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interpreted the most ingenious and plausible method of letting the Slaveholders have their own way. And of this kind we have had a glut ever since we cast in our lot with them. Machiavelli, himself, might take a leaf with advantage out of our book, and "the Prince" should not be regarded as complete until it has had "the People" added by way of Appendix. It was born in the Convention that formed the Constitution and has been continued in an undying succession, like a line of immortal kings or Grand Lamas, from Madison and Hamilton down to Clay and Webster.

This matter of the extradition of Fugitives was the collar which the North consented to put round her own neck as the sign of vassalage, at the time she entered that House of Bondage. Before that time all her instincts and sympathies were on the right side. The Fugitive escaping was welcome and safe; it was the master that had to turn his pursuit into flight, to avoid the fate to which by the Lynch code of those days, he succeeded the stamp-distributors and Customs' Collectors of the days before the Revolution. It was felt to be a disgrace and a degradation, and many of the spirits of that age thought the advantages of the Union dearly purchased at this price. But it was agreed upon. The pound of flesh was put into the bond. The Act of 1793 provided the process by which this provision should be carried into effect. The scales and the knife were put into the hand of the Slaveholding Jews, and their right to use them recognized.

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The Court awards it and the law doth give it !" And for many years it was rendered with scarce a murmur of remonstrance, except from the proscribed race which bore upon their brows the mark which was the sign of the condition of the victims. Any demonstration of emotion on their part was self-complacenlty put down by the law-abiding people of the North, who seemed verily to think that they were doing a God-pleasing and patriotic act in restoring these poor escaped wretches to their prison-house again. "I thought this was a land of liberty," was the expostulation, on one of these occasions, of a Slave as he was delivered up to his tyrant. It is," was the reply of the venerable Judge who for near fifty years performed this Constitutional obligation for Massachusetts, "it is; but it is also a land of LAW!!" And all applauded the wisdom as well as the point of the reply.

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And in this condition the morality of the North remained, until the Anti-Slavery agitation came forth to preach the first elements of the Gospel of Humanity. Then this provision was put to the test of legal analysis, and Judges, though no Portias, were found to pronounce that

though the law gave the Jew his pound of flesh, it was upon the condition that he took it with no jot more or less. The ipso facto emancipation of all Slaves brought into a Free State by the act of the master was solemnly adjudged. This was followed by the enactment of laws giving a trial by jury to persons claimed as Slaves. And the whole matter was put into the true Constitutional shape by the decision of Justice STORY in the case of PRIGG; by which the right of the master to pursue and seize his Slave wherever he may find him, and to carry him back to his service, as he might his stray ox or ass, was established; his right to be proved, in case of forcible resistance, before certain United States officers or State magistrates, provided the States would permit their acting in the premises. The States, many of them, under this supreme decision, having forbidden their judicial or executive officials to take any part in this dirty work, or their jails to be used as the depositories of southern property in transitu, the recovery of Slaves in any of the northern States, excepting those on the very frontier of Slavery, became next to impossible. In Massachusetts, there has been no attempt to carry back an escaped Slave, except by kidnapping, since the case of LATIMER. And we believe the same is true as to most of the States, except as above excepted. Or, at least, the attempts which have been made have been so often baffled that it is probable, it will not be possible hereafter to buy or sell a Slave "running" if his course be directed towards the North Star.

Now one would think this not a bad state of things. The highest tribunal of the country, a majority of the Judges being Slaveholders, solemnly adjudges this provision of the Constitution to mean as just recited, and the States whose conduct is complained of follow this ruling strictly in their legislation. This would seem to be "Constitutional" enough for the most patriotic of our countrymen. But the southern brokers in flesh and blood, who had rejoiced over this decision, as did Shylock over that of the young doctor from Padua, declaring him entitled to the full penalty of his bond, were as much dismayed as he when they found that they were virtually deprived of the benefit of it by the denial of the means necessary to obtain it.

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But the Slaveholders not being helpless like Shylock, but being the supreme law-making power, this Bill was the natural result of the unnatural state of things in this country. That they should clutch at any such scheme is not at all surprising. It is the regular course of their policy to scruple at no means and to overbear all opposition. But when the great Defender of the Constitution stepped out of the arena in which he has challenged the world so long, and undertook to be an Amender of the Constitution, by making it worse than the Slaveholding Bench had made it, and declared his intention of voting for this abomination, nothing but a long acquaintance with his political life and a careful study of its obliquities can prevent an emotion of surprise. This newest and basest profligacy is at once an act of servility to the South, and of insult to the North, such as none but a great American Statesman "could accomplish. To "hint a fault" on the part of the North for not having done more than the Supreme Court had declared it was constrained to do, is a kick which Mr. WEBSTER (though certainly no Ass) would scarcely have ventured to bestow upon the poor Lion at home if he had not supposed that it had lost all its spirit, if not its health and strength. It is in this point of view, of the indignity offered to the Free States, and of the readiness or the refusal of northern members to give it point and direction by their votes, that this Bill was a test of no mean value. It is a test which has shown the base metal of which one of our Idols is made, that men try to palm off upon us as a Golden Image set up that all fall down and worship it. It has also proved the touchstone to prove the truer metal of others, and will be rich in the developments every day, until it is removed either by success or defeat.

