nited States, in the case of Prigg versus The State of
Pennsylvania. By that decision, any Southern slave-catcher is
empowered to seize and convey to the South, without hindrance or
molestation on the part of the State, and without any legal process
duly obtained and served, any person or persons, irrespective of
caste or complexion, whom he may choose to claim as runaway slaves;
and if, when thus surprised and attacked, or on their arrival South,
they cannot prove by legal witnesses, that they are freemen, their
doom is sealed! Hence the free colored population of the North are
specially liable to become the victims of this terrible power, and
all the other inhabitants are at the mercy of prowling kidnappers,
because there are multitudes of white as well as black slaves on
Southern plantations, and slavery is no longer fastidious with
regard to the color of its prey.

As soon as that appalling decision of the Supreme Court was
enunciated, in the name of the Constitution, the people of the North
should have risen _en masse_, if for no other cause, and declared the
Union at an end; and they would have done so, if they had not lost
their manhood, and their reverence for justice and liberty.

In the 4th Sect. of Art. IV., the United States guarantee to protect
every State in the Union "_against domestic violence_." By the 8th
Section of Article 1., congress is empowered "to provide for calling
forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, _suppress
insurrections_, and repel invasions." These provisions, however
strictly they may apply to cases of disturbance among the white
population, were adopted with special reference to the slave
population, for the purpose of keeping them in their chains by the
combined military force of the country; and were these repealed, and
the South left to manage her slaves as best she could, a servile
insurrection would ere long be the consequence, as general as it
would unquestionably be successful. Says Mr. Madison, respecting
these clauses:--

"On application of the legislature or executive, as the case may be,
the militia of the other States are to be called to suppress
domestic insurrections. Does this bar the States from calling forth
their own militia? No; but it gives them a _supplementary_ security
to suppress insurrections and domestic violence."

The answer to Patrick Henry's objection, as urged against the
constitution in the Virginia convention, that there was