The law of Michigan, approved February 13, 1855, is as follows: TITLE XXXII., CHAP. 177, SEC. 2. All persons so arrested and claimed as fugitive slaves shall be entitled to a trial by jury. SEC. 5. No person arrested and claimed as a fugitive slave shall be imprisoned in any jail or other prison in this State; and any person having the care or control of any jail or prison, and knowingly permitting the imprisonment of such alleged fugitive or slave therein shall be subjected to the payment of a fine of not less than five hundred or more than one thousand dollars. The law of Wisconsin, Revised Statues, 1858, Chap. 158, Sec. 52, declares that: It shall be the duty of the district attorneys, within their respective counties, whenever any inhabitant of this State is arrested or claimed as a fugitive slave, or being informed thereof, diligently and faithfully to use all lawful means to protect, defend, and procure to be discharged every such person so arrested or claimed as a fugitive slave. SEC 57 provides for a trial by jury of the person claimed as a fugitive slave. SEC. 59 declares that "no deposition shall be received as evidence." The above law is clearly subversive of the Constitution of the United States, and of the laws of Congress, in, at least, two specifications-in granting to a fugitive slave a trial by jury, and in refusing to receive depositions in evidence. The laws of the Federal Government declare that depositions shall be received in evidence. And the Constitution requires that the fugitive slave "shall be given up on claim." Chief Justice Story, in his Commentaries on the Constitution, declares that fugitives from labor, and fugitives from justice, are to be rendered up on the same grounds. He says: "It is obvious that these provisions for the arrest and removal of fugitives of both classes contemplate summary judicial proceedings, and not the ordinary investigations to ascertain whe * * ther the complaint be well founded, or the claim of ownership be established beyond all legal controversy. Congress appears to have acted upon this opinion; and accordingly, in the statute upon this subject, have authorized summary proceedings before a magistrate, upon which he may grant a warrant for removal." Although the Legislature of the State of New York failed to pass the Personal Liberty Bill reported in the winter of 1859, yet there is already a Liberty Law on the Statute Book of this State, which gives the right of trial by jury to the fugitive from labor, and is therefore plainly unconstitutional, and directly opposed to the Congressional laws of both 1793 and 1850. The law was passed in 1840, when Mr. Seward was Governor, and was entitled "An Act to extend the right of trial by jury." It requires that every such claim shall be tried by a jury; that the District Attorney shall defend every such fugitive at the charge of the county; that the claimant shall in every case give bonds with large penalties and two sureties, freeholders and inhabit ants of this Sate, and imposes heavy fines and penalties on any person seeking to obtain the fugitive in any other way than under the provisions of the said law. Such a law, and every other like it, is in palpable conflict with the Constitution of the United States. It is in direct hostility to the old Fugitive Slave Law of 1793, as well as the amended law of 1850. Every intelligent jurist will concede that the claim contemplated by the Constitution was to be disposed of summarily on claim without habeas corpus or jury trial. slave was demanded of Gov Doolittle, Kent says: of Wisconsin, who contemptuously refused to give him up, though, by his oath of office he had sworn to obey the Constitution and the laws of the United States. "The Constitution and Law of the United States contemplates a summary proceeding, and a surrender on claim made, and not the delay, expense and vexation of a suit and jury trial in the courts of the State to which the slave has fled." The Supreme Court of the State of New York decided, at an early day, that the old statute of the State providing for a jury trial under the common law writ de homine replegiando, in favor of fugitives from service, was unconstitutional and void, and the judgment of the court was affirmed in the Court of Errors. See Jack vs. Martin, 12 Wendell, 311; S. C., 14 Wendell, 607. And yet the Legislature of the State of New York, in 1840, passed the act in question. It remains to this day unrep a'ed upon the Statute Book. The northern States which have been in undisguised and rampant rebellion against the Constitution and the Federal Government are, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania. Those which have milder forms of nullification on their Statute Books are New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa. But still, all Western States have been in a condition of actual rebellion, whatever their statutes may be. It is but a few years since the Gov. of Ohio refused to give up to the State of Virginia two fugitives from justice, Owen Brown and Francis Merriman, who were charged with participating in the Harper's Ferry murders. This was