quot;</p>

<p>The third compact is:</p>

<div class='blkquot'><p>&quot;A person charged in any State with treason, felony, or other crime,
who shall flee from justice, or be found in another State, shall, on demand
of the Executive authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered
up, to be removed to the State having jurisdiction of the crime.&quot;</p></div>

<p>It has never been pretended that Congress has any power
to act in such cases. There is no clause <i>delegating any
power to the United States</i>; consequently, all proceedings on
the subject have been left to the several States.</p>

<p>The fourth compact is:</p>

<div class='blkquot'><p>&quot;No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof,
escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation
therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up
on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.&quot;</p></div>

<p>If the framers of the Constitution had meant that Congress
should have power to pass a law for delivering up fugitives
&quot;held to service or labor,&quot; they would have inserted
a clause <i>delegating such power</i>, as they did in the compact
concerning &quot;public acts and records.&quot; The Constitution does
<i>not</i> delegate any such power to the United States. Consequently,
Congress had no constitutional right to pass the Fugitive
Slave Bill, and the States are under no constitutional
obligation to obey it.</p>

<p>The Hon. Horace Mann, one of Massachusetts' most honored
sons, in his able speech on this subject in Congress,
1851, said:&mdash;&quot;In view of the great principles of civil liberty,
out of which the Constitution grew, and which it was designed
to secure, my own opinion is that this law cannot be
fairly and legitimately supported on constitutional grounds.
Having formed this opinion with careful deliberation, I am
bound to speak from it and to act from it. I have read every
argument and every article in defence of the law, from whatever
source emanating. Nay, I have been more anxious to
read the arguments made in its favor, than the arguments
against it; and I think I have seen a sound legal answer to
all the former.&quot; * * * &quot;It is a law that might be held
constitutional by a bench of slaveholders, whose <i>pecuniary
interests</i> connect them directly with slavery; or by those who
have surrendered themselves to a pro-slavery policy from <i>political
hopes</i>. But if we gather the opinions of unbiassed
and disinterested men, of those who have no <i>money</i> to make,
and no <i>office</i> to hope for, through the triumph of this law,
then I think the preponderance of opinion is decidedly against
its constitutionality. It is a fact universally known, that gentlemen
who have occupied and adorned the highest judicial
stations in their respective States, together with many of the
ablest lawyers in the whole country, have expressed opinions
against the constitutionality of this law.&quot; * * * &quot;When
I am called upon to support such a law as this, while it lasts,
or to desist from opposing it in all constitutional ways, my
response is, Repeal the law! that I may no longer be called
upon to support it. I demand it, because it is a law which
conflicts with the Constitution of the country, and with all
the judicial interpretations of that Constitution, wherever
they have been applied to the white race. Because it is a
law abhorrent to the moral and religious sentiments of a vast
majority of the community called upon to enforce it. Because
it is a law which, if executed in the Free States, divests
them of the character of Free States, and makes them voluntary
participators in the guilt of slaveholding. Because it is
a law Which disgraces our country in the eyes of the whole
civilized world, and gives plausible occasion to the votaries of
despotic power to decry republican institutions. Because it
is a law which forbids us to do unto others as we would have
them do unto us, and which makes it a crime to feed the hungry,
to clothe the naked, and to visit and succor the sick and
imprisoned. Because it is a law which renders the precepts
of the Gospel and the teachings of Jesus Christ seditious;
and were the Savior and his band of disciples now on earth,
there is but one of them who would escape its penalties by
pretending to 'conquer his prejudices.'&quot; * * * &quot;Suppose
the whole body of the white population should be as
much endangered by this law, as the colored people now are,
would the existence of the law be tolerated for an hour?
Would there not be a simultaneous and universal uprising of
the people against it, and such a yell of execration as never
before burst from mortal lips?&quot;</p>

<p>The Hon. Charles Sumner, always true to the right, as the
needle to the pole, in his learned and able speech in Congress,
1852, said:&mdash;&quot;The true principles of our political system,
the history of the National Convention, the natural interpretation
of the Constitution, all teach that this Act is a usurpation
by Congress of powers that do not belong to it, and an
infraction of rights secured to the States. It is a sword,
whose handle is at the National Capital, and whose point is
every where in the States. A weapon so terrible to personal
liberty the nation has no power to grasp.&quot; * * * &quot;In
the name of the Constitution, which it violates; of my country,
which it dishonors; of humanity, which it degrades; of
Christianity, which it offends, I arraign this enactment, and
now hold it up to the judgment of the Senate and the
world.&quot; * * * *</p>

