While a member of Congress, Mr. Lincoln had, on the 16th of January,
1849, introduced a bill for the abolition of slavery in the District
of Columbia, with the consent of its voters and with compensation to
the slaveholders. The fifth section of this bill provided:
"The municipal authorities of Washington and Georgetown, within
their respective jurisdictional limits, are hereby empowered and
required to provide active and efficient means to arrest and deliver
up to their owners all fugitive slaves escaping into said
district."[272]
It was because of the authorship of this proposed Fugitive Slave Law,
that, upon his nomination to the Presidency, Wendell Philips denounced
him, through the columns of _The Liberator_, as "the Slave Hound of
Illinois."[273]
In his inaugural address, after alluding to what he terms "the plainly
written" clause of the constitution relating to fugitive slaves, he
declared:
"It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those
who made it for the reclaiming of what we call 'fugitive slaves' and
the intention of the law giver is the law. All members of Congress
swear their support to the whole constitution—to this provision as
much as any other. To the proposition then that slaves whose cases
come within the terms of this clause 'shall be delivered up' their
oaths are unanimous....
"There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be
enforced by National or by state authority; but surely that
difference is not a very material one. If the slave is to be
surrendered, it can be of little consequence to him or to others by
which authority it is done. And should any one, in any case, be
content that his oath should go unkept on a merely unsubstantial
controversy as to how it shall be kept?"[274]
-----
Footnote 267:
_Writings of Jefferson_, Ford, Vol. VII, p. 159.
Footnote 268:
_Life of W. H. Seward_, Lathrop, p. 220.
Footnote 269:
_Twenty Years of Congress_, Blaine, Vol. I, p. 272.
Footnote 270:
_Idem_, p. 270.
Footnote 271:
_Abraham Lincoln, Speeches, Letters and State Papers_, N. & H., Vol.
I, p. 202.
Footnote 272:
_Abraham Lincoln, Speeches, Letters and State Papers_, N. & H., Vol.
I, p. 148.
Footnote 273:
_William Lloyd Garrison_, by his children, Vol. III, p. 503.
Footnote 274:
_Messages and Papers of the Presidents_, Vol. VI, p. 6.