New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1851-05-02
The Rusiiixe slave Law.

The Fugitive slave Law.
The great battle of this generation, be-
tween Freedom and Slavery, has been
fought, and won by those who from 1916
TO 1850 resolutely upheld, during all the
fierce conflicts of those years, the Wilmot
Proviso. The contest on the PrOviso Sc
cured our Mexican Territories to Freedom.
In this great result we behold its glorious
reward. We may, therefore, in the main,
be content with the fruits of that contest.
Had it not been for the agitation upon the
subject of Slavery, and the powerful de-
monstration of the Free States, slaves
would now be washing the golden sands of
California, and barren New Mexico her
self would be bowling in still more hopeless
sterility before the whitening tread of Afri-
can servitude. But, thanks to the indO-
mitable spirit of freedom / q the North, the
future millions who are to inhabit the vast
valleys of the ella, the Colorado, the San
Joaquin, and Sacramento, have the IN
speaksble boon of liberty for their inheri-
lance. This is the animatipg spectacle
presented to our gaze as we survey the
field wherein have fought for years the
champions of Free Soil. In this rich har-
vest true friends of liberty everywhere
share, and may rejoice in its abundance.
They may we'll regard it with a proud
satisfaction, and repose in tranquility over
what is thus achieved for the cause of HUI
menity.
But tho offensive lees of the agitation
from which all this has resulted, is now
held to the nostrils of the successful party
in the contest, in the form Of the Fugitive
Slave Law. AS in the dispensation of
Providence, unmixed good is seldom the
lot even of those upon whom earthly bless
ings are most abundantly showered, so we
should not wonder that the share of good
which has fallen to the adversaries of Sla-
very, in this contest, should be dashed with
an unwelcome admixture. But it would
be the hight of ingraditude, as we'll as the
hight of stolidity, to fail to recognize and
enjoy what we have of good in our existing
circumstances, because all is not good. The
Devil was in Paradise.
We are not of those who are cut to the
quick by the operation of the Fugitive
Slave Law. 1t is wicked enough no doubt.
Bat we precipitate ourselves into no tn
multi of passionate objurgatiOn over its nat
ural operation of successfully returning a
slave to his servitude. We rejoice in the
escape of human being from Slavery
We lament his seizure and return to bond
age. But we preserve the expression Of
our profoundest emotions upon the subject
of Slavery, for the seasons of our contem-
plation of the monster iniQuity, as its gi-
gantic proportions risetO view in the shape
of the three millions of our fellow country
men, who daily rise in the morning and lie
down at night under the lash Of the task
master. 1t is painful to behold single
individual in Slavery; but a thousand
times moro bitter, infinitely more poignant
to the reflective mind, is the thought of
that stnpendous aggregate of wrong suf-
fered by the millions who hOpelessly toll
in the cotton fields and rice swamps of the
South.
In the triumphant march of the cause
of freedom finally marked by the signal
events alluded to we fad the liveliest sat
isfaction. That cause had suffered no Sc
riOus interruption in its career thong b as
sailed at every step by open foes and
treacherous friends. Its course has been
steadily forward, its conquests uuequivo-
cal and glorious. The operation of the
Fugitive Slave law is but the picking of
of here and there straggler by the enemy.
But while even this loss is to be deplored,
We can hardly regard 1t otherwise than as
an inevitable evil. The very act of NOV
ing sQuadrons through an ecemy's country
involves the necessity Of loss. The most
fortunate and successful bsttslions do not
come out Of contest unscathed. Let US
count our gains, and consider, but not mag
nifty, our losses.
The violent agitations Of the time upOu
the Law will cease, and comparative tran
ouility be restored. while the rich blessings