Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1850-12-18
From the Independent.

From the independent
Chow to Resist the Fugitive Slave Law"
1t is certainly the first principle of civil society and
of organized Goyerument-as it is the first principle
of Christianity and of Religion-that Man, as
such, has certain rights He is a creature of God,
personal, accountable, and IMMORTAL; and so he
has RIGHTs, which are his and inalienable. Among
these, the Declaration Of Independence declares,
are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of llSpplness. To
the use, for himself, Of his own powers-to the de-
velopment and the employment, in any true and pure
way, of the original and God given forces which are
in him as Mamie has RIGHT. No other man
can despoil him of that Right, any than he can
take the responsibility that results from it. Other
men are but his equals. God made him, as much as
he made them lie is, as much as they, to live for
the glory Of God. And for another to try to enslaye
him, is to do violence to God and his system, not
less than to Humanity. The actual ownership of
one human ing can never become vested, by any
possibility in another human being If man does
not own HIMSELF inalienably, under God, there is
AN end of all responsibility, end of all society but
the society of Despotisn.
But an African slave trader captures either person
ally Or by his not less savage auxiares, such Man.
He tears him from his home, binds him with chains,
and bures him in the hold of The reeking save-shp.
He has overcome his muscles by force and bonds
Has he acquired any Right over that man? 'Not
ment. ''Not particle''-say the Governments,
who pursue that trader with their swiftest ships and
their hefcest onset, who hang him as pirate if they
take HIM on the seas. ''Not particle '-excams
the whole civilized world, through every expression,
of the law or the pulpit, the press, or the ribu
nal, that is open to it, The fact that he does not is
as clear as the sun at mdnoon TO maintain for
moment that he did would be to insist that man has
no Right bat what Strength creates, and Weakness
destroys.
But if the trader acquires no right to tho Man
whose muscles he has subdued he certainly transfers
none The person to whom he for stpulat sum
makes over his captive, receive no authority
from hlm which he did not possess. The new claim
ant holds the Man, Therefore, precisely as did the
former, by the law of the Strongest and by nothing
else. Not one ota of moral Obligation to the SER
vice of the other, his equal and fellow, has been de-
volved upon the captive by the expressions he has
suffered. Chains cannot create it. Whips cannot
cut it into the quvering flesh. Long years of ont
rage cannot accumulate what was not at the first land
what Is naturally impossible Amid all wrongs and
chains, the Man stands, Prisoner and a Person;
made in Gods image; responsible to Him. owning
HIMSELF, therefore, aud with right of redress
against those who have enforced him, that accumu.
lates constantly. He transmits to his children his
Manhood, and his Right and they, as he, are prop
eriy FREE; by virtue of their humanity.
And now this man-who has never given his con-
sent to the force which has enslaved landscapes
from beneath it. Feeling the impulse of liberty
within, he asserts it in action. Knowing that God
has given to no man the ownership of him, he fees
beyond the reach of the expressions that aflic him.
lie comes to our soil, where all men are free. The
question then is;-shall the General Government of
this nation go after that Man. again; whom the slave
trader has torn once from his home in Africa; whom
the Southern cottonplanter has had the use of al
ready, for many years, and without ht;-shall
the General Government go after him again. and re-
duce hun once more to more hopeless bondage
1t says, substantially, in the Fugitive Slave Law
GIVE WILL ~ We will do it, too, in precisely
the manner most offensive and irritating to all North
ern Manhood. We will do it W it'll the disregard of
that main defence of personal liberty, the Trial by
Jury-whch the toll and blood of generations but
suced to establish which Is the honor and the bull
wark of freedom every where We will send our
armed officers nlarshals and their Do Sse to cap
ture the Man again, and carry him into Slavery
We will do, on large scale, the substance of the
wrong which we hang the African trader for doing
on a small one
Now, what shall WE say to this PeciseIy this
and we have said it already, again and again =
1T for time that is the law ofthe land in which we
live, we will not iOrcby resist it, but we will not at
all or IN any way obey 1t, and will labor for its
repeal with all our force Sooner than do ourselves
what the Slave-traders do--sooner than touch man
to chain him, that he may work for another who has
bad him already thousand times too long--our arms
shall be pal led. And if confiscaton comes, and
Imprisonment comes, as the attendants of ths-et
them come 7! The stone pillow of Righteousness
shall be softer than the down on the bed of Oppres
sion The prison walls shall be. bright again, as
they have been of old, with the presence of the an
gels of Freedom and Peace
We are not fanatics. We love our country, and
would save it from lawessness. But God give us
grace and strength to speak, while live for Free
dom and for Right And God make US ever more
aware of the Judgment to which he will bring US,
and on whose assze Eternity shall hang than of the
vain DEGREES of mans opinicn