other able men, have argued against the Constitutionality of the
Fugitive Slave Bill, proving it to be not only contrary to the
_spirit_ and _meaning_ of the Constitution, but also to be
unauthorized by the _letter_ of that document. That this nefarious
Bill is contrary to the _spirit_ and _intention_ of the Constitution
is shown by the published opinions of those who framed it; by the
debates at the time of its adoption; and by its Preamble, which sets
forth that it was ordained to "establish _justice_, ensure domestic
_tranquillity_, promote the _general welfare_, and secure the
blessings of _liberty_." The arguments adduced to prove that this
bill is unauthorized by the _letter_ of the Constitution, I will
endeavor to compress into a few words.
Article 10 of the Amendments to the Constitution expressly provides
that
"_Powers not delegated to the United States by the
Constitution_, nor prohibited by it to the States, _are
reserved to the States respectively, or to the people_."
Article 4 of the Constitution contains four compacts. The first is:
"Full faith and credit shall be given in each of the States
to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of
every other State. And the _Congress may, by general laws,
prescribe the manner in which such acts, records and
proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof_."
Here, _power is expressly delegated by the Constitution to the
United States_.
The second compact is:
"The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all
privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States."
Under this provision, an attempt was made to obtain some action of
Congress for the protection of colored seamen in slaveholding ports;
but it was decided that Congress had no power to act on the subject,
because _the Constitution had not delegated any power to the United
States_ in the clause referred to. Slaveholders are very strict in
adherence to the Constitution, whenever any question of _protection_
to colored people is involved in their decisions; but for purposes
of _oppression_, they have no scruples. They reverse the principle
of Common Law, that "in any question under the Constitution, _every
word is to be construed in favor of liberty_."
The third compact is:
"A person charged in any State with treason, felony, or other
crime, who shall flee from justice, or be found in another
State, shall, on demand of the Executive authority of the
State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to
the State having jurisdiction of the crime."
It has never been pretended that Congress has any power to act in
such cases. There is no clause _delegating any power to the United
States_; consequently, all proceedings on the subject have been left
to the several States.
The fourth compact is:
"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."
If the framers of the Constitution had meant that Congress should
have power to pass a law for delivering up fugitives "held to
service or labor," they would have inserted a clause _delegating
such power_, as they did in the compact concerning "public acts and
records." The Constitution does _not_ delegate any such power to the
United States. Consequently, Congress had no constitutional right to
pass the Fugitive Slave Bill, and the States are under no
constitutional obligation to obey it.
The Hon. Horace Mann, one of Massachusetts' most honored sons, in
his able speech on this subject in Congress, 1851, said:--"In view
of the great principles of civil liberty, out of which the
Constitution grew, and which it was designed to secure, my own
opinion is that this law cannot be fairly and legitimately supported
on constitutional grounds. Having formed this opinion with careful
deliberation, I am bound to speak from it and to act from it. I have
read every argument and every article in defence of the law, from
whatever source emanating. Nay, I have been more anxious to read the
arguments made in its favor, than the arguments against it; and I
think I have seen a sound legal answer to all the former." * * *
"It is a law that might be held constitutional by a bench of
slaveholders, whose _pecuniary interests_ connect them directly with
slavery; or by those who have surrendered themselves to a
pro-slavery policy from _political hopes_. But if we gather the
opinions of unbiassed and disinterested men, of those who have no
_money_ to make, and no _office_ to hope for, through the triumph of
this law, then I think the preponderance of opinion is decidedly
against its constitutionality. It is a fact universally known, that
gentlemen who have occupied and adorned the highest judicial
stations in their respective States, together with many of the
ablest lawyers in the whole country, have expressed opinions against
the constitutionality of this law." * * * "When I am called upon to
support such a law as this, while it lasts, or to desist from
opposing it in all constitutional ways, my response is, Repeal the
law! that I may no longer be called upon to support it. I demand it,
because it is a law which conflicts with the Constitution of the
country, and with all the judicial interpretations of that
Constitution, wherever they have been applied to the white race.
Because it is a law abhorrent to the moral and religious sentiments
of a vast majority of the community called upon to enforce it.