practically nullification in its most flagrant form. In 1859, the Governor of Illinois refused to give up a thief (who was demanded as a fugitive from justice) to the State of Kentucky, because he was a slave. Had the thief been a white man he would no doubt have been giv en up quick enough. So, also, the Governor of Iowa refused the rendition of Copic to Virgi nia, who was charged with the crime of murder in the old John Brown affair. These Governors are thus in the ha. bit of nullifying the Constitution, refusing to obey the laws of the Federal Government, and breaking their oath of office in the exercise of their extraordinary fondness for negroes. Thus it is seen that twelve of the non-slaveholding States have passed acts nullifying the laws of the Federal Government, and violating the Constitution. These Federal laws, and this clause of the Constitution, were resist ed by bodies of armed men in a majo rity of the northern States. In many instances blood was shed; and, in almost every case, the murderers were protected by the State authorities, and were shielded from just punishment by State laws. For having attempted to nullify a single act of Congress, South Carolina was execrated; but these northern States have defiantly nullified two acts of Congress, and violently trampled the Constitution under their feet, and turn round demanding the applause due to virtnous deeds About the same time, a fugitive for their rebellious action. The nulli fying act of South Carolina was based upon the alleged unconstitutionality of the obnoxious Federal law, and this charge of unconstitutionality seems to have been finally admitted, both by President Jackson and by the Congress, for the act was so far amended as to suit the views of South Carolina. But these northern nullifying States make no such excuse for their rebellion. They have not claimed that these acts of Congress, which they have nullified, are unconstitutional. They resist the Constitution itself with the same irreverent violence that they use in nullifying the laws made for its administration. The nullification of South Carolina claimed to be for the protection of their own rights; but this northern nullification is an admitted aggression upon the rights of others. It stands forth a naked assault npon the Constitution, a wilful nullification of Constitutional laws, neither seeking paliation, nor offering the apology of an excuse. It is a total depravity-an unmitigated despotism and wrong. With what face can we demand that the South shall keep the bond of our Union, while we are in a perpetual war against it ourselves, and while these nullifying and revolutionary laws disgrace our statute books? In his speech at Capon Springs, June, 1851, Daniel Webster remarked: "I do not hesitate to say and repeat, that if the Northern States refuse wilfully and de liberately to carry into effect that part of the Constitution which respects the restoration of fugitive slaves, the South would no longer be bound to observe the compact. A bargain broken on one side is a bargain broken on all sides." Again and again, we repeat that the first thing for the northern people to do, is to repeal all these rebellious laws. While they stand we are in no condition to reprove the South. While they stand, the South possesses a moral advantage over us, which carries with it the respect of the lawrespecting portion of mankind. While they stand, the best portion our own northern people feel and know that we are in the wrong, and cannot shut their eyes as to who are fighting on the side of the old Constitution that was given us by our fathers. While these laws stand there can be and there should be no peace. uo peace, If the northern States will not retrace their nullifying steps-if they cannot learn to let the South alone, in the peaceable possession of its Constitutional rights-if they will not confess the guilt of their nullifications, and give guarantees for the future, they prove to the world that they do not wish the Union restored. If they will not do this, then we agree with the immortal Webster, that "the South is no longer bound to observe the compact." It was broken by us. By our repentence only will justice de mand that the South return to it. THE TRICKS OF TYRANTS. JOSEPH PARIS DE L'EPINARD, in his work entitled, "Humanity Trampled Upon," makes the following quaint remark of one of the demagogues of the French Revolution: "Clootz, the orator of the human race, and the enemy of Jesus Christ, died as he had lived." This is such a perfect description of the character of the leading Abolitionists of this country, that we cannot resist the temptation to quote it. All such men as Garrison, Sumner, Smith, Lincoln, Wade, Hamlin, Wilson, and Phillips, are contemners of Christianity, while they are, at the same time, professed worshippers of the human race. For years their annual convocations breathed the same indecent malignity against the Christian church that they did against the Constitution and the Union. Indeed they never ceased to abuse the Christian church, except such parts of it as they had Abolitionized. Their bloody schemes for