The Cass County Republican. [volume] (Dowagiac, Mich.) 18??-1880, 1861-04-25
A Republican Marshal Playing the
Slave Hunter.

of Jones received the appointment OF
Marshal in Illinois, from Mr. Lincoln.
Hardly bad he become warm in his
Office when he came across a hand
bill offering reward of $400 for the
arrest and return to their master of
family of FIVE slaves, father, mother
and three children. Either the hope
of winning this glittering prize, or an
innate love for the brave, manly, and
digni6ed amusement of slave hunting,
aroused all the energies of this Repub-
lican office-holder into full play, and
he promptly prepared to ran dozen
this most favorite game of your regular
man-hunters.
Welearn from the Chicago Tribune,
Of Saturday, which has terrific attack
upon the two-legged blood hound, that
he entered upon the chase with zest
and keenness that would have done
credit to the trained four-legged
hounds of the South. HIS first step
was to bribe negro by the name of
Hayes to hunt up and betray into his
hands, or those of his minions, his in
tended victims. This infamous tool of
an equally infamous employer, succeed
ed in finding the residence of the
"game," and insisted upon remaining
at the house all ght, at the request
of the Marshal. Early in the morning
that individual, being too cowardly to
face the father of the family he was so
anxious to return to bondage, and
received the price Of blood, sent his
deputies, graceless ruffians, to the
house, and the door was at once open
ed by the spy Hayes, and they pounc-
ed in upon the victims.
The Tribune states that" the brut-.
alities that were inflicted upon the
family, dragged, bound and gagged
and half naked down stairs, the oaths
and curses and show of revolvers
with which the tools of Marshal Jones
did his bidding, and the shocking
features of capture that would have
become Dahomey, We would we could
forget that they occurred in a Chris
tian city, and that they were done at the
bidding Of Republican office-holder.
But the mournful fact remains, and
while honest men and humane men
look sadly at one another, and ask if
these things are so, and are long to
disgrace our civilization, men whom a
change of place would make capital
slave-hunters and nigger-drivers, the
unfedged Legrees of our barrooms
and stews, all praise Marshal Jones,
and chant his paans over bad whisky.
We do not envy him the earliest lau-
rels won in his official career, even if
they bear presentation Of plate, and
the $500 reward offered for these poor
fugitives."
The arrest of this family, the sheer
full zeal and alacr;tY which Jones
evinced in thematter, the determine
ton lie has shown of acting the pro-
fessional slave-hunter, and the pres
ence in Chicago of several slave-Own-
ers in search of their "chattels," has
produced perfect panic amongst the
colored population of that city. The
consequence is that they are fleeing
for refuge to Canada by scores and
hundreds. Some most painful incidents
have resulted from this universal feel
ing of panic, and many have left their
homes there under circumstances of
peculiar hardship, but the hunter of
human flesh was upon them. In some
cases, most narrowly was capture
escaped. On Thursday mother and
her four children acere concealed u,,der
q heap Of naanare in that city, when
the master of the mother was turning
over the hay in the loft, hoping to find
them there.
1t is no part of our purpose to adj
wise United States Marshal to refuse
to execute even so infamous measure
as the Fugitive slave Jaw, when his
duty clearly demands it. But it is first
for volunteering to hunt down slaves
in the hope of earning thereby few
dollars, and next for the brutal and
cowardly manner the service was per-
formed. When called upon to arrest
a fugitive, he had no other alternative
than to obey or resign. But the Chi
cago papers assert that he entered up
on it as if it was pleasure, and to have
exceeded in zeal and alacrity his Dem
ocratjc predecessor in the pursuit of
his victims. We therefore unite in the
hope expressed by the Tribune that he
will be promptly removed.-Det. ado.