<p>&quot;The Slave Act violates the Constitution, and shocks the
public conscience. With modesty, and yet with firmness, let
me add, it offends against the Divine Law. No such enactment
can be entitled to support. As the throne of God is
above every earthly throne, so are his laws and statutes above
all the laws and statutes of man. To question these, is to
question God himself. But to assume that human laws are
above question, is to claim for their fallible authors infallibility.
To assume that they are always in conformity with
those of God, is presumptuously and impiously to exalt man
to an equality with God. Clearly, human laws are <i>not</i>
always in such conformity; nor can they ever be beyond
question from each individual. Where the conflict is open,
as if Congress should demand the perpetration of murder,
the office of conscience, as final arbiter, is undisputed. But
in every conflict, the same queenly office is hers. By no
earthly power can she be dethroned. Each person, after
anxious examination, without haste, without passion, solemnly
for himself must decide this great controversy. Any other
rule attributes infallibility to human laws, places them beyond
question, and degrades all men to an unthinking, passive obedience.
The mandates of an earthly power are to be discussed;
those of Heaven must at once be performed; nor
can any agreement constrain us against God. Such is the
rule of morals. And now the rule is commended to us.
The good citizen, as he thinks of the shivering fugitive,
guilty of no crime, pursued, hunted down like a beast, while
praying for Christian help and deliverance, and as he reads
the requirements of this Act, is filled with horror. Here is
a despotic mandate, 'to aid and assist in the prompt and efficient
execution of this law.' Let me speak frankly. Not
rashly would I set myself against any provision of law.
This grave responsibility I would not lightly assume. But
here the path of duty is clear. By the Supreme Law, which
commands me to do no injustice; by the comprehensive
Christian Law of Brotherhood; by the Constitution, which I
have sworn to support, I am bound to disobey this Act.
Never, in any capacity, can I render voluntary aid in its execution.
Pains and penalties I will endure; but this great
wrong I will not do.&quot; * * * &quot;For the sake of peace
and tranquillity, cease to shock the public conscience! For
the sake of the Constitution, cease to exercise a power which
is nowhere granted, and which violates inviolable rights expressly
secured. Repeal this enactment! Let its terrors no
longer rage through the land. Mindful of the lowly, whom
it pursues; mindful of the good men perplexed by its requirements;
in the name of charity, in the name of the Constitution,
repeal this enactment, totally, and without delay!
Be admonished by these words of Oriental piety: 'Beware
of the groans of the wounded souls. Oppress not to the
utmost a single heart; for a solitary sigh has power to overset
a whole world.'&quot;</p>

<p>Robert Rantoul, Jr., whose large heart was so true to
Democratic <i>principles</i>, that the <i>party</i> wanted to expel him
from their ranks, (as parties are prone to do with honest
men,) opposed the Fugitive Slave Bill with all the power of
his strong intellect. In a speech delivered in 1851, he said:
&quot;I am as devotedly attached as any other man to the Union
of these States, and the Constitution of our government;
but I admire and love them for that which they secure to us.
The Constitution is good, and great, and valuable, and to be
held for ever sacred, because it secures to us what was the
<i>object</i> of the Constitution. I love the Union and the Constitution,
not for <i>themselves</i>, but for the great <i>end</i> for which
they were created&mdash;to secure and perpetuate <i>liberty</i>; not
the liberty of a <i>class</i>, superimposed upon the thraldom of
groaning multitudes: not the liberty of a <i>ruling race</i>, cemented
by the tears and blood of subject races, but <i>human</i>
liberty, <i>perfect</i> liberty, common to the whole people of the
United States and to their posterity. It is because I believe
all this, that I love the Union and the Constitution. If it
were not for that, the Union would be valueless, and the
Constitution not worth the parchment on which it is written.
God-given Liberty is above the Union, and above the Constitution,
and above all the works of man.&quot;</p>

<hr style='width: 45%;' />
<br />

<a name='TESTIMONIES_AGAINST'></a><h2>TESTIMONIES AGAINST<br />
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT.</h2>
<br />

