Arguments against the Bill.
§ 32. Arguments against the bill.—On the Northern side, there seems to have been an admission that some bill of the kind was necessary for the interests of the Union. The opposition dwelt chiefly, therefore, upon the details of the measure. Many considered them unjust, as recognizing only one class of rights, those of the masters. Mr. Chase, from the antislavery wing, demanded that a claim of this kind be put on the same footing as any other statutory right. "Claims of right in the services of individuals found under the protection of the laws of a free State must be investigated in the same manner as other claims of right. If the most ordinary controversy involving a contested claim of twenty dollars must be decided by jury, surely a controversy which involves the right of a man to his liberty should have a similar trial.... It will not do for a man to go into a State where every legal presumption is in favor of freedom, and seize a person whom he claims as a fugitive slave, and say, 'This man is my slave, and by my authority under the Constitution of the United States I carry him off, and whoever interferes does so at his peril.' He is asked, 'Where is your warrant?' and he produces none; 'Where is your evidence of claim?' and he offers none. The language of his action is, 'My word stands for law.'"
CHAPTER III. PRINCIPAL CASES FROM 1789 TO 1860.
§ 33. [Change in character of cases.]
§ 34. [ The first case of rescue (1793).]
§ 35. [President Washington's demand for a fugitive (1796).]
§ 36. [Kidnapping cases.]
§ 37. [Jones case (1836).]
§ 38. [Solomon Northrup case (about 1830).]
§ 39. [Washington case (between 1840 and 1850).]
§ 40. [Oberlin case (1841).]
§ 41. [Interference and rescues.]
§ 42. [Chickasaw rescue (1836).]
§ 43. [Philadelphia case (1838).]
§ 44. [Latimer case (1842).]
§ 45. [Ottoman case (1846).]
§ 46. [Interstate relations.]
§ 47. [Boston and Isaac cases (1837, 1839).]
§ 48. [Ohio and Kentucky case (1848).]
§ 49. [Prosecutions.]
§ 50. [Van Zandt, Pearl, and Walker cases (1840, 1844).]
§ 51. [Unpopularity of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.]
§ 52. [Principle of the selection of cases.]
§ 53. [Hamlet case (1850).]
§ 54. [Sims case (1851).]
§ 55. [Burns case (1854).]
§ 56. [Garner case (1856).]
§ 57. [Shadrach case (1851).]
§ 58. [Jerry McHenry case (1851).]
§ 59. [Oberlin-Wellington case (1858).]
§ 60. [Christiana case (1851).]
§ 61. [Miller case (1851).]
§ 62. [John Brown in Kansas (1858).]
§ 33. Change in character of cases.—The cases of escape which occur in the period beginning with the formation of the Constitution, and ending with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850, will be found, in comparison with those of colonial times, much more frequent, more complex in action, and more varied in detail. Instead of many colonies under governments independent one of another, there was now one government and one country; nevertheless, the extinction of the system of bondage and the rise of the antislavery sentiment in the Northern States brought into the cases new and difficult elements. No attempt will be made to mention the cases in their chronological order, or to describe them all. They will be classified into cases of simple escape, of kidnapping, of rescue, and of State interference; and typical examples will be described in each category.