lf as the
eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I
bring thee down, saith the Lord." The emblem of American pride and
power is the _eagle_, and on her banner she has mingled _stars_ with
its _stripes_. Her vanity, her treachery, her oppression, her
self-exaltation, and her defiance of the Almighty, far surpass the
madness and wickedness of Edom. What shall be her punishment? Truly,
it may be affirmed of the American people, (who live not under the
Levitical but Christian code, and whose guilt, therefore, is the
more awful, and their condemnation the greater,) in the language of
another prophet--"They all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every
man his brother with a net. That they may do evil with both hands
earnestly, the prince asketh, and the judge asketh for a reward; and
the great man, he uttereth his mischievous desire: _so they wrap it
up_." Likewise of the colored inhabitants of this land it may be said,
--"This is a people robbed and spoiled; they are all of them snared
in holes, and they are hid in prison-houses; they are for a prey,
and none delivereth; for a spoil, and none saith, Restore."

By this stipulation, the Northern States are made the hunting ground
of slave-catchers, who may pursue their victims with blood-hounds,
and capture them with impunity wherever they can lay their robber
hands upon them. At least twelve or fifteen thousand runaway slaves
are now in Canada, exiled from their native land, because they could
not find, throughout its vast extent, a single road on which they
could dwell in safety, _in consequence of this provision of the
Constitution_? How is it possible, then, for the advocates of
liberty to support a government which gives over to destruction
one-sixth part of the whole population?

It is denied by some at the present day, that the clause which has
been cited, was intended to apply to runaway slaves. This indicates
either ignorance, or folly, or something worse. JAMES MADISON as one
of the framers of the Constitution, is of some authority on this
point. Alluding to that instrument, in the Virginia convention, he
said:--

"Another clause _secures us that property which we now possess_. At
present, if any slave elopes to those States where slaves are free,
_he becomes emancipated by their laws_; for the laws of the States
are _uncharitable_(!) to one another in this respect; but in this
constitution, 'No person held to service or labor in