<p>The Hon. Josiah Quincy, senior, whose integrity, noble intellect,
and long experience in public life, give great weight
to his opinions, made a speech at a Whig Convention in Boston,
1854, from which I extract the following:&mdash;&quot;The circumstances
in which the people of Massachusetts are placed
are undeniably insupportable. What has been seen, what has
been felt, by every man, woman and child in this metropolis,
and in this community? and virtually by every man, woman
and child in Massachusetts? We have seen our Court House
in chains, two battalions of dragoons, eight regiments of artillery,
twelve companies of infantry, the whole constabulary
force of the city police, the entire disposable marine of the
United States, with its artillery loaded for action, all marching
in support of a Praetorian Band, consisting of one hundred
and twenty friends and associates of the U.S. Marshal,
with loaded pistols and drawn swords, and in military costume
and array; and for what purpose? <i>To escort and conduct a
poor trembling slave from a Boston Court House to the fetters
and lash of his master!</i></p>

<p>&quot;This scene, thus awful, thus detestable, every inhabitant
of this metropolis, nay, every inhabitant of this Commonwealth,
may be compelled again to witness, at any time, and
every day in the year, at the will or the whim of the meanest
and basest slaveholder of the South. Is there a man in
Massachusetts with a spirit so low, so debased, so corrupted
by his fears, or his fortune, that he is prepared to say this is
a condition of things to be endured in perpetuity by us? and
that this is an inheritance to be transmitted by us to our
children, for all generations? For so long as the fugitive-slave
clause remains in the Constitution, unobliterated, it is
an obligation perpetual upon them, as well as upon us.</p>

<p>&quot;The obligation incumbent upon the Free States <i>must be
obliterated from the Constitution, at every hazard</i>. I believe
that, in the nature of things, by the law of God, and the
laws of man, <i>that clause is at this moment abrogated, so far
as respects common obligation</i>. In 1789, the Free States
agreed to be field-drivers and pound-keepers for the Slaveholding
States, within the limits, and according to the fences,
of the old United States. But between that year and this
A.D. 1854, the slaveholders have broken down the old
boundaries, and opened new fields, of an unknown and indefinite
extent.<a name='FNanchor_1_2'></a><a href='#Footnote_1_2'>[1]</a> They have multiplied their slaves by millions,
and are every day increasing their numbers, and extending
their field into the wilderness. Under these circumstances,
are we bound to be their field-drivers and pound-keepers any
longer? Answer me, people of Massachusetts! Are you
the sons of the men of 1776? Or do you 'lack gall, to
make oppression bitter?'</p>

<a name='Footnote_1_2'></a><a href='#FNanchor_1_2'>[1]</a><div class='note'> The Hon. Josiah Quincy, while in Congress,
always opposed the annexation
of foreign territory to the United States, on the ground of its
unconstitutionality.</div>

<p>&quot;I have pointed out your burden. I have shown you that
it is insupportable. I shall be asked how we are to get rid
of it. It is not for a private individual to point the path
which a State is to pursue, to cast off an insupportable burden;
it belongs to the constituted authorities of that State.
But this I will say, that if the people of Massachusetts solemnly
adopt, as one man, in the spirit of their fathers, the
resolve that they will no longer submit to this burden, and
will call upon the Free States to concur in this resolution,
and carry it into effect, the burden will be cast off; the fugitive-slave
clause will be obliterated, not only without the
dissolution of the Union, but with a newly-acquired strength
to the Union.&quot;.</p>

<p>In the spring of 1860, there was a debate on this subject
in the Legislature of New York. In the course of it, Mr.
Smith, of Chatauqua, said:&mdash;&quot;How <i>came</i> slavery in this
country? It came here without law; in violation of all law.
It came here by force and violence; by the force of might
over right; and it remains here to-day by no better title.
And now we are called upon, by the ruling power at Washington,
not merely to tolerate it, but to legalize it all over the
United States! By the Fugitive Slave Bill, we are forbidden
to shelter or assist the forlornest stranger who ever appealed
for sympathy or aid. We are required by absolute law to
shut out every feeling of compassion for suffering humanity.
Fines and imprisonment impend over us, for exercising one
of the holiest charities of our religion. Virtue and humanity
are legislated into crime. Let us meet the issue like
men! Let us assert our utter abhorrence of all human laws,
that compel us to violate the common law of humanity and
justice; and by so acting assert the broad principles of the
Declaration of American Independence, and the letter and
spirit of the Constitution. If the North was as devoted to
the cause of Freedom as the South is to Slavery, our national
troubles would vanish like darkness before the sun. Our
country would then become what it <i>should</i> be,&mdash;free, happy,
prosperous, and respected by all the world. Then we could
say, truthfully, that she is the home of the free, the land of
the brave, the asylum of the oppressed.&quot;</p>

