It was by casting his eyes over "our Southern region" that Dr. Channing concluded "that we are holding in bondage one of the best races of the human family." If he had cast them over the appallingly dark region of Africa, he would have been compelled, in spite of the wonder-working power of his imagination, to pronounce it one of the very worst and most degraded races upon earth. If, as he imagines, this race among us is now nearer to the kingdom of heaven than we ourselves are, how dare he assert—as he so often has done—that our slavery has "degraded them into brutes?" If, indeed, they had not been elevated—both physically and morally—by their servitude in America, it would have been beyond the power of even Dr. Channing to pronounce such a eulogy upon them. We say, then, that he knew better when he asserted that we have degraded them into brutes. He spoke, not from his better knowledge and his conscience, but from blind, unreflecting passion. For he knew—if he knew any thing—that the blacks have been elevated and improved by their contact with the whites of this enlightened portion of the globe.

The truth is, the abolitionist can make the slave a brute or a saint, just as it may happen to suit the exigency of his argument. If slavery degrades its subjects into brutes, then one would suppose that slaves are brutes. But the moment you speak of selling a slave, he is no longer a brute,—he is a civilized man, with all the most tender affections, with all the most generous emotions. If the object be to excite indignation against slavery, then it always transforms its subjects into brutes; but if it be to excite indignation against the slaveholder, then he holds, not brutes, but a George Harris—or an Eliza—or an Uncle Tom—in bondage. Any thing, and every thing, except fair and impartial statement, are the materials with which he works.

No fact is plainer than that the blacks have been elevated and improved by their servitude in this country. We cannot possibly conceive, indeed, how Divine Providence could have placed them in a better school of correction. If the abolitionists can conceive a better method for their enlightenment and religious improvement, we should rejoice to see them carry their plan into execution. They need not seek to rend asunder our Union, on account of the three millions of blacks among us, while there are fifty millions of the same race on the continent of Africa, calling aloud for their sympathy, and appealing to their Christian benevolence. Let them look to that continent. Let them rouse the real, active, self-sacrificing benevolence of the whole Christian world in behalf of that most degraded portion of the human family; and, after all, if they will show us on the continent of Africa, or elsewhere, three millions of blacks in as good a condition—physically and morally—as our slaves, then will we most cheerfully admit that all other Christian nations, combined, have accomplished as much for the African race, as has been done by the Southern States of the Union.

FOOTNOTES:

[175] Life of Joseph John Gurney, vol. ii. p. 214.

[176] Bigelow's Notes on Jamaica in 1850, as quoted in Carey's "Slave Trade, Foreign and Domestic."

[177] Quoted by Mr. Carey.

[178] Carey's Slave Trade.

[179] "The West Indies and North America," by Robt. Baird, A. M., p. 145.

[180] "The West Indies and North America," by Robt. Baird, A. M., p. 143.

[181] The Corentyne.

[182] East bank of the Berbice River.

[183] West bank of the Berbice River.

[184] West coast of Berbice River.

[185] Quoted in Carey's Slave Trade.

[186] Gurney's Letters on the West Indies.

[187] Ibid.

[188] Ibid.

[189] Dr. Channing.

[190] We moot a higher question: Is he fit for the pulpit,—for that great conservative power by which religion, and morals, and freedom, must be maintained among us? "I do not believe," he declares, in one of his sermons, "the miraculous origin of the Hebrew church, or the Buddhist church, or of the Christian church, nor the miraculous character of Jesus. I take not the Bible for my master—nor yet the church—nor even Jesus of Nazareth for my master. . . . . . He is my best historic ideal of human greatness; not without errors—not without the stain of his times, and I presume, of course, not without sins; for men without sins exist in the dreams of girls." Thus, the truth of all miracles is denied; and the faith of the Christian world, in regard to the sinless character of Jesus, is set down by this very modest divine as the dream of girls! Yet he believes that half a million of men were, by the British act of emancipation, turned from slaves into freemen! That is to say, he does not believe in the miracles of the gospel; he only believes in the miracles of abolitionism. Hence, we ask, is he fit for the pulpit,—for the sacred desk,—for any holy thing?

[191] See extract, p. 156.

[192] Spirit of Laws, vol. i. book xv. chap. vii.

[193] Spirit of Laws, vol. i. book xv. chap. viii.

[194] The emphasis is ours.

[195] See pages 155, and 159, 160.

[196] See chap. i. Sec. 2.

[197] Works, vol. v. p. 63.

[198] See chap. i. Sec. 2.

[199] We have in the above remark done Boston some injustice. For New York has furnished the Robespierre, and Massachusetts only the Brissot, of "les Amis des Noirs" in America.

[200] This reply is sometimes attributed to Robespierre and sometimes to Brissot; it is probable that in substance it was made by both of these bloody compeers in the cause of abolitionism.

[201] See Alison's History of Europe, vol. ii. p. 241.

[202] Encyclopaedia of Geo. vol. iii. pp. 302, 303.

[203] Prov. xxx. 22.

[204] Encyc. of Geo., vol. iii. p. 303. Mackenzie's St. Domingo, vol. ii. pp. 260, 321.

[205] Franklin's Present State of Hayti, etc., p. 265.

[206] Dr. Channing's Works, vol. v. p. 47.

[207] April No., 1855.

[208] Dr. Channing's Works, vol. vi. p. 50, 51.



CHAPTER V.

THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.

Mr. Seward's Attack on the Constitution of his Country—The Attack of Mr. Sumner on the Constitution of his Country—The Right of Trial by Jury not impaired by the Fugitive Slave Law—The Duty of the Citizen in regard to the Constitution of the United States.

WE have, under our present Union, advanced in prosperity and greatness beyond all former example in the history of nations. We no sooner begin to reason from the past to the future, than we are lost in amazement at the prospect before us. We behold the United States, and that too at no very distant period, the first power among the nations of the earth. But such reasoning is not always to be relied on. Whether, in the present instance, it points to a reality, or to a magnificent dream merely, will of course depend on the wisdom, the integrity, and the moderation, of our rulers.

It cannot be disguised that the Union, with all its unspeakable advantages and blessings, is in danger. It is the Fugitive Slave Law against which the waves of abolitionism have dashed with their utmost force and raged with an almost boundless fury. On the other hand, it is precisely the Fugitive Slave Law—that great constitutional guarantee of our rights—which the people of the South are, as one man, the most inflexibly determined to maintain. We are prepared, and we shall accordingly proceed, to show that, in this fearful conflict, the great leaders of abolitionism—the Chases, the Sewards, and the Sumners, of the day—are waging a fierce, bitter, and relentless warfare against the Constitution of their country.

Sec. I. Mr. Seward's attack on the Constitution of his country.

There is one thing which Mr. Seward's reasoning overlooks,—namely, that he has taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States. We shall not lose sight of this fact, nor permit him to obscure it by his special pleadings and mystifications; since it serves to show that while, in the name of a "higher law," he denounces the Constitution of his country, he at the same time commits a most flagrant outrage against that higher law itself.

The clause of the Constitution which Mr. Seward denounces is as follows: "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." This clause, as Mr. Seward contemptuously says, is "from the Constitution of the United States in 1787." He knows of only one other compact like this "in diplomatic history;" and that was made between despotic powers "in the year of grace 902, in the period called the Dark Ages." But whether this compact made by the fathers of the Republic, or the sayings and doings of Mr. Seward in regard to it, are the more worthy of the Dark Ages, it is not for him alone to determine.

"The law of nature," says he, "disavows such compacts; the law of nature, written on the hearts and consciences of freemen, repudiates them." If this be so, then it certainly follows that in founding States no such compacts should be formed. For, as Mr. Seward says, "when we are founding States, all these laws must be brought to the standard of the laws of God, and must be tried by that standard, and must stand or fall by it." This is true, we repeat; but the Senator who uttered this truth was not founding States or forming a constitution. He was living and acting under a constitution already formed, and one which he had taken an oath to support. If, in the construction of this instrument, our fathers really followed "as precedents the abuses of tyrants and robbers," then the course of the Senator in question was plain: he should have suffered martyrdom rather than take an oath to support it. For the law of nature, it is clear, permits no man first to take an oath to support such compacts, and then repudiate them. If they are at war with his conscience, then, in the name of all that is sacred, let him repudiate them, but, by all means, without having first placed himself under the necessity of repudiating, at the same time, the obligation of his oath.

There is a question among casuists, whether an oath extorted by force can bind a man to act in opposition to his conscience. But this was not Mr. Seward's case. His oath was not extorted. If he had refused to take it, he would have lost nothing except an office.

"There was deep philosophy," says he, "in the confession of an eminent English judge. When he had condemned a young woman to death, under the late sanguinary code of his country, for her first theft, she fell down dead at his feet. 'I seem to myself,' said he, 'to have been pronouncing sentence, not against the prisoner, but against the law itself.'" Ay, there was something better than "deep philosophy" in that English judge; there was stern integrity; for, though he felt the law to be hard and cruel, yet, having taken an oath to support it, he hardly felt himself at liberty to dispense with the obligation of his oath. We commend his example to the Senator from New York.

