No reason can be assigned why a slave is not as much under the protection of a constitution made for the “people,” as under the protection of a law made for the “people.” Yet here, even in the case of a presumptive slave, a right was acknowledged, which some freemen, in free states, deny to presumptive freemen.
Mann argues that slaves should be protected under the Constitution just like any other person.
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The kidnapper, Alberti, now lies in a Pennsylvania prison for carrying away a mother and her child; but the mother and the child are now groaning under the lash of a southern taskmaster.
These are but specimens of what the Fugitive Slave law has already done, before the public mind has become familiarized with its brutalities, and while there is yet some sensibility to the claims of justice and mercy left among us.
Men of Massachusetts! moral and religious men! lovers of freedom and of your country, were you prepared for this?
Why, fellow-citizens, the ballot is worse than useless, if it be not FREE!
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