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Show 368 LIBERTY AND ST~AVERY. itself, whatever may be its effects." That is to say, whatever may be the effect of a jury trial iu such cases, he means to vote for it as 1·ight and just in itself! Whether this were a burst of passion merely, or the deliberate conviction of the author of it, we are not able to determine, but we shall trust it was the former. For surely such an opinion, if deliberately entertained, is creditable neither to a Senator nor to a jurist. Neither this, nor any other mode of trial, is "right in itself;" and when right at all, it is only so as a means to an end. It is only right when it subscrves the great end of justice; and if it fail to answer this end it is then worse than worthless. lienee the statesman who declares that, "whatever may be the e,jj'ects" of a particular mode of trial, he will nevmtheless support it "as right and just in itself," thereby announces that he is prepared to sacrifice the end to the means,-a sentiment which, we venture to affirm, is more worthy of a fanatical declaimer than of the high-minded and accomplished Senator by whom it was uttered. The great objection urged against the Fugitive Slave Law is that under it a freeman may be seized and reduced to slavery. This Jaw, as well as every other, may, 110 doubt, be grossly TITE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 369 abused, and made a cover for evil deeds. llut is there no remedy for such evil deeds? Is thet·e 110 protection for the free blacks of the N otth, except by a denial of the clear and unquestionable constitutional rights of the South? If not, then we should be willing to submit; but there is a remedy against such foul abuse of the law of Congress in question, and, as we conceive, a most ample remedy. The master may recapture his fugitive slave. This is his constitutional right. But, in the language of the Supreme Court of New York, already quoted, if a villain, under cover of a pretended right, proceeds to carry oft' a freeman, he docs so "at his peril, and would be answerable like any other trespasser or kidnapper." lie must be caught, however, before he can be punished. Let him be caught, let the crime be proved upon him, and we would most heartily concur in the law by which he should himself be doomed to slavery for life in the penitentiary. The Fugitive Slave Law is not the only one liable to abuse. The innocent may be, and often have been, arrested for c6mc ; but this is no reason why the law of arrcs~ should be abolished, or even impaired in its operation. Nay, innocent persons have often been mali- Y |