But who is this Senator, or any other politician of the present day, that he should presume to pass so sweeping and so peremptory a sentence of condemnation on a compact made by the fathers of the Republic and ratified by the people of the United States? For our part, if we wished to find "the higher law," we should look neither into the Dark Ages nor into his conscience. We had infinitely rather look into the great souls of those by whom the Constitution was framed, and by every one of whom the very compact which Mr. Seward pronounces so infamous was cordially sanctioned.

"Your Constitution and laws," exclaims Mr. Seward, "convert hospitality to the refugee from the most degrading oppression on earth into a crime, but all mankind except you esteem that hospitality a virtue." Not content with thus denouncing the "Constitution and laws," he has elsewhere exhorted the people to an open resistance to their execution. "It is," says he, in a speech at a mass-meeting in Ohio, "written in the Constitution of the the United States," and "in violation to divine law,[209] that we shall surrender the fugitive slave who takes refuge at our fireside from his relentless pursuer." He then and there exhorts the people to resist the execution of this clear, this unequivocal, this acknowledged, mandate of the Constitution! "Extend," says he, a "cordial welcome to the fugitive who lays his weary limbs at your door, and DEFEND HIM AS YOU WOULD YOUR HOUSEHOLD GODS."

We shall not trust ourselves to characterize such conduct. In the calm, judicial language of the Chancellor of his own State such proceeding of Mr. Seward will find its most fitting rebuke. "Independent, however," says Chancellor Walworth, "of any legislation on this subject either by the individual States or by Congress, if the person whose services are claimed is in fact a fugitive from servitude under the laws of another State, the constitutional provision is imperative that he shall be delivered up to his master upon claim made." Thus far, Mr. Seward concurs with the chancellor in opinion; but the latter continues—"and any state officer or private citizen, who owes allegiance to the United States, and has taken the usual oath to support the Constitution thereof, cannot, WITHOUT INCURRING THE MORAL GUILT OF PERJURY, do any act to deprive the master of his right of recaption, when there is no real doubt that the person whose services are claimed is in fact the slave of the claimant."[210] Yet, regardless of the question whether the fugitive is a slave or not, the life and labors of Mr. Seward are, in a great measure, dedicated to a subversion of the constitutional clause and right under consideration. He counsels open resistance! Yea, he exhorts the people to protect and defend fugitive slaves as such, and though they had confessed themselves to have fled from servitude! But we doubt not that "the law of nature, written on the hearts and consciences of freemen," will reverse this advice of his, and reaffirm the decision of the chancellor of his own State. Nay, wherever there exists a freeman with a real heart and conscience, there that decision already stands affirmed.

As Mr. Seward's arguments are more fully elaborated by Mr. Sumner, of Massachusetts, so they will pass under review when we come to examine the speech of that Senator. In the mean time, we beg leave to lay before the reader a few living examples of the manner in which the law of nature, as written on the hearts and consciences of freemen, has expressed itself in regard to the points above considered.

"I recognize, indeed," says the Hon. R. C. Winthrop, of Boston, "a power above all human law-makers and a code above all earthly constitutions! And whenever I perceive a clear conflict of jurisdiction and authority between the Constitution of my country and the laws of my God, my course is clear. I shall resign my office, whatever it may be, and renounce all connection with public service of any sort. Never, never, sir, will I put myself under the necessity of calling upon God to witness my promise to support a constitution, any part of which I consider to be inconsistent with his commands.

"But it is a libel upon the Constitution of the United States—and, what is worse, sir, it is a libel upon the great and good men who framed, adopted, and ratified it; it is a libel upon Washington and Franklin, and Hamilton and Madison, upon John Adams, and John Jay, and Rufus King; it is a libel upon them all, and upon the whole American people of 1789, who sustained them in their noble work, and upon all who, from that time to this, generation after generation, in any capacity,—national, municipal, or state,—have lifted their hands to heaven in attestation of their allegiance to the government of their country;—it is a gross libel upon every one of them, to assert or insinuate that there is any such inconsistency! Let us not do such dishonor to the fathers of the Republic and the framers of the Constitution."

Mr. Ashman, of Massachusetts, after reciting the clause in the Constitution which demands the restoration of fugitive slaves, proceeds as follows: "This reads very plainly, and admits of no doubt but that, so far as fugitive slaves are concerned, the Constitution fully recognizes the right to reclaim them from within the limits of the free States. It is the Constitution which we have all sworn to support, and which I hope we all mean to support; and I have no mental reservation excluding any of its clauses from the sanction of that oath. It is too late now to complain that such a provision is there. Our fathers, who formed that entire instrument, placed it there, and left it to us as an inheritance; and nothing but an amendment of the Constitution, or a violation of our oaths, can tear it out. And, however much we may abhor slavery, there is no way for honorable, honest—nay, conscientious—men, who desire to live under our laws and our Constitution, but to abide by it in its spirit."

In like manner, the Hon. S. A. Douglas, of Illinois, declares: "All I have to say on that subject is this, that the Constitution provides that a fugitive from service in one State, escaping into another, 'shall be delivered up.' The Constitution also provides that no man shall be a Senator unless he takes an oath to support the Constitution. Then, I ask, how does a man acquire a right on this floor to speak, except by taking an oath to support and sustain the Constitution of the United States? And when he takes that oath, I do not understand that he has a right to have a mental reservation, or entertain any secret equivocation that he excepts that clause which relates to the surrender of fugitives from service. I know not how a man reconciles it to his conscience to take that oath to support the Constitution, when he believes that Constitution is in violation of the law of God. If a man thus believes, and takes the oath, he commits perfidy to his God in order that he may enjoy the temporary honors of a seat upon this floor. In this point of view, it is simply a question of whether Senators will be true to their oaths and true to the Constitution under which we live."

Sec. II. The attack of Mr. Sumner on the Constitution of his country.

If we have not noticed the arguments of Mr. Chase, of Ohio, it is because they are reproduced in the celebrated speech of Mr. Sumner, and because he has so fully indorsed the history and logic of this speech as to make it his own. Hence, in replying to the one of these Senators, we at the same time virtually reply to the other.

We select the speech of Mr. Sumner for examination, because it is generally considered the more powerful of the two. It is, indeed, the most elaborate speech ever made in the Senate of the United States, or elsewhere, on the subject of the Fugitive Slave Law. Even Mr. Weller found it "so handsomely embellished with poetry, both Latin and English, so full of classical allusions and rhetorical flourishes," as to make it more palatable than he supposed an abolition speech could possibly be made. As to the abolitionists themselves, they seem to know no bounds in their enthusiastic admiration of this sublime effort of their champion. We should not wonder, indeed, if many a female reformer had gone into hysterics over an oration which has received such violent bursts of applause from grave and dignified Senators. "By this effort," says Mr. Hale, he has placed "himself side by side with the first orators of antiquity, and as far ahead of any living American orator as freedom is ahead of slavery. I believe that he has formed to-day a new era in the history of the politics and of the eloquence of the country; and that in future generations the young men of this nation will be stimulated to effort by the record of what an American Senator has this day done," etc.

We have no doubt that young men may attempt to imitate the speech in question; but, as they grow older, it is to be hoped that their taste will improve. The speech in question will make a "new era" in the tactics of abolitionism, and that is all. We shall see this when we come to examine this wonderful oration, which so completely ravished three Senators, and called forth such wild shouts of applause from the whole empire of abolitionism.

Mr. Chase seems almost equally delighted with this marvellous effort. "I avow my conviction, now and here," says he, "that, logically and historically, his argument is impregnable—entirely impregnable." . . . . . . "In my judgment," he continues, "the speech of my friend from Massachusetts will make a NEW ERA in American history." Indeed, Mr. Sumner himself does not seem altogether dissatisfied with this effort, if we may judge from the manner in which it is referred to in his other speeches. We do not blame him for this. We can see no reason why he should be the only abolitionist in the universe who is not enraptured with his oration. But when he so "fearlessly asserts" that his speech "has never been answered," we beg leave to assure him that it may be refuted with the most perfect ease. For, indeed, its history is half fiction, and its logic wholly false: the first containing just enough of truth to deceive, and the last just enough of plansibility to convince those who are waiting, and watching, and longing to be convinced.

The first thing which strikes the mind, on reading the speech of Mr. Sumner, is the strange logical incoherency of its structure. Its parts are so loosely hung together, and appear so distressingly disjointed, that one is frequently at a loss to perceive the design of the oration. Its avowed object is to procure a repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850; but no one would ever imagine or suspect such a thing from the title of the speech, which is as follows: "Freedom, national; Slavery, sectional." It is difficult, at first view, to perceive what logical connection this title, or proposition, has with the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law. But if there be little or no logical connection between these things, we shall soon see how the choice of such a title and topic of discourse opens the way for the rhetorician to make a most powerful appeal to the passions and to the prejudices of his readers. We say, of his readers, because it is evident that the speech was made for Buncombe, and not for the Senate of the United States.

