The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1850-09-12
From the JMariinsbupg (ga.l Ga.si,.

REPRIsALs.-The Constitution of the United
States has in it the following clause: q No person
held TO service or labor in one State, under the
laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in con.
sequence of any law or regulation therein, be dis.
charged from such service or labor, but shall be
delivered up on claim Of the party TO whom such
service or labor shall be due" Now let us see
how far this obligation has been regarded by the
State of Pennsylvania Some few weeks ago, a
number of slaves absconded from Clarke county,
Va, taking with them each horse belonging TO
their owners. They were pursued by their mas
ters, and three out Of the number caught at Har-
rls burg, Pennsylvania, their identity fully estab-
ished by credible and competent witnesses, and
We're placed in prison; but soon thereafter, a
Judge, acting upon Writ of Habeas Corpus,
ordered their NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. the owners,
unwilling thus wrongfully to have their property
wre5ted from them, waited ut the prison doors,
and seized their slaves they were being liber-
ated, A contest ensued, which brought around
them large assembage of negroes and whites
for the purpose or rescue, and upon being in
formed Of this, the aforesaid Judge ordered the
arrest and Imprisonment of both slaves and their
owners, and shortly after liberated the owners,
holding them bound in bail bonds in the sum of
five hundred dollars each, to answer at the next
term of Court TO the charge of assault, riot, &c.
This is a simple, condensed statement of the case
it occurred on the oath of Aug st, in the Capt.
to Of Penn sylvania; and it appears by an account
have been discharged from prison by The aforesaid
large and doubtless this far hey
the reach of recovery. The owners of the slaves
have thus been subjected to the loss of about
twenty-four hundred dollars worth of property
by the acts Of Pennsylvania official, after the
property had been recovered and in actual possess
sion; and added to this loss, may be the time
and expenses of the nine persons engaged in
The pursuit, and the costs and fines to which they
will probably be subjected when tried by the said
Judge and Jury made up Of friends, associates
aiders and abettors Of runaway negroes. And
for this recent plumber of CT; izens and other
similar robberes in times past, what is the RENE
dy' The Fugitive Slave Bill, lately passed by
the Senate, will be likely as unavailable and use
less the plain constitutional clause above
quoted. In my opinion, the surest and only
remedy is, to make Reprsals upon the free States
of property to be found belonging to their citizens
in vessels elsewhere, attach debts due to their
citizens, and out OF the proceeds pay the owners of
slaves, and let the loosers of the property so
seized seek redress Of their State governments,
whose duty it is to carry out the compact existing
between the States in honesty and good faith
And hope the people of Virginia, and particu-
lary the border counties from the tide water to
the Ohio, will unite in the effort to have an Act
Of Reprisal passed by the next General Assembly;
and when this is done, we shall in short time
hear of no more Judicial NAL practice and unaw
fu dongs. such as have recently occurred in Har-
risburg, Pennsylvania.
TucKAHoE.
MARTINsBuRG, Va. September 9, 1856