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Show 266 DESPO'flS!\1 and to have pa.-ed with little opposition. Thrre is no evidence known to me that any body, at the time, regarded any of its provisions as repugt~ant to religion, liberty, the constitution, or humamty. The two senators of Massachusetts, at that time, were the distingnished legislator a nd patriot of your own county, Gcorae Cabot, and that other citizen of 1\ifassachusetts, namong the most eminent of his day for talent, purity of characler, and every virtue, Caleb Stron<r. lVlr. Cabot indeed was one of the committee for pr~paring the bill. It appears to have pas.ed the senate without a division. In the house of representati ves it was •upported by Mr. Goodhue, Mr. Gcrry,-both, I believe, of your county of Essex, (Mr. Goodhue afterwards a senator of the United States, and Mr. Gerry afterwards vice-preoidcnt of !he United States,) Mr. Ames, Mr. Bourne, l\tr. Leonard, and Mr. Sedgewick, members from Ma8sachusetts, and was passed by a vote of forty-eight to seven ; of these seven one bt>ing from Virginia, one from !\fa ryland, one from New York, and four from the New England States, and of these four one, Mr. Thacher, from Mas~achusetts.• "I am not aware that there cxi::sts any published account of the debates on the passage of this act. I have been able to find none. I have searched the original files, however, and I find among the papers several propo::;.itions for modifications and amendments of various kinds, but none suggesting the propriety of any jury trial in the state where the party should be arrested." This history of the act of 1793 is tolerably correct so far as it goes. But it omits some details as to the origin of that act curious in themselves, and somewhat essential to the argument, and which therefore we proceed to supply. On the 11th of May 1788, a • Mr. Thacher, it is proper to note, was, in these early Congresses, the only consistent and uniform New England oppo~~er of sllwery aud all its pretensions. lu those timoJ, indeed for the lirst thirty yean; &ub· ~qucnt to the adoption of the Fedcrul constitulion, almost all the op· t>osition to slavery came from Pennsylvania aml New Jersey. IN Ai\IF.HICA, 267 month ~r :~vo ~cfore. t~e F ederal constitution hf'came, by tile rat1hcat.10n of n1nc stales, an authoritative act a ncgr~> named John wa::s seized in the state of P enn: sylvania, (probably under the allegation that. he was a runaw~y slave,) by certain perto-ous in disgui::-c, who bound hun and_ earned him olt: On the llrh of No~ Vt'lll.~er follow tn ?',. bills of ind ictment were found aga111st one M_d..:iutre and two others, as havina kidnapped John, ?11d taken him out of the state with intent to sell h1m ~s a slave. 'l'his proceeding was brought to the not<ce of Governor Milfiin on the 13th of May, 1791, by a. memorial of the "Pennsylvania So_c1ety for promoting the abolition of slavery, t he rehe_f of fr~e negroes unl_a~vfully held in bondage, and for Improvmg the condllton of the African race, in which memorial it was further stated that the indi1cted parti?s. had precipitately fled from justice either into V~rguua,,whcrc John was .h~ld in a state of slavery ?Y one NICholas Casey, res1dmg near Romney, or else wto the newly erected state of Kentucky. Shortly after the recc•pt of this memorial Milfiin addressed an ofliciallcttcr to Beverly Randol;>h, governor ~f V1rguua, cnclosmg the indictment, and the memonal, and requesting him to take the proper steps to cam:;~ the fugit~ves from jw.,~icc to be delivered up, as provided for 111 the constitution of the United States. This letter, with its enclosure~, Governor Ran· <~olph submitted to James Innis, then attorney general of V1.rguua! who soon after gave an opinion to the followmg etlect: 1st. That by the laws of Virainia the matter charged in the indictments would am~unt a8 between the individual parties, only to a trespass: and as between the offenders and t he common\veallh only to a breach of the peace; that t he trespass n·~1ght as well be sued for in Y!rg inia as in Peunsylva~ ma, and that, to an indictment for a mere breach of the pcac~, the defendants might appear by attorney, so that Jt would be soon enouah to deliver them up after they were convicted. On ft1e presumption, how· ever, that the offence charged stood on the same |