Mr. Sumner deems it necessary to refute the position that slavery is a national institution, in order to set the world right with respect to the relations of the Federal Government to slavery. "The relations of the Government of the United States," says he,—"I speak of the National Government—to slavery, though plain and obvious, are constantly misunderstood." Indeed, nothing in history seems more remarkable than the amount of ignorance and stupidity which prevailed in the world before the appearance of the abolitionists, except the wonderful illuminations which accompanied their advent. "A popular belief at this moment," continues Mr. Sumner, "makes slavery a national institution, and, of course, renders its support a national duty. The extravagance of this error can hardly be surpassed." In truth, it is so exceedingly extravagant, that we doubt if it really exists. It is certain, that we have no acquaintance, either historically or personally, with those who have fallen into so wild an absurdity.

It is true, there is "a popular belief"—nay, there is a deep-rooted national conviction—that the Government of the United States is bound to protect the institution of slavery, in so far as this may be done by the passage of a Fugitive Slave Law. This national conviction has spoken out in the laws of Congress; it has been ratified and confirmed by the judicial opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, as well as by the decisions of the Supreme Courts of the three great non-slaveholding States of Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania. But no one, so far as we know, has ever deduced this obligation to protect slavery, in this respect, from the absurd notion that "it is a national institution." No such deduction is to be found in any of the arguments of counsel before the courts above-mentioned, nor in the opinions of the courts themselves. We shrewdly suspect that it is to be found nowhere except in the fertile imagination of Mr. Sumner.

We concede that slavery is not "a national institution." In combating this position, Mr. Sumner is merely beating the air. We know that slavery is not national; it is local, being confined to certain States, and exclusively established by local or State laws. Hence, Mr. Sumner may fire off as much splendid rhetoric as he pleases at his men of straw. "Slavery national!" he indignantly exclaims: "Sir, this is all a mistake and absurdity, fit to take a place in some new collection of 'Vulgar Errors' by some other Sir Thomas Browne, with the ancient but exploded stories that the toad has a stone in its head and that ostriches digest iron." These may be very fine embellishments; they certainly have nothing to do with the point in controversy. The question is not whether slavery is a national institution, but whether the National Government does not recognize slavery as a local institution, and is not pledged to protect the master's right to reclaim the fugitive from his service. This is the question, and by its relevancy to this question the rhetoric of Mr. Sumner must be tried.

We do not say it has no such relevancy. Mr. Sumner beats the air, it is true, but he does not beat the air in vain. His declamation may have no logical bearing on the point in dispute, but, if you watch it closely, you will always find that it is most skillfully adapted to bring the prejudices and passions of the reader to bear on that point. Though he may not be much of a logician, yet, it must be admitted, he is "skillful of fence." We should do him great injustice as an antagonist, at least before the tribunal of human passion, if we should suppose that it is merely for the abstract glory of setting up a man of straw, and then knocking it down, that he has mustered all the powers of his logic and unfurled all the splendors of his rhetoric. He has a design in all this, which we shall now proceed to expose.

Here are two distinct questions. First, Is slavery a national institution? Secondly, Has Congress the power to pass a Fugitive Slave Law? These two questions are, we repeat, perfectly distinct; and hence, if Mr. Sumner wished to discuss them fairly and honestly, he should have argued each one by itself. We agree with him in regard to the first; we dissent toto coelo from him in regard to the last. But he has not chosen to keep them separate, or to discuss each one by itself. On the contrary, he has, as we have seen, connected them together as premiss and conclusion, and he keeps them together through the first portion of his speech. Most assuredly Mr. Sumner knows that one of the very best ways in the world to cause a truth or proposition to be rejected is to bind it up with a manifest error or absurdity. Yet the proposition for which we contend—that Congress has the power to support slavery by the passage of a Fugitive Slave Law—is bound up by him with the monstrous absurdity that "slavery is a national institution;" and both are denounced together as if both were equally absurd. One instance, out of many, of this unfair mode of proceeding, we shall now lay before our readers.

"The Constitution contains no power," says he, "to make a king or to support kingly rule. With similar reason it may be said that it contains no power to make a slave, or to support a system of slavery. The absence of all such power is hardly more clear in one case than in the other. But, if there be no such power, all national legislation upholding slavery must be unconstitutional and void."

Thus covertly, and in company with the supposed power of Congress to make slaves or to institute slavery, Mr. Sumner denounces the power of Congress to enact a Fugitive Slave Law! He not only denounces it, but treats it as absurd in the extreme; just as absurd, indeed, as it would be to assert that Congress had power "to support kingly rule!" We can listen to the arguments of Mr. Sumner; but we cannot accept his mere opinion as authority that the power of Congress to enact such a law is so glaringly unconstitutional, is so monstrously absurd; for, however passionately that opinion may be declaimed, we cannot forget that a Fugitive Slave Law was passed by the Congress of 1793, received the signature of George Washington, and, finally, the judicial sanction of the Supreme Court of the United States. Mr. Sumner is but a man.

This advantage of mixing up with a glaring falsehood the idea he wishes to be rejected is not the only one which Mr. Sumner derives from his man of straw. By combating the position—"the popular belief," as he calls it—that "slavery is a national institution," he lays open a wide field for his peculiar powers of declamation. He calls up all the fathers—North and South—to bear witness against slavery, in order to show that it is not a national institution. He quotes colleges, and churches, and patriots, against slavery. Not content with this, he pours down furious invectives of his own, with a view to render slavery as odious as possible. But, since the simple question is, What saith the Constitution—why this fierce crusade against slavery? In deciding this very question, namely, the constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793, a high judicial authority has said that "the abstract proposition of the justice or injustice of slavery is wholly irrelevant here, and, I apprehend, ought not to have the slightest influence upon any member of this court."[211]

It ought not to have—and it did not have—the slightest influence on the highest judicial tribunal of New York, in which the above opinion was delivered. Much as the author of that opinion (Mr. Senator Bishop) abhorred slavery, he did not permit such an influence to reach his judgment. It would have contaminated his judicial integrity. But although before a judicial tribunal, about to decide on the constitutionality of a Fugitive Slave Law, the abstract proposition of the justice or injustice of slavery is out of place, yet at the bar of passion and prejudice it is well calculated, as Mr. Sumner must know, to exert a tremendous influence. Hence, if he can only get up the horror of his readers against slavery before he comes to the real question, namely, the constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Law, he knows that his victory will be more than half gained. But we admonish him that passion and prejudice can only give a temporary eclat to his argument.

So much for the unfairness of Mr. Sumner. If we should notice all such instances of artful design in his speech, we should have no space for his logic. To this we would now invite the attention of the reader, in order to see if it be really "impregnable."

As we have already intimated, Mr. Sumner does not, like Mr. Seward, openly denounce the Constitution of his country. On the contrary, he professes the most profound respect for every part of that instrument, not even excepting the clause which demands the restoration of the fugitive from labor. But an examination of his argument, both historical and logical, will enable us, we trust, to estimate this profession at its real intrinsic worth.

We shall begin with his argument from history. In the examination of this argument, we beg to excuse ourselves from any further notice of all that vast array of historical proofs to show that "freedom is national and slavery sectional."[212] We shall consider those proofs alone which relate to the real point in controversy, namely, Has Congress the power to pass a Fugitive Slave Law?

Mr. Sumner argues, from the well-known sentiments of the framers of the Constitution with respect to slavery, that they intended to confer no such power on Congress. Thus, after quoting the sentiments of Gouverneur Morris, of Elbridge Gerry, of Roger Sherman, and James Madison, he adds: "In the face of these unequivocal statements, it is absurd to suppose that they consented unanimously to any provision by which the National Government, the work of their own hands, could be made the most offensive instrument of slavery." Such is the historical argument of Mr. Sumner. Let us see what it is worth.

Elbridge Gerry had said: "We ought to be careful NOT to give any sanction to slavery;"—language repeatedly quoted, and underscored as above, by Mr. Sumner. It is absurd, he concludes, to suppose that a man who could use such language had the least intention to confer a power on Congress to support slavery by the passage of a Fugitive Slave Law. This is one branch of his historical argument. It may appear perfectly conclusive to Mr. Sumner, and "entirely impregnable" to Mr. Chase; but, after all, it is not quite so invulnerable as they imagine. Mr. Sumner stopped his historical researches at a most convenient point for his argument. If he had only read a little further, he would have discovered that this same identical Elbridge Gerry was in the Congress of 1793, and VOTED FOR the Fugitive Slave Law then passed!