Because it is a law which, if executed in the Free States, divests
them of the character of Free States, and makes them voluntary
participators in the guilt of slaveholding. Because it is a law
Which disgraces our country in the eyes of the whole civilized
world, and gives plausible occasion to the votaries of despotic
power to decry republican institutions. Because it is a law which
forbids us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us, and
which makes it a crime to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, and
to visit and succor the sick and imprisoned. Because it is a law
which renders the precepts of the Gospel and the teachings of Jesus
Christ seditious; and were the Savior and his band of disciples now
on earth, there is but one of them who would escape its penalties by
pretending to 'conquer his prejudices.'" * * * "Suppose the whole
body of the white population should be as much endangered by this
law, as the colored people now are, would the existence of the law
be tolerated for an hour? Would there not be a simultaneous and
universal uprising of the people against it, and such a yell of
execration as never before burst from mortal lips?"
The Hon. Charles Sumner, always true to the right, as the needle
to the pole, in his learned and able speech in Congress, 1852,
said:--"The true principles of our political system, the history
of the National Convention, the natural interpretation of the
Constitution, all teach that this Act is a usurpation by Congress of
powers that do not belong to it, and an infraction of rights secured
to the States. It is a sword, whose handle is at the National
Capital, and whose point is every where in the States. A weapon so
terrible to personal liberty the nation has no power to grasp."
* * * "In the name of the Constitution, which it violates; of my
country, which it dishonors; of humanity, which it degrades; of
Christianity, which it offends, I arraign this enactment, and now
hold it up to the judgment of the Senate and the world." * * * *
"The Slave Act violates the Constitution, and shocks the public
conscience. With modesty, and yet with firmness, let me add, it
offends against the Divine Law. No such enactment can be entitled to
support. As the throne of God is above every earthly throne, so are
his laws and statutes above all the laws and statutes of man. To
question these, is to question God himself. But to assume that human
laws are above question, is to claim for their fallible authors
infallibility. To assume that they are always in conformity with
those of God, is presumptuously and impiously to exalt man to an
equality with God. Clearly, human laws are _not_ always in such
conformity; nor can they ever be beyond question from each
individual. Where the conflict is open, as if Congress should demand
the perpetration of murder, the office of conscience, as final
arbiter, is undisputed. But in every conflict, the same queenly
office is hers. By no earthly power can she be dethroned. Each
person, after anxious examination, without haste, without passion,
solemnly for himself must decide this great controversy. Any other
rule attributes infallibility to human laws, places them beyond
question, and degrades all men to an unthinking, passive obedience.
The mandates of an earthly power are to be discussed; those of
Heaven must at once be performed; nor can any agreement constrain us
against God. Such is the rule of morals. And now the rule is
commended to us. The good citizen, as he thinks of the shivering
fugitive, guilty of no crime, pursued, hunted down like a beast,
while praying for Christian help and deliverance, and as he reads
the requirements of this Act, is filled with horror. Here is a
despotic mandate, 'to aid and assist in the prompt and efficient
execution of this law.' Let me speak frankly. Not rashly would I set
myself against any provision of law. This grave responsibility I
would not lightly assume. But here the path of duty is clear. By the
Supreme Law, which commands me to do no injustice; by the
comprehensive Christian Law of Brotherhood; by the Constitution,
which I have sworn to support, I am bound to disobey this Act.
Never, in any capacity, can I render voluntary aid in its execution.
Pains and penalties I will endure; but this great wrong I will not
do." * * * "For the sake of peace and tranquillity, cease to shock
the public conscience! For the sake of the Constitution, cease to
exercise a power which is nowhere granted, and which violates
inviolable rights expressly secured. Repeal this enactment! Let its
terrors no longer rage through the land. Mindful of the lowly, whom
it pursues; mindful of the good men perplexed by its requirements;
in the name of charity, in the name of the Constitution, repeal this
enactment, totally, and without delay! Be admonished by these words
of Oriental piety: 'Beware of the groans of the wounded souls.
Oppress not to the utmost a single heart; for a solitary sigh has
power to overset a whole world.'"
