Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1851-04-17
The Boston Slave Case.

Massachusetts, to use the expressive language
of the Commonwealth, is agltated to the extrem-
ity of every fibre. And well she may be. She
has Just seen, in the case Of the fugitive Sims, her
constitution and laws set aside or trampled un-
der foot, even by those who administer and ex'
ecute them, through their timid or corrupt
yielding to the requirements Of a Federal law,
which they know to be unconstitutional as well
as subversive of the first principles Of liberty
Nor is the agitation growing out of these pro-
ceedings confined to Massachusetts alone
Vermont, as we know, from what we hear re-
peated ten times a day by the excited masses
around us, deeply shares in the commendable
feeling that pervades the aroused people of the
old Bay State for she sees, that, as deeply as
she symPathizes with those having the spirit to
break away from bondage, there is much more
involved in the matter, than merely catching a
negro. She begins to ask, if all this is to go on
unresisted, what is soon to become of her oUn
State sovereignty? Let the officers of the Fed
eral government be warned in season to beware
how they push this abominable enactment, which
is no law, into cohict with the just and warrant
ed legal provisions the States have established
for the protection of their own citizens. And
let the South be warned also. If they must
have their pound Of flesh, let them take it, but
II, in doing this, they draw one drop of blood, on
their own heads be the consequence. Besides
being unconstitutional besides being an outrage
on tloedom and humanity, that fugitive slave
law was a monstrous insult to the people of the
whole free North, by requiring them to consort
With, and become obedient assistants to a class
of men-"he negro hunterS'-who are so des-
picable both by occupation and character, at
home, that they are absolutely excluded from
all decent society through the whole South, and
the people of the North, when they more gener-
ally understand this, will not very tamely sub
NIT to many l~niringements on their rights. 1t
will be the turn of the North to talk about Sc
cession soon if they find this law is to be sad
died on them forever. They will be patient and
forbearing, while there is a reasonable hope of
It's repeal. But destroy that hope, and the Fed.
eral Union is In far more danger of being ever
thrown by the North than'it ever was or will be
by the clustering South. If this state of things
be deprecated and earnestly sought to be avoid
ell by the preachers of peace and submission
among US, let them cease from their craven
course which is deceiying the South and encour-
aging them to continue their suicidal agressions
let them do this, and help US effect the repeal
Of a law, to which the people Of the free States,
they may rest assured, will never submit; for
we believe that just as surely as the South per-
sist in their present mad career in trying to en-
force the measure, and they are backed by the
government at Washington and a party at the
North, and just so surely, in the approach
ing Presidential campaign will the issue be,
H REPEAL OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW
OR, THE Dissolution oE THE Union!
IIukerdom may denounce the free organs at
the north as agitators, and sewers of sedition.
In what has as yet been said, as loudly as she
pIoases, but we would suggest to her that she
had better save her breath for what is to come,
for.
%"Ifthey have whispered the truth
They will whisper no longer,
But speak as the tempest does.