Whilst glorying in the historical fact that our fathers were ready to take up arms against laws imposing petty taxes on tea, and paper, they nevertheless roll up the whites of their eyes in holy horror at refusals to obey laws, if laws they can be called, which sink innocent men women and children in the hell of slavery. The rescuers of Jerry were called rebels. But the rebellion in the case was chargeable not on them, but on the Government. It was the Government, and not the rescuers, who were guilty of resisting law. The law in the case was the right of every innocent man to his personal liberty.
People are wont to regard every enactment as law.
But many an enactment is not law. Nevertheless Squatter Sovereignty is not law. The liberty given by the Nebraska Bill to enslave men was not liberty to set up law, but to put down law - quite as emphatically such as if it had been liberty to murder men. The invasion of human rights by Government can, no more than such invasion by an individual, be law. The passage of the Nebraska Bill afforded ample justification to the people to enter the halls of Congress, and hurl the rebels from their seats.