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Show 272 W c come now to the ~wo latter sections of the act of 1793-thosc relatina to fugitives from labor. "For' many years/' ;owe arc told by lVIr. 'Yebstcr . 1. N b t letter "little or no complamt was ~~~a~~ a~~·in~?f~i~ Ia,,;, ~10r was it suppo:;cd 1~ he uilt oft he oflf.nccs and cnormiticswi~Jch have Since gccuychargcd upon it. It was passed lor th.c _purp?sc of complying with a dirc?t and solemn IIIJUIIC!Jon of the constitution. It d1d no ~ore tha~1. was believed to be n cccst-~ary to accompl1_sh that. s1ng lc purpo:; e; and it did that in a cautwu:-;;! m1ld 1~1an_n~r, to be every where conducted accordwg to JUdtcJ.al proceedin;.rs. . . 1 . "1 confess I see no more obJCdJOns to t 1c provisjons of this law than was seen by Mr. Cabot, Mr. Stn)ng, Nlr. Goodhue, and l\1r. Gerry j and SLlch pro· vi~ionR appear to me, as they appeared t~ them, to .be absolutely necessary, if ":e me~~~ to fulhl _ the dut1es positively and percmptonly enJOined upo11 us by the constitution of the country." [How so, tf, 111 l\lr. Webster's judgment, as declared ju his ?th of_ 1\Iarch speech, the constitutional injunction was entarcly on the states?] .. "But since the agitation caused by the abo!Jtwn sOcieties and abolition presses has, .t? .such an extrnt, excited the public mind, these prov1swns l.mve been rendered obnoxious and odious. Unweaned efforts have been made, and too successfully, to rouse the passions of the people against them, and under the cry of universal freedom, and under t!tat otlte~ cry, that tltere ·is a rule for tlte gover~~m.ent _of J~ublzc men and private m.en 'w!ticlt is of superwr obltgatwn to lite constitution of tlte country, several of the states have enacted laws to hinder, obstruct and defeat the enactments in this act of Congress to the utmost of thw power." Such are the representations of Mr. Webster; su~h is his attempt to hide the nal;edncss of the ad~ of 18v~ and his own under the !:ikit'ts of the act of 1 ~93~ auf of its respectable authors and su·pporters. 'I ho~e 0 IN AMERIC.o\, 273 the.m menti?ned by l\fr. Webster were all Federalists, (wtth the ~1ngle exception of Gerry) some of them very ultra Fe'deralists, but not one of them disposed to erect the Federal constitution either into a Diana of EphC'Slls by the perpetual shouting of whose name all gainsayers were to be silenced, or into a CTO!den calf, which priests and people were alike to fall d~wn to and worship, to the forgetfulness of any Higher Law. It is doc, therefore, to the memory of these worthy mPn, and no less so to the a ssailants of the act of 1793, to state, that although that act was complained of from the very moment of its enactment by the Penn~ylvauia Abolition Society and others in repeated memorials to Congrc:;s, as opening altogetlwr too wide and dangerous a door to kidnappers, yet that the indignation against it, to the result's of which Mr. Webster more particularly rcferl'l, grew mainly not so much out of any thing really contai ned in the act itself, or intended by those who enacted it, as out of a most ungracious, cruel, and gratuitous interpretation forced out of it by a set of" consummate lawyers" of the Scott school,-rru•n who regard personal rights in comparison with the protection of property, at least the personal rig hts of the poor anrl hdple~s, as nothing; and who, ridiculously expecting to chain up and tie down the natural sentiments of justice and equity by the dry withes of their subtle ingenuity, in attempting, like the authors of the act of 1850, to Jay a rising breeze, succeeded only, as the authors of that act have done, in raising a whirlwind. An examination of the brief Federal statute book of 1793,-for then it was brief,-will lead us to the evident model after w hich the fugitive act of 1793 was drawn; whic~h model will not a little afisi~t us to ascertain the idea entcrtain('d by those who framed f_he act of 1793, and by those who passed it. with so l~ttlc debate, of its real meaning and practieal opera~ twn. Among the acts passed by the first Congress was one, approved July 20th, 1790, "For the government |