tion of the United States, which says, (Art. IV. Sec. 2.) "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 studious avoidance of any verbal recognition of slavery in the very act which is framed for the security of the institution, is quite significant; it shows that the public sentiment of the world forbids the inconsistency of an avowed legislation for slavery in a free republic, and that the abettors of slavery have not the shamelessness to face that sentiment.

With the provisions of this law the reader is already familiar; but we shall here give an abstract or analysis of the act as an introduction to some considerations drawn from the Scriptures upon the treatment due to fugitives from slavery.

The first section authorizes and requires all commissioners of the circuit courts of the United States in whom are vested the powers of a justice of the peace in respect to offenders, for any crime or offense against the United States, to exercise and discharge all the powers and duties conferred by this act.

The second section provides that the superior court of each organized territory of the United States shall have the same power to appoint commissioners to take acknowledgments of bail and affidavit, and to take depositions of witnesses in civil causes, which is now possessed by the circuit court of the United States, and those commissioners also are required to perform like duties, with the former, under this act.

Section third empowers the United States courts, both circuit and superior, to enlarge the number of commissioners in order the better to carry into effect this act.

The fourth section gives to said commissioners concurrent jurisdiction with the judges of the circuit and district courts of the United States over persons claimed as fugitives from service, according to the provisions of the act.

By section fifth it is made the duty of all marshals and deputy marshals to obey and execute all warrants and precepts issued under the provisions of this act, when to them directed, under the penalty of one thousand dollars for each instance of refusal, or neglect, or of the value of the fugitive in case he shall escape from custody. This section likewise authorizes the marshals to appoint agents and to summon the posse comitatus to assist them in executing the law.

The sixth section authorizes the claimant of a fugitive, or his or her agent or attorney, to pursue and reclaim such fugitive, to seize and arrest him either with or without process; requires the court, judge, or commissioner before whom the case is brought,

to determine it in a summary manner; makes the deposition or affidavit of the claimant taken either in the state in which the arrest is made or in the state in which he resides, satisfactory proof of the fact that the person arrested owes him service or labor, and makes also the mere affidavit of the claimant proof of the identity of the fugitive; declares that "in no trial or hearing under this act shall the testimony of the alleged fugitive be admitted in evidence;" and authorizes the claimant, upon receiving a certificate from the court, judge, or commissioner, to use all necessary force to take back the fugitive to his own state.

The seventh section provides penalties for any attempt to harbor, conceal or rescue a fugitive. As this may be a matter of personal interest to the reader, we give the section entire.

SEC. 7. And be it further enacted, That any person who shall knowingly and willingly obstruct, hinder, or prevent such claimant, his agent or attorney, or any person or persons lawfully assisting him, her, or them, from arresting such a fugitive from service or labor, either with or without process as aforesaid; or shall rescue or attempt to rescue, such fugitive from service or labor, from the custody of such claimant, his or her agent or attorney, or other person or persons lawfully assisting as aforesaid, when so arrested, pursuant to the authority herein given and declared; or shall aid, abet, or assist such person so owing service or labor as aforesaid, directly or indirectly, to escape from such claimant, his agent or attorney, or other person or persons legally authorized as aforesaid; or shall harbor or conceal such fugitive, so as to prevent the discovery and arrest of such person, after notice or knowledge of the fact that such person was a fugitive from service or labor as aforesaid, shall, for either of said offenses, be subject to a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisonment not exceeding six months, by indictment and conviction before the District Court of the United States for the district in which such offense may have been committed, or before the proper court of criminal jurisdiction, if committed within any one of the organized Territories of the United States; and shall moreover forfeit and pay, by way of civil damages to the party injured by such illegal conduct, the sum of one thousand dollars, for each fugitive so lost as aforesaid, to be recovered by action of debt, in any of the district or territorial courts aforesaid, within whose jurisdiction the said offense may have been committed.

By the eighth section the marshals, their deputies, and the clerks of the courts acting in the case, are declared to be entitled to the fees for similar services in other cases, and a special provision is made that a commissioner hearing such a case shall receive a fee of ten dollars if the alleged fugitive is delivered over, and five if he is not, and that any person or persons appointed by the commissioner to execute his process shall receive five dollars for each person he or they may arrest and take before the commissioner, and also such additional fees as the commissioner shall deem reasonable for the incidental expenses of keeping the fugitive in custody.

The ninth section provides that a sufficient force shall be deputed by the marshal to ensure the safe delivery of the fugitive to the claimant in his own state, whenever an affidavit is made

by the claimant that he fears an attempt to rescue the fugitive from his hands; the expense of transportation to be paid out of the treasury of the United States.

The tenth section makes the transcript of a record of any court of record in any state, territory or district of the United States, duly authenticated, sufficient proof of the fact of the escape from service of the person therein described, and that record with an affidavit of the claimant to the identity of the alleged fugitive shall be a sufficient authority for the surrendry of the fugitive according to the former provisions of the act.

