Look at this provision under the light of a few facts. In the case of Mahoney vs. Ashton, (4 Harris & McHenry’s Maryland Reports,) the petitioner for freedom claimed that a maternal ancestor, four generations back, who had been brought over by Lord Baltimore, in the early days of the colony, was free; and, by an extraordinary chain of evidence, he traced his descent from that free source. It was a claim which any court in Massachusetts would have sustained without hesitation.
Now how much evidence of history, of record, of parol, does the bare mention of such a case suggest? Who could have been prepared to try it in three hours; ay, as soon as he could be seized and hurried to a lawyer’s office?
Among the alleged fugitives in the “Pearl cases,” so called, which I assisted in trying in Washington, in the years 1848 and ’49, was the family of Daniel Bell, consisting of his wife and eight or ten children. The mother and children had been freed many years before by deed of manumission, executed by their master in his last sickness, and they had been reputed free ever afterwards. Soon after the grantor’s death, the device was started of proving him to be of “unsound mind,” and thus reclaiming the family to bondage. But the magistrate who prepared the deed, witnessed its execution, and took the acknowledgment, declared that he stood ready to testify to the competency of the grantor, and the validity of the instrument. Years passed away and he died. Immediately the heirs claimed the family as slaves; and, after the loss of the deceased magistrate’s testimony, proved the grantor of “unsound mind,” and so set aside the deed and were adjudged owners of the chattels. On the ground of newly-discovered evidence, application for a new trial was made; but the family becoming alarmed lest they should be secretly seized and sent to the south, attempted to make their escape on board the “Pearl,” on the night of the 15th of April. Now, suppose that they had succeeded, and that, after arriving in a free state, they had been seized and carried before a commissioner, to be tried in this “summary manner,” without even waiting for a crier to open the court, and debarred from making affidavit that, in the city of Washington, there existed evidence of their freedom. I will not waste words to point out the impossibility of their defence, and the certainty of their doom! He that hath ears to hear the cry of the oppressed, let him hear!
A few days before the close of the last session of Congress, I was inquired of by a resident in Washington, as to the condition of a family held as slaves in that city. I found they were free by the laws of the District, but they did not know it.
Sir, throughout the Southern States, there are thousands and thousands of reputed slaves, who, legally, and by the laws of those states, too, in which they are held, are as free as the governor of Massachusetts, or the chief justice; but, in their enforced and brutish ignorance, the victims do not know it; and should they come to a free state, and be there hunted, and seized, and carried before a commissioner, they would be debarred from taking an oath as to facts which would furnish grounds for a continuance so that their right to freedom might be established. But, under such obstructions and embarrassments, liberty could not be extinguished in a sufficiently “summary manner.”
According to the constitution of the United States, all criminals, from the least to the greatest, are to be informed of the nature and cause of their accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against them; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in their favor; and to have the assistance of counsel in their defence. Yet here, always in the case of an innocent man, oftentimes in the case of a free man, there is to be no previous notice, no process for obtaining witnesses, and no provision for counsel; and while the court is forbidden to allow delay, without good cause shown, the party whose liberty is at stake cannot make out that cause by his oath; but, with the full knowledge in his own breast that he is free, he must stand dumb before the minister of the law that puts on his fetters.
I will not dwell at any length upon those portions of the act which affect marshals and deputy marshals. If any man chooses not to hold office under such a law, he can decline to accept it, or resign it. It is, however, clear proof of wicked legislation, when humane and conscientious men cannot hold the offices it creates. But the fifth section contains a provision which is atrocious. It makes the marshal or his deputy liable for an escape, whether made “with or without his assent,”—that is, at all events. Though the alleged fugitive should disable him, though the enemies of the country should capture him, though the act of God should strike him down, though an armed mob should commit a rescue,—yet he is still liable.
All civilized governments have statutes of limitations. Human welfare requires that claims which have long been voluntarily acquiesced in, should not be revived. Hence our laws bar a right of action, otherwise incontrovertible, after that tacit abandonment of which the mere lapse of time is proof. Personal rights are most generally abandoned by a six years’ neglect to enforce them. Even real estate may be held, by twenty years’ quiet possession, without other title. Crimes partake of this exemption. With the single exception of murder, all crimes are barred in Massachusetts by a six years’ delay to prosecute. But the Fugitive Slave act knows no mercy or compassion of this kind. Unrelentingly it fastens its clutch upon all cases. While life lasts, its fangs strike into the flesh. The alleged slave may have been amongst us for fifty years; he may have earned property, be married, and surrounded by children. It is all the same. The inexorable certificate of a commissioner remands him to bondage and despair.
The act not only remands him to bondage, but, under circumstances to which there will be few exceptions, it orders that he be sent home at the public expense. The constitution says, he shall be “delivered up.” There the obligation of that instrument ceases. It is only the law that adds, he shall be carried back. You and I, sir, must help pay the costs of sending a fellow-being into bondage; when we are under no more constitutional obligation to do so, than to pay the expenses of a slave dealer who ships his cargoes direct from Africa.
But the bill has become a law, and the practical question now is, how can the country be exculpated from the crime, and the dishonor. For myself, I do not adopt the doctrine of forcible nullification. I trust I shall never join a mob to resist a law, until I am ready for revolution. The only true and enduring remedy is repeal. Those who would forcibly resist the law, lose half their motive and impulse for repeal; for if we abolish it without repealing it, it will be likely to remain upon the statute book an eternal monument of the nation’s disgrace. Let effort never cease, until the jury trial be obtained.