Holmes County Republican. [volume] (Millersburg, Holmes County, Ohio) 1856-1865, 1861-12-19

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torney, win be believed By any who know
me. What l did do, l thought then, and
still think was fully right. For the ehas-
tisement inflicted on these slave-catchers,
was not on trial. That belonged to the
jurisdiction of another court. i am couyic-
ted of"obstructing process in the hands
ofa o. S. Deputy Marshal in his attempt
to capture and return to bondage fugitive
slave. The act was toward judicial kid
napper, armed with the authority of a
wicked and diabolical statute. BY the
law oflhe Almighty, the STAKEHOLDER was
capitally punished. The law given amid
the lightnings of Sinai was, "He that steal
eth man, and selleth him, or if he be
found in his hand, shall surely be put to
DEATH" Three forms of crime are named !:
kidnapping, slavetrading and slaveholding.
In other capital offenses the sentence was,
be shall debut in this, he shall surely
be put to death.
All slavery begins with some form of
man-stealing, and retains its essential ele-
ment in its forms of descent or transmits
sion. Men can reither buy nor inherit a
better title than the pretended owner has
to sell or bequeath. A hundred sales of
a stolen horse don't make the title good;
nor can that of stolen man be better
Then can marshal, or deputy, acting for
a Shareholder to reclaim a stolen man, be
less guilty? Is he not by the same law
an official kiduspperl If God required
the parent transgressor to be put to death,
is it sinful, and crime to give his proxy
a few stripes? Was it not merited by
these men, when they were trying their ut
most to drag back their victim to perhaps
two hundred lashes and e-long bondage?
Job was declared by his maker to be "a
perfect and upright man, one who feared
God and eschewed evil"-the best on earth
in bis day. Yet the good man says, "tbe
cause that knew not searched out, aud
brake the jaws of the wicked, and pluck
ed the spoil out of his teeth" Did we
do anything more severe?
Again BY the Psalmist, God says .deliv-
er the poor and needy, rid them out of the
hands Of the wicked" And again he says,
"taou shalt not return to his master the
servant that is escaped from his master
unto thee" To the same purport is all
that class of texts by which we are COM
manded "to feed tie hungry, cloth the na-
ked, hide the outcast, betray not him that |
VANDERBILT" Now, by all these, and un-
texts not quoted, what the fugi-
tive slave enactment requires is express
ly forbidden, and is therefore null and
without moral force.
And again, by the best law authority,
i has no legal force. From Blackstone,
who declares that 'sall laws derive their
force from the laws of nature, and those |
which do not are accounted no laws" to |
the noble New England judge, who refused
to give up the fugitive to his claimant, un-
til he would bring "a bill of sale from the
Almighty HIMSELF" the best authorities
speak one language. What force then
has the fugitive enactmentg Simply the
force of muscle, handouts, bowie knives
and pistols, used in its execution. Com
pliance with such statue is crime. "We
must obey God rather than man."
Civil government, with its legitimate
powers, (only) is of God. He exercises it
through the people. Their voice is in the
Dry, and should be in fact the voice Of
God. Hence every enactment that con-
.radicts the Divine will, is without either
moral or legal authority, a,.d can only be
carried out BY bruteforce. All constitutions
ever made, and all the oaths ever admins
ered, can give it no higher authority
Can anything be palmer than this ? or any
hing more absurd than its oppositea-.
Has not Jehovah right to govern the
world he made, and the people be placed
IN it? Ought he not do it? Is it not
lis dutya Can He confer on men right
o violate at pleasure HIS own law9 Does
He give any legislation or judicial body
power to absolve the individual from obe-
Hence to His will, and make it his duty to
observe their enactmentss Will He
DOW to acts of wickedness because the ma
ority decree them? If SO, the prophets
we're fools-the apostles nalliiers, and
christian martyrs nadmen. Ifso, Chris
ianity in its first principles is treason, and
ehovah's claim to rule the world intensi-
led presumption! The truth is, that all
his ridicule of the "higher law" by drivel-
ing politicians and knayish hunkers, is
heer bold atheism. 1t makes majorities
,r,nipotent, and sinks the Maker into
lothing.
But whilst claim to have acted in coE-
ormity with the will of God, utterly
leny that l violated, either the letter or
pirit of single article of the Constitu-
ion. That it don't name slave all agree.
That its trainers kept out deliberately ev-
Try word or phrase that might express the
ondition of slave, is matter of history.
1t speaks Of '.person owing service
'ut slave is not "persou" in the Ian
,uage Of (so-called) Southern laws, but
or thing. Neither can be well
I'VE much to the man who has robbed |
lin Of his lifelong wages. 1t speaks, OF
eturning persons to those 10 whom labor
$ due,' but nothing was due the slave ,
lolder by the laws OF Israel's God, except
he labor it took to stone him to death,
md nothing is now due, five-slxths, per-
ANS nineteen. twentie,hs, of the slavehold- {
rs Of this land, oven in public opinion, ex- c
ent The amount of shot or shell required S
o kin or capture them. ] therefore stand a
efors you clear Of any violation Of the
or constitutional law. Ifthe b
eople don't believe this now, they soon G