Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1853-04-02

blasted with the swiltest lightning how swift
ought the lightning to be for one. who, by his
vote, asks his friend TO take 1t, or for one who
offers to take himselfi My moral optics are
not, confess, sharp enough to see much diff
terence. Mr.. Mann will please Observe that
have not been speaking of the Fugitive Slave
Act, whose constitutionality he and should
deny, but of the constitutional siare clause
Itself; and my whole argument refers to that.
1t is evident that allowing, as Mr.. Mann does,
that there is fugitive slave clause in the Con-
stitution, it must be executed by somebody, in
some form or other. II by the Union, then, in
voting for Hale, Mr. Mann asked his friend to
be, in fact, Chief of United States Marshas
and foul Fugitive Slave Law Commissioner
But If that duty belongs to the States, then, in
offering to become a State Governor, he offered
himself to become, virtually, Marshal or Com
missioner for this purpose.
Of his own oath as a Member of the House of
Representatives, Mr.. Mann says he considers il
special and not GENERAL; referring only to the
duties of that Office. To this well-known dis
tinction, do not wholly assent but cheerful
ly accept it for the purpose of the present ar
gumont. If, for the last two years, Mr.. Mann
has voted for the usual bills approprating mon
ey Tor the expenses Of government, no has vot-
cd to pay Marshall Dcvens for carrying Thomas
Sims from Boston back to Georgia, and to pay
the salaries of Peleg Spraguo and B. X. Curtis,
who tried Elizur Wright and other alleged res
cucrs of Shadrach. If ho has ever voted for
an appropriation bill, during his whole Con-
gresssional life, he has voted to pay the salary
of one Judge McLane. Western miscrcant,
who is rarely heard of except as sending back
some hapless fugitive, or fning, into absolute
poverty, some Christian who has helped the
wanderer. Whether it is more honorable to
return slaves ones self, or to pay another man
for doing it, Mr.. Mann can decide at his leisure
The old saw, Qui tdet per alum, taea per SC, l
hold to be good logic and good Latin-though
as to the last, having Webster's fate before my
eyes, will assert nothing just now. If Mr..
Mann shall allege that he has never once voted
for an appropriation bill, then he has broken
his oath for he has failed to do that which the
Constitution and cannon honesty required him
to do namely, pay the salaries of men, who,
according to the Supreme Court, the establish
ed final interpreter of their constitutional duty
Mr.. Mann can choose either horn Of the dilem-
ma he prefers.
had affirmed, that an oath to the people of
the United States was binding in that sense in
which he who took it knew, at the time, that
the people understood him to offer it. This
familiar principle is sanctioned by every NOR
alst, from half Christian Cicero down to half.
prgan Wayland. Mr.. Mann denies i'll lie
asserts that an 'oath makes God party to the
transaction, it 10 binding in that sense in which
he knows the party took it.! This is virtually
the Jesuits' rule, that promises are binding,
not as the parties understood them, but as the
promisor secretly intended. That is, a man
may swear one thing and mean another, and
God justifes himl do not so hold; neither
will Mr., Mann, when he thinks of it second
time.
Mr.. Mann next says that his guides to duty
are his conscience and his Maker Had he
been holding discussion with Brownson, the
remark would perhaps have been pertinent,
though somewhat trite Nobody this side Of
Rome ever denied the proposition certainly,
never did. If he will read my letter more
carefully, which beg him in future to do,-
he will see that never asked him what his
guides to duty were, did ask him how he
rcconciled himself to his anti.slavcry princ.
pies, in swearing support to a Constitution
which he allowed to be pro-slavery, l must
say, do not think have yet succeeded in OBJ
tanning much of an answer.
The Constitution take to be list of prin-
cipes, conditions and agreements. Whoever,
on reading, assonts to them, and can honestly
promise to put them into execution, is quaif-
cd to take Office under it. The Government is
whole, initial its parts intimately con-
nected. One can hardly take the humblest
Office in it, without becoming partaker in the
responsibility of every other. The Supreme
Court is established as the final interpreter of
the Constitution; and every man who swears
to support and execute it,swears to do SO in the
sense which that Court has declared to be the
true and legal sensce of the instrument. THIS
doctrine Webster engraved OH the political
tombstone of Hayne and Notification. When,
Mr.. Mann is ready to throw himselfright across
that path,' and dispute it, shall be happy to
listen to him, if have time. Meanwhile, he
asks, confusedly what one shall do if the Su-
preme Court changes its decision, or what in
case the people and the Court differ I will not
show such dsrespect to his character as a law
yer as to suppose that he really thinks these
questions deserve an answer.
maintained that Mr.. Mann's oath or prom
Use was made to the nation, and binding on
him in the sense in which he knew the nation
understood it," To this he answers that How
ell Cobb and Linn Boyd understood perfectly