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Show 88 torture for subjecting the soul, as well as the body, to hopeless and unresisting bondage. rrhc iniquity of our cherished institution is no longer n. MYSTERY. All Christendom is now made familiar with it, and is sending forth a cry of indignant remonstrance and of taunting scorn. Such is the suppression of anti· slavery agitation given to the slaveholders by their northcm friends--such the strength imparted by the fugitive slave l::tw to the system of human bondage. How applicable to the inven tors ;nd supporters of that statute nrc the words of David, in regard to some politician of his own clay : "De hold he tmvailcth with iniquity, and hath concci\·cd mischief, and brought forth falsehood. IIe made a pit, and digged it, ancl is fallen into the ditch which he made. IIis mischief shall rctw-n upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate;" and then he adds, "I will praise the Lord." So also let the Christian bless and magnify IInr, who by his infinite wisdom brings good out of evil, and in the Case of the fugitive bw, IIATII CAUSED TilE WRATH OF MAN 1'0 Pll."ISE IIm. But there i• still a remainder of wrath. '£he law is still on the Statute Book, and hung1·y politicians are SLAVE A.c•r. 39 promising that there it shall ever remain; and terrible threats come from the south, of the ruin that shall oycrwbclm the free States, sl10ulcl the law be repealed or J'cnclcrccllcss abominable than at present. Yet, in spite of northern promises, and professions of security, and in spite of the great swelling words of the dealers in human flesh, the practical, like the moral working of the law, l1as been very far from what its authors anticipated. 'file law was passed the 18th September, 18?0, and, in two years and nine months, not fifty slaves h:e~·c ken recovered under it-not an average of EIGHTEEN slaves a year! Poor com pen· sation this to the slaveholders for making themselves a bye-word, a proverb, and a reproach to Christendom- for giving a new and migllty impulse to abolition, and for deepening the detestation felt by the true friends of liberty and humanity, for an institution asking and obtaining for its protection a law so repugnant to the moral sense of mankind. But while this artful ancl wicked law, with its army of ten-dollar judges, and marshals, and constables, and officeseekers, and politicians, with the President and his cabinet all striving to enforce it, "to the fullest extent," has restored to their masters not eighteen slaves |