It fares no better with the historical argument to prove the opinion or intention of Roger Sherman. He had declared, it is true, that he was opposed to any clause in the Constitution "acknowledging men to be property." But we should not, with Mr. Sumner, infer from this that he never intended that Congress should possess a power to legislate in reference to slavery. For, unfortunately for such a conclusion, however confidently it may be drawn, or however dogmatically asserted, Roger Sherman himself was in the Senate of 1793, and was actually on the committee which reported the Fugitive Slave Law of that session! Thus, although the premiss of Mr. Sumner's argument is a historical fact, yet its conclusion comes directly into conflict with another historical fact!

We cannot, in the same way, refute the argument from the language of Gouverneur Morris, who said "that he never would concur in upholding domestic slavery," because he was not in the Congress of 1793. But Robert Morris was there, and, although he helped to frame the Constitution in 1787, he uttered not a syllable against the constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Law. Indeed, this law passed the Senate by resolution simply, the yeas and nays not having been called for!

The words of Mr. Madison, who "thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in man," are four or five times quoted in Mr. Sumner's speech. As we have already seen,[213] there cannot be, in the strict sense of the terms, "property in man;" for the soul is the man, and no one, except God, can own the soul. Hence Mr. Madison acted wisely, we think, in wishing to exclude such an expression from the Constitution, inasmuch as it would have been misunderstood by Northern men, and only shocked their feelings without answering any good purpose.

When we say that slaves are property, we merely mean that their masters have a right to their service or labor. This idea is recognized in the Constitution, and this right is secured. We ask no more. As Mr. Madison, and the whole South, had the thing, he did not care to wrangle about the name. We are told, again and again, that the word slave does not appear in the Constitution. Be it so. We care not, since our slaves are there recognized as "persons held to service" by those to whom "such service is due." It is repeated without end that the "Constitution acts on slaves as persons, and not as property." Granted; and if Northern men will, according to the mandate of the Constitution, only deliver up our fugitive servants, we care not whether they restore them as persons or as property. If we may only reclaim them as persons, and regain their service, we are perfectly satisfied. We utterly despise all such verbal quibbling.

Mr. Madison was above it. He acted wisely, we repeat, in refusing to shock the mind of any one, by insisting upon a mere word, and upon a word, too, which might not have conveyed a correct idea of his own views. But that Mr. Madison could, as he undersood the terms, regard slaves as property, we have the most incontestable evidence. For in the Convention of Virginia, called to ratify the Constitution of the United States, he said, "Another clause secures us that property which we now possess. At present, if any slave elopes to any of those States where slaves are free, he becomes emancipated by their laws, for the laws of the States are uncharitable to one another in this respect." He then quotes the provision from the Constitution relative to fugitives from labor, and adds: "This clause was expressly inserted to enable owners of slaves to reclaim them." So much for Mr. Sumner's main argument from the language of the members of the Convention of 1787.

Arguing from the sentiments of that convention with respect to slavery, he concludes that nothing could have been further from their intentions than to confer upon Congress the power to pass a uniform Fugitive Slave Law. He boldly asserts, that if a proposition to confer such a power upon Congress had "been distinctly made it would have been distinctly denied." "But no person in the convention," he says, "not one of the reckless partisans of slavery, was so audacious as to make the proposition." Now we shall show that the above statement of his is diametrically opposed to the truth. We shall show that the members of the convention in question were perfectly willing to confer such a power upon Congress.

The reason why they were so is obvious to any one who has a real knowledge of the times about whose history Mr. Sumner so confidently declaims. This reason is well stated in the language of the Chancellor of New York whom we have already quoted. "The provision," says he, "as to persons escaping from servitude in one State into another, appears by their journal to have been adopted by a unanimous vote of the convention. At that time the existence of involuntary servitude, or the relation of master and servant, was known to and recognized by the laws of every State in the Union except Massachusetts, and the legal right of recaption by the master existed in all, AS A PART OF THE CUSTOMARY OR COMMON LAW OF THE WHOLE CONFEDERACY." Hence, instead of shocking the convention, a clause recognizing such right would have been merely declaratory of the "customary or common law," which then universally prevailed. The "history of the times" confirms this view, and furnishes no evidence against it.

Mr. Sumner tries to make a different impression. He lays great stress on the fact that it was not until late in the convention that the first clause relative to the surrender of fugitive slaves was introduced. But this fact agrees more perfectly with our view than with his. There was no haste about the introduction of such a provision, because it was well known that, whenever it should be introduced, it would pass in the affirmative without difficulty. And, in fact, when it was introduced, it "WAS UNANIMOUSLY ADOPTED." This single fact speaks volumes.

Let us now attend, for a moment, to Mr. Sumner's historical proofs. He quotes the following passage from the Madison Papers:—"Gen. (Charles Cotesworth) Pinckney was not satisfied with it. He seemed to wish some provision should be included in favor of property in slaves." "But," by way of comment, Mr. Sumner adds, "he made no proposition. Unwilling to shock the convention, and uncertain in his own mind, he only seemed to wish such a provision." Now, a bare abstract proposition to recognize property in men is one thing, and a clause to secure the return of fugitive slaves is quite another. The first, it is probable, would have been rejected by the convention; the last was actually and unanimously adopted by it.

Mr. Sumner's next proof is decidedly against him. Here it is "Mr. Butler and Mr. Charles Pinckney, both from South Carolina, now moved openly to require 'fugitive slaves and servants to be delivered up like criminals.' . . . . . . Mr. Wilson, of Pennsylvania, at once objected: 'This would oblige the executive of the State to do it at the public expense.' Mr. Sherman, of Connecticut, saw no more propriety in the public seizing and surrendering a slave or servant than a horse! Under the pressure of these objections the offensive proposition was quietly withdrawn."

Now mark the character of these objections. It is objected, not that it is wrong to deliver up fugitive slaves, but only that they should not be "delivered up like criminals;" that is, by a demand on the executive of the State to which they may have fled. And this objection is based on the ground that such a requisition would oblige the public to deliver them up at its own expense. Mr. Sherman insists, not that it is wrong to surrender fugitive slaves or fugitive horses, but only that the executive, or public, should not be called upon to surrender them. Surely, if these gentlemen had been so violently opposed to the restoration of fugitive slaves, here was a fair occasion for them to speak out; and as honest, outspoken men they would, no doubt, have made their sentiments known. But there is, in fact, not a syllable of such a sentiment uttered. There is not the slightest symptom of the existence of any such feeling in their minds. If any such existed, we must insist that Mr. Sumner has discovered it by instinct, and not by his researches in history.

The statement that "under the pressure of these objections the offensive propositon was quietly withdrawn" is not true. It was not quietly withdrawn; on the contrary, it was withdrawn with the assurance that it would be again introduced. "Mr. Butler withdrew his proposition," says Mr. Madison, "in order that some particular provision might be made, apart from this article."[214] Accordingly, the very next day he introduced a provision, which, as Mr. Madison declares, "was expressly inserted to enable owners of slaves to reclaim them."

These glosses of Mr. Sumner on the history of the times will appear important, if we view them in connection with his design. This design is to bring into doubt the idea that slaves are embraced in the clause of the Constitution which requires fugitives from service or labor to be delivered up. We should not suspect this design from the hints here thrown out, if it were not afterward more fully disclosed. "On the next day," says Mr. Sumner, "August 29th, profiting by the suggestions already made, Mr. Butler moved a proposition, substantially like that now found in the Constitution, not directly for the surrender of 'fugitive slaves,' as originally proposed, but as 'fugitives from service or labor,' which, without debate or opposition of any kind, was unanimously adopted." Was it then unanimously adopted because it was a clause for the surrender of "fugitives from service or labor" only, and not for the surrender of fugitive slaves?

Such appears to be the insinuation of Mr. Sumner. Be this as it may, it is certain that he has afterward said that it may be questioned whether "the language employed" in this clause "can be judicially regarded as justly applicable to fugitive slaves, which is often and earnestly denied.". . . . "Still further," he says, in italics, "to the courts of each State must belong the determination of the question, to which class of persons, according to just rules of interpretation, the phrase 'persons held to service or labor' is strictly applicable."

Mr. Sumner doubts, then, whether this provision, after all, refers to "fugitive slaves." Now, although he has said much in regard to "the effrontery of the Southern members of the convention" that formed the Constitution, we may safely defy him, or any other man, to point to any thing in their conduct which approximates to such audacity. What! the clause in question not designed to embrace fugitive slaves? Mr. Butler, even before he introduced the clause, declared, as we have seen, that such would be its design. It was so understood by every member of the convention; for there was not a man there who possessed the capacity to misunderstand so plain a matter; and it has been so understood by every man, of all parties and all factions, from that day down to the present. Not one of the hired advocates who have been employed, in different States, to argue against the constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Law, has ever had the unblushing effrontery to contend that the clause in question is not applicable to fugitive slaves. Nay, more, until Mr. Sumner appeared, the frantic zeal of no abolitionist had ever so completely besotted his intellect as to permit him to take such ground. By Dr. Channing, by Mr. Seward, and by Mr. Chase, such application of the words in question is unhesitatingly admitted; and hence we dismiss Mr. Sumner's discovery with the contempt it deserves.

