[STRUGGLE FOR REPEAL OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT.]
Debate in the Senate, July 31, 1854.
All efforts of the friends of Freedom in Congress encountered opposition at every stage. Attempts by John Quincy Adams to present petitions were thwarted in every way that vindictive rage could prompt. Propositions for the repeal of obnoxious laws sustaining Slavery were stifled. To accomplish this result, parliamentary courtesy and parliamentary law were both set at defiance. On a former occasion,[132] when Mr. Sumner brought forward his motion for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act, he was refused a hearing, and obtained it only by taking advantage of the Civil and Diplomatic Appropriation Bill, and moving an amendment to it, which no parliamentary subtlety or audacity could declare to be out of order. On the presentation of petitions against the Fugitive Slave Act, from time to time, he was met by similar checks. Meanwhile anything for Slavery was always in order. An experience of a single day will show something of this.
On the 31st of July, 1854, Mr. Seward, of New York, under instructions from the Committee on Pensions, reported a bill, which had already passed the House of Representatives, for the relief of Betsey Nash, a poor and aged woman, whose husband had died of wounds received in the war of 1812, and asked for its immediate consideration. This simple measure, demanded by obvious justice, was at once embarrassed by an incongruous proposition for the support of Slavery. Mr. Adams, of Mississippi, moved, as an amendment, another bill, for the relief of Mrs. Batchelder, widow of a person killed in Boston, while aiding as a volunteer in the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act. In the face of various objections this amendment was adopted. Mr. Sumner at once followed by a proposition in the following words:—
"Provided, That the Act of Congress, approved September 18, 1850, for the surrender of fugitives from service or labor, be, and the same is hereby, repealed."
This was ruled out of order, as "not germane to the bill under consideration"; and the two bills, hitched together,—one for a military pension, and the other for contribution to the widow of a Slave-Hunter,—were put on their passage. Mr. Sumner then sprang for the floor, when a struggle ensued, which is minutely reported in the Congressional Globe. The careful reader will observe, that in order to cut off an effort to repeal the Fugitive Slave Act, at least two unquestionable rules of parliamentary law were overturned.