Such for substance are the provisions of this act. They should be studied and analyzed by every citizen, for every citizen has a direct personal interest in the law. There is no man north of Mason and Dixon's line who may not be required to act as a slave-catcher, under the fifth section, which commands all good citizens "to aid and assist in the prompt and efficient execution of this law," and who may not be subjected to the penalties provided by the seventh section, for any overt act of sympathy or succor to the fugitive. Should the venerable ex-President Day be passing by at the moment when a marshal or any of his subalterns is attempting to arrest an alleged fugitive, he could be summoned by the officer to aid in the capture, and should he refuse to render that aid, for thus "knowingly and willingly obstructing" the arrest by his example, influence and lack of service, and at least "indirectly" aiding, abetting and assisting the escape of the fugitive, he would be liable to a fine of one thousand dollars and to imprisonment for six months, and also, in case of the actual escape of the fugitive through his refusal to aid in the arrest, to a further penalty of one thousand dollars "by way of civil damages to the party injured by such illegal conduct." Perhaps the venerable ex-Professor at Andover would be saved by his exegesis from incurring the penalties of the law, and yet we incline to think that if a fugitive slave stood before him in the concrete, his humane feelings and his intense love of liberty would get the better of his exegesis, and he would be the last man to help to send back a fellow man to that state of slavery which he has denounced with such indignant eloquence. Rather would he say to the slave-catcher, we use his own language on a kindred point-"I would hold out my right hand to have it cut off, sooner than lift it up for such a [purpose]. I would not have upon my conscience the guilt of turning God's image, (redeemed by the blood of his Son, and made free by the Lord Jesus Christ himself,) into goods and chattels. I would not bring on my soul that guilt, for ten thousand worlds. . . . . . . To fine a man in the enormous sum of $1,000, to imprison him moreover for six months, and then subject him to a civil action besides, for injury done to the master-and to do all this merely be

-

cause of an interference which humanity pleads for, although the law condemns it, is Turkish justice, not American-at any rate not New England justice." To the honor of Prof. Stuart we believe that no where would a fugitive slave be more safe than on Andover hill; and yet for harboring him, or even refusing to aid in arresting him, the man whose name is venerated wherever learning and piety are esteemed, must submit to fines and imprisonment. This is one feature of the law.

It is remarkable that the bill has no provision against mistake, and no penalty for arresting and enslaving a freeman. It requires but the collusion of two men to seize a freeman in the streets of New York or of Boston, to drag him before a commissioner, to make affidavit of his escape from service and of his personal identity, and in one hour that freeman shall be in the custody of an armed force on his way to the slave-coffles of Bruin and Hill, to be sold to the rice plantations of the South. For such an outrage, entirely feasible under this law, there is no penalty and no redress. True the sufferer has his action at common law for false arrest; but if he should ever get back from bondage, how shall he, poor and defenceless, maintain such an action against the United States power that oppresses him? The law rides over the right of trial by jury as if the plain of Runnemede were a fiction, and ignores the Habeas Corpus, as if the court of High Commission were established by the Constitution of the United States. It applies to apprentices at the north no less than to slaves at the south.

One of the most infamous features of the law is its appeal to the mercenary feelings of the commissioner against the liberty of the alleged fugitive, and to like feelings in the rabble against the liberties of a class of their fellow citizens. Five dollars reward, with incidental expenses ad libitum, to whoever shall arrest a fugitive whether he shall prove to be a fugitive or not; five dollars to the commissioner for hearing each case, and ten dollars for each case of conviction! Never was a bill more adroitly framed to array the baser passions of men against the instincts of humanity and the claims of justice; never was a bill more adroitly framed to give to the abettors of slavery absolute power over personal liberty, and over all the guards and bulwarks which centuries of conflict on the field of battle and in the hall of legislation have reared about that liberty. Of the constitutionality of such a law we do not purpose here to speak. That will be tested ere long before the proper tribunal upon some case of resistance designed for that very purpose. The Constitution of the United States (Art. IV, Sec. 2) declares, that "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." But it is a question whether the Constitution, which provides (Art. VII, Amended) that, "in suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved," can allow the liberty of a man to be put in jeopardy without the judgment of his peers; or whether the instrument which declares (Art. V, Amend.) that "no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law," will recognize a law dispensing with trial by jury in such cases as come within the intent of the phrase "due process of law;" or whether the declaration in Art. I, Sec. 9, made without exception of persons, that "the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it," will admit of a standing exception against any class of persons living under the government of the United States.

These questions we leave to be determined by the proper authority, enduring meanwhile, as best we may, the disgrace of the fact, that the federal government of the United States is the only government in the civilized world that reduces to slavery by force of law, men born under its protection and innocent of crime, while the border government of a British province affords to thousands of men, women and children, flying from this oppression, the welcome of a free but inclement clime.

The morality of the fugitive slave law is with us a question of higher moment than its constitutionality. The treatment of fugitives from slavery is a question of morality; it is also a scriptural question, for it was a subject of positive enactment in the civil constitution which Jehovah gave to the people of Israel. In that code we read, "Thou shalt not deliver to his master the servant which is escaped from his master to thee; he shall dwell with thee, even among you in that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates where it liketh him best; thou shalt not oppress him." (Deut. xxiii, 15, 16.)

The meaning of this command is so obvious to an unsophisticated reader, that it does not seem to admit of dispute or even of a difference of opinion. Upon the face of it is seen the spirit of the Mosaic institutes toward slavery. Those institutes prohibited man-stealing and trafficking in Hebrew slaves, (Ex. xxi, 16, and Lev. xxv, 39-47); they provided for the manumission of slaves at brief and stated intervals; they secured to slaves many domestic, civil and religious rights and privileges; they guarded the life and the person of the slave from violence and abuse; they restricted the system of slavery at every point, with a view to the relief of the servant and the final overthrow of the system itself; and in this spirit and for this purpose as a restraint upon the cruelty of masters, and as a means toward the abolition