However clear the constitutional obligation of Congress to enact a law for the reclamation of fugitive slaves may be supposed by any one to be, there certainly are limitations to this obligation, which all the principles of our government forbid the law-maker to transcend.
Mann argues that while Congress has a constitutional duty regarding fugitive slaves, there are limits to this obligation.
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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.
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.
A southern slave stands higher, politically, than a northern laborer, if the latter must vote as his employer dictates.
The liberty of voting includes all other liberties.
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