Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1854-07-22
When will the bondman thus independently labor
and receive its full reward?
Yours to hasten that period,
MR.. SUMMERS REPLY TO SENATOR
BUTLER.

"What! is thy servant a dog, that he should do
this thing?"
The cxtrayagant encomiums bestowed by a por-
ton Of the press, upon the employment by Mr..
Sumner Of this language, as an answer to the
question of Mr.. Butler, seem II little remarkable,
and especially when We remember the whole his
tory of the individual to whom its original use is
attributed.
llazacl, we are told, was prcmonished of the
very crimes which he afterwards committed, and
this was his reply. Its use, under the circum-
stances, by the LEANED Senator from Massachu-
sets, presents to the honest mind the appearance
of II mere evasion. And yet it possessed an ape
ness, viewed in the light cast upon it by the story
of its ancient uttcrance, which Mr.. Sumner and
his admirers do not appear to have perceived, and
and have no great reason to be flattered by. lie
and they have never assumed the position that,
Constitution or no Constitution, law or no law, the
fugitive slave shall never be taken back from Mas.
sachusetts, or elsewhere. Mr.. Sumner is one of
the acknowledged leaders of the Free Soil party.
and the objection which he, with it makes, is not to
the thing to be done, but to the mode by which il
is proposed to do it.
Against the ccnstitutionality of the fugitive
s!avc law, he has spoken brave words, but he dare
not impungn the Constitution itself. In conde-
s%ccnding to argue the question upon the grounds
he does, he fully admits the rightfulncss of the
slaves rendition, whenever it shall be done in &C.
cordancc with that instrument, and thus makes the
right to liberty forever contingent upon the con.
struction which may be put upon n parchment.
And this practical admission of the very thing he
refuses to acknowledge in words, it is, which gives
to his reply its truly appropriate character. Like
llazacl, whilst disclaiming in language the posi-.
bility Of the act, he does Il, in his adherence to a
Constitution which renders u different course and
loyalty to it, incompatible.
When the question was distinctly asked by the
Senator from South Carolina, "if Congress re.
pcalcd the fugitive slave law, will Massachusetts,
execute the constitutional requirement, and send
back to the South the absco ndins slavc?" wky
was 1t there was not returned back a prompt, en-
phatic, ~cxultant MOP" Mr.. Sumner well knows
that this is the answer that would leap, with spon.
taneous fcrvor, from heart to lip, of every inhab.
liant OF Massachusetts,, who has even an apology
for a heart, if it were not for the provisions of a
Constitution which the people of that Common
'N"'NH AS'S'S "pO'S lC requirements ii JUSTICE,
and the obligations of Humanity. lie does not,
therefore, pronounce the "No!" for he felt that it
would be a lie and therefore the true point of the
question was cvaded by this answer. Then, and
there, if any where, and ever, was the time the
place to have shown that the Constitution enioins
no such duty in Massachusetts, if that is Mr..
Summers belief. Evading this point, too, he can
only lie understood as admitting the correctness of
Mr.. Buffers position, that his was the true con-
struction of the Constitution.
Fellow citizens, tho love of political power, of
of sect, of gain, of personal case, and domination,
docs much to uphold the slave system but at this
time, is there no reason to believe that slavish ven.
Grafton for the Constitution of the United States
does more than all other causes combined, to sus.
tain the oppressor in his vile position?
A. BROOKE.
Marlboro ,Iulv 10Th