Robert Rantoul, Jr., whose large heart was so true to Democratic
_principles_, that the _party_ wanted to expel him from their ranks,
(as parties are prone to do with honest men,) opposed the Fugitive
Slave Bill with all the power of his strong intellect. In a speech
delivered in 1851, he said: "I am as devotedly attached as any other
man to the Union of these States, and the Constitution of our
government; but I admire and love them for that which they secure to
us. The Constitution is good, and great, and valuable, and to be
held for ever sacred, because it secures to us what was the _object_
of the Constitution. I love the Union and the Constitution, not for
_themselves_, but for the great _end_ for which they were
created--to secure and perpetuate _liberty_; not the liberty of a
_class_, superimposed upon the thraldom of groaning multitudes: not
the liberty of a _ruling race_, cemented by the tears and blood of
subject races, but _human_ liberty, _perfect_ liberty, common to the
whole people of the United States and to their posterity. It is
because I believe all this, that I love the Union and the
Constitution. If it were not for that, the Union would be valueless,
and the Constitution not worth the parchment on which it is written.
God-given Liberty is above the Union, and above the Constitution,
and above all the works of man."
* * * * *
TESTIMONIES AGAINST THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT.
The Hon. Josiah Quincy, senior, whose integrity, noble intellect,
and long experience in public life, give great weight to his
opinions, made a speech at a Whig Convention in Boston, 1854, from
which I extract the following:--"The circumstances in which the
people of Massachusetts are placed are undeniably insupportable.
What has been seen, what has been felt, by every man, woman and
child in this metropolis, and in this community? and virtually by
every man, woman and child in Massachusetts? We have seen our Court
House in chains, two battalions of dragoons, eight regiments of
artillery, twelve companies of infantry, the whole constabulary
force of the city police, the entire disposable marine of the United
States, with its artillery loaded for action, all marching in
support of a Praetorian Band, consisting of one hundred and twenty
friends and associates of the U.S. Marshal, with loaded pistols and
drawn swords, and in military costume and array; and for what
purpose? _To escort and conduct a poor trembling slave from a Boston
Court House to the fetters and lash of his master!_
"This scene, thus awful, thus detestable, every inhabitant of this
metropolis, nay, every inhabitant of this Commonwealth, may be
compelled again to witness, at any time, and every day in the year,
at the will or the whim of the meanest and basest slaveholder of the
South. Is there a man in Massachusetts with a spirit so low, so
debased, so corrupted by his fears, or his fortune, that he is
prepared to say this is a condition of things to be endured in
perpetuity by us? and that this is an inheritance to be transmitted
by us to our children, for all generations? For so long as the
fugitive-slave clause remains in the Constitution, unobliterated, it
is an obligation perpetual upon them, as well as upon us.
"The obligation incumbent upon the Free States _must be obliterated
from the Constitution, at every hazard_. I believe that, in the
nature of things, by the law of God, and the laws of man, _that
clause is at this moment abrogated, so far as respects common
obligation_. In 1789, the Free States agreed to be field-drivers and
pound-keepers for the Slaveholding States, within the limits, and
according to the fences, of the old United States. But between that
year and this A.D. 1854, the slaveholders have broken down the old
boundaries, and opened new fields, of an unknown and indefinite
extent.[1] They have multiplied their slaves by millions, and are
every day increasing their numbers, and extending their field into
the wilderness. Under these circumstances, are we bound to be their
field-drivers and pound-keepers any longer? Answer me, people of
Massachusetts! Are you the sons of the men of 1776? Or do you 'lack
gall, to make oppression bitter?'
[Footnote 1: The Hon. Josiah Quincy, while in Congress, always
opposed the annexation of foreign territory to the United States, on
the ground of its unconstitutionality.]
"I have pointed out your burden. I have shown you that it is
insupportable. I shall be asked how we are to get rid of it. It is
not for a private individual to point the path which a State is to
pursue, to cast off an insupportable burden; it belongs to the
constituted authorities of that State. But this I will say, that if
the people of Massachusetts solemnly adopt, as one man, in the
spirit of their fathers, the resolve that they will no longer submit
to this burden, and will call upon the Free States to concur in this
resolution, and carry it into effect, the burden will be cast off;
the fugitive-slave clause will be obliterated, not only without the
dissolution of the Union, but with a newly-acquired strength to the
Union.".