But to return. "The provision," says Mr. Sumner, "which showed itself thus tardily, and was so slightly noticed in the National Convention, was neglected in most of the contemporaneous discussions before the people." No wonder; for it was merely declaratory of the "customary or common law" of that day. "In the Conventions of South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia," he admits, "it was commended as securing important rights, though on this point there was a difference of opinion. In the Virginia Convention, an eminent character,—Mr. George Mason,—with others, expressly declared that there was 'no security of property coming within this section.'"

Now, we shall not stickle about the fact that Mr. Sumner has not given the very words of Mr. Mason, since he has given them in substance. But yet he has given them in such a way, and in such a connection, as to make a false impression. The words of Mr. Mason, taken in their proper connection, are as follows: "We have no security for the property of that kind (slaves) which we already have. There is no clause in this Constitution to secure it, for they may lay such a tax as will amount to manumission." This shows his position, not as it is misrepresented by Mr. Sumner, but as it stands in his own words. If slave property may be rendered worthless by the taxation of Congress, how could it be secured by a clause which enables the owner to reclaim it? It would not be worth reclaiming. Such was the argument and true position of Mr. George Mason.

"Massachusetts," continues Mr. Sumner, "while exhibiting peculiar sensitiveness at any responsibility for slavery, seemed to view it with unconcern." If Massachusetts had only believed that the clause was intended to confer on Congress the power to pass a Fugitive Slave Law, into what flames of indignation would her sensitiveness have burst! So Mr. Sumner would have us to believe. But let us listen, for a moment, to the sober voice of history.

It was only about four years after the government went into operation that Congress actually exercised the power in question, and passed a Fugitive Slave Law. Where was Massachusetts then! Did she burst into flames of indignation? Her only voice, in reply, was as distinctly and as emphatically pronounced in favor of that law as was the voice of Virginia itself. With a single exception, her whole delegation in Congress,[215] with Fisher Ames at their head, voted for the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793! Not a whisper of disapprobation was heard from their constituents. As Mr. Sumner himself says, the passage of that act "drew little attention." Hence he would have us to believe that Massachusetts would have been stirred from her depths if the convention had conferred such a power upon Congress, and yet that she was not moved at all when Congress proceeded, as he maintains, to usurp and exercise that power!

This is not all. Every member from the free States, with the exception of five, recorded his vote in favor of the same law.[216] In the Senate, as we have already said, it was passed by resolution, and not by a recorded vote. No one, in either branch of Congress, uttered a syllable against the constitutionality of the law, though many of the most distinguished members of the very convention which framed the Constitution itself were there. Not to mention others, there were James Madison, and Roger Sherman, and Elbridge Gerry, and Rufus King, and Caleb Strong, and Robert Morris, and Oliver Elsworth; and yet from not one of these illustrious framers of the Constitution was a syllable uttered against the constitutionality of the law in question. Nay, the law was supported and enacted by themselves. What, then, in the face of these indubitable facts, becomes of all Mr. Sumner's far-fetched arguments from "the literature of the age" and from his multitudinous voices against slavery? It is absurd, says Mr. Sumner, to suppose that such men intended to confer any power upon Congress to pass a Fugitive Slave Law. It is a fact, we reply, that as members of Congress they proceeded, without hesitation or doubt, to exercise that very power. It "dishonors the memory of the fathers," says Mr. Sumner, to suppose they intended that Congress should possess such a power. How, then, will he vindicate the memory of the fathers against the imputation of his own doctrine that they, as members of Congress, must have knowingly usurped the power which, as members of the convention, they had intended not to confer?

One more of Mr. Sumner's historical arguments, and we are done with this branch of the subject. He deems it the most conclusive of all. It is founded on the arrangement of certain clauses of the Constitution, and is, we believe, perfectly original. We must refer the reader to the speech itself if he desire to see this very curious argument, since we cannot spare the room to give it a full and fair statement.

Nor is this at all necessary to our purpose, inasmuch as we intend to notice only one thing about this argument, namely, the wonderful effect it produces on the mind of its inventor. "The framers of the Constitution," says he, "were wise and careful men, who had a reason for what they did, and who understood the language which they employed." We can readily believe all this. Nor can we doubt that they "had a design in the peculiar arrangement" of the clauses adopted by them. That design, however, we feel quite sure, is different from the one attributed to them by Mr. Sumner. But let us suppose he is right, and then see what would follow.

The design attributed to them by Mr. Sumner was to make every one see, beyond the possibility of a mistake, that the Constitution confers no power on Congress to pass a Fugitive Slave Law. "They not only decline all addition of any such power to the compact," says he, "but, to render misapprehension impossible,—to make assurance doubly sure,—to exclude any contrary conclusion, they punctiliously arrange," etc. Now, if such were the case, then we ask if design of so easy accomplishment were ever followed by failure so wonderful?

They failed, in the first place, "to exclude a contrary conclusion" from the Supreme Courts of Massachusetts, of New York, and of Pennsylvania, all of which tribunals have decided that they did confer such a power upon Congress. In the second place, although those wise men labored to make "misapprehension impossible," yet, according to Mr. Sumner, the Supreme Court of the United States has entirely misapprehended them. So far from seeing that the power in question is not granted to Congress, this high tribunal decides that it is clearly and unquestionably granted. This is not all. The most marvellous failure is yet to come. For, after all their pains to make the whole world see their meaning, these wise men did not see it themselves, but went away, many of them, and, in the Congress of 1793, helped to pass a Fugitive Slave Law!

It is to be feared, indeed, that the failure would have been absolutely total but for the wonderful sagacity of a few abolitionists. For the design imputed to the framers of the Constitution, and which they took so much pains to disclose, had remained profoundly concealed from nearly all men, not excepting themselves, until it was detected by Messrs. Sumner, Chase, and company. But these have, at last, discovered it, and now see it as in a flood of light. Indeed, they see it with such transcendent clearness, with such marvellous perspicacity of vision, as to atone for the stupidity and blindness of the rest of mankind.

So much for Mr. Sumner's historical argument. His logical argument is, if possible, still more illogical than his historical. In regard to this, however, we shall be exceedingly brief, as we are sick of his sophisms, and long to be delivered from the pursuit of them.

He encounters, at the outset, "a difficulty" in the legislation of the Congress of 1793 and in the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States." But "on examination," says he, "this difficulty will disappear." Perhaps difficulty so great never vanished so suddenly from before any other man.

The authority of the Congress of 1793, though it contained so many of the most distinguished framers of the Constitution, is annihilated by a few bold strokes of Mr. Sumner's pen. One short paragraph, containing two ineffably weak arguments, does the business.

The first of these arguments is as follows: "The act of 1793 proceeded from a Congress that had already recognized the United States Bank, chartered by a previous Congress, which, though sanctioned by the Supreme Court, has been since in high quarters pronounced unconstitutional. If it erred as to the bank, it may have erred also as to fugitives from labor." We cannot conceive why such an argument should have been propounded, unless it were to excite a prejudice against the Congress of 1793 in the minds of those who may be opposed to a National Bank. For if we look at its conclusion we shall see that it merely aims to establish a point which no one would deny. It merely aims to prove that, as the Congress of 1793 was composed of fallible men, "so it may have erred!" We admit the conclusion, and therefore pass by the inherent weaknesses in the structure of the argument.

His second argument is this: "But the very act contains a capital error[217] on this very subject, so declared by the Supreme Court, in pretending to vest a portion of the judicial power of the nation in state officers. This error takes from the act all authority as an interpretation of the Constitution. I DISMISS IT." This passage, considered as an argument, is simply ridiculous. How many of the best laws ever enacted by man have, in the midst of much that is as clear as noonday, been found to contain an error! Should all, therefore, have been blindly rejected? As soon as the error has been detected, has any enlightened tribunal on earth ever said, "I dismiss" the whole?

By such a process we might have made as short work with Mr. Sumner's speech. If, after pointing out one error therein, we had dismissed the whole speech as worthless, we should have imitated his reasoning, and in our conclusion have come much nearer to the truth. If we should say, indeed, that because the sun has a spot on its surface it is therefore a great ball of darkness, our argument would be exactly like that of Mr. Sumner. But that great luminary would not refuse to shine in obedience to our contemptible logic. In like manner, the authority of the illustrious Congress of 1793, in which there were so many profound statesmen and pure patriots, will not be the less resplendent because Mr. Charles Sumner has, with Titanic audacity and Lilliputian weakness, assailed it with one of the most pitiful of all the pitiful sophisms that ever were invented by man.