<p>In the same debate, Mr. Maxson, of Allegheny, said:&mdash;&quot;All
laws, whether Constitutions or statutes, that invade human
rights, are null. A community has no more power to
strike down the rights of man by Constitutions, than by any
other means. Do those who give us awfully solemn lessons
about the inviolability of compacts, mean that one man is
bound to rob another because he has <i>agreed</i> to? In this age
of schools, of churches and of Bibles, do they mean to teach
us that an agreement to rob men of their rights, in whatever
solemn form that agreement may be written out, is binding?
Has the morality of the nineteenth century culminated in
<i>this</i>, that a mere compact can convert vice into virtue?
These advocates of the rightfulness of robbery, because it
has been <i>agreed</i>, to, and that agreement has been <i>written
down</i>, have come too late upon the stage, by more than two
hundred years. Where does the proud Empire State wish
to be recorded in that great history, which is being so rapidly
filled out with the records of this &quot;irrepressible conflict&quot;?
For myself, a humble citizen of the State, I ask no prouder
record for her than that, in the year 1860, she enacted that
<i>the moment a man sets foot on her soil, he is free, against the
world</i>!&quot;</p>

<p>Wendell Phillips, one of earth's bravest and best, made a
speech at Worcester, 1851, from which I make the following
extract:&mdash;&quot;Mr. Mann, Mr. Giddings, and other leaders of
the Free Soil party, are ready to go to the death against the
Fugitive Slave Law. It never should be enforced, they say.
It robs men of the jury trial, it robs them of <i>habeas corpus</i>,
and forty other things. This is a very good position. But
how much comfort would it have been to Ellen Crafts, if she
had been sent back to Macon, to know that it had been done
with a scrupulous observance of all the forms of <i>habeas corpus</i>
and jury trial? When she got back, some excellent
friend might have said to her, 'My dear Ellen, you had the
blessed privilege of <i>habeas corpus</i> and jury trial. What are
you grieving about? You were sent back according to law
and the Constitution. What could you want more?' From
the statements of our Free Soil friends, you would suppose
that the <i>habeas corpus</i> was the great safeguard of a slave's
freedom; that it covered him as with an angel's wing. But
suppose <i>habeas corpus</i> and jury trial granted, what then?
Is any man to be even <i>so</i> surrendered, with our consent? No
slave shall be sent back&mdash;except by <i>habeas corpus</i>. Stop
half short of that! No slave shall be sent back!&quot;</p>

<p>Rev. A.D. Mayo, of Albany, is one of those clergymen
who believe that a religious teacher has something to do with
questions affecting public morality; and his preaching is eloquent,
because he is fearlessly obedient to his own convictions.
In a Sermon on the Fugitive Slave Bill, he said:&mdash;&quot;Remember
that despotism has no natural rights on earth
that any man is bound to respect. I know there is no
political party, no Christian sect, no Northern State, as a
whole, yet fully up to this. But the Christian sentiment of
the country will finally bring us all to the same conclusion.&quot;</p>
<br />
<hr />

<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'>
<span><b>NO SLAVE HUNT IN OUR BORDERS!</b><br /></span>
<br />&nbsp;<br />
<span>What asks the Old Dominion? If now her sons have proved<br /></span>
<span>False to their fathers' memory, false to the faith they loved;<br /></span>
<span>If <i>she</i> can scoff at Freedom, and its Great Charter spurn,<br /></span>
<span>Must <i>we</i> of Massachusetts from truth and duty turn?<br /></span>
</div><div class='stanza'>
<span><i>We</i> hunt your bondmen, flying from Slavery's hateful hell?<br /></span>
<span><i>Our</i> voices, at your bidding, take up the blood-hound's yell?<br /></span>
<span><i>We</i> gather, at your summons, above our fathers' graves,<br /></span>
<span>From Freedom's holy altar-horns to tear your wretched slaves?<br /></span>
</div><div class='stanza'>
<span>Thank God! not yet so vilely can Massachusetts bow,<br /></span>
<span>The spirit of her early time is with her even now.<br /></span>
<span>Dream not, because her Pilgrim blood moves slow, and calm, and cool,<br /></span>
<span>She thus can stoop her chainless neck, a sister's slave and tool!<br /></span>
</div><div class='stanza'>
<span>For ourselves and for our children, the vow which we have given<br /></span>
<span>For Freedom and Humanity, is registered in Heaven.<br /></span>
<span>No slave-hunt in <i>our</i> borders! No pirate on <i>our</i> strand!<br /></span>
<span>No fetters in the Bay State! No slave upon <i>our</i> land!<br /></span>
</div><div class='stanza'>
<span>J.G. WHITTIER.<br /></span>
</div></div>
<br />

