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Show 296 DJo::SPOTISM sylvania, in the unfortunate case of Wright v. Deacon, alrC'ady sulficicntly criticized. The decision of the case of Prigg v. Penns.1Jlvania failed to give satisfaction any where. Every where it was greeted with mingled groans and hisses; in the North, as a timid and disgraceful surrender of the rights of the free states, and of the plainest principles of common justice; in the South as not having gone half far enough. The free states very generally responded to it, not by repealing the statutes which this decision declared void, but by new laws, forbiddinO' their officers or magistrates to act under the statut~ of 1793, or their jails to be employed for the detention of fugitives. Mr. W e bster, in his Newburyport letter,. !:)tigmatlzes ~his latter prohib!tion, as putting a sc.nous obstacle 111 the way of tnal by jury, in the case of alleged fugitives from 1abor. Lame apoloay for bis abandonment of his own bill, since the m~rshab of the United States are amply authorized, by a JOint resolutwn of both houses of Congress, to provide, in all cases where the states refuse the use of their jails to the F ederal authorities, other safe places for the custody of their prisoners, under which provision, have we not seen the very court house of the city of Boston converted into _a slave jail, and by the order of the city authorities, surrounded by chains, under which even the state judges were obliged to stoop, some of them, indeed, seeming even to make a merit of their alacrity in doing so 1 Nor is it true, as Mr. Webster seems to insinuate, that this refusal of the use of state jails was one of the devices of the treasonable abolitionists. So far from it it was first brought into use by that good Federali~t, Governor Strong, so highly eulogized by Mr. Webster in this very same Newburyport letter, in conjunction with the legislature of the Federal and patriotic state of Massachusetts, and with the full approbation, if we mistake not, of Mr. Webster himself. The occasion was the attempt of President Madison, of which the Federalists did not approve, to compel the British Dl A:\II·:RJCA. 297 govcrnmrnt, by retaliat ions, 1o relinquish t heir scheme of trf'ating as df'!'lerter~ the native:; of ]reland cap· tured in the AmPrican rank::;., by shuting up in the state jail::~ errta in British oiTiccrs, prisoners of war, with the prof:pect of drath before them, ::;hould Great Britain set. the example. Aftcrwartl~, in the war, almost, which sprung up in the \Vcstern Stutes, about the years 1820-1, against the second Bank of the UnitcO States, a like expedient was resorted to by the state of Ohio, by refu~i ng the use of its j ail!-~ for the confi nement of pri ~on crs, in all ca;o;cs in which that bank was concerned; and it was upon that O<'casion that the joint resolution above refC'rrcd to was adopted. Upon the pr£>sent occa.5ion, also, Congress attempted to meet the legislation of the states by an act, passPd in 18-l5, extending the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court commi~sioncrs, as well to the cases of fugitives from labor, as to the closely related one of de:-;erting ~eamcn. But for all this, fugitives from servitude ra pidly increased, and reclamations of them were attended with more and more difficulty. Every where in the free states they recf'ived a id and comfort, at least to the extent of a cup of cold water, a crust of bread, and a barn to sleep in. Many of them turned lecturers, and, travelling from village to villagt>, revealed the Sf'crets of the prison-house in artie::~~ and homely appeals to the natural sympathies of the human heart, which washed away, in trickling tC'ar~, all the studied and specious sophistriPs of the mo~t learned and eloquent advocates of des poti~m. The South became more exasperated than ever. rfhosc who had li \'Cd and grown famous by defendi ng and expounding t he constitution, hoping, at lrast, to levy new contribuHon:., if not to mount to high oflicr in the mid!"t of the panic, raised anew the cry of" The Union in daliger ;" and never did the old Engli~h 'l'ory cry of " The church in danger" drive both clergymen and laymen into greater follies. S nch \\'ere the circumstances under which, by the aid of half a dozen or more congressional northern canditlatcs for the presidency, the |