In regard to the decision of the Supreme Court he says: "Whatever maybe the influence of this judgment as a rule to the judiciary, it can not arrest our duty as legislators. And here I adopt, with entire assent, the language of President Jackson, in his memorable veto, in 1832, of the Bank of the United States." He then quotes this language, in which he italicizes the following sentence: "Each public officer, who takes an oath to support the Constitution, swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others." With these authoritative words of Andrew Jackson," says he, "I dismiss this topic. The early legislation of Congress and the decisions of the Supreme Court can not stand in our way. I advance to the argument." We shall let him advance.

But we must say a few words in conclusion. Mr. Sumner swears to support the Constitution as he understands it; but how is it supported by him? Is it supported by him at all or in any way? Let us see. The clause respecting "persons held to service or labor," says he, imposes an obligation, not upon "the National Government, but upon the States." Is he then in favor of the States passing any law, or doing any act, by which fugitive slaves may be delivered up? "Never," he replies. Massachusetts will never do any such thing by his advice or consent. Surely, then, he will speak a kind word to the good people of Massachusetts, and advise them to do nothing in violation of this solemn compact of the Constitution. If he will do nothing to support the compact, surely he will do nothing to break it down. He will not permit us to indulge any such charitable hope. For it is his avowed object, by speech-making and by agitation, to create such a "public opinion" as "shall blast with contempt, indignation, and abhorrence, all who, in whatever form, or under whatever name, undertake to be agents"[218] in reclaiming fugitive slaves. Yea, upon the very officers of the law themselves, who, for this purpose, act under and by authority of the supreme laws of the land, he pours down scorn and derision. Even these, though in the discharge of an official duty, are—if it be in the power of Mr. Sumner—to be blasted with abhorrence, indignation, and contempt!

The Constitution declares that the fugitive slave "shall be delivered up." He shall NOT "be delivered up," says Mr. Sumner; and, in order to make his words good, he means to create a "public opinion," which no Southern master dare encounter. Nay, he rejoices to believe that such public opinion is, in some localities, already created and prepared for open resistance to the Constitution of the United States. "There are many," says he, "who will never shrink at any cost, and, notwithstanding all the atrocious penalties of this bill, from efforts to save a wandering fellow-man from bondage. They will offer him the shelter of their houses, and, IF NEED BE, WILL PROTECT HIS LIBERTY BY FORCE."[219] Horrible words! Words tending directly to a conflict in which the brightest hopes of humanity must perish, and the glory of the Republic be extinguished in oceans of blood.

In the face of such things, we are imperiously constrained to doubt Mr. Sumner's regard for the obligation of the oath which binds him to support the Constitution of his country. It is certain that he can rejoice in the breach of this obligation by others. A certain judge in Vermont, who, like every other State officer, had taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States, just set Constitution, laws, evidence, all at defiance, and boldly declared that the fugitive should not be delivered up, "unless the master could show a bill of sale from the Almighty." This deed, which, in the language of Chancellor Walworth, is stamped with "the moral guilt of perjury," appears heroic to Mr. Sumner, by whom it is related with evident delight. It would seem, indeed, as if the moral sensibility of an abolitionist of his stamp is all drawn to a single point of his conscience, so that it can feel absolutely nothing except slavery. It seems dead to the obligation of an oath, to the moral guilt of perjury. Nay, it seems to rejoice in the very bravery of its perpetration, provided it only enables a fugitive slave to effect his escape.

Perhaps Mr. Sumner would seek to justify himself by declaring that the language fugitive from services does not include fugitive slaves. If so, we reply that the Vermont judge, whose infamous decision he approves, had no such fine pretext. It is Mr. Sumner, as we have seen, who first suggested this most excellent method of reconciling conscience with treachery to the Constitution. Though he professes the most profound respect for that instrument, he deliberately sets to work to undermine one of its most clear and unequivocal mandates. He does not, like Mr. Seward, openly smite the Constitution with his hand, or contemptuously kick it with his foot. He betrays it with a kiss.

Mr. Sumner admires the conduct of the Vermont judge; but he can heap the most frantic abuse on the acts of the best men America has produced. Though they be the deliberate public acts of a Clay, or a Calhoun, or a Webster, or a GEORGE WASHINGTON, his language is not the less violent, nor his raving vituperation the less malignant. In regard to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, he says: "And still further, as if to do a deed which should 'make heaven weep, all earth amazed,' this same Congress, in disregard of all the cherished safeguards of freedom, has passed a most cruel, unchristian, devilish act." The great difficulty under which Mr. Sumner labors, and which all the energy of his soul struggles to surmount, is to find language violent enough in which to denounce this "foul enactment," this "detestable and heaven-defying bill," this "monster act," which "sets at naught the best principles of the Constitution and the very laws of God!"

Now, this bill, let it be remembered, is liable to no objection which may not be urged against the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793. It will not be denied, indeed, that if the one of these laws be unconstitutional so also is the other, and that both must stand or fall together. Let it also be borne in mind that, as the one received the support of a Clay, and a Calhoun, and a Webster, so the other received the sanction and the signature of George Washington. Yet, in the face of these facts, Mr. Sumner does not moderate his rage. They only seem to increase the intensity and the fury of his wrath. "The soul sickens," he cries, "in the contemplation of this legalized outrage. In the dreary annals of the past there are many acts of shame—there are many ordinances of monarchs, and laws which have become a byword and a hissing to the nations. But when we consider the country and the age, I ask fearlessly, what act of shame, what ordinance of monarch, what law, can compare in atrocity with this enactment of an American Congress?"

Not content with pouring floods of abuse on the law itself, Mr. Sumner proceeds to consign to infamy its authors and all who have given it their support. For, after furnishing examples of what he deems among the most atrocious transactions of the past, he adds: "I would not exaggerate. I wish to keep within bounds; but I think no person can doubt that the condemnation affixed to all these transactions and to their authors must be the lot hereafter of the Fugitive Slave Bill, and of every one, according to the measure of his influence, who gave it his support. Into the immortal catalogue of national crimes this law has now passed, drawing with it, by an inexorable necessity, its authors also, and chiefly him who, as President of the United States, set his name to the bill, and breathed into it that final breath without which it would have no life. Other Presidents may be forgotten, but the name signed to the Fugitive Slave Bill can never be forgotten. There are depths of infamy, as there are hights of fame. I regret to say what I must, but truth compels me. Better far for him had he never been born; better for his memory, and for the name of his children, had he never been President!"

If neither Mr. Fillmore nor George Washington swore to support the Constitution as Mr. Sumner understands it, we beg him to consider that his opinion was not known when they took the oath of office. Mr. Fillmore had, at that time, no better guide to go by than the decisions of the most enlightened judicial tribunals of his country, with the Supreme Court of the United States at their head. He was not so far raised above other men, nor possessed of so wonderful an insight into the Constitution, as Mr. Sumner; for he could understand it no better than its framers. Hence he was, no doubt, so conscious of his own fallibility that he could hardly look upon modesty as a crime, or upon a deference to the judicial tribunals of his country as infamous. We trust, therefore, that his good name will survive, and that his children will not blush to own it. It is certain that the American people will never believe, on the bare authority of Mr. Sumner, that, in his course regarding the Fugitive Slave Law, he planted his feet in the very "depths of infamy," when they can so clearly see that he merely trod in the footsteps of George Washington.

If what a man lacks in reason he could only make up in rage, then, after all, it would have to be concluded that Mr. Sumner is a very respectable Senator; for, surely, the violence of his denunciations is almost as remarkable as the weakness of his logic. Fortunately, however, it can hurt no one except himself or those whom he represents. Certainly, the brightest names in the galaxy of American statesmen are not to be swept away by the filthy torrent of his invectives. The Clays, the Calhouns, the Websters, and the Washingtons of America, are, indeed, as far above the impotent rage of this Senator as the very stars of heaven are beyond his arm.[220]

Sec. III. The right of Trial by Jury not impaired by the Fugitive Slave Law.

It is alleged that the power to enact such a law does not reside in Congress, because no such power has been "expressly delegated," and because it is not "necessary and proper" to carry any expressly delegated authority into effect. We should have replied to this argument; but it has been urged before every tribunal in which the great question under consideration has been tried, and everywhere refuted. By Mr. Justice Nelson, in the Supreme Court of New York,[221] by Mr. Senator Bishop, in the Court of Errors in the same State,[222] and by Mr. Justice Story, in the Supreme Court of the United States, it has been so clearly, so powerfully, and so triumphantly demolished as to leave nothing more to be desired on the subject. And besides, it has been our object not so much to refute arguments against the law in question, or to establish that which has been so long established,[223] as to show on what slender grounds, and yet with what unbounded confidence, the greatest champions of abolitionism are accustomed to oppose the Constitution, the laws, the judicial decisions, and the uniform practice, of the whole government under which we live.

In pursuance of this design, there is another sophism of theirs, which it now devolves upon us to examine. We allude to the argument that the Fugitive Slave Law is unconstitutional, because it denies the right of trial by jury.

