Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1850-1854, 1850-10-11
The Fugitive Slave Bill.

Everywhere throughout the northern states
we see it announced the colored population are
terror-struck by the passage of Filmore's Slave
Capturing bill. The bill is indefinitely retroac-
tive in its character The child brought on by
its fugitive slave mother, may now, a man, be
captured and returned to slavery. The slave
girl, escaped score of years since and married
here, may be swept off with all her brood, to the
slave-markct These things may not often hap
pen it is enough to know that they will some
times happen. The case of Hamlet, is that of a
man who had resided some years here, who had
married wife and had children here, and who
was carried off, at day, from them without
hearing and without trial.
In that case, is evident that the e5parte state
ments of the two interested witnesses against the
captive were such as could have been rebutted
by evidence or the conclusions derived from the
estimony, have been met by legal considerations.
They swore that he was once the slave Of their
relative. But that he was not permitted to GO
of, that he was not taken to free State by his
master and SO emancipated under the operation
of State law Gas in this State), that he was not
manumitted by his real owner, these men could
not swear, and these things the captive should
have had an opportunity to prove. Above all, he
should have been permitted to prove his identity,
against the oaths of his clamants-to prove their
perjury and conspiracy-if he could.
AS the law extends indefinitely back it will
soon become as common speculation to buy up
claims against fugtlves, as it is to buy old debts,
revolutionary claims and rights, or the INDICATED
bounty lands of soldiers. Professional sharks
will address themselves to some one who has lost
slave any time these ten years back, buy out
his claim, and armed with a certificate, will come
North and prowl about for their prey. They fix
Al 4l,oir Al
and iron the victim and carry him off. Suppose
they get hold f.'the wrong Niger does any
suppose they would care any more than if they
had entered the wrong quarter-section under a
bounty claim, ifthey could only keep possession
by hard-swearing? Does any one suppose that
one Of these men, once owner of right to some
negro in free State, would ever quit content
without getting possession of some negro in the
free States. What would he care whether the
man was fugitive or born freeman? 1t is the
general conviction in the minds of all such men
that negroes in the free States are somebody's
runaways, and that even if not they ought to be
in slavery.
From Boston to Pittsburgh there is strange
murmur of alright since the passage of this law
"a feeling of Indignation too, and talk of ress-
lance. But fear seems to predominant; and citi-
zens, peaceful and unchanged with crime, are
fleeing from eur own and sister States, to the Col
onies of Monarchy. Why? Because Willard
Fillmore, citizen of New York, "a quondam
aboltlonist when office was to be got by it) has
made his States hunting ground and offered the
three hundred thousand colored people of the
North as quarry to the sportsmen of the South