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Show 370 LIBERTY AND SLAVERY. ciously prosecuted; yet no one, on this account, ever dreamed of throwing obstacles in the way of prosecution for crime. The innocent have been made the victims of pmjury; but who Imagines that all swearing in courts of justice should therefore be abolished? Such evils and such crimes arc sought to be remedied by separate legislation, and not by uudermining the laws of which they are the abuses. In like manner, though we wish to see the free blacks of the North protected, and would most cheerfully lend a helping hand for that purpose, yet, at the same time, we would maintain our own constitutional rights inviolate. The villain who, under cover of tho law made for the protection of our rights, should seek to invade the rights of Northern freemen, is as much abhorred by us as by any abolitionists on earth. Nor, on the other hand, have we any sympathy with those who, under cover of a law to be made for the protection of the free blacks of the North, seek to invade the rights of the South. W c have no sympathy with either class of kidnappers. Is it not wonderful that, while the abolitionists of the North create and keep up so great a clamor about the danger their free blacks are in, TilE ~'UOITlVE SLAVE LAW. 371 they do so little, and ask so little, either by legislation or otherwise, in order to protect them, except in such manner, or by such legislation, as shall aim a deadly blow at the rights and interests of the South 1 If they really wish to protect their free blacks, and if the laws are not already suilicient for that purpose, we arc more than willing to assist in the passage of more efficient ones. But we arc not willing to abandon the great right which the Constitution spreads, like an impenetrable shield, over Southern property to the amount of sixteen hundred millions of dollars. The complaint in regard to the want of protection for the free blacks of the North is without just foundation. In the case of Jack v. Martin, decided in the Court of Errors of New York, we find the following language, which is hero exactly in point:-" It was contended on the argument of this cause, with groat zeal and earnestness, that, nuder the law of the United States, a freeman might be dragged from his family and home into captivity. This is supposing an extreme case, as I believe it is not prctcndcil any such ever has occurred, or that any complaint of that character has ever hcetl made; at all events, I cannot regard it aB a very |