The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1850-11-10

ner, United States Commissioners and other Off
GERS, sitting as committing magistrates, exercise
their functions ministerialy, and for the prelimi
nary purpose Of bringing the offender within the
scope of the authority which is 10 pass upon the
case judcially although in doing they exercise
powers of judicial nature, and are competent to
discharge the accused.
If this was not enough of Judge Johnson, we
would enter into the discussion OF the remaining
paragraph of his letter, in which he conceives that
it would be allowable in case of the prosecution of
writ of habeds corpus before him as county Judge,
to entertain the objections which he has stated, and
which we have disposed of to the suficiency of
commissioners authority. No doubt it is good
enough law for an abolitionist, that county Judge
of State may determine the jurisdiction and
authority Of tribunal of the United States.
The preposterous and disreputable blunders which
we have thus exposed, run through all the posi-
tons assumed by the fanatics in regard to this act;
and hence it s, that they number in their ranks
few men who have been at all distinguished for
sense or sound information. The only persons of
note connected with them, have been otherwise
distinguished, politicians by trade ambitious and
unprincipled demagogues. The shallowness of
heir philosophy, the absurdty of their deductions
the absence of ell comprehensiveness in their
views of society, the utter deficiency of veracity
which they exhibit, could but outrage the feel.
ings and disgust the minds of men educated perso
nally to conformity with the prophecies of life.
and intellectually to an observance of the dictates
of reason.
In their denunciatons of the act, they set out
with misnomer, calling it the Fugitive Slave ACT.
whereas it is act providing for the sxtradion of
all fugtives from service; well apprentices for
term of years, fugitive slaves, and eficacious
between the free States, between the slavehold-
ing and non-slaveh holding States. The writ of
habeds corpus has been discussed as it had here
tofore secured, or could ever secure, a right TO
liberty on the part of an actual fugitive from ser
vice or as iii could avail person held IN Gus
tody according TO law. After having excited in
the minds of simple people an exaggerated AMI
underlined idea of the nature of this writ, and
induced them to attribute to it some magic virtue,
by which at once the law could be INDICATED and
the offender rewarded, the agitators have raised
great outcry about its alleged abolition in the case
Of fugitive from service-an outcry false in con-
structon; for no law could abolish writ secured
by the constitution; and false in fact-for the 'Fu-
gltive from Service" act makes no alluson to the
habeas corpus. The kind of writs which il con-
templates, are such other wrs, not secured by the
constitution, as, if allowed to interfere, would he
constantly resorted to, to defeat the law-such as
writs of attachment, Of capias ad satisfaetenlun
&c. The fugitive might have contracted legal
obligation in the State to which he had fed, which
would give these writs authority over his person,
and thus expose the claimant to vexatious delays
and manifest injustice; but the writ of habeas cor
pas, if law be administered, could interfere bur
momentarily with the rights OF the claimant
Another subject of terrible catawauling among the
fanatics, has been the alleged deprivation of the
right of trial by jury. We say alleged, for, in re-
gard to this outcry, too, there is particle of
foundation for it, The act does not affect the right
Of trial by jury, but only the penue The certifi-
cate of the commissioner as to the nature of the
service due from the fugitive to the claimant,
does not confer or establish the title, but only
puts the subject at rest, until the fugitive is
returned to the place whence he fed. When
he gets there, if he be an alleged slave. and have
any probable claim to freedom, there is not slave
holding State which does not prescribe method
for the prosecution Of that claim, and the trial Of
the fact by jury. So far as our knowledge extends
he is entitled to prosecute II in the form of pauper
al the public expense; and the ablest members of
the bar are forward to seek the position of his as
signed counsel, which is regarded as afording
rare field for the display of forensic eoquence.
But il is impossible to reason sobery with
men who, from obliquity of purpose, or de-
rangement of intellect, pervert the simplest Ian
guage, falsify the most evident facts. and rush
blindy to the most ridiculous conclusions.
We do not entertain the idle expectation that
truth or reason can make any impression on the
commingled free soil, abolition, Fourerte, inhdel
and woman's rights party. From Martin Van
Buren, and William H. Seward, the arch dema.
goeues, who are looking to Northern Presidency,
to Frederick Douglass and Samuel Ward, (black
men), who have equally distinguished pretensions,
through the host of such inferior lights as Abby
Kelly, Horace Greeley, Sojourner Truth, Ward
Beecher, Rosa Lee, William Jay, Lucretia Mott,
Garrison, Mercy, Weed, and others, they are
Proof and bulwark against sensen
And yet these people and their followers constr
tute formidable party, espousing one side Of tn
only substantial question now dividing the coun-
Try. They are the abolition party, engaged in an
effort to abolsh-frst, the union Of these States.
and then the distinctions of color, and those social
institutions which the result OF the wisdom Of
sges Against them, is ausyed a party most T~s-
perly designated as republican, composed of men
of established moral views, who keep in sight the
impcrfectons OF our nature, and whose habits OF
thought and action are founded On the old conti-
mental school. The sooner the empty party dis
factions of wing and democrat are abandoned,
and the old party cobwebs brushed away from the
brains Of men, the sooner have a clear field snd
fair fight on the only substantial topic Of the day
the better for ourselves, even though it be TOO
late to save the Union. f'N (10ncnen
FrSrRAL OF Mss Ball MARrIS The funeral OF Mrs
B.ll Martin took place at the Union Place Hotel on