fully examined a question and had satisfied himself that he was right, no power on earth could swerve him from what he believed was his duty. While he had enjoyed none of the advantages of early association with cultivated society, his manners were graceful and polished-the natural outward expression of inward refinement and dignity of character. He had the peculiar faculty of adapting himself to every position to which he was called. Congressmen declared that he was born to be the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. Though it was predicted that he would fail as presiding officer of the Senate, his conduct of that trying position commanded the applause of the Senators. And when he advanced to the highest office of our country, he so fulfilled his duties as to draw forth the commendation of the ablest men of the opposite party.

CHAPTER IX

THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW

The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850-The Nashville Convention-Controversy between Southern Unionists and Secessionists-Arraignment of President Fillmore by Representative Joshua R. Giddings [O.]-Manifesto of Representative Alexander H. Stephens [Ga.] et al. against Slavery Agitation-The Shadrach Fugitive CaseDebate in the Senate on the Fugitive Law: in Favor, Henry Clay [Ky.], Stephen A. Douglas [Ill.], John M. Berrien [Ga.]; Opposed, John P. Hale [N. H.], Salmon P. Chase [O.], R. Barnwell Rhett [S. C.], and Jefferson Davis [Miss.]—Sketches of Chase and RhettThe Abortive Secession Congress-Election to the Senate of Charles Sumner-Sketch of Sumner-His Debate on Slavery with George E. Badger [N. C.]-Sketch of Badger-Uncle Tom's Cabin— Election of President Pierce-The Burns Fugitive Case-Wendell Phillips and Theodore Parker Address Boston Mass-MeetingSketches of the Orators.

LA

ATE in the session of 1849-50 the Senate had passed a bill for the return of fugitive slaves by a vote of 27 to 12, more than twenty Senators dodging the dangerous issue by refraining from voting. The bill was passed by the House in September, 1850, under similar conditions, and President Fillmore signed it on the 18th of the month. It provided:

That the powers of judges under the act of 1793 be given to United States commissioners appointed by the Territorial courts with additional judges appointed by the United States courts, to afford facilities for the arrest of fugitives; that the commissioners have concurrent jurisdic

tion with the United States judges in giving certificates to the claimants enabling them to take back their slaves; that United States marshals execute the judges' writs under penalty for refusal of $1000. fine in each case, and be liable, under bond, for the value of slaves escaping from their custody; that the officers, if necessary, call a posse comitatus to aid them in their duty; that the testimony of the fugitive was not to be admitted against the owner's certificate given him by a court in his State, thus preventing suit for the writ of habeas corpus; that citizens obstructing the arrest of a fugitive, or attempting his rescue, or harboring him after notice were to be fined and imprisoned; and that commissioners be paid a fee of $10. in case of each grant of a certificate, and $5. in case of its refusal, and the fees of the other officers be in the same ratio. With the Act was passed one suppressing the slave trade in the District of Columbia.

I

The passage of the Fugitive Act caused a slight revival of slave-hunting in the North which, under the adverse "Personal Liberty" laws of the Northern legislatures, had fallen into desuetude. A few negroes who had long been residents in the North, happy in their homes and employments, were suddenly seized away from their spouses and children, and taken South as former fugitives.

The Fugitive Slave Act caused a great increase of the Free Soil party, which demanded its repeal. The South regarded this demand as a breach of faith on the part of the North, since it had agreed to the Clay

These laws prohibited the use of State jails for detaining fugitives; provided State officers to act as counsel for them; secured to them habeas corpus and trial by jury; required their identity to be proved by two witnesses; forbade State judges and officers to issue the writs, etc.; and heavily punished with fine and imprisonment seizure of a free person as a fugitive.

compromises of which the Act was a part. The Republican party, organized out of the Free Soilers in 1854, continued the agitation for repeal, and thus gave the South its chief excuse for seceding on the election of the Republican candidate for President, Abraham Lincoln, in 1860. The Act was not formally repealed until June 28, 1864.

The Nashville Convention. While the Clay compromises were under debate, there had met at Nashville, Tenn., a convention to agree upon a united policy of the South on slavery. It reassembled on November 14, 1850, with delegates from Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee. It now declared that all the evils anticipated by the South had been realized in the Clay compromises, and therefore it recommended that the South abstain from social, commercial, and political intercourse with the North until Southern rights were rendered secure. It declared that, if this guaranty were not secured, the Southern States would be justified in seceding from the Union.

Governor John A. Quitman' convoked the Mississippi legislature to meet on November 18, when he intended. to lay before it a proposition for secession. On this date, however, Senator Foote addressed a mass-meeting at Jackson, the capital, upholding the Clay compromises so persuasively that the meeting approved these, which action caused the Governor to pocket his plan for the time being. This was the beginning of a Union party in the State which held in check the secessionists. Similar movements arose in other Southern

* Quitman was a lawyer, who had been acting Governor of the State in 1835-36, and a general in the Mexican War. He was elected to Congress in 1855, and served until his death in 1858.

States, which merged into a Constitutional Union party that overweighed for a decade the secessionist sentiment.

Arraignment of President Fillmore. In his annual message early in December, 1850, President Fillmore declared himself in favor of the Fugitive Slave law, and said that he would use the army and navy, if need arose, to execute it. On the 9th of the month Representative Joshua R. Giddings [O.] arraigned the President for repudiating in this utterance the pledge of his party.

No public man of high standing, from the free States, has so suddenly and so boldly abjured the cause of freedom and, before the world, pledged fealty to the slave power save his Secretary of State [Daniel Webster], whose counsels he appears to have adopted.

The President may send against us his Swiss guards of slavery; he may drench our free land with blood, but he will never compel us to obey the law. He should have learned ere this that public sentiment, with an enlightened and patriotic people, is stronger than armies and navies; that he himself is but the creature of the people's will. Now in the enactment of this law the will of the people was not consulted. Their servants fled from this hall, and left the interests, the rights, and the honor of their constituents to be disposed of by slave-holders and their obsequious allies. This law was "conceived in sin, and brought forth in iniquity." It is due to the South that we should declare distinctly that the law cannot and will not be enforced. Our people, sir, know what law is. This enactment I call a law merely for convenience, because our language furnishes no proper term with which to characterize it. It has the form, but is destitute of the spirit, which is the essence of law. It commands the perpetration of crimes which no human enactment can justify. In this attempt to involve