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Show •• 304 FUGITIVE SLAVES, ETC. founded in fact, and which the history of our State so nobly contradicts. It is sufficient to say lha.t such an exclusion could have no good effect practically, and would accomplish nothing in the great cause of human liberty." 'rhesc answers do not seem to have affected the election in any way. Mr. Seward was elected, each candidate receiving the full vote of his party. Since Umt time the act has been repealed, and no voice has been raised to restore it. Just and meritorious as were the answers of Messrs. Marcy and Seward h favor of sustaining the sojourninrr b act, thsir voices in favor of its restoration would be still more so now. It was a measure in the very spirit of the Constitution, and in the very nainre of a union, and in fllll harmony with the spirit of conces ion, deference, ancl good will in which the Constitution was found ed. Several other States had acts to the same effect, and the temper of the people in all the free States was accordant. It was not until after the slavery question became a subject of political agitation, in the national legislature, that these acts were repealed, and this spirit destroyed. Political agitation has done all the mischief. The act of Pennsylvania, of Murch 3d, 1847, beside repealing the slave sojournment act of 17 80-( an act made in the time of Dr. Franklin, and which had been on her statute book near seventy years)-bcsidc repealing her recent act of 1826, and beside forbidding the use of her prisons and the intervention of her officers in the recovery of fugitive slaves--beside all this, went on to make positive enactment to prevent the exercise of the rights of forcible recaption of fugitive slaves, as regnla.ted by the act of Congress, under the clause in the Constitution; and for that purpose contained this section. "That if any person or persons, claiming any negro or mulatto, as fngi ti vc from scrvi ludc or labor, shall, under any pretense of aulhority whatever, violently and tumnlinously FUGITIVE SLAVES, ETC. 305 seize upon and carry away in a riotous, violent, and tumultuous manner, and so as to disturb and endanger the public peace, any negro ot· mulatto wilbiu this commouwealill either with or without the intention of taking such negro 0 ; mulatto before any district or circuit judge, the person or persons so offending against the peace of this commonwealth shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor; and 011 conviction thereof, shall be sentenced to pay a fine of' not less than one hundred nor more than two thousand dollars. and, further, be confined in the county jail for any period not exceeding three months, at the di crclion of the court." The granting of the habeas corpus writ to any fugitivo slave, completed the enactment of this statute, which thus carried out, to the ful1, the ample intimations contained in its title, to-wit: "An act to prevent kidnapping, preserve the public p eace, p'roh?"bit the ex ercise of certain p owe1·s heretofore exercised by judges, j ustices of the peace, aldermen, and }ailors within this commonwealth : and to rep eal certain slave laws." 'I'his act made a new starting-point in the anti-slavery movements N orlh, as the resolutions or Mr. Calhoun, of the previous monlb, made a new startingpoint in the pro-s1avery movements in tho South. The first led to the new fugitive slave recovery act of 1850; the other has led to the abrogation of the Missouri Compromise line ; and between the two, the state of things has been produced which now affiicts and distracts the country, and is working a sectional divorce of the States. A cHizen of Maryland, acting under the federal law of 1793, in recapturing his slave in Pennsylvania, was prosecuted unucr the State act. of 1826, convicted, and sentenced to its pcnahics. The constitutionality of this enactment was in vain pleaded in the Pennsylvania court; but her authorities acted in the spirit of deference and respect to the authorities of the Union, and concurred in an "agreed case," to be carried before the Supreme Oourt of the United 20 |