New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1851-01-15
Union Concern for Liberty and for
slavery.

Slavery.
The Constitution of the United States
was established (says its Preamble) by the
People of the United States" to "estab-
lish justice" "secure domestic tranquility"
and "secure the blessings of LIBERTY to
ourselves and our posterity." No hint is
given in any part of it that the perpetuity
or defense of Slavery was one of its OBJ
jects. But in the WITH Article of said Con-
stitution, and the same section, we find the
following provisions:
"The citizens each State shall be entitled all prvI-
leges and immupies OF citizens 10 the several States
mo person held to service or labor in State, under
the laws thereof escaping into another shall In cOnse
quence any law regulation therein be discharged from
such service or labor but shall be delivered up claim of
the party to whom such service or labor may be DUE
According to the laws of the English
Language "no person" is to be delivered
up under this latter clause, but the inten-
ton of the trainers doubtless was that cUery
person so escaping and claimed shall be
surrendered to 1.-the party to whom such
labor or service may be dae"-such is the
gingerly wording of the clause-thOugh
how it is to be proved that man owes
another twenty years work because he
has already worked for him twenty years
for nothing, we do not understand. But
no matter the intent is to deprive the man
who runs away from working for nothing
of any legal shelter or protection in a Free
State, such as the laws of that State would
otherwise give him. The trainers of the
Constitution evidently felt that the act that
they intended to provide for would look
ugly in plain words, so they rather limited
at than plainly expressed it. We make
allowance for their commendable pruderY,
and take them as they meant.
And now we ask the candid reader to
scan closely the two clauses above quoted
rerbatim from the same section of the Con-
stitution, and say whether that which ia
vors Liberty should not be enforced by
Congress as well as that which was intend
ed to uphold Slavery!
We challenge any man to show line, a
clause, word, intimating that Congress,
or the Federal Government any how, was
expected or required to enforce one of these
clauses more than the other. We defy
any man to show that Congress was ex-
pected to pass laws and incur expenditures
to enforce the Slavery clause and let the
Liberty clause stand dead letter.
Yet Congress does exactly so. While
two stringent, despotic laws have been
enacted to give full effect to the Slave
clause, and all the power of the Govern
ment is put forth or held in readiness to
enforce these severe laws to the utmost, ne
law has ever been passed to give effect to
the clause favoring Freedom and Equality
though it is ostentatiously deied and insO-
lently violated habitually in one-third OF
the States. Repeatedly have citizens Of
Free States been arrested and imprisoned
in Slave States on no allegation or suspicion
of crime, but simply because their color
indicated that their ancestors WHOLLY or in
part) had been stolen from Africa; and
men so imprisoned are liable to be sold into
Slavery 10 pay The expenses Of their imPris-
onment, unless some one sees ft to redeem
them by proving them free and paying the
expenses made by imprisoning them. And
this has gone on for years without a pros
pect of IT'S mitigation. There are at this
day clergymen as eloquent, able, Pious and
esteemed as any other in the North