Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 | Page 6

the pretence that they "owe service." This allegation all
know to be utterly false, they having never promised to serve, and
being legally incapable of making any contract. Every act of Christian
kindness to these unhappy people, tending to secure to them the rights
which our declaration of independence asserts belong to all men, is
made by this accursed law a penal offence, to be punished with fine and
imprisonment. Mock judges, unknown to the constitution, and bribed
by the promise of double fees to re-enslave the fugitive, are
commanded to decide, summarily, the most momentous personal issue,
with the single exception of life and death, that could possibly engage
the attention of a legal tribunal of the most august character. Yet this
tremendous issue of liberty or bondage, is to be decided, not only in a
hurry, but on such prima facie evidence as may satisfy the judge, and
this judge, too, selected from a herd of similar creatures, by the
claimant himself!! An ex parte affidavit, made by an absent and
interested party, with the certificate of an absent judge that he believes
it to be true, is to be received as CONCLUSIVE, in the face of any
amount of oral and documentary testimony to the contrary. "Can a man
take fire into his bosom and not be burned?" Can a man aid in
executing such a law without defiling his own conscience? Yet does
this profligate statute, with impious arrogance, command "ALL GOOD
CITIZENS" to assist in enforcing it, when required so to do by an
official slave-catcher!
It is a singular fact, in the history of this enactment, that Mr. Mason,
who introduced the bill, and Mr. Webster, who, in advance, pledged to
it his support "to the fullest extent," both confessed, on the floor of
Congress, that in their individual judgments, it was
UNCONSTITUTIONAL,--that is, that the constitution, as they
expounded it, imposed upon the States severally, the obligation to
surrender fugitive slaves, and gave Congress no power to legislate on
the subject. The Supreme Court, however, having otherwise determined,
these gentlemen acquiesced in its decision, without being convinced by
it. It is well known how grossly Mr. Webster, in his subsequent canvass
for the Presidency, insulted all who, like himself, denied the

constitutionality of the law. Another significant fact in the same history
is, that the law was passed by a minority of the House of
Representatives. Of 232 members, only 109 recorded their names in its
favor. Many, deterred either by scruples of conscience or doubts of the
popularity of the measure, declined voting, while party discipline
prevented them from offering to it an open and manly resistance. A
third fact in this history, worthy to be remembered, is, that the
advocates of the law are conscious that its revolting provisions would
not bear discussion, forced its passage under the previous question, thus
preventing any remarks on its enormities--any appeals to the
consciences of the members--against the perpetration of such detestable
wickedness.
Seldom has any public iniquity been committed to which the words of
the Psalmist have been so applicable: "Surely the wrath of man shall
praise THEE; and the remainder of wrath shalt THOU restrain."
It was happily so ordered, that several of the early seizures and
surrenders under this law were conducted with such marked barbarity,
such cruel indecent haste, such wanton disregard of justice and of
humanity, as to shock the moral sense of the community, and to render
the law intensely hateful.
Very soon after the law went into operation, one of the pseudo judges
created by it, surrendered an alleged slave, on evidence which no jury
would have deemed sufficient to establish a title to a dog. In vain the
wretched man declared his freedom--in vain he named six witnesses
whom he swore could prove his freedom--in vain he implored for a
delay of ONE HOUR. He was sent off as a slave, guarded, at the
expense of the United States treasury, to his pretended master in
Maryland, who honestly refused to receive him. The judge had made a
mistake (!) and had sent a free man instead of a slave.
This vile law, although of course receiving the sanction of the
Democrats, it being a bid for the Presidency, was a device of the Whig
party, and could not have been carried but by the co-operation of
Webster, Clay, and Fillmore. As if to enhance the value of the bid, the
Administration affected a desire to baptise it in northern blood, by

making resistance to the law, a crime to be punished with DEATH. The
hustling of an officer, and the consequent escape of an arrested fugitive,
were declared, by the Secretary of State, to be a levying of war against
the United States--of course an act of HIGH