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Theodore Parker said that legislatures could make and unmake laws; but "there is a law of God, written on the heart, that cannot be altered or revoked, that we should do unto another as we would that others should do unto us.

When the laws of Massachusetts or the laws of the Union conflict with the laws of God, I would keep God's law in preference, though the heavens should fall. We have officers who tell us that they are sworn to keep the laws of the States and of the United States, and we are born citizens, born to obey the laws; but every bone of my body and every drop of blood in my system swears to me that I am amenable to and must obey the laws of God."

Captain Hannum justified his course in the public press, and claimed that his conduct had received the approval of his employers. Mr. Pierson, too, justified the act, and, in reply to the criticisms of the meeting, especially those of Stephen C. Phillips, asserted that his course received the general commendation and approval of the merchants of Boston; and he expressed the confident belief that "the response of those assembled on ''Change' any day from half past one till two, would confirm his doings, five to one." That vote was never taken; but it is to be feared that, had it been, discreditable as such a conclusion may seem, the result would have shown that he had too much reason for his confidence.

Cases like these, appealing as they did to the humane and generous sympathies of noble men and women, impelled them to put forth every effort to secure legal protection against kidnapping. Soon after the decision of the Supreme Court in the Prigg case, Massachusetts and Vermont had forbidden the use of their jails and the services of their officers for the arrest and detention of fugitives from slavery. Unsuccessful efforts were put forth to secure similar legislation in New York, and also the repeal of the "black laws" of Ohio. In 1847 the legislature of Pennsylvania repealed a law by which a master could hold a slave in that State for six months, and also, like Massachusetts and Vermont, enacted laws forbidding the use of jails for the retention of fugitive slaves. Among the friends of freedom who were active in securing this enactment was Charles

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Gibbons, then the presiding officer of the Senate, who distinguished himself by the service he rendered. In 1848, Rhode Island followed the example of Pennsylvania.

But while there were these demonstrations of right feeling and evidences of progress, there were other manifestations of sentiment and purpose that were not so encouraging. Thus New Jersey, although passing a law extinguishing the last relic of slavery which lingered there as late as the year 1846, enacted that non-residents, travelling in the State, might take their slaves with them as household servants. Connecticut, also, like New Jersey, although extinguishing slavery in 1848, rejected in 1847 a proposition to give to colored men the right of voting, by an overwhelming majority. In New York, too, in a convention for a revision of her constitution, the clause requiring a property qualification for colored men was retained, though it submitted it, as a separate proposition, to a popular vote. The question excited great interest. The Whig press, of which the "Tribune" distinguished itself for its advocacy of equal rights, generally supported the claim of the negro to an equality of privilege with the whites. But passion and prejudice prevailed, and the proposition was defeated by a large majority.

The annexation of Texas and the Mexican war intensified the prejudices of the Southern people, increased their determination to protect and conserve the slave system, and rendered them more alert in detecting and prompt in opposing anything that threatened either danger or damage to it. Antislavery men, no matter how moderate and prudent, especially if connected with the press, were made to feel the full force of these suspicions and determination. An antislavery journal, theSaturday Visitor," had been established at Baltimore, and an effort to suppress it as an incendiary publication was made by the citizens of that city. But its conductor, Dr. Snodgrass, firmly maintained his right to publish it, the effort failed, and its brave editor lived to see the system it had so earnestly assailed swept away.

In Washington, "The National Era" had been established by Dr. Bailey, as an organ of the Liberty party. Though it

was edited with great ability and tact, and was also the vehicle of some of the most polished and scholarly pens in the country, having John G. Whittier as its corresponding editor, it excited the ire of the slaveholding population of the capital, and of the South generally. Indeed, the city government of Georgetown took the matter into consideration, with a view of suppressing the feared and hated sheet. But the courage and courtesy of the editor carried him safely through the menacing dangers by which his journal was surrounded; and, though it did not live to celebrate in fitting terms the death of the system whose horrid life had brought it into being, as it had been the inspiration of its earnest and effective career, it did live to deal most damaging blows to the giant crime, and it may be truly recognized as having been among the most potent agencies of the antislavery cause.

But there was one conductor of a public journal, whose utterances against slavery became, in the hands of the incensed slaveholders, the occasion of his death. John H. Pleasants, editor of the Richmond "Whig," inserted a few articles, written by another, on the economic bearings of the question. His indorsement of the doctrine of the articles was, in the eyes of his slaveholding patrons, an unpardonable offence, and he was compelled to retire from the paper. Being associated with another journal, he became involved in a controversy with his old antagonist, Mr. Ritchie, the editor of the "Enquirer," of the same city. Receiving a challenge from the son of Mr. Ritchie, which he accepted, he fell a victim alike to the barbarism of slavery and of the duello.

In 1846, the Supreme Court rendered a decision in the Van Zandt case, by which, perhaps more distinctly and defiantly than ever before, the idea of property in man was proclaimed to the country and to the world, and that which Lord Brougham had pronounced "a guilty fantasy" in England was here declared to be a constitutional provision, to be protected by the sacred guaranties of the time-honored charter of the nation's life. "In coming to that conclusion," said Justice Woodbury, who read the opinion of the court," they were fortified by the idea that the Constitution itself, in the clause before

cited, flung its shield, for security, over such property as is in controversy in the present case, and the right to pursue and reclaim it in another State." To show that the nation did not regard it as a mere barren right, not far from the same time the United States Marshal for the District of Columbia advertised for sale, in the city of Washington, two colored women, one sixty and the other twenty years of age, to satisfy a judgment rendered against a citizen by the PostOffice Department; and these women were sold, and the money was put into the treasury of the nation.

With bondmen fleeing and slaveholders pursuing, with the Supreme Court proclaiming the doctrine of property in man, with women sold by the government itself, on the auctionblock, with the army fighting on foreign soil for conquest in slavery's behalf, with statesmen striving to desecrate free territory with the blot and blight of oppression, thoughtful men began to realize more fully the condition of their country, and of themselves as well, and to comprehend more clearly the responsibilities and duties of the crisis which seemed so rapidly approaching.

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Essential violence of slavery. Escape of slaves. Workings of Underground Railroad. Characteristics of Western society. - Heroic endurance of the fugitives. Sacrifices of their friends. - Van Dorn, Coffin, Rundell Palmer. Noble conduct of Palmer's daughter. — Imprisonment of Burr, Work, and Thompson. - Their fidelity and Christian bravery. - Released.

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VIOLENCE was the essential element of slavery. From the first slave-hunt in Africa to the surrender of the Rebel army at Appomatox, whenever and wherever its influence was felt, violence was the law of its being. It laid its ruthless hand not only upon the bodies and souls of the slaves, but upon the finer sensibilities and moral convictions of the nation. It trifled with the tenderest feelings, scorned all scruples of conscience, and trampled upon the law of God. To hold a slave was a direct and defiant challenge to the manhood, the patriotism, and the conscience of the individual, the community, and the nation. Nor was it any less it was, indeed, greater because men consented thereto, became reconciled to it, defended it, and even lent their aid to its support; for then it had accomplished its fatal work, and had destroyed what it had at first outraged and debauched. This "constant warfare," as Jefferson, himself a slaveholder, characterized the relation of master and slave, involved all this without any of the accessories of cruelty or excessive ill treatment. No word need be spoken, no blow struck. How much more when the petty tyrant of the lash used harshly his power, and the slave, thus abused and seeking relief in escape, invoked the aid of others in his flight toward the north star and liberty.

Then the whole soul of the true man revolted against such barbarism, and rose in mutiny against the laws which sanctioned and sustained it. Frederick Douglass, standing on the

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