<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'>
<span><b>THE HIGHER LAW.</b></br></span>
<br />&nbsp;<br />
<span>Man was not made for forms, but forms for man;<br /></span>
<span>And there are times when Law itself must bend<br /></span>
<span>To that clear spirit, that hath still outran<br /></span>
<span>The speed of human justice. In the end,<br /></span>
<span>Potentates, not Humanity, must fall.<br /></span>
<span>Water will find its level; fire will burn;<br /></span>
<span>The winds must blow around this earthly ball;<br /></span>
<span>This earthly ball by day and night must turn.<br /></span>
<span>Freedom is typed in every element.<br /></span>
<span>Man <i>must</i> be free! If not <i>through</i> law, why then<br /></span>
<span><i>Above</i> the law! until its force be spent,<br /></span>
<span>And justice brings a better. When, O, when,<br /></span>
<span>Father of Light! shall the great reckoning come,<br /></span>
<span>To lift the weak, and strike the oppressor dumb?<br /></span>
</div><div class='stanza'>
<span>C.P. CRANCH.<br /></span>
</div></div>
<br />

<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'>
<span><b>ON THE SURRENDER OF A FUGITIVE SLAVE.</b><br /></span>
<br />&nbsp;<br />
<span>Look on who will in apathy, and stifle, they who <i>can</i>,<br /></span>
<span>The sympathies, the hopes, the words, that make man truly man;<br /></span>
<span>Let those whose hearts are dungeoned up, with interest or with ease,<br /></span>
<span>Consent to hear, with quiet pulse, of loathsome deeds like these.<br /></span>
</div><div class='stanza'>
<span>I first drew in New England's air, and from her hardy breast<br /></span>
<span>Sucked in the tyrant-hating milk, that will not let me rest;<br /></span>
<span>And if my words seem treason to the dullard and the tame,<br /></span>
<span>'Tis but my Bay State dialect&mdash;our fathers spake the same.<br /></span>
</div><div class='stanza'>
<span>Shame on the costly mockery of piling stone on stone<br /></span>
<span>To those who won <i>our</i> liberty! the heroes dead and gone!<br /></span>
<span>While we look coldly on and see law-shielded ruffians slay<br /></span>
<span>The men who fain would win their <i>own</i>! the heroes of <i>to-day</i>!<br /></span>
</div><div class='stanza'>
<span>Are we pledged to craven silence? O, fling it to the wind,<br /></span>
<span>The parchment wall that bars us from the least of human kind!<br /></span>
<span>That makes us cringe, and temporize, and dumbly stand at rest,<br /></span>
<span>While Pity's burning flood of words is red-hot in the breast!<br /></span>
</div><div class='stanza'>
<span>We owe allegiance to the State; but deeper, truer, more,<br /></span>
<span>To the sympathies that God hath set within our spirit's core.<br /></span>
<span>Our country claims our fealty; we grant it so; but then<br /></span>
<span>Before Man made us <i>citizens</i>, great Nature made us <i>men</i>!<br /></span>
</div><div class='stanza'>
<span>Though we break our fathers' promise, we have nobler duties first,<br /></span>
<span>The traitor to <i>Humanity</i> is the traitor most accurst.<br /></span>
<span><i>Man</i> is more than <i>Constitutions</i>. Better rot beneath the sod,<br /></span>
<span>Than be true to <i>Church</i> and <i>State</i>, while we are doubly false to God!<br /></span>
</div><div class='stanza'>
<span>JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.<br /></span>
</div></div>
<br />