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We do not apprehend any very great practical difference in the safety of the Fugitives from bondage. Mr. SEWARD very justly indicated the impossibility of executing such a law in defiance of the moral sense and public opinion of the people where it was to be enforced. Mrs. GLASSE, in her celebrated receipts for cooking a hare, prudently premises, "first, catch your hare!" This will be a very essential element in the formula for roasting the poor frightened hares that come flying to us from the bloodhounds of the South. Luckily, the Slave must be caught, first, before he is served up to the tables of the southern Ogres, by the culinary skill of northern Judges and Commissioners. And here is where, we apprehend, even the eloquence of Mr. WEBSTER will fail to persuade, charm he never so wisely." The people of the North can never unlearn the lessons they have been

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taught for the last twenty years. Mr. WEBSTER may turn Slavecatcher, as he intimates it is his duty to do, but we conceive that even his example is not enough to blazon this evil deed or consecrate this crime. Law or no Law, Constitution or no Constitution, it will be infamous to the end of time in these northern States to be concerned in the capture or rendition of a Slave. Much as Mr. WEBSTER may regret it, thus much change has come over the decent portion of the northern People. It has been brought about, as he intimates, by the agitation of the Abolitionists. He may consider it their shame; but they account it their glory, and a main encouragement to go on as they have begun. And they are not afraid to abide the decision of God, of their own consciences, of foreign nations, or of future ages, as to the wisdom and virtue of their course.

MASSACHUSETTS.

It will be seen, by what we have already had to record, that the history of this State, for the past year, has been marked by incidents nearly connected with Slavery and its Antagonist Idea. Besides those lights and shadows of its experience, there were facts of legislation and judicial decision which should not be passed over in silence. The last Legislature sat during a time when changes of opinion were worked with magical celerity, and when long established and oft reiterated principles suddenly evaporated and disappeared. Many of the details of the struggle to escape from the expression of any decided opinion on the questions then agitating Congress and the country, and at the same time to avoid the appearance of inconsistency and the acknowledgment of past political falsehood, however entertaining and instructive, must be omitted. Early in the session, Mr. HENRY WILSON, of Natick, offered a series of strong resolutions, departing from the premises, that "Human Slavery is a wrong to the Bondman, a crime against Humanity, a sin in the sight of God; and its immediate abolition is the first and highest duty of every Government under which it exists;" and thence arriving at the natural conclusion, that the Constitutional Powers of Congress "should be exercised openly, actively, and perpetually on the side of freedom, so as to prevent the extension of Slavery into the Territories, or its existence therein; to abolish Slavery and the Slave Trade in the District of Columbia, and wherever either exists under the jurisdiction of the Federal Government — and

to repeal all Laws that in any manner whatever give the sanction of the Federal Government to Slavery, or make the people of the Free States responsible therefor."

These resolutions, together with all other papers relating to Slavery and its Extension, were referred to a Joint Special Committee, the Chairman of which, Hon. GEORGE S. HILLARD, submitted in due time a Report and Resolutions. The Report, after recapitulating the Federal history of Slavery, and the conflict which it had created at the South and the North with the Union, thus approached the Territorial question:

"We entertain no doubt of the power of Congress to exclude Slavery from the Territory of the United States which is now free, and we also entertain no doubt that they ought to exercise that power."

After expressing the disbelief of the Committee, that the Exclusion of Slavery from the Territories would occasion any peril to the Union, the Report heroically proceeds:

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"In the next place, we say that, with the views we entertain upon the extension of Slavery, we are compelled to lay aside all consideration of the consequences which may flow from an adherence to these views. We feel a strong attachment to the Union. From the consequences which would follow a violent disruption of the Union, we would gladly avert our thoughts. But in that disastrous event, we should have at least the consolation of a conscience void of offence. But in giving our assent to the extension of Slavery into regions now free, we should feel that we were guilty of sin before God and man, for which there is no compensation and no equivalent. The sting of self-reproach would make our material prosperity of little value. The consciousness wrong-doing would pursue us through all the paths of life, and impair the flavor of our daily bread. If we are called on to do wrong, we prefer to suffer wrong.

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When, therefore, we are asked to consent to the extension of Slavery into regions which are now free, we are asked to do that which morality and religion alike forbid. We can only be convinced that we are wrong in this sentiment by being persuaded that Slavery is an Institution not opposed to morality and religion. * * The tem

poral misfortunes, which a firm adherence to duty may bring upon us, we shall endeavor to bear with the patience and submission with which it is our duty to receive the chastisements of Divine Providence. But we will not buy temporal blessings with the price of what we deem wrong-doing. We will endure the shadow of sorrow, but not the stain of guilt."

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