WRONG AND UNCONSTITUTIONALITY OF FUGITIVE SLAVE ACTS.
Report in the Senate of the Committee on Slavery and Freedmen, February 29, 1864.
February 29, 1864, Mr. Sumner reported from the Committee on Slavery and Freedmen a bill to repeal all acts for the rendition of fugitive slaves. Accompanying this bill was the following report, of which ten thousand extra copies were ordered to be printed for the use of the Senate, together with the views of the minority, by Mr. Buckalew.
The debate on this subject, and the final repeal of all Fugitive Slave Acts, appear at a later date.[312]
The Select Committee on Slavery and the Treatment of Freedmen, to whom were referred sundry petitions asking for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, and also asking for the repeal of all acts for the rendition of fugitive slaves, have had the same under consideration, and ask leave to make the following report.
Two Fugitive Slave Acts still exist unrepealed on our statute-book. The first, dated as long ago as 1793, was preceded by an official correspondence, supposed to show necessity for legislation.[313] The second, belonging to the compromises of 1850, was introduced by a report from Mr. Butler, of South Carolina, at that time Chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the Senate.[314] In proposing the repeal of all legislation on the subject, it seems not improper to imitate the latter precedent by a report assigning briefly the reasons governing the Committee.
RELATION BETWEEN SLAVERY AND THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACTS.
These Acts may be viewed as part of the system of Slavery, and therefore obnoxious to the judgment which Civilization is accumulating against this Barbarism; or they may be viewed as independent agencies. But it is difficult to consider them in the latter character alone; for if Slavery be the offence which it doubtless is, then must it infect all the agencies it employs. Especially at this moment, when, by common consent, Slavery is recognized as the origin and life of the Rebellion, must all its agencies be regarded with more than ordinary repugnance.