Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1845-01-03

his feet were bruised and swollen from the chase:
he was faint and weary, and he looked around
upon us imporingly for protection. Starting at
every sound from without, he told with tremu-
lous voice, the story of his captivity, and recap
ture; for thrice he fled from slavery, and twice
had he been delivered up to his pursuers. He
was checkered over with the marks ofthe scourge,
for his master had prescribed hundred lashes to
cure him of his passion for freedom A worse
fate awaited him, if he failed in his third attempt
to be free; and he walked to the window, and
softly asked the nearest way to Canada. Cana
da and heaven, he said, were the only two pa-
ces that the slave sighed for, and he tied up his
clouted shoes to 90. He laid his hands on the
latch, and his eyes asked if he might 60 We
knew what was in his heart, and he what was in
our own, when the children came near and ask
ed their parents why the negro boy might not live
in Massachusetts, and why he should 90 so far to
find a home. And we looked in each others IA
ces and said not word, for our hearts were
troubled at their questions.
Some one asked for the "JOnd," and it was
read and there, among great swelling words
about liberty, we found it written, that there was
not an acre nor an inch Of ground within the linn
its of the great American republic which was not
mortgaged to slavery. And when the reader
came to that passage in the bond, his voice fell
lest the children should hear it, and ask more
questions. He passed the instrument around,
and we saw it was written-"too fairly WRIT
that there was not foot of soil in New England
not spot consecrated to learning, liberty or
Irellgion-not a square inch on Bunker HIl or
any other hill, nor cleft, nor crag, nor cavern in
her mountain sides, nor nook in her deIs, nor
lair in her forests, nor hearth, nor a cabin door
which did not bear the bloody endorsement in IA
yor of slavery. sit was in the bond'-the bond
of our Union, Ordained to establish justice, pro-
mote the general welfare, and secure the bless
. ings Of liberty to ourselves and our posterity"-
it was in that anomalous instrument that the
slave-hunter and his hounds might seize upon
his trembling victim on the hottest spot of land
of the free.
1t was a bright night. The heavens were full
of eyes looking down upon the earth and we
wished that they were closed for half an hour;
that the clouds would come over the moon; for
the man-hunters had come They had tracked
the young fugitive, and were lying in wait to
seize him, even on the hearth of freeman. We
shall never forget that hour. We had alfred the
young slave in female garb, and put his hand
within the arm of one Of our number. A pas
sing cloud obscured the moon, and the two
issued into the street, Softly and silently we
followed them at a distance, and our hearts were
heavy within us, that Massachusetts had no law
that could extend protection to that young hui
man being, or permit him to be protected with
out law. 1t was a strange feeling to walk the
streets of Worcester as threading the enemies
Cround to avoid the houses and faces Of our
neighbors and friends, as if they were all slave
holders and in pursuit of the fugitive as if here,
in the heart of the Old Bay State, there was
something fellonous in the deed of mercy that
would obllterate the track of the innocent image
! of God flying for life and liberty before his re-
= lentess pursuers. We passed close by the old
{ Burying Ground, where slumbered many hero
of "Seventy-SiX." There, within stones throw
| was the grave of Capt. Peter Slater one of the
: "Indans" who threw the taxed tea into Boston
harbor. 1t was moment of humiliation and in
: dignant grief, when passing by his monument,
, we compared the taxes on tea and sugar of his
day with that despotc lld tar, that slave breed
5 ing incumbrance, that Shylock mortgage which
+ the founders of our constitution imposed upon
; every square inch of New England, in the terms
| of "the bond"
r We have now neither time nor space to tell
: the story of that young fugitive. We wish he
e might tell it himself upon every hearth stone in
New England. We wish no human heart a need
less unpleasant emotion; but we would that every
child in this Gland of the free might see slave,
"a being that OWns a God, yet owned, and
bound and beat, and sold by man. We would
= have the rising generation well instructed in the
] term of the "bond, and few personal illustra-
tons ofthe condition which it "secures" might be
ofservice in defining their path of duty They
will soon enter upon this goodly heritage; and
shall we give it over into their hands encumber-
( ed with this iniquitous entailment in favor OF
slavery! Mo- if there be wealth enough in all
New Englands jcwels--in the cabinet of her
great deeds of virtue and patriotisnl-et us lift
this bloody mortgage from one square acre of
r her soil, wherein the hunted slave may say,
S "Ithank my God that I too an at last man!'
, When, trembling and painting he struck his foot
on that consecrated spot, the chase should cease,
though his master and his dogs are at his HEELS
That English acre in New England should be an
, other Canada for the fugitive bondman. He
should carry handful Its soil in his bosom as
a certificate honored throughout the world that he
was FREE.
1
S KIDNAPPING.
=, Two young coored men, free born, were stol-
q ON from Wirnnntn1n n fn,u ninhts ann and tax en-