destroying the property of the South, and murdering its white inhabitants, have all been carried forward in the name of "liberty" and "humanity." Just as in the French Revolution that body of assassins who instigated the innumerable murders that have made the heart of man tremble with horror ever since, was called "The Committee of Public Safety." So there was another organization which, while it was cutting the throat of France, was called "The Committee of General Security." The decrees of this Commit tee forbid their victims to see either relations or friends. Without being informed why, innocent men and women were seized and plunged into dungeons. Everything was made to assume an aspect of horror. The turnkeys tucking up their sleeves, armed with bloody clubs, walked up and down among the prisoners. Delicate women, under the pretence of being searched for treasonous documents, were indecently stripped and exposed to the brutal gaze of the "Committee of General Security." A thousand men and women were butchered in one day by this "Committee of General Security." Under the reign of the "Commillee of General Security," death hovered over the heads of the people of France. It is an old device of tyrants and scoundrels, to cover their bad and bloody designs under some name of high-sounding patriotism and humanity. We have the thing illustrated in our midst at the present time. In the prostituted name of our glorious flag, men have sought to annihilate the Constitution and laws of which it is the sacred emblem. In the name of liberty, the people have been arrested contrary to all law, and immured in military bastiles. In the name of the Constitution, the Constitution has been stricken down. In the name of the laws, the laws have been violated. In the name of freedom, the habeas corpus has been destroyed. In the name of humanity, a grand scheme of robbing and murder ing the people of the South has been urged by the Abolitionists. Under the pretence of saving the Union, these bloody-minded scoundrels have been doing their utmost to destroy it. Let them look to the blood-thirsty tyrants of the French Revolution for a sight of their elder brothers in hy pocricy and crime! Let the people understand that it is not a new thing in the world for traitors and assassins to move forward under the prostituted names of "patriotism" and "philanthropy." The trick is as old as the father of lics. The tyrant and assassin, Robespierre, was one of the founders of the Abolition club of France, just as demagogues and would-be ty rants and assassins started the same cause in America. We by no means affirm that all the Abolitionists are of this character. But their leaders are. Men like Sumner would gloat over the sight of a general massacre of the white people of the Sorth. Men like him and Garrison are after the type of the infidel assassins who murdered France in the name of "liberty and reason." When Cataline conceived the dark design to burn the city of Rome, and murder all its inhabitants without regard to sex or age, he made the larg est professions of being the friend of the laws and the patron of the poor. Many there were who prayed for his success, whom he intended to involve in ruin and death-so apt and easy are the multitude to be deceived by designing knaves who plot their de struction under the veil of improving their condition. It is amazing to reflect upon the depths of degradation to which the people have been led by these plausible villains. Even at pol ished Athens, some artful demagogues procured the passage of a law to abolish all debts, and for the equal division of all property. The former was carried into execution; the people came to their senses before the latter could be. We throw a glance of ingled pity and contempt back upon those polite and cultivated Athenians, who allowed themselves to be led off by cunning scoundrels into such abominations. But why do we look with frowns upon those distant deeds of delusion and folly? Our own Congress, under the brutalizing inspiration of Abolitionism, has passed acts for the confiscation, for the plunder and destruction of property, a hundred fold more dishonoring to civilization, and more defiant of justice, than these besotted laws of Athens. We remember with horror the delusion of the people of Greece, when they were induced to banish their best and wisest men, and to put such pure patriots and philosophers as Socrates to death. The delusion of the people of the United States at the present time falls but little short of the mental and moral stultification of those now abhorred Grecians. Do we not see applauded the bloody plan to murder and plunder the peopla of one-half of these States, because they reject the God-upbraiding doctrine of negro equality with the white race? Do not men in Congress, who profess to abhor every aim for which this most accursed war is carried on, vote supplies, and use every means to induce the young men of the land to enlist in the grand army of Abolition and plunder-to throw their precious lives away to carry forward the subtle plans of an unscrupulous and thieving despotism? Who are they |