Is this still an open question? In the biography of Mr. Justice Story, published by his son, it is said: "The argument that the Act of 1793 was unconstitutional, because it did not provide for a trial by jury according to the requisitions of the sixth article in the amendment to the Constitution, having been suggested to my father on his return from Washington, he replied that this question was not argued by counsel nor considered by the court, and that he should still consider it an open one." Mr. Sumner adduces this "distinct statement that the necessity of trial by jury was not before the court;" and adds, "So that, in the estimation of the judge himself, it was still an open question."

In the case here referred to—Prigg v. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, reported in XVI. Peters—it is true that the question of trial by jury was not argued by counsel nor considered by the court. But if the greater includes the less, then this question was embraced in the decision; for, in that case, Prigg had seized the fugitive slave without process, and carried her away without any certificate from magistrate or judge in the State of Pennsylvania. The court declared that he had a right to do so under and by virtue of the Constitution of the United States. Most assuredly, if he had a constitutional right to such proceeding, then, in such cases, the Constitution dispenses with the necessity of trial by jury.

It was urged by counsel that such summary method of reclaiming fugitive slaves was unconstitutional; but the court decided otherwise. It was insisted by Mr. Hambly, just as it is now insisted by Mr. Sumner and others, that such arrest was unconstitutional, because it was made by the mere will of the party, and not, as the Constitution requires, "by due process of law." Thus the point was presented by the record, argued by the counsel, and overruled by the court.

In overruling this argument the court says: "The owner must, therefore, have the right to seize and repossess the slave which the local laws of his own State confer upon him as property; and we all know that this right of seizure and recaption is universally acknowledged in all the slaveholding States. Indeed, this is no more than a mere affirmance of the principles of the common law applicable to this very subject." Then, after a quotation from Blackstone, the court adds: "Upon this ground, we have not the slightest hesitation in holding that, under and in virtue of the Constitution, the owner of a slave is clothed with entire authority in every State in the Union to seize and recapture his slave whenever he can do it without any breach of the peace or any illegal violence."

In accordance with this opinion of the court—delivered by Mr. Justice Story—Mr. Chief Justice Taney says: the master "has a right, peaceably, to take possession of him, and carry him away, without any certificate or warrant from a judge of the District or Circuit Court of the United States, or from any magistrate of the State; and whosoever resists or obstructs him is a wrong-doer; and every State law which proposes, directly or indirectly, to authorize such resistance or obstruction, is null and void, and affords no justification to the individual or the officer of the State who acts under it. This right of the master being given by the Constitution of the United States, neither Congress nor a State Legislature can by any law or regulation impair it or restrict it.[224]

Hence it would have been well if Mr. Sumner and the son of Judge Story had looked into this decision again before they proclaimed the opinion that the right of trial by jury is, in such cases, still an open question. Mr. Justice Story himself must, on reflection, have seen that the off-hand expression attributed to him was erroneous. His more deliberate opinion is recorded, not only in the case of Prigg, but also in his "Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States." "It is obvious," says he, "that these provisions for the arrest and removal of fugitives of both classes contemplate summary ministerial proceedings, and not the ordinary courts of judicial investigations to ascertain whether the complaint be well-founded or the claim of ownership be established beyond all legal controversy. In cases of suspected crimes the guilt or innocence of the party is to be made out at his trial, and not upon the preliminary inquiry whether he shall be delivered up. All that would seem in such cases to be necessary is that there should be prima facie evidence before the executive authority to satisfy its judgment that there is probable cause to believe the party guilty, such as, upon an ordinary warrant, would justify his commitment for trial. And in the cases of fugitive slaves there would seem to be the same necessity of requiring only prima facie proofs of ownership, without putting the party to a formal assertion of his rights by a suit at the common law."[225]

But, since the abolitionists will discuss this point, then let it be considered an open question, and let them produce their arguments. The first we shall notice is from Mr. Sumner, who again reasons from the sentiments of the fathers. "At the close of the National Convention," says he, "Elbridge Gerry refused to sign the Constitution, because, among other things, it established 'a tribunal without juries, a Star Chamber as to civil cases.' Many united in his opposition, and, on the recommendation of the First Congress, this additional safeguard was adopted as an amendment." Thus, according to Mr. Sumner, Elbridge Gerry was the father of the clause in the Constitution which guarantees the right of trial by jury. Yet Elbridge Gerry never dreamed of applying this clause to the case of fugitive slaves; for, as we have already seen, he voted for the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793, in which such application of it is denied. Nor did any other member of that Congress propose the right of trial by jury in such cases.

No doubt there would have been opposition to the act of 1793 if any member of Congress had supposed, for a moment, that it denied the right of trial by jury to the fugitive slave. It does no such thing. It leaves that right unimpaired; and if any slave in the Union, whether fugitive or otherwise, desire such trial, it is secured to him by the Constitution and laws of the country. But he cannot have such trial where or in what State he chooses. If he lives in Richmond, he may have a trial by jury there; but he cannot escape to Boston, and there demand this as a right. The fugitive from labor, like the fugitive from justice, has a right to a trial by jury, but neither can claim to have this trial in any part of the world he pleases. The latter must be tried in "the vicinage" where the offense is alleged to have been committed, because there the witnesses are to be found. He has no right to flee from these and require them to follow him with their testimony. As he has a constitutional right to be tried in the vicinage of the alleged offense, so has the commonwealth a right to insist on his trial there. In like manner, and for a similar reason, if the colored man wishes to assert his freedom under the law, he may appeal to a jury of the country; but this must be done in the State under whose laws he is claimed as a slave and where the witnesses reside. He cannot fly to a distant State, and there demand a kind of trial which neither the Constitution, nor the laws, nor public expediency, secures to him. If he assert this right at all, he must assert it in conformity with the undoubted right of the other party, which is to be sued in this, as in all other personal actions, in the place where he resides.

In the face of these considerations, it is no wonder that the Congress of 1793 were so unanimous in regard to the Fugitive Slave Law. Though this law did not provide for a jury trial, yet its authors all knew that such trial was not denied to the fugitive slave, if he had a mind to claim it. Hence the law was passed by that Congress, without even an allusion to this modern abolition objection to its constitutionality. Among all the members of that body who had taken part in framing the Constitution of the United States,[226] not one was found to hint at such an objection. This objection is of more recent origin, if not of less respectable parentage.

An amendment to the law in question, allowing a trial by jury to the fugitive slave in a distant State, would indeed be a virtual denial of the constitutional right of the master. Either because the jury could not agree, or because distant testimony might be demanded, the trial would probably be continued, and put off, until the expense, the loss of time, and the worriment of vexatious proceedings, would be more than the slave is worth. The language of Mr. Chief Justice Taney, in relation to an action for damages by the master, is peculiarly applicable to such a trial by jury. The master "would be compelled," says he, "to encounter the costs and expenses of a suit, prosecuted at a distance from his own home, and to sacrifice perhaps the value of his property in endeavoring to obtain compensation." This is not the kind of remedy, says he, the Constitution "intended to give. The delivery of the property itself—its PROMPT AND IMMEDIATE DELIVERY—is plainly required, and was intended to be secured." Such prompt and immediate delivery was a part of "the customary or common law" at the time the Constitution was adopted, and its framers, no doubt, intended that this practice should be enforced by the clause in question, as appears from the fact that so many of them concurred in the Act of 1793.

But if such right to a prompt and immediate delivery be guaranteed by the Constitution itself, then, with all due submission, we would ask, what power has Congress to limit or abridge this right? If under and by virtue of the Constitution this right to a prompt and immediate delivery be secured, then what power has Congress to say there shall not be a prompt or immediate delivery? "This right of the master," says Mr. Chief Justice Taney, "being given by the Constitution of the United States, NEITHER CONGRESS NOR A STATE LEGISLATURE CAN BY ANY LAW OR REGULATION IMPAIR IT OR RESTRICT IT." If this be sound doctrine,—and such we hold it to be,—then Congress has no constitutional power to impair or restrict the right in question, by giving the fugitive slave a trial by jury in the State to which he may have fled. This would not be to give a "prompt and immediate delivery," such as the Supreme Court declares the master is entitled to by the Constitution itself; it would be either to give no delivery at all, or else one attended with such delays, vexations, and costs, as would materially impair, if not wholly annihilate, the right in question.

It is right and proper, we think, that questions arising exclusively under our own laws should be tried in our own States and by our own tribunals. Hence we shall never consent, unless constrained by the judicial decision of the Supreme Court of the Union, to have such questions tried in States whose people and whose juries may, perhaps, be hostile to our interests and to our domestic institutions. For we are SOVEREIGN as well as they.