<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'>
<span><b>STANZAS FOR THE TIMES.</b><br /></span>
<br />&nbsp;<br />
<span>Shall tongues be mute, when deeds are wrought<br /></span>
<span>Which well might shame extremest hell?<br /></span>
<span>Shall freemen lock the indignant thought?<br /></span>
<span>Shall Pity's bosom cease to swell?<br /></span>
<span>Shall Honor bleed? Shall Truth succumb?<br /></span>
<span>Shall pen, and press, and soul be dumb?<br /></span>
</div><div class='stanza'>
<span>What! shall we guard our neighbor still.<br /></span>
<span>While woman shrieks beneath his rod,<br /></span>
<span>And while he tramples down, at will,<br /></span>
<span>The image of a common God?<br /></span>
<span>Shall watch and ward be round him set<br /></span>
<span>Of Northern nerve and bayonet?<br /></span>
</div><div class='stanza'>
<span>And shall we know, and share with him,<br /></span>
<span>The danger and the growing shame?<br /></span>
<span>And see our Freedom's light grow dim,<br /></span>
<span>Which should have filled the world with flame?<br /></span>
<span>And, writhing, feel, where'er we turn,<br /></span>
<span>A world's reproach around us burn?<br /></span>
</div><div class='stanza'>
<span>No! By each spot of haunted ground,<br /></span>
<span>Where Freedom weeps her children's fall;<br /></span>
<span>By Plymouth's rock, and Bunker's mound;<br /></span>
<span>By Griswold's stained and shattered wall;<br /></span>
<span>By Warren's ghost; by Langdon's shade;<br /></span>
<span>By all the memories of our dead;<br /></span>
</div><div class='stanza'>
<span>By their enlarging souls, which burst<br /></span>
<span>The bands and fetters round them set;<br /></span>
<span>By the free Pilgrim spirit, nursed<br /></span>
<span>Within our bosoms yet;<br /></span>
<span>By all above, around, below,<br /></span>
<span>Be ours the indignant answer&mdash;NO!<br /></span>
</div><div class='stanza'>
<span>J.G. WHITTIER.<br /></span>
</div></div>



<hr style='width: 65%;' />
<a name='VERMONT_PERSONAL_LIBERTY_LAW'></a><h2>VERMONT PERSONAL LIBERTY LAW.</h2>

<p><b>AN ACT TO SECURE FREEDOM TO ALL PERSONS WITHIN THIS STATE.</b></p>
<br />

<p><i>It is hereby enacted, &amp;c.:</i></p>

<p>Sec. 1. No person within this State shall be considered as property, or
subject, as such, to sale, purchase, or delivery; nor shall any person,
within the limits of this State, at this time, be deprived of liberty or
property without due process of law.</p>

<p>Sec. 2. Due process of law, mentioned in the preceding section of this
Act shall, in all cases, be defined to mean the usual process and forms in
force by the laws of this State, and issued by the courts thereof; and
under such process, such person shall be entitled to a trial by jury.</p>

<p>Sec. 3. Whenever any person in this State shall be deprived of liberty,
arrested, or detained, on the ground that such person owes service or labor
to another person, not an inhabitant of this State, either party may claim
a trial by jury; and, in such case, challenges shall be allowed to the defendant
agreeably to sections four and five of chapter one hundred and
eleven of the compiled statutes.</p>

<p>Sec. 4. Every person who shall deprive or attempt to deprive any other
person of his or her liberty, contrary to the preceding sections of this Act,
shall, on conviction thereof, forfeit and pay a fine not exceeding two
thousand dollars nor less than five hundred dollars, or be punished by imprisonment
in the State Prison for a term not exceeding ten years: <i>Provided</i>,
that nothing in said preceding sections shall apply to, or affect the
right to arrest or imprison under existing laws for contempt of court.</p>

<p>Sec. 5. Neither descent near or remote from an African, whether such
African is or may have been a slave or not, nor color of skin or complexion,
shall disqualify any person from being, or prevent any person from
becoming, a citizen of this State, nor deprive such person of the rights and
privileges thereof.</p>

<p>Sec. 6. Every person who may have been held as a slave, who shall
come, or be brought, or be in this State, with or without the consent of his
or her master or mistress, or who shall come, or be brought, or be, involuntarily
or in any way in this State, shall be free.</p>

<p>Sec. 7. Every person who shall hold, or attempt to hold, in this State,
in slavery, or as a slave, any person mentioned as a slave in the sixth section
of this act, or any free person, in any form, or for any time, however
short, under pretence that such person is or has been a slave, shall, on conviction
thereof, be imprisoned in the State Prison for a term not less than
one year, nor more than fifteen years, and be fined not exceeding two
thousand dollars.</p>

<p>Sec. 8. All Acts and parts of Acts inconsistent with the provisions of
this Act are hereby repealed.</p>

<p>Sec. 9. This Act shall take effect from its passage.</p>

<p>Approved November 25, 1858.</p>
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