OCR Text |
Show so TnE FuGITIVE science or doubts of the popularity of the measure, declined Yoting, while party discipline prevented tlJCm from offering to it an open and. manly resistance. 11. third fact in this history, wortlty to be remembered, is, that the nd vacates of the law arc conscious th:1t its revolting provisions would not bear discu~sion, forced its passage under the previous question, tlJUs pTcvcnting any remarks on its cnormitics--::tny appeals to the consciences of the mcmbers-ugainst tho perpetration of such detestable wickcdnc,s. Seldom bas any public iniquity been committed to which the words of the P:;almist have been so applicable : "Surely the wrath of man shall praise 'l'nEB; and the remainder of wrath shalt 'l'nou restrain." It was happily so ordered, that several of the early seizures and SUJ'rcndc~ under this law were conducted with such marked barbarity, such cruel indecent lwste, such wanton disregard of justice and of lmmanity, 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 IJavo deemed sufficient to establish a title to a dog. In vniu SLAVE ACT. 81 the wretched man declared l1is freedom-in vain he named six witnesses wltom he swore could prove his freedom-in vain he implored for a delay of O>IE llOUR. lie was sent oil' as a slave, guarded, at the expense of the United States treasury, to his pretended master in Maryland, who honestly refused to receive him. 'rho judge had made a mistake (!) and had sent a free man iustead of a slave. rrhis vile law, although of course receiving the sanction of the Democrats, it being a bid for the Prcsiclcncy, was a device of tbc \Vhig party, and could not have been carried but hy the co-operation of W cbster, Clay, and Fillmore. As if to enhance the value of the bid, the Administration affected a desire to baptise it in northem blood, by making resistance to the law, a crime to be punished with DEATII. The hustling of an officer, and the consequent escape of an arrested fugitive, were declared, by tLc Secretary of State, to be a levying of war a:~ainst the United Stat.es-<Jf course an act of man '!'REASON, to be expiated on the gallows ; and the rioters at Christiana were prosecuted for ITIGIT i'REASON, in pursuance of orders forwarded from Washington. This wretched sycophancy won no favor from the slave- |