"I do not mean, however, by this request, that such violent measures should be used AS WOULD EXCITE A MOB OR RIOT, WHICH MIGHT BE THE CASE, IF SHE HAS ADHERENTS, OR EVEN UNEASY SENSATIONS IN THE MINDS OF WELL-DISPOSED CITIZENS. Rather than either of these should happen, I would forego her services altogether,—and the example, also, which is of infinite more importance.
"George Washington."
Mr. Whipple, in his reply, dated at Portsmouth, December 22, 1796, an autograph copy of which I have, recognizes the rule of Washington.
"I will now, Sir, agreeably to your desire, send her to Alexandria, if it be practicable without the consequences which you except,—that of exciting a riot or a mob, or creating uneasy sensations in the minds of well-disposed persons. The first cannot be calculated beforehand; it will be governed by the popular opinion of the moment, or the circumstances that may arise in the transaction. The latter may be sought into and judged of by conversing with such persons, without discovering the occasion. So far as I have had opportunity, I perceive that different sentiments are entertained on this subject."
The fugitive was never returned, but lived in freedom to a good old age, down to a very recent day, a monument of the just forbearance of him whom we aptly call Father of his Country. True, he sought her return. This we must regret, and find its apology. He was at the time a slaveholder. Often expressing himself with various degrees of force against Slavery, and promising his suffrage for its abolition, he did not see this wrong as he saw it at the close of life, in the illumination of another sphere. From this act of Washington, still swayed by the policy of the world, I appeal to Washington writing his will. From Washington on earth I appeal to Washington in heaven. Seek not by his name to justify any such effort. His death is above his life. His last testament cancels his authority as a slaveholder. However he may have appeared before man, he came into the presence of God only as liberator of his slaves. Grateful for this example, I am grateful also, that, while slaveholder, and seeking the return of a fugitive, he has left in permanent record a rule of conduct which, if adopted by his country, will make Slave-Hunting impossible. The chances of riot, or mob, or "even uneasy sensations in the minds of well-disposed citizens," must prevent any such pursuit.[196]
Sir, the existing Slave Act cannot be enforced without violating the precept of Washington. Not merely "uneasy sensations of well-disposed citizens," but rage, tumult, commotion, mob, riot, violence, death, gush from its fatal overflowing fountains:—
"Hoc fonte derivata clades
In patriam populumque fluxit."[197]
Not a case occurs without endangering the public peace. Workmen are brutally dragged from employments to which they are wedded by years of successful labor; husbands are ravished from wives, and parents from children. Everywhere there is disturbance,—at Detroit, Buffalo, Harrisburg, Syracuse, Philadelphia, New York, Boston. At Buffalo the fugitive was cruelly knocked by a log of wood against a red-hot stove, and his mock trial commenced while the blood still oozed from his wounded head. At Syracuse he was rescued by a sudden mob; so also at Boston. At Harrisburg the fugitive was shot; at Christiana the Slave-Hunter was shot. At New York unprecedented excitement, always with uncertain consequences, has attended every case. Again at Boston a fugitive, according to received report, was first seized under base pretext that he was criminal; arrested only after deadly struggle; guarded by officers acting in violation of the State laws; tried in a court-house girdled by chains, contrary to the Common Law; finally surrendered to Slavery by trampling on the criminal process of the State, under an escort in violation again of the laws of the State, while the pulpits trembled, and the whole people, not merely "uneasy," but swelling with ill-suppressed indignation, though, for the sake of order and tranquillity, without violence, witnessed the shameful catastrophe.
Oppression by an individual is detestable; but oppression by law is worse. Hard and inscrutable, when the law, to which the citizen naturally looks for protection, becomes itself a standing peril. As the sword takes the place of the shield, despair settles down like a cloud. Montesquieu painted this most cruel tyranny, when he said that the man is drowned by the very plank on which he thought to escape.[198] And Moses exposes a kindred harshness, when, in commandment to the Israelites, he mysteriously enjoins; "Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk"[199] Alas! every sacrifice under the form of law is only a repetition of this forbidden offence. The victim is the innocent kid, and the law is its mother's milk.
With every attempt to administer the Slave Act, it constantly becomes more revolting, particularly in its influence on the agents it enlists. Pitch cannot be touched without defilement, and all who lend themselves to this work seem at once and unconsciously to lose the better part of man. The spirit of the law passes into them, as the devils entered the swine. Upstart commissioners, mere mushrooms of courts, vie and re-vie with each other. Now by indecent speed, now by harshness of manner, now by denial of evidence, now by crippling the defence, and now by open, glaring wrong, they make the odious Act yet more odious. Clemency, grace, and justice die in its presence. All this is observed by the world. Not a case occurs which does not harrow the souls of good men, bringing tears of sympathy to the eyes, and those other noble tears which "patriots shed o'er dying laws."