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Show 330 LTBF.RTY AN'D SLAVERY. lowing passage from the Madison Papers:" Gen. (Charles Cotesworth) Pinckney was not satisfied with it. lie seemed to wish some provision should be included in favor of property in slaves." "But," by ".,.ay of comment, Mr. Sumner adds, "he made no proposition. Unwilling to shock the convention, and uncertain in his own mind, he only seemed to wish such a provision." Now, a bare abstract proposition to recognise property in men is one thing, and a clause to secure the return of fugitive slaves is quite another. The first, it is probable, would h:we been rejected by the convention ; the last was actually and unanimously adopted by it. Mr. Sumner's next proof is decidedly against him. llCJ·e it is. "Mr. Butler and Mt·. Charles Pinckney, both from South Carolina, now moved openly to require 'fugitive slaves and servants to be delivered up like criminals.' ..... Mr. "Wilson, of Pennsylvania, at once objected: 'This would oblige the executive of the State to do it at the public expense.' Mr. Sherman, of Connecticut, sa:v no more propriety in the public seizing and suncndcriug a slave or servant than a horse! Undct· the pressut ·e of these objections the off"cnsh·c proposition was quietly withdrawn." THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 331 Now mark tho character of these objections. It is objected, not that it is wrong to deliver up fugitive slaves, but only that they should not be "delivered up like criminals;" that is, by a demand on the executive of the State to which they may have fled. And this objection is based on the ground that such a requisition would oblige the public to deliver them· up at its own expense. Mr. Sherman insists, not that it is wrong to surrender fugitive slaves or fugitive horses, but only that the executive, or public, should not be called upon to surrender them. ·surely, if these gentlemen had been so violently opposed to the restoration of fugitive slaves, here was a fair occasion for them to speak out; and as honest, out-spoken men they would, no doubt, have made their sentiments known. But there is, in fact, not a syllable of such a sentiment uttered. There is not the slightest symptom of the existence of any such feeling in their minds. If auy such existed, we must insist that lift-. Sumner has discovered it by instinct, and not by his researches in history. The statement that "under the pressure of these objections the offensive proposition was '{ltiftl!J witlit/,.mon" is not true. It was not |