Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1852-02-05
From the New York Evangelist.
The Fugitive Slave Law.

| nav recently become acquainted with
some facts in reference to the operation of
the Fugitive Slave Law, which are sufi-
%cienlly interesting and important to be made
public. For obvious reasons | must omit
the names of places. The facts may be
relied upon.
In one Of the cities of New England.
there is a small Baptist church Of colored
people. 1t consists Of l2l members OF
these 60 had escaped from Southern BON
dage. and were consequently on the list of
the prescribed by the Fugitive Slave Law.
The old law had become a dead letter.
Unconscious Of danger they were pursuing,
industriously and cheerfulIy, their several
avocations, when this dreadful edict was
announced, The panic was terrible. Faith
ers were in danger of being torn from their
wives and their children, Mothers were
liable, at any moment, to be hurried away
from their families. AS it is the law of
slavery, that the child is TO follow the womb
which bore it, the children of these moth
ers, born Of free fathers, baptized in free
churches, and educated in free sch nIs,
were liable at any time to be MANAGE I aud
sold to Southern taskmasters. In COASTER
nation the little church met, and with
prayers and tears implored the aid of God.
The slave-hunter was Immediately after
them. Writs were out for their arrest.
They 'rembled by day and by night. They
dared not enter the shop. They dared not
appear in the street. They dared not 90
forth to labor, They hid in garrets and
cellars. Affectionate daughters conveyed
food TO the father, whom the sIave-hunter,
like a bloodhound, was tracking out. The
church, poor and feeble as it was, raised
$500 TO aid their brethren in their helpless
ness and terror. The alternative before
the victims was terrible. They must either
be dragged back into slavery or abandon-
ing their families, exile themselves alone, in
poverty and friendlessness, in Canada or
selling out, at any sacrifice, all their little
concerns, trudge their weary way, with
their wives and their little ones, to the cold
North. where there was no home to receive
them, no friends to greet them, and where
perhaps starvation was to be their lot. But
any doom was preferable to the doom of
slavery.
Nearly all these persons, whose only
crime is that they love liberty, have fed
from the stars and the stripes of our free
republic, to find protection beneath the
banner of monarchical England. Some
escaped in vessels 10 Nova Scotia and New
Brunswick. Some have toiled along on
foot through The drifting SHOWS to Canada.
Some selling their litIle all, and aided by
the contribution Of their Christian friends,
have taken the rail cars with their children,
aud escaped to the free sol of Queen VIC
toria. Some yet remain. They hope that
the opposition which has been manifested
towards the law. that The warm denuncia-
ton which it has encountered from SO MANY
generous hearts, may dissuade the slave
hunter from attempting to modest them.
b 1t they live in constant terror-Eyerv
now and hen there is a rumor, that their
dreaded foe has been seen prowlins anout
their dwellings, looking with evil eve upon
their children, The announcement sends
the blood rushing back upon their ~fain,ino
hearts.
No pen can describe the suffariincs
which hive been aud still are endured
They feel thu in the darkest night of des.
potlsm, a m IRE tyrannlcal edict never crnsL.
ed human hearts. Those who have escanad
INTO Siberian exile, htve encountered a fate
as deploreable as that of those who
are LETT behind. The friends thew love
nad whose sympathles they prize. thew have
lost forever. The church where ,hey lnveJ
to meet, to sing and to pray, 6ndln, soIsee
Tor the woes of life in the anticipation OF i'm.
mortaI blessedness, they can never enter
m re. Those warm homes where thew
that social companionsbip which
The atfectloaate race love so we'll. thew have
exchanged for loneliness, poverty and snE.
sur
Is not a law, of which this is not its ex-
rated but natural operation, a disgrace
! , the age, and t"nfold disgrace TO the conn.
Try which t~olerates it 2 Is it not expecting
too mnch, even e fallen human nature. 10