The Potter journal. [volume] (Coudersport, Pa.) 1857-1872, 1858-12-16
Freedom ifa Vermont.

! Freedom iEa Vermont.
The Green Mountain State has the hon
or of being the first in the Union to leg.
islate efficiently, in opposition to the Dred
Scott decision. We hope the day Is not
distant when our own Commonwealth will
enact as good a law, and when no slave
car be held in chains on our soil.
The Committee of the Vermont Lcgis-
lature which reported this latest Personal
! Liberty Bill, accompanied the act with a
lengthy and able report, which ought to
90 into the hands Of every voter in the
free States The following extract from
this report will show our readers what
the people of Vermont think Of the Drcd
Scott decision:
" By the decision of The Supreme Court
Of the United States, citizens Of Vermont,
and of the free States, have no right,
while in an other State, to defend or pro
! tect their lives, their liberties or their
property, whenever or wherever those
rights arc invaded. They have no right
to sue the citizens of another State in de-
/ fence Of those rights. They cannot be
made party to any such suit. They are
declared ouHaacs By their own government,
with no rights which tho President, Con
cress or the Supreme Court are bound to
respect. They are declared not to be cit
liens of the United States, and why then
should :hc Union Of the States be Of val
ue 10 them?
Your Committee cannot contemplate,
without foreboding and alarm, the condi-
/ ton in which the citizens of this and of
the other free States are placed by the
decision of this Court Citizens, freemen,
who have been born in our midst, who
have resided with US their whole lives,
who have cultivated their farms and paid
their taxes for the support Of government,
happen, from inclination or business to
visit another State of the Union. The
| Constitution Of the United States secures
to every citizen, wherever he chooses to
60, within its jurisdiction, all the priyl
cges and immunities OF a citizen in the
several States. Yet in defiance of this
solemn guarantee and constitutional right,
he is thrown into prison, or, By the strong
arm Of power, reduced to slavery. Nay
more, he may be kidnapped from his fire.
side, from his home III his native State;
transported into another State, and there
branded as slave and held as such by
more physical force. What is his remedy? /?
Can he testify in Court of Justice? Can
he sue in the Courts and recover his free
dom? He makes the attempt, and the
wretch who claims him has an easy task
to perform. Iio cutters 4 simple plea to
the jurisdiction, and his work is dome
his victim is secure. No law, say these
Judges, State OF Federal, can relieve him,
and no power, save that of the Almighty,
can restore him his lost rights. Human
laws and human redemption arc powerlcSs
Thus your Committee perceive that
BY these doctrines and by these decisions
of the Federal Administration and the
Federal judiciary, if carried out to their
legitimate conclusions, Vermont is power
less, and every free State is powerless, in
defence of their own citizens. Their State
sovereignty is gone. They are mere sat
elites, feeby revolving round great cen
tral power, One consolidated government,
and one only exists, at the head of which
stand the President and the Supreme.
Court. Like the upper and the neither
milestone, these two powers are ceaselcsSly
at work, crushing the rights and liberties
of the masses as we'll as of the States.
"But these States, and the millions Of
people who inhabit them, will not always
tamely acquiesce in these unconstitution-
al cncroachments on their rights. The
numerical strength aud the moral power
are with them, and if united, as are the
people of the South on all questions af-
fecting their interests, the time is not dis
tant when the Constitution shall be res
cucd from the hands of the destroyer, and
the States and people restored to their
lost rights-when freedom shall again be
the rule and slavery the exception. Even
now the indications are strong that sub
mission has ceased to be virtue"
i
THE AMERICAN PHYSIOLOGICAL JOUR-
r. q 4 M