In the spring of 1860, there was a debate on this subject in the
Legislature of New York. In the course of it, Mr. Smith, of
Chatauqua, said:--"How _came_ slavery in this country? It came here
without law; in violation of all law. It came here by force and
violence; by the force of might over right; and it remains here
to-day by no better title. And now we are called upon, by the ruling
power at Washington, not merely to tolerate it, but to legalize it
all over the United States! By the Fugitive Slave Bill, we are
forbidden to shelter or assist the forlornest stranger who ever
appealed for sympathy or aid. We are required by absolute law to
shut out every feeling of compassion for suffering humanity. Fines
and imprisonment impend over us, for exercising one of the holiest
charities of our religion. Virtue and humanity are legislated into
crime. Let us meet the issue like men! Let us assert our utter
abhorrence of all human laws, that compel us to violate the common
law of humanity and justice; and by so acting assert the broad
principles of the Declaration of American Independence, and the
letter and spirit of the Constitution. If the North was as devoted
to the cause of Freedom as the South is to Slavery, our national
troubles would vanish like darkness before the sun. Our country
would then become what it _should_ be,--free, happy, prosperous, and
respected by all the world. Then we could say, truthfully, that she
is the home of the free, the land of the brave, the asylum of the
oppressed."
In the same debate, Mr. Maxson, of Allegheny, said:--"All laws,
whether Constitutions or statutes, that invade human rights, are
null. A community has no more power to strike down the rights of man
by Constitutions, than by any other means. Do those who give us
awfully solemn lessons about the inviolability of compacts, mean
that one man is bound to rob another because he has _agreed_ to? In
this age of schools, of churches and of Bibles, do they mean to
teach us that an agreement to rob men of their rights, in whatever
solemn form that agreement may be written out, is binding? Has the
morality of the nineteenth century culminated in _this_, that a mere
compact can convert vice into virtue? These advocates of the
rightfulness of robbery, because it has been _agreed_, to, and that
agreement has been _written down_, have come too late upon the
stage, by more than two hundred years. Where does the proud Empire
State wish to be recorded in that great history, which is being so
rapidly filled out with the records of this "irrepressible
conflict"? For myself, a humble citizen of the State, I ask no
prouder record for her than that, in the year 1860, she enacted that
_the moment a man sets foot on her soil, he is free, against the
world_!"
Wendell Phillips, one of earth's bravest and best, made a speech at
Worcester, 1851, from which I make the following extract:--"Mr.
Mann, Mr. Giddings, and other leaders of the Free Soil party, are
ready to go to the death against the Fugitive Slave Law. It never
should be enforced, they say. It robs men of the jury trial, it robs
them of _habeas corpus_, and forty other things. This is a very good
position. But how much comfort would it have been to Ellen Crafts,
if she had been sent back to Macon, to know that it had been done
with a scrupulous observance of all the forms of _habeas corpus_ and
jury trial? When she got back, some excellent friend might have said
to her, 'My dear Ellen, you had the blessed privilege of _habeas
corpus_ and jury trial. What are you grieving about? You were sent
back according to law and the Constitution. What could you want
more?' From the statements of our Free Soil friends, you would
suppose that the _habeas corpus_ was the great safeguard of a
slave's freedom; that it covered him as with an angel's wing. But
suppose _habeas corpus_ and jury trial granted, what then? Is any
man to be even _so_ surrendered, with our consent? No slave shall be
sent back--except by _habeas corpus_. Stop half short of that! No
slave shall be sent back!"
Rev. A.D. Mayo, of Albany, is one of those clergymen who believe
that a religious teacher has something to do with questions
affecting public morality; and his preaching is eloquent, because he
is fearlessly obedient to his own convictions. In a Sermon on the
Fugitive Slave Bill, he said:--"Remember that despotism has no
natural rights on earth that any man is bound to respect. I know
there is no political party, no Christian sect, no Northern State,
as a whole, yet fully up to this. But the Christian sentiment of the
country will finally bring us all to the same conclusion."
NO SLAVE HUNT IN OUR BORDERS!
