The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1851-03-24

/ TIC ""s~0NuMs ~ EdHOuTSh, uSScHtOted Ia
Bristol street church, The 18Th Of November,
| 1850, and toho signed an address 10 The people
Of The United States, derouncilg The Fugitire
siare law as unconstitutional, dc, dc.
REVEREND SIR: AS it is probable the people
of the United States will not collectively re-
spond to your address, !, as humble individual,
one Of the most insignificant Of that body an
swering only for myself, and representing my
self alone, take leave to express my sentiments
in regard to your strange, understandable inter-
ference with the domestic institutions, and pub
lie laws of distant and foreign nation.
You cannot pretend, sir, that these institu-
tons, or these laws in any way, in the slight
est degree, affect the rights, the interests, or
the happiness of the good people of Edin-
burgh, or any other portion Of the Scottish ma
ton. They are local institutions, exclusively
appertaining to local interests, and you have no
more right to interfere with them than with the
internal regulations of the Chinese, or Russian
empires. If they do not chance TO accord with
your delicate sympathies, or if they outrage any
of your nice scrupes of philanthropy, that
conceive is no justification for your informed
ding with matters in which you have no con-
Germ, and for which you are not responsible
You, sir, and your reverend brethren, are the
pastors OF your own focks, and your duties as
faithful shepherds, are, presume, if properly
attended to, called into ample exercise at home
| Your moral responsibilities can hardly be said
to extend beyond the sphere of your parishes
unless it should 30 happen that your hocks,
through the influence of your precepts and ex-
ample, have become 50 exemplary and SO per-
feet that there is no longer any necessity for
either one or the other. If this should be the
case, sincerely congratulate you on the success
of your pious efforts. If not, would respect
fully recommend you to look at home and
pluck the beam from your own eyes, before you
NEEDLE with the moat in that of your distant
neighbor.
You commence with declaring :" We have
heard with feelings Of astonishmcnt and pair
that the Congress of the United States O
America has lately passed law in relation tc
fugitive slaves, which, in many of its provision.
as we read them, violates the rights, and out
RACES the ceilings of humanity You then pro.
coed to comment on the Declaration of hide
pendence, and the Constitution of the United
States following the lead Of the Abolitionsts OF
this country, in substituting the annuncaton OF
abstract principle in the one, for direct prac-
teal provision in the other.
| frha naolor.tin, Of I,J. L..
claration of the rights of free white American
citizens, in opposition to the claims of the
mother country, and had not the slightest refer
ence to African slaves. If it had bren for a mo-
ment supposed, or suspected, that these were
compreh, nded in the assertion of the doctrine
that all men are born free and equal" can it be
presumed that the representatives of the Southern
States would have unanimously concurred il
what would have at once Invested themselves
and their constituents, of great portion of thei
property? No one, except ignorant foreigners
or those Of our own citizens, who are playing in
to their hands, ever supposed that the Declare
ton Of Independence was of equal authority ii
regulating the powers of government or the du
ties Of citizens with the Constitution Of tn,
United States, and the laws enacted in con
forlnity with its provisions. Nor, if it could BE-
proved that either one or the other were in di.
rect contradiction to principle asserted in the
Declaration, would it furnish the least justifabe
pretext for refusing to obey them.
Had it been text of Scripture, instead of {
constitutional principle, or temporal law, on
which you assumed the prerog alive Of deciding
should have paid respectful Difference tt
your authority. But doubt whether the law
of Moses are eminently calculated to initiate Vi
into the niceties Of common law or const.u
tional construction or whether a mere assertion
of meeting of a small portion of the inhabitant
modern Athens-that a certain law of the Con
gress of the United States violates the rights
and outrages the feelings of our common hu.
mani y" rrevocably settles principle of morals,
or maxim of law | sometimes read the Old
and the New Testament, and if it will not be
considered presumptuons in a humble layman,
would commend TO your attention the 25th
chapter Of Lcvitcus, and the example Of the
| Apostle Paul.
A few words, Reverend Sir, as to the asser-
ton that the Fugitive slave law TRACES the
feelings of our common humanity" The meet
ing which YOU represent, and whose organ You
are, was convened in {" Bristol street church," of
course it could only have consisted of very
small portion of the inhabitants of the city of
Edinburgh. What right had they to assume
to be the representative of the feelings of our
common humanity y Who made them so, or
who recognizes them as snch In the United
States are millions of people, as moral, AS reli-
gious, and as enlightened as any in Scotland or
elsewhere, who do not believe that the Fugitive
slave law violates the feelings of our common
humanity" In every age, and in every country
there have existed millions of human beings
from the Patriarch Abraham, to tho orthodox
Queen Anne of England--who was one of the