New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1852-04-14
SLAvH-CATCHING

passion may urge TO snameIui deeds' ous
few that will blazon their dishonor in the
light of day. Cowardice,-the last of
human virtues, keeping guard after the
death of conscience and the stupefaction of
allkindly feeling-remains with its skulking
hope of concealment and oblivion, and its
web of lying pretenses, to attach to his
fellow-men the agent of sneaking or Of
open wrong. The fact attests a good
essence in human nature. Better, far bet
ter, even this relic of true instinct than that
insanity which has no respect for public
opinion, but defies the moral sense of the
community, and loudly exults in what
others view with shuddering aversion or
contempt.
Warm as is our hostility to slavery,
especially when it comes to hunt its flying
victims by our own thresholds, we can
vet make allowances for those who have
been brought up under the baneful influence
of the institution. Like other men, they
are not responsible for the effect of circum-
stances in prejudicing and perverting their
minds. They regard the negro as their
legitimate property, because from earliest
youth they have been so taught. The
idea is monstrous one no doubt, but it is
honestly entertained, and does not exclude
its possessor from many features Of a manly
character. Tuch a man may seek TO
recover his fugitive chattel without thereby
proclaiming himself utterly mean and in
human. To him the search and pursuit are
not absolutely disgraceful, though even in
the estimation of his neighbors at home,
they are not altogether things to brag of.
He may, in some cases at least, respect
himself afterward, and therefore others may
respect him also, not because he is slave
catcher, but in spite of it.
But no such respect is possible for the
Northern man who engages in this branch
of the save-trade, for at the bottom, he
despises himself. He can plead no pre-
JUDGES, no ignorance in bar of the public
condemnation. He knows what slavery
is, and what the love of freedom. He
knows that no hue of the skin, no author
ity of human institutions, no enactment of
legislation can destroy the fundamental
right of man to life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness. He knows that slavery is
of all forms of humanity the most brutal
izing, of all expressions the most outrage
Gus, of all meannesses the meanest. He
knows that civilized nations every where
hold it to be piracy to steal the savagefrom
Africa in order to convert him into slave;
and he feels that, in absolute truth, it is
thousand times worse piracy to seize the
civilized man from the enjoyment of free
dom, the endearments of his family, and from
independence gained by his own industry,
to drag him off into brutal servitude. No
matter what the Newly rk Slave Catcher
may attempt to say; if there be in him any
relic of humanity, he is Disguised with his
business. No matter how much he may
buster about executing the law, and about
the danger of this great Union dissolution,
if some poor, trembling negro be not de-
prived of his liberty forever. No matter
how much others, who would not them
selves catch slave, may, for political or
selfish ends, say to the same purport. 1t
is all pretense. The Slave-Catcher has
sold himself, but even in his own eyes, he
cannot justify the bargain. He can justi-
fly nothing but the loathing with which
public opinion looks upon his act, the min
gled scorn and pity with which it looks on
him.
The proof of this is seen in the conduct
of those who were active in the late re en-
slavement of Horace Preston. Busted,
the lawyer, could make afiidavits that Pres
ton was slave, tell the truth on the stand
or withhold it, and do everything within the
range of his abilities to convert that man
into the brute chattel of another man. But
as for having been equally active in the
preliminary proceedings, as for having
helped find and seize the alleged slave, he
vociferously denies it. Enough for him to
be the paid attorney in such case /; there
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