Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1850-11-23

| in capturing Christians, 10 be delivered 10 wild
beasts, and then proceeds to compare that legsla-
ton with the late law Of Congress, and concludes
by insisting that the execution of this as of those
ought to be resisted at every hazard and to the last
extremity The following is part of his Ian
guage:
Tbis now the law Of the land is the official BUSH
ness Of Judges commissioners and msrshas, magistrates
to execute the law aid deliver fugitive to slavery it is
your official business and mine, as citizens, when legally
summoned to aid in capturing the Does the law make
il any duty The natural duty to keep the law Of God
ovedes the obligation to observe any human statute, and
continually commands to love and not hate him, to
do him justice and no. injustice, to allow him his natural
rights alienated BY hmsef-yes, to defend him in them
not only by ell legal but by all means moral.
"The fugitive has been slave before does the wrong
you committed yesterday give you natural right to commit
wrong aesh and continually Because you ensaved this
mans father have you natural right to enslave bis child
The right you would have 10 murder man because
you butchered his father 6f The right to murder as
much Iansmissabs by inheritance the right to enslave
II il plain that il the natural duty of citizens
every fugitive slave from the bands OF the marshal who
essays to return him bondage to do peaceably they
can forcity if they must but by all means to do it Will
you stand by and your counymen, your feowctzens
Of Boston, sent of to savey by commissioner Shall
my practitioners taken from under my eyes and
ried back bondage by whose constitutional business
is work wickedness by statute Shall never m 10
protect him. When consent to that you may call me hire
ling shepherd in6del wolf in sleeps clothing de-
6lAve-cdtcniu&
poor dumb dog, barking always at the moon, but silent
the moon when the murderer comes near ~ sIN
81 who loves violence. respect the sa-
credness Of human life. But this say solemny, that will
do all in my power any fugitive slave from the hands
Of any officer who attempts to return him to bondage.
will resist him gently as know how, but with such
strength command will ring the bells and alarm
the town will as head, foot, hand to any
body of serious and earnest who will 60 with me- with
weapons but their hands, in this work. would do
readily would lift out of the water pluck him
from the teeth of WOLF snatch him from the hands Of
murderer. What is fine Of thousand dollars, and failing
for six months to the liberty Of man! My money perish
with it stand between and the eternal law Of God
trust there manly enough in this house to
the freedom Of every fugitive slave in Boston, without break
ing limb or rending garment
"One thing think very plain, that the fugitive
has the natural right defend himself against the slave
catcher bis constitutional tool mat he has against
derer WOLF The man who attacks me to reduce to
slavery, in that OF attack sienaes his right life
and it the fugitive and could escape in no other
way would kill him with little compuncon as would
drive mosquito from my face It is high time this said
What gasshoppes before the law Of men, what Go
iahs against the law Of God What capitalist Deeds your
law Of usuy when he get illegal interest How many
banks content with six per cent when money is
Did you hear of merchant evadng the duties
Of the cusom-house When mans liberty is concerned
keep the law, we-betray the wanderer and
expose the outcast !"
The main principle upon which Mr.. Parkers ar
gument rests, that every mans conscience should
be his rule of action, is unquestionably sound, and
yet the conclusion to which he argues himself, if
carried into action, soould make him one Of the
most dangerous criminals in the land. 1t is, in
substance, that every man has right to compel all
other to give precedence to whatever he thinks
morally right, under the penalties of personal vio-
lence
Were his sentiments as to the right of resistance
universally entertained, society would at once be
nLns
shed s0ould arrest the progress of ciuization de-
stroy cities, and scatter the surviving races of
men The face Of the earth like the descendants
Of Ishmael, their hands against every and eve-
ry mans hand against them.
ssTantum relgio poiut suadere malorum y
The fallacy by which, as it seems to us, Mr.. Par
ker's conscience has been betrayed is one which
lies at the foundation of all fanatcism. He seems
to lose sight of the fact that the morality of act
is often varied by its combination with other cir
cumstances; that in pursuing an abstract right one
may do great practical wrong; that things Nhch,
standing separately, may be perfectly equitable, in
conjunction may conflict with each other and one
or the otner become positively wicked. For ex-
ample, we may meet person destitute and hungry
in the street, the occupants of the nearest house
may be persons who roll in wealth, and daily sit at
tables grooming under superfuous Injuries. 1t is
right in the abstract for the proprietor Of that house
to relieve the hunger and cover the nakedness Of the
poor wretch that may be shiverng and starving upon
his doorstep. To refuse to relieve such distress
would in the abstract, be wrong. But it does not
follow that we any one else would be justified in
rushing into the house, and like Orlando in the
play, with drawn sword and threatening gesture, to
exclaim:
" He dies that touches any Of this fruit,
Till and my ends answered"
If such course were right, all might adopt it,
and every man being the Judge of his own or his
neighbours necessities, neither property nor life
would be secure single day. Society would at
once be convulsed and given over to barbarism.
Such, in the general, would be the consequences
of prosecuting an abstract right without regard to
circumstances which may give take from it all its
moral attributes. Upon little reflection, no one
will doubt but it is much better that many ndivi-
duals should die of starvation than that they should
be relieved by highway robbery for this if for no
better reason, that robbery, whether for charity or
any other purpose, tends 10 produce far more dis
tress and misery than will follow from the death
by starvation Of all whose hunger can only be re-
leved by violence. IN
Now, we ask whether resistance to the fugitive
slave law would not be just as censurable and for
the same reasons! Mr.. Parker does not .abomi-
nate the institution Of slavery probably, more in
tensely than we do, but we would prefer to see
many ugitives returned, and even innocent persons
reduced to slavery, if it were done under and pur-
| suant TO the forms Of law rather than have those
laws successfully resisted with violence. We have
Al II H. AZ. nnd