This pretension makes an asserted stipulation for the rendition of fugitive slaves one of the corner-stones of the Union.
Charles Sumner
The Public Record
Charles Sumner was an American lawyer and statesman who represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1851 until his death in 1874. Before and during the American Civil War, he was a leading American advocate for the abolition of slavery, and after the war he was a key figure in the Reconstruction era, during which he and other Radical Republicans successfully fought to end slavery and ensure basic rights for Black Americans. He continued advocating for racial equality until his death, lobbying in his final days for a civil rights bill that served as a model for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Historians credit Sumner with coining the phrase "equality before the law," which he first used as part of an early attempt to integrate Boston's public school system.
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A careful inquiry shows that it is utterly without support in the records of the Convention, where the real compromises are revealed; nor is there a single contemporary pamphlet, speech, article, or published letter, out of which any such…
And yet we are gravely told “it cannot be doubted” that this provision “constituted a fundamental article, without the adoption of which the Union could not have been formed.” Frequent repetition has caused the common belief that this was…
One established the equality of all the States in the Union, by securing equal representation in the Senate for the small States and large States.
Another allowed representatives to the Slave States according to the whole number of free persons and “three fifths of all other persons,” in consideration that direct taxes should be apportioned in the same way.
Another was the toleration of the slave-trade for twenty years, in consideration of commercial concessions to the “Eastern members.” Such are the actual compromises of the Constitution, with regard to which there is evidence.
But imagination or falsehood is the only authority for adding the rendition of fugitive slaves to this list.
Here was no offer of compromise,--not even a complaint, much less a suggestion of corner-stone.
Butler showed that the lovers of Liberty had not spoken in vain.
The language which sanctions such a wrong must be “direct.” Therefore, at the moment of seeming triumph, the partisans of Slavery failed.
Such is the indubitable origin of a clause latterly declared a compromise of the Constitution and a corner-stone of the Republic.
That a clause for the hunting of slaves was recognized at the time as compromise or corner-stone is an absurdity disowned alike by history and by reason.
Who can suppose that these wise and illustrious patriarchs of Liberty all consented, nem. con., not only to sanction Slavery and to recognize property in man, but to put a kennel of bloodhounds into the Constitution, ready to hunt the…
They did no such thing; or, if it is insisted, contrary to received rules of interpretation, that such must be the signification of their language, clearly they did not understand it so.
Other rules may be set aside as inapplicable; but the rule, which, in presence of any doubtful phrase, any indirect language, or any word capable of a double sense, requires that the interpretation shall be in favor of Liberty, is the most…
Thus, when this clause took its place in the Constitution, nem. con., it was clearly a cipher.
From the origin of the fugitive clause, and the circumstances attending its adoption, it is apparent that it has been the occasion of infinite exaggeration and misrepresentation.
Like a Pagan idol, it has been worshipped and covered with gifts; but the prevailing superstition which sustained the imposture has at last disappeared, and we see nothing but a vulgar image of painted wood.
But the Act was scarcely passed, before the conscience of people, not only at the North, but even in Maryland, began to be aroused.
Still Slavery exists, and, in the case of slaves escaping from their masters, the friends of Universal Liberty are often embarrassed in their conduct by a conflict between their principles and the obligations imposed by unwise and perhaps…
The fugitive never was returned, but survived to a good old age, down to a recent period,--a living witness to that public opinion which made even the mildest of Fugitive Slave Acts a dead letter.
Such, unquestionably, was the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which is still allowed to remain on the statute-book, a blot upon our country and age.
Where a measure is so plainly repugnant to reason and authority, and on its face has so little foundation in the Constitution, any elaborate argument seems superfluous, especially at this moment, when Slavery everywhere is yielding to…
The general conscience condemns the inhuman statute, and this is enough.
Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.
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