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Show 316 LIBERTY AND SLAVERY. the Government of the United States is bound to protect the institution of slavery, in so far as this may be doue by the passage of a Fugitive Slave Law. This national conviction has spoken out in the laws of Congress; it has been ratified and confirmed by the judicial opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, as well as by the decisions of the Supreme Courts of the three great non-slaveholding States of Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania. But no one, so far as we know, has ever deduced this obligation to protect slavery, in this respect, from the absurd notion that "it is a national institution." No such deduction is to be found in any of the arguments of counsel before the courts above-mentioned, nor in the opinions of the courts themselves. We shrewdly suspect that it is to be found nowhere except in the fertile imagination of Mr. Sumner. We concede that slavery is not "a national institution." In combatting this position, Mr. Sumner is merely beating the air. We know that slavery is not national; it is local, being confined to certain States, and exclusively established by local or State laws. Hence, Mr. Sumner may fire off as much splendid rhetoric us he pleases at his men of straw. "Slavery TilE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 317 national!" he indignantly exclaims: "Sir, this is all a mistake and absurdity, :fit to take a place in some new collection of 'Vulgar Errors' by some other Sir Thomas Browne, with the ancient but exploded stories that the toad has n stone in its head and that ostriches digest iron." These may be very fine embellisl>ments; they certainly have nothing to do with the point in controversy. The question is not whether slavery is a national institution, but whether the National Government does not recognise slavery as a local institution, and is not pledged to protect the master's right to reclaim the fugitive from his service. This is the question, and by its relevancy to this question the rhetoric of :I!Ir. Sumner must be tried. We do not say it has no such relemncy. Mr. Sumner beats the air, it is true, but he does noL beat the a it· in vain. His declamation may have no logical bearing on the point in dispute, but, if you watch it closely, you will always find that it is most skilfuUy adapted to bring the prejudices and passions of the reader to beat· on that point. Though he may not be much of a logician, yet, it must be admitted, he is "skilful of fence." W c should do him great injustice as nn antagonist, at least before tlw tr!buual of tr• |