Only conceive such a trial by jury in a Northern State, with such an advocate for the fugitive slave as Mr. Chase, or Mr. Sumner, or some other flaming abolitionist! There sits the fugitive slave,—"one of the heroes of the age," as Mr. Sumner calls him, and the very embodiment of persecuted innocence. On the other hand is the master,—the vile "slave-hunter," as Mr. Sumner delights to represent him, and whom, if possible, he is determined "to blast with contempt, indignation, and abhorrence." The trial begins. The advocate appeals to the prejudices and the passions of the jury. He denounces slavery—about which neither he nor the jury know any thing—as the epitome of all earthly wrongs, as the sum and substance of all human woes. Now, suppose that on the jury there is only one man, who, like the Vermont judge, requires "a bill of sale from the Almighty" before he will deliver up a fugitive slave; or who, like Mr. Seward, sets his own private opinion above the Constitution of his country; or who, like Mr. Sumner, has merely sworn to support the supreme law as he understands it; and who, at the same time, possesses his capacity to understand it just exactly as he pleases: then what chance would the master have for a verdict? Just none at all. For that one man, however clear the master's evidence, would hang the jury, and the cause would have to be tried over again.

But suppose the whole twelve jurors should decide according to the law and the evidence, and give a verdict in favor of the claimant; would his rights then be secured? Very far from it. For there is the eager crowd, which never fails to flock to such trials, and which the inflammatory eloquence of the advocate has now wrought into a frenzy. Cannot such crowd, think you, furnish a mob to effect by force what every member of the jury had refused to accomplish by falsehood? If the master—if the abhorred "slave-hunter"—should escape from such a crowd with a sound body only, and without his property, he ought, we think, to deem himself exceedingly fortunate.

Mr. Winthrop, of Massachusetts, has advocated a trial by jury in such cases. He was, no doubt, perfectly sincere in the belief expressed by him, that under such a provision more fugitive slaves would be reclaimed than under the law as it now stands. But it is equally certain that neither Mr. Seward nor Mr. Chase was of this opinion when the one proposed, and the other voted for, a trial by jury in such cases. Neither of these Senators, we think we may confidently affirm, intended to aid the master in reclaiming his fugitive slaves.

"At any rate, sir," says Mr. Winthrop, "I shall vote for the amendment offered by the Senator from New Jersey, as right and just in itself, whatever may be its effects." That is to say, whatever may be the effect of a jury trial in such cases, he means to vote for it as right and just in itself! Whether this were a burst of passion merely, or the deliberate conviction of the author of it, we are not able to determine, but we shall trust it was the former. For surely such an opinion, if deliberately entertained, is creditable neither to a Senator nor to a jurist. Neither this, nor any other mode of trial, is "right in itself;" and when right at all, it is only so as a means to an end. It is only right when it subserves the great end of justice; and if it fail to answer this end it is then worse than worthless. Hence the statesman who declares that, "whatever may be the effects" of a particular mode of trial, he will nevertheless support it "as right and just in itself," thereby announces that he is prepared to sacrifice the end to the means,—a sentiment which, we venture to affirm, is more worthy of a fanatical declaimer than of the high-minded and accomplished Senator by whom it was uttered.

The great objection urged against the Fugitive Slave Law is that under it a freeman may be seized and reduced to slavery. This law, as well as every other, may, no doubt, be grossly abused, and made a cover for evil deeds. But is there no remedy for such evil deeds. Is there no protection for the free blacks of the North, except by a denial of the clear and unquestionable constitutional rights of the South? If not, then we should be willing to submit; but there is a remedy against such foul abuse of the law of Congress in question, and, as we conceive, a most ample remedy.

The master may recapture his fugitive slave. This is his constitutional right. But, in the language of the Supreme Court of New York, already quoted, if a villain, under cover of a pretended right, proceeds to carry off a freeman, he does so "at his peril, and would be answerable like any other trespasser or kidnapper." He must be caught, however, before he can be punished. Let him be caught, let the crime be proved upon him, and we would most heartily concur in the law by which he should himself be doomed to slavery for life in the penitentiary.

The Fugitive Slave Law is not the only one liable to abuse. The innocent may be, and often have been, arrested for crime; but this is no reason why the law of arrest should be abolished, or even impaired in its operation. Nay, innocent persons have often been maliciously 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 perjury; but who imagines that all swearing in courts of justice should therefore be abolished? Such evils and such crimes are sought to be remedied by separate legislation, and not by undermining 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 the 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. We 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, 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? If they really wish to protect their free blacks, and if the laws are not already sufficient for that purpose, we are more than willing to assist in the passage of more efficient ones. But we are 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 here exactly in point:—"It was contended on the argument of this cause, with great zeal and earnestness, that, under 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 pretended any such ever has occurred, or that any complaint of that character has ever been made; at all events, I cannot regard it as a very potent argument. The same position might as well be taken in the case of a fugitive from justice. It might be assumed that he was an innocent man, and entitled to be tried by a jury of the State where he was arrested, to ascertain whether he had violated the laws of the State from which he fled; whereas the fact is, the executive of this State would feel bound to deliver up the most exalted individual in this State, (however well satisfied he might be of his innocence,) if a requisition was made upon him by the executive of another State."

In the same case, when before the Supreme Court of New York, the court said: "In the case under review, the proceedings are before a magistrate of our own State, presumed to possess a sympathy with his fellow-citizens, and where, upon the supposition that a freeman is arrested, he may readily procure the evidence of his freedom. If the magistrate should finally err in granting the certificate, the party can still resort to the protection of the national judiciary. The proceedings by which his rights have been invaded being under a law of Congress, the remedy for error or injustice belongs peculiarly to that high tribunal. UNDER THEIR AMPLE SHIELD, THE APPREHENSION OF CAPTIVITY AND OPPRESSION CAN NOT BE ALARMING."

It is evident that when this opinion was pronounced by the Supreme Court of New York, it had not fathomed the depths of some men's capacity of being alarmed by apprehensions of captivity and oppression. The abolitionists will, whether or no, be most dreadfully alarmed. But the danger consists, not in the want of laws and courts to punish the kidnapper, but in the want of somebody to catch him. If he does all the mischief ascribed to him by the abolitionists, is it not wonderful that he is not caught by them? Rumor, with her thousand tongues, is clamorous about his evil deeds; and fanatical credulity, with her ten thousand ears, gives heed to the reports of rumor. But yet, somehow or other, the abolitionists, with all their fiery, restless zeal, never succeed in laying their hands on the offender himself. He must, indeed, be a most adroit, a most cunning, a most wonderful rogue. He boldly goes into a community in which so many are all eye, all ear, and all tongue, in regard to the black man's rights; he there steals a free negro, who himself has the power to tell when, where, and how, he became free; and yet, in open day, and amid ten thousand flaming guardians of freedom,[227] he escapes with perfect impunity! Is he not a most marvelous proper rogue? But perhaps the reason the abolitionists do not lay hands on him is that he is an imaginary being, who, though intangible and invisible, will yet serve just as well to create an alarm and keep up a great excitement as if he were a real personage.

Sec. IV. The duty of the Citizen in regard to the Constitution of the United States.

The Constitution, it is agreed on all sides, is "the supreme law of the land,"—of every State in the Union. The first duty of the citizen in regard to the Constitution is, then, to respect and obey each and every one of its provisions. If he repudiates or sets at naught this or that provision thereof, because it does not happen to agree with his own views or feelings, he does not respect the Constitution at all; he makes his own will and pleasure the supreme law. The true principle of loyalty resides not in his bosom. We may apply to him, and to the supreme law of the land, the language of an inspired apostle, that "whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." He is guilty of all, because, by his willful disobedience in the one instance, he sets at naught the authority by which the whole was ordained and established.

In opposing the Fugitive Slave Law, it is forgotten by the abolitionists that, if no such law existed, the master would have, under the Constitution itself, the same right to reclaim his fugitive from labor, and to reclaim him in the same summary manner; for, as we have seen, the Supreme Court of the United States has decided that by virtue of the Constitution alone the master has a right to pursue and reclaim his fugitive slave, without even a writ or legal process. Hence, in opposing the Fugitive Slave Law because it allows a summary proceeding in such cases, the abolitionists really make war on the Constitution. The battery which they open against the Constitution is merely masked behind the Fugitive Slave Law; and thus the nature of their attack is concealed from the eyes of their non-legal followers.

But, says Mr. Chase, of Ohio, I do not agree with the Supreme Court of the United States. I oppose not the Constitution, but the decision of the Supreme Court. "A decision of the Supreme Court," says he, "cannot alter the Constitution." This is very true; but then, on the other hand, it is equally true that neither can his opinion alter the Constitution. But here the question arises, which is the rule of conduct for the true and loyal citizen,—the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, or the opinion of Governor Chase? We decidedly prefer the former. "Sir," says Mr. Chase, "when gentlemen from the slave States ask us to support the Constitution, I fear they mean only their construction of the Constitution." We mean not so. We mean neither our nor his construction of the Constitution, but that construction only which has been given to it by the highest judicial tribunal in the land, by the supreme and final arbiter in all such conflicts of opinion.