urpose of catching him;
not for the purpose of catching the great criminals of the land; but
for the purpose of placing it in the power of any deputy marshal in
any county of the country to call upon you and me, and all the body of
the people, to pursue some white man who is running for his liberty,
because some negro has charged him with denying to him equal civil
rights with the white man. I thought, sir, that that frame-work was
enough; I thought, when you placed under the command of the marshal,
in every county of the land, all the body of the people, and put every
one upon the track of the fleeing white man, that that was enough; but
it is not. For the purpose of the enforcement of this law, the
President is authorized to appoint somebody who is to have the command
of the military and naval forces of the United States--for what
purpose? To prevent a violation of this law, and to execute it.

"You clothe the marshals under this bill with all the powers that were
given to the marshals under the Fugitive Slave Law. That was regarded
as too arbitrary in its provisions, and you repealed it. You said it
should not stand upon the statute-book any longer; that no man, white
or black, should be pursued under the provisions of that law. Now, you
reenact it, and you claim it as a merit and an ornament to the
legislation of the country; and you add an army of officers and clothe
them with the power to call upon any body and every body to pursue the
running white man. That is not enough, but you must have the military
to be called in, at the pleasure of whom? Such a person as the
President may authorize to call out the military forces. Where it
shall be, and to whom this power shall be given, we do not know."

Mr. Lane, of Indiana, replied to the argument of his colleague. He
said: "It is true that many of the provisions of this bill, changed in
their purpose and object, are almost identical with the provisions of
the Fugitive Slave Law, and they are denounced by my colleague in
their present application; but I have not heard any denunciation from
my colleague, or from any of those associated with him, of the
provisions of that Fugitive Slave Law which was enacted in the
interest of slavery, and for purposes of oppression, and which was an
unworthy, cowardly, disgraceful concession to Southern opinion by
Northern politicians. I have suffered no suitable opportunity to
escape me to denounce the monstrous character of that Fugit