Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1855-03-31

my views, as | supposed them understood by all
who read my speeches; and to reach that position,
Ihdre, on some occasions, proposed, as the first stem,
TO discard The compromise IF 1850 By a totar repeal Of
The JNgit're Stare lao. and, If necessary TO attain
that at This time, I teould rcinstate the act of 1893,
MS a temporary compromise, until public opinion
should come up to the main point of a total separa-
ton of our Federal Government from all support
of slavery"
You say you were not uttering your own views
on the floor of Congress, but the popular sentiment
OF the North. lam glad to hear it, sir, for It in
dictates progress since last A~ugust-when you were
willing to 'reinstate' this useless, imperative,
and void" law. May the whole Northern people
speedily advance far beyond your present position,
and resolve to tolerate no law which shall at all
circumscribe their freest action in behalf of the
bound or escaping slave.
You say you spoke in the language of Challenge
of Defiance" when you said to Southerners, " If
you can catch your slaves when they get into
our Northern States, do it,"
admit your right to challenge the stakeholder
to SO unequal n contest with yourself if so you
choose to do. But l deny your right, under the
fearful disadvantages, to make it for the escaped
slave. With the Constitution and The law of 'Q3
against him-vith the popular sentiment, which
you think approves that law, against him, after
binding yourself and every man and;woman in the
nation to abstain from s%ecreting, from aiding, and
from rescuing him,-then to tell the stakeholder "if
he can take him, to do it," seems to me a very
questionable species of bravado. Under these
very circumstances, Shareholders hare come into
our States and taken their victims back, and SO
would they do again; and it seems to me your
position is one not free from responsibility for the
melancholy event.
With regard to the case of the fugitive slave, l
do not see that your explanation at all helps the
matter. You informed him, ~ cannot defend
you" He came to you, as a lawyer, for advice.
You gave it to him. What was that advice? Why,
that " he should defend his own manhood while he
could WELD a weapon" As an ant-slarery laryer,
that was the only advice you could give him. That
advice, given as a lawyer, was n confession on your
part that he vas an outlaw,-that your Constitu-
ton ~wickedly made him such,-that his only hope
was in cunning and brute force,--and, from your
closing remarks, one not acquainted with other
declarations of yours, would infer that you deemed
this nearly sufficient for such as he for you tell us
that if the friends of liberty would give similar
advice, and arm the slaves, 'few, very few, would
be taken back to bondage"
Sir, l claim cons titutional and legal protection
for the fugitive. Not such as the law of '93 aE
fords him, but such as shall enable him to cast
aside his bovie-knife and revolvcr,-such as shall
preclude the necessity of the murderous advice
you gave the man, and permit him, in accordance
with the higher law, to sit down among us where
it liketh him be.t,"-to sit quietly under hi. own
vine and fg-tree, with mono to modest or make him
afraid" l doubt not that your "moral feelings"
respond with cordial approval to this claim. But
the unfortunate distinction which you have set up
between yourself, the moral man, the friend of
justice and liberty, and yourself, the legislator,
sworn to discharge your constitutional obligations,
has led you and others into a maze of inconsistency
and contradiction, and holds you in a position sad
ly antagoni,tic to freedom.
You say l assail you for putting him, Tho mani
in tho way to effect his own emancipation. Not
so. / did not complain of you that you advised
the man to defend himself. But l assaulted your
position of allegiance to a constitution and obedi,
ance to a law, which gave no protection to the slave
and disarmed you for his defence. Submission to
such a constitution / must contend is neither self
respectful nor manly. Ard when you shall stand
in the presence of a human brother claimed as q
r slave, who shall need your aid, as you say this or
did ot,the better impulses of your nature will I'M
press you with the truth now unwelcomcly uttered
You say 'ir you and all The friends OF humanity
would arm the fugitives and encourage them to de
fend themselves, l think few, very few would be
carried back to bondage"
Permit me to reply to this, by saying that
think that if you and all the friends of freedom
would unite to repudiate the law Of '93 as well a.
that of 1850. If you would repudiate a pro-sla
very constitution. IF you would dissolve tina
Union which requires the rendition of the fugitive
and enforces silence and non-intcrfcrence with thu
Interstate slave trade and with slavery itself will
all its comprehensive enormities in the States, anC
then unite to establish q union for liberty, ant
|, adopt a Constitution which should protect the right
of all, without throwing the responsibility npor
individuals, and making their liberty to depend
, upon their successful use of bowie-knives and re
, v~olvers,-then NONE rould be carried back to bon
dage, and our soil would be everywhere unpolluteC
by the tread of the rufian man-hunter, and un
stained by the blood of his victim.
ANrI-SLAvERY SALE IN BosroN-The manager
of the Boston Anti-Slavery Bazaar, have since tn
close of their successful annual sale, received larg
? collections of choice and elegant articles from
G.o.k Detail, TIoo ort;claD Aolaua IL