What asks the Old Dominion? If now her sons have proved
False to their fathers' memory, false to the faith they loved;
If _she_ can scoff at Freedom, and its Great Charter spurn,
Must _we_ of Massachusetts from truth and duty turn?
_We_ hunt your bondmen, flying from Slavery's hateful hell?
_Our_ voices, at your bidding, take up the blood-hound's yell?
_We_ gather, at your summons, above our fathers' graves,
From Freedom's holy altar-horns to tear your wretched slaves?
Thank God! not yet so vilely can Massachusetts bow,
The spirit of her early time is with her even now.
Dream not, because her Pilgrim blood moves slow, and calm, and cool,
She thus can stoop her chainless neck, a sister's slave and tool!
For ourselves and for our children, the vow which we have given
For Freedom and Humanity, is registered in Heaven.
No slave-hunt in _our_ borders! No pirate on _our_ strand!
No fetters in the Bay State! No slave upon _our_ land!
J.G. WHITTIER.
THE HIGHER LAW.
Man was not made for forms, but forms for man;
And there are times when Law itself must bend
To that clear spirit, that hath still outran
The speed of human justice. In the end,
Potentates, not Humanity, must fall.
Water will find its level; fire will burn;
The winds must blow around this earthly ball;
This earthly ball by day and night must turn.
Freedom is typed in every element.
Man _must_ be free! If not _through_ law, why then
_Above_ the law! until its force be spent,
And justice brings a better. When, O, when,
Father of Light! shall the great reckoning come,
To lift the weak, and strike the oppressor dumb?
C.P. CRANCH.
ON THE SURRENDER OF A FUGITIVE SLAVE.
Look on who will in apathy, and stifle, they who _can_,
The sympathies, the hopes, the words, that make man truly man;
Let those whose hearts are dungeoned up, with interest or with ease,
Consent to hear, with quiet pulse, of loathsome deeds like these.
I first drew in New England's air, and from her hardy breast
Sucked in the tyrant-hating milk, that will not let me rest;
And if my words seem treason to the dullard and the tame,
'Tis but my Bay State dialect--our fathers spake the same.
Shame on the costly mockery of piling stone on stone
To those who won _our_ liberty! the heroes dead and gone!
While we look coldly on and see law-shielded ruffians slay
The men who fain would win their _own_! the heroes of _to-day_!
Are we pledged to craven silence? O, fling it to the wind,
The parchment wall that bars us from the least of human kind!
That makes us cringe, and temporize, and dumbly stand at rest,
While Pity's burning flood of words is red-hot in the breast!
We owe allegiance to the State; but deeper, truer, more,
To the sympathies that God hath set within our spirit's core.
Our country claims our fealty; we grant it so; but then
Before Man made us _citizens_, great Nature made us _men_!
Though we break our fathers' promise, we have nobler duties first,
The traitor to _Humanity_ is the traitor most accurst.
_Man_ is more than _Constitutions_. Better rot beneath the sod,
Than be true to _Church_ and _State_, while we are doubly false to God!
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
STANZAS FOR THE TIMES.
Shall tongues be mute, when deeds are wrought
Which well might shame extremest hell?
Shall freemen lock the indignant thought?
Shall Pity's bosom cease to swell?
Shall Honor bleed? Shall Truth succumb?
Shall pen, and press, and soul be dumb?
What! shall we guard our neighbor still.
While woman shrieks beneath his rod,
And while he tramples down, at will,
The image of a common God?
Shall watch and ward be round him set
Of Northern nerve and bayonet?
And shall we know, and share with him,
The danger and the growing shame?
And see our Freedom's light grow dim,
Which should have filled the world with flame?
And, writhing, feel, where'er we turn,
A world's reproach around us burn?
No! By each spot of haunted ground,
Where Freedom weeps her children's fall;
By Plymouth's rock, and Bunker's mound;
By Griswold's stained and shattered wall;
By Warren's ghost; by Langdon's shade;
By all the memories of our dead;
By their enlarging souls, which burst
The bands and fetters round them set;
By the free Pilgrim spirit, nursed
Within our bosoms yet;
By all above, around, below,
Be ours the indignant answer--NO!