VIII. DISREGARD FOR CONSTITUTIONAL OBLIGATIONS.
Governor McDuffie, in his speech of 1834 to the South Carolina Legislature, characterized the Federal Constitution as "that miserable mockery of blurred, and obliterated, and tattered parchment." Judging from their conduct, the slaveholders, while fully concurring with the Governor in his contempt for the national parchment, have quite as little respect for their own State Constitution and Laws.
The "tattered parchment" of which Mr. McDuffie speaks, declares that "the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States." Art. IV. Sec. 2. Notwithstanding this express provision, there are in almost every slave State, if not in all, laws for seizing, imprisoning, and then selling as slaves for life, citizens having black or yellow complexions, entering within their borders. This is done under pretence that the individuals are supposed to be fugitives from bondage. When circumstances forbid such a supposition, other devices are adopted, for nullifying the provision we have quoted. By a law of Louisiana, every free negro or mulatto, arriving on board any vessel as a mariner or passenger, shall be immediately imprisoned till the departure of the vessel, when he is to be compelled to depart in her. If such free negro or mulatto returns to the State, he is to be imprisoned for five years.
The jailor of Savannah some time since reported ten stewards as being in his custody. These were free citizens of other States, deprived of their liberty solely on account of the complexion their Maker had given them, and in direct violation of the express language of the Federal Constitution. If any free negro or mulatto enters the State of Mississippi, for any cause however urgent, any white citizen may cause him to be punished by the Sheriff with thirty-nine lashes, and if he does not immediately thereafter leave the State, he is sold as a slave.
In Maryland, a free negro or mulatto, coming into the State, is fined $20, and if he returns he is fined $500, and on default of payment, is sold as a slave. Truly indeed have the slaveholders rendered the Constitution a blurred, obliterated, and tattered parchment. But whenever this same Constitution can, by the grossest perversion, be made instrumental in upholding and perpetuating human bondage, then it acquires, for the time, a marvellous sanctity in their eyes, and they are seized with a holy indignation at the very suspicion of its profanation.
The readiness with which Southern Governors prefer the most false and audacious claims, under color of Constitutional authority, exhibits a state of society in which truth and honor are but little respected.
In 1833, seventeen slaves effected their escape from Virginia in a boat, and finally reached New York. To recover their slaves as such, a judicial investigation in New York would be necessary, and the various claimants would be required to prove their property. A more convenient mode presented itself. The Governor of Virginia made a requisition on the Executive of New York for them as fugitive felons, and on this requisition, a warrant was issued for their arrest and surrender. The pretended felony was stealing the boat in which they had escaped.
In 1839, a slave escaped from Virginia on board of a vessel bound to New York. It was suspected, but without a particle of proof, that some of the crew had favored his escape; and immediately the master made oath that three of the sailors, naming them, had feloniously stolen the slave; and the Governor, well knowing there was no slave-market in New York, and that no man could there be held in slavery, had the hardihood to demand the surrender of the mariners, on the charge of grand larceny; and, in his correspondence with the Governor of New York, declared the slave was worth six or seven hundred dollars, and remarked that stealing was "recognized as a crime by all laws, human and divine."
In 1841, a female slave, belonging to a man named Flournoy, in Georgia, was discovered on board a vessel about to sail for New York, and was recovered by her master. It was afterwards supposed, from the woman's story, that she had been induced by one of the passengers to attempt her escape. Whereupon Flournoy made oath that John Greenman did feloniously steal his slave. But the Governor of New York had already refused to surrender citizens of his State, on a charge so palpably false and absurd. It was therefore deemed necessary to trump up a very different charge against the accused; and hence Flournoy made a second affidavit, that John Greenman did feloniously steal and take away three blankets, two shawls, three frocks, one pair of earrings, and two finger-rings, the property of deponent. Armed with these affidavits, the Governor demanded the surrender of Greenman under the Constitution. Not an intimation was given by His Excellency, when he made the demand, of the real facts of the case, which, in a subsequent correspondence, he was compelled to admit. It turned out that the woman, instead of being stolen, went voluntarily, and no doubt joyfully, on board the vessel; and that the wearing apparel, &c., were the clothes and ornaments worn by her; nor was there a pretence that Greenman had ever touched them, or ever had them in his possession.
In 1838, Rev. John B. Mahan, a Methodist preacher, residing in Ohio, was reported to have given aid and shelter to fugitive slaves from Kentucky, and forthwith the Grand Jury of Mason County, in that State, indicted him, as being "late of the County of Mason," for aiding two slaves in making their escape from said county. On the strength of this indictment, Governor Clark, of Kentucky, issued his requisition on the Governor of Ohio, wherein he stated that the said Mahan "has fled from justice, and is now going at large in the State of Ohio;" and that by virtue of the authority vested in him by the "Constitution and Laws of the United States, he did demand the said John B. Mahan, as a fugitive from the justice of the laws of this State." On this requisition Mahan was seized, carried into Kentucky, put in irons, and kept in prison as a felon for about ten weeks, when, after a trial which lasted six days, he was acquitted by the jury. Now it was a matter of notoriety, and admitted by the prosecution, that Mahan had not been in Kentucky for about twenty years!! Yet day after day was spent in endeavors to procure the conviction of a man who had committed no offence against the laws of the State, and whose person had been seized in consequence of a gross fraud, and a palpable and acknowledged falsehood. But how happened it that the slaveholders permitted their prey to escape? Fortunately for Mahan, the Governor of Ohio, after surrendering him, discovered the imposition that had been practised, and officially informed the Governor of Kentucky, that he could not consent that a citizen of Ohio should be taken to another State, and tried for an offence not committed within her jurisdiction. The publication of this letter drew the attention of the community to the infamous outrage that had been practised. If, after this, Mahan had been Lynched, or even judicially punished, a controversy would have arisen between the two States, which would necessarily have given new strength and influence to the anti-slavery cause.