Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1857-03-14
Communications.
TO MIR. COWLEs.

In your first letter, you say, the languago,-"Ee
person held to service or labor, in one State, under
the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall by
any law therein, be discharged from such service
OF labor, but shall DO delivered up on claim Of the
party to whom such service or'lsbor! may be due;
in plain English means, that no Legislature of any
State shall pass any law to protect the liberty Of q
runaway slave"
In my answer, | endeavored,, to give argument
to show. LIST. that ''person" does not mean slave in
plain English" and that 'serrice or labor" re-
lates to free persons; that "serri!ude" was objected
to on the ground that it was thought to DO Of doubt.
full meaning.
End, That the clause in question, no where men
tions, or speaks of a possibility Of q claim" Of .
master upon a slave, for service or labor"
rs "due' from the one to tho other, either 10 the
past. present, or future. That it in no place speaks
Of either master or slave.
Sd, That the words Service or labo-." do not -
much as hint at the idea Of slavery :-thatin order
to owe, one must be free.
4th, That the slave the world over, is incapable
of owning, because he il himself = ehattel.-
Hence the Art. can't refer to him.
5th, That the Art. affords no ground for making
the colored man q slave, and the white man not
that it affords no claim for making him in any way
different from ourselves-that it does not 20 much,
MS mention his name in English at all ,f)
9th, That Art. /, SEQ. 2, plainly denies that
those described in the above Art. were slavss;
it makes them free, for it declares that those
bound 10 serrice" are free persons.
It'll, l endeavored to show that what was said Of
this clause was true of the Constitution through.
out; and that if the Constitution had. in ''pldin Eng.
fish" in one clause, authorized slavery. according
to all known and established rules. its other pro.
visions would destroy this authority.
9th, l tried to show, or point to evidence. show.
ing that independent Of the innocence of its Ian.
guage, this Art. eau not be made to moan slavery.
unless by reversing the obvious principle that the
greater INCLUDES the less" and holding thai. the
less includes the greatcr-tbat the innocent ia
cludes the criminal-that a vindicstion of the
right includes a sanction of what is wrong.
Now, in all this. it certainly WAS not the least
part Of my purpose to show, that, in the debates in
the Federal Conventions, persons might not. nor
did not 'use the word slave 270 times" ! have
not deemed it necessary to bind myself over 10 the
task Of counting them. 1t is enough for me that
| find the word carefully avoided in tho document.
or any thing of doubtful meaning, for the very
good reason above named.
i had not the least desire to deny, that o fugt
tive slave law was passed in 1913 by those in author
Iity- that Washington signed that bill-that one
was uassed in 1850, and signed by Mr.. Eilimore-
that no State has passed a law to protect o fugf
tive slave--that the constitution is generally in'sr-
J proted 10 be proslavery-tbat tho executive sed 10
dietary baye SO sworn TO support it--tha! the AM