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Show 380 LIBERTY AND SLAVERY. fathel's, as well as of the great judicial tribunals, of the land. · We arc asked to repeal this !aw-ay, by the most violent agitator of the North we are asked to repeal this law-for " the sake of tranquiUity and peace!" But how can this bring peace? Suppose this law were repealed; would tranquillity be restored? We have not forgot. ten- nor can we be so easily made to forget-that this very agitator himself has declared, that slavery is "a wrong so transcendent" that no truce is to be allowed to it so long as it occupies a single foot of ground in the United States. Is it not, then, a delusive prospect of peace which is offered to us in exchange for the law in question? Nor can we forget what other agitators have uttered respecting the abolition of slavery in the Southern States. "Slavery," said Mr. Seward, at a mass-meeting in Ohio, "can be limited to its present hounds; it can be ameliorated. It can be - and it must be - AnOLISIIED, and you and I can and must do it." Docs this look like peace, if the Fugitive Slave Law were only out of tho way? llfr. Seward, from his place in tho Senate of the United States, tells us how we must act among the people of tho North, if, in THE li'UOITIVE SLAVE LAW. 381 reclaiming otlr fugitive slaves, we would not disturb their peace. But he had already exhorted the people of the North to " extend a cordial welcome" to our fugitive slaves, and to "defend them as they would their household gods." What, then, does he mean by peace? This outcry, indeed, that the peace of the country is disturbed by the Fugitive Slave Law, is as great a del us ion as ever was attempted to be palmed off on any people. If this law were repealed to-motTow, would agitation cease 1 Would the abolitionists of the North cease to proclaim that their doors are open, and their hospitality is ready, to receive the poor benighted blacks? (the blacks of the South, wo mean; for we have never heard of their open doors, or cordial hospitality, for the poor free blacks of their own neighborhood.) But wo have heard- from Dr. Channing himself-of "a convention at the North, of highly respected men, preparing and publishing an address to the slaves, in which they are exhorted to fly from bondage, and to feel no scruple in seizing and using horse or boat which may facilitate their escape." Now, if the Fugitive Slave Law were repealed, would all such proceedings cease? Or if, under the Constitution as expounded by tho |