Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1855-10-11
IMPORTANT SOUTHERN ADMISSION,

If there is any shame left in the old Hunker
Wing and Democratic leaders of the Webster
and Pierce school, who have staked their rep
utation as lawyers, jurists and statesmen, on
the defence of the Fugitive Slave Law as Con-
stitutional act and one, consequently, which it
Is the duty of all good citizens to obey, we should
think they would blush now, if not for their
own hypocrisy and demagogueism, at least for
their names as American civilians and expound-
ers of the Constitution, when they zee the very
South, whom they disgraeed themselves to
please, by their false interpretations. frankly
admitting, through shcir leading journals, this
same Fugitive Slave Law to have been wholly
unauthorized by the Constitution. That the in
selligent men of the South now admit the I'M
constitutionalty of the Fugitive Slave Law, no
one, who reads the leading Soutlern journals,
which make any pretensions to the discussion of
constitutional principles, can honestly doubt or
deny. We have, time and again, seen this ad
mission made by The most influential journalists,
and lsw-learned pens, in the different sections of
9Q6 9OubUy uuu uoNC AOoAOus III vain, w poo sboeo
admissions rebuked or oontradcted. Indeed,
We do not remember ever to have seen, in the
whole South, anything like systematic attempt
to defend the Fugitive Slave Law on strictly
constitutional principles, the defence of that act
almost invariably being placed on Southern par
tisan grounds, on the ground ofSouthern rights
Of holding slaves or on Judge Sharkey's law of
necessity, to which all other law and Constitu-
ton is to be subservient, for the preservation of
slave property. .
We repeat, therefore, that the unconsttution-
ality of tine Fugitive Slave Law stands admitted
BY the intelligence of the South. We repeat,
that we have often seen the admission directly
made by those whom they ackno Wedge their
best authorities but for the want of time and
space to collect them in the brief space we pro-
posed to occupy with the subject, we must con-
tent ourself with presenting the one which hos
suggested these remarks-an editorial article
that has recently appeared in the Charleston
South Carolina, Mercury, one of the very ablest
and most influential of all the Southern Jour-
mails. The editor of that paper in discussing the
recent strong Anti Slavery position of the State
Of Massachusetts,, says:
:Of the action of Massachusetts in abroga.
ton Of the Fugitive Slave Law, we have no
complaint to make. 1t was from the first,
miserable illusion, and worse, in fact for it ,cas
an infringement on one Of the most cherished
R'1nsp'e: o. me Constifution. which provides
that tugitives from labor upon demand shall
be delivered up, but giues no power TO Com
gress 10 act in the affair. The tenth amendment
of the Constitutio provides that the powers
not delegated to the United States are reserved
to the States or the people, The clause above
confsrs no power, but is the naked declaration
of right, and the power, not being conferred,
results to the States, as one of the incidents of
sovereignty too dear to be trusted to the general
government"
Here the writer, in this brief extract, which
is followed with still further acknowledgement
Of the policy Of the South, in going in for tri,
umphs over the North at the expense of princi-
pie, not only clearly makes the admission which
We contended the South generally have made
among themselves, but embodies one of the best
and most incontrovertible arguments which we
have ever seen in so short space, against the
claimed constitutionaiity of that odious enact
ment
But with what force does that argument re-
bound against its shameless authors-against the
political leaders of the South, who are daily
menacing the North with dissolution of the
Union, if the latter persist in repeating the Fu-
gitive Slave Laws Ay, they will dissolve the
Union, because law, which they admit to be
unconstitutional, is repealed! A whole volume
Of arguments could not more incontostibly show
the strength and righteousness of the founda-
ton on which the party of Freedom are build
ing, and the unprincipled weakness of that Of
the party of Slavery, than this single position in
which the South have. thus placed themselves
before the world.