The Ohio star. [volume] (Ravenna, Ohio) 1830-1854, 1852-10-04

o United States.
he was set adrift and left to find his way back as
he could. y
OF the first eight persons doomed to slavery un-
der this law, four were free men. a,-
When this dreadful law was first broached it
was SAID that we might rely upon the intelligence
and integrity of the Southern courts to send into
the land OF freedom no certificates that would doom
men to bondage unless founded upon competent
and undoubted testimony But in the case of Dan
iel, who was tried before Mr. Commissioner Smith,
Buffalo, the claimant never carried single wit
before the that made the record of slave
ry and of escape The Southern court made the
record on afdavits only, and then gave the claim
ant certified copy of it, without seeing
hearing witness in the These affidavits
were given by nobody knows whom, and sworn to
by nobody knows whom-perhaps not sworn to at
ALL but forged for the occasion; yet on sight of
them the commissioner pronounced Daniel to be a
slave; 1t afterwards turned out on hearing be-
lore Judge Conkling of the U. States court, that
.nere never had been partice scintilla of ev
ldence before the commissioner on which his ten
dollar certificate of slavery was founded
In another case, in Philadelphia, Commissioner
lngraham decided some point directly against law
and authority; and when decision of Judge of
the United States court was produced against him,
ne coolly said, he differed from the Judge, made
out the certificate, pocketed the ten dollars and
sent human being into bondage. There could be
no appeal from this iniquity, for the law allows
none
In another case, before Mr. Commissioner Hal
icIt OI DOSIOn, WueIe WHlte perSOHS were e4diI-
ined, on charge of rescuing an alleged slave, he
admitted this foreign evidence of State court,
taken in secret against the natve-horn citizens of
free State.
And yet, with all these abominations on the face
of the law, and after this long train of outrages in
its administration, the Baltimore Wing resolutions,
which, Perhaps the less iniquitous of the two,
declare that the law shall not be modified, unless
&c time and experience" shall demonstrate
abuse of its powers. How low down must these
ff,f do call hat h,e ,lr 1x-
happened abuse!
A story is current respecting the origin of this
law, for whose authenticity l cannot personally
vouch but it certainly carries verisimitude its
face The bill is said to have been concocted by
Southern disunionist, anxious for some pretext to
break up the Republic, and who therefore prepared
a bill unconstitutional, abominable and fend-
ish, that, he believed, the recklessness of
Northern servility must spurn it. He would
then make its rejection his war cry for disunion.
But, alas he had not fathomed the baseness of
Northern politicians What Southern 'sfre-eater''
| thought too unrighteous for any human being to
| touch, the Northern aspirants for the Presidency
adopted I" with alacrity,' and rolled as a sweet
morsel under their tongues. Now, both Whig and
Democratic Conventions re-afhrm the law, and at
tribute to it a sacredness and permanency
known to the Constitution itself.
Sir, when / survey, after another, the horrid
features of this aw-its papable violation both of
the letter and the spirit of the Constitution; its
contempt and defiance of that great organic law.
the Declaration of Independence, and of the whole
spirit and acts and lives of revolutionary faith
ers its repugnance to all the noblest Inaxims and
principles of the British Constitution consecrated
| and hallowed these have been from are to aoe
by patriots struggles and martyrs blood its fab
rication of such code of evidence as was never
before placed on the statute-book of any civilized
nation its provisions for deciding concusircv the
question of mans liberty, in what is to him a
foreign State, and before what is to him FOREIGN
tribunal, without the possibility of his appearing
| there to confront witnesses, or of knowing
what the conspirators against him are doing: its
| peremptory orders to seize man and the unspeak
| ably precious question of his freedom and self
| ownership, g in summary manner" when even
robbers, pirates and murderers, must have notice of
their accusation, adequate time to prepare for de-
fence and counsel for assistance; its bribino mar
istlates to decide against liberty and in favor of
slavery, and its creation of set of officers some
of whom have so decided to prove themselves
capable of accepting bribe !; its execution of the
dreadful sentence without appeal or writ of error
its reputation of the statute of limitations (tbe
policy Of which is recognized by all civilized ma
tions not only In of debt but in regard to the
4 title of real estate, and even in regard tn crimes
| SO that a master who has abandoned his sI.va g..
forty years can come and pluck him from wife and
| children, from home, property, and friends and
when, further, see the practical workings Of this
lawiLnee nertnern citizens carried into bondage;
southern professors In the art of kidnappino cbas
ing the shrieking fugitive from all his hidinS nlaces
and his affairs; monster fathers pursuing the chill
dren OF their own loins lately happened in New
YORK, to sell them into slavery; the virtuous wo-
man hunted by the lecher, from whose ,yb;ns -
scourging she has fled, to avoid his guilty erhrsre
thousands of laborious and peaceabIe citizens
| amongst us, surrounded by selfearned comfort and
competence, fleeing from all the endearno ral,t,n.
OF klnoreo ana neighboraood, out of republic
into monarchy, to regain the lost birth-r;qht of
freedom-thus re-enactng the scenes of the Hu
guenot flight under Charles TX and. as the crozn-
ing cruelty of the whole, an entire race of free
people, OF innocent people, of people whose ances-
tors fought and fell in the battles of the ReyoIr
ton, and who have as much right not marelv ~
security and protection, but to the feeling of secu
nty and protection, under our Government. as Won
or when see these people, filled with conster-
nation and dlsnay for themselves and for their
children, tremble when they look around them
upon the earth, lest some tiger in human shane
should spring from his ambush and seize them and
plunge them into saverys hell and trembIing
when they look upward into the sky, because God
seems to have forsaken them sir, when con-
template all these things, am compelled though
against the common faith, to acknowledge evidence
of supernatural inspiration in the hearts of mon
But it is internal and diabolical inspiration 1bos
evidence recognise. Sir this fugitive slave law
was not made by man alone; for unaided total da
pravty is not equal to all its atrocities. place tb.
law and the Baltimore edicts side bv s;deWtbo
command and the prohibition together You
shall chase the fugitive, but you shall not SNEAK
As in the days of the early Christians or Ike m.
Pilgrim Fathers, in the times of the non conform
lists, we may hold meetings only in dens or
caves, in the most secret recesses of our dyv.I
ings, with doors locked and guarded Once the
bloodhounds were muzzled now the bloodhounds
are let loose and freemen are muzzled
THE BALTIMORE RESOLUTIONS
Sir, when any humane and intelligent man re-
fleets upon the attributes of this law and then
turns to the fat of the Baltimore Conventions
that it shall not be agtated discussed he cannot
but tremble with an agony of indignation and con-
tempt. These resolves are SO subversive not onlv
of all divine but of all human government thew
are SO audacious and yet so impotent; they assume
so imperial an air, while yet they are more imbe-
cile than an idiots gbbersh, that the great poet
of our language, whose mind supplies Redundant
images for all things vile and mean, has but one
passage that befits the vileness of the law. To
borrow his words, these Baltimore resolutions are
brth-stIangled babe,
| Dtch-deliveredb by drab."
Justice and gratitude, however demand that
should say, that there were sixty-seven members
of the Wing Convention who stood out brayely
and to the last against the attempted abolition of
6 the freedom of speech. In the Democratic Con-
vention there seems to have been scarcely whis-
per of dissent.
,, Sir, cannot but acknowledge that the events