St. Cloud Democrat. [volume] (Saint Cloud, Stearns County, Minn.) 1858-1866, 1860-08-09
can agree. believe we shall both i,o1uar concur

who come with Southern sentiments to
reside among us. Neither does it lay us
under any obligation to become obsequious
to them.
3. When Northern citizens spend their
winters at the South, for their health or
PLEASURE Southern society is laid under
no special obligation to them; neither is
Northern society laid under obh cation when
Southern citizens spend their summers at
the North ..'','''-; .,
4: Freedom is, at least, as good as sla-
ue7y, and, in the free State of Minnesota,
should be guarded as vigilantly.
5. The rights of those whom the law
makes free, are as sacred in Minnesota as
the illegal claims of shareholders.
6. IF Northern citizens endure quietly
the exhibition in their midst of system
that is repugnant to all their ideas Of right
and decency, it is all that should be re-
quired: Of them. They should not be
asked to share in its guilt, or to aid in the
illegal capture and enslayement of hu-
man being. ....
Z. The rights of weak and oppressed
class should be watched and protected as
diligently as the rights Of the opulent and
powerful. ~ .. -. ..
8. There is nothing manly or honorable
in taking advantage Of the ignorant, or in
trampling on the weak.
In the light of these axioms let us look
at the case in hand.
By the laws of our State and nation, as
well as by the ruling Of our highest courts,
a slave brought by his master or mistress,
or coming with his masters or mistress
consent into free State, by that simple
act, becomes free. This I understand to
be the condition of the young man in ques-
ton. In the eye of the law, that man,
when brought, by his mistress, within the
limits of our State, became as free as his
mistress, and entitled to the same protec-
ton from our laws. Did the fact that he
was a poor colored man make him less de-
serving of our sympathy and protection ?
BY what rule of ethics, by what code of
morals, shall this man be required to lay
down the priceless boon of his freedom at
the feet of mistress who, by her own act,
has relenquished all legal claim to it and
who never did have any moral claim to
relenquish. ,. .. .'''~- :: !;
The man, being free, had the good sense
to avail himself Of his freedom, and qul-
city walked off. An effort is made to re-
enslave him j.; but it is now the kidnapping
and enslaving Of a free n,an: 1t is de-
grading the soil of Minnesota to level
with the juDgles Of Africa, where human
beings arc hunted and captured, to BIZ sold
in the market. When this thing is done
on the coast of Africa, it is declared, by
the voice of all Christendom, to be i,iira-
cy. Is it less than piracy because it is
done in Minnesota? And are those, who
commit the crime here, any less piratical
than if it we're done on the coast Of Africa?
You claim to be a law-abiding citizen.
So high indeed is your professed reverence
for law, that you weuld have it enforced
with exactness and rigor, even when It de-
prives fellow creature of all he holds
dear on earth. Yes, even when it takes
from persons as white as you or I, their
earning ngs-their liberty-their husbands,
wives and children. Will you not hold
law as equally sacred and binding, when
it restores all these? Will you not labor
as hard to protect the legal hts of men,
as for their illegal enslavement? Is not
liberty worth as much as slavery? and is
it not as deserving bold advocacy in the
free State of Minnesota
But you suspect that some one enticed
this man to leave his mistress and to claim
the freedom to which the law entities him.
Whether this be true or false T have no
means Of knowing; but, if true, what
does it prove? Simply this: that there
are some persons in St. Paul, either black
or white, who have so much humanity
that they are unwilling to see fellow-bcing
deprived Of all his rights because he hap
pens to be ignorant of them. If untrue,
it simply proves that there are no such
humane persons in St. Paul, or that the
facts did not come to their knowledge
But neither the one nor the other affects
at all the question Of this mans rights.
The question for us to consider is whether
constitutional liberty, and the rights Of
man, as man, shall be maintained in Min
nesota, or whether, in our extreme solici-
tude for the rights of Shareholders; we
shall forget that free mem have any rights
to be maintained, ,,a-J go.,:rt@,5r .<j1
But, perhaps, this anxiety tor the slave
holder is not all disinterested affection.
Tremember that the money, that might
be- made out Of them, was prominent
theme of discussion last winter, when the
effort was made: to change Minnesota into
slave State, for the accommodation Of
our Southern neighbors. "o1- y o'S, 81