is more worthy of a
fanatical declaimer than of the high-minded and accomplished Senator by
whom it was uttered.

The great objection urged against the Fugitive Slave Law is that under
it a freeman may be seized and reduced to slavery. This law, as well as
every other, may, no doubt, be grossly abused, and made a cover for evil
deeds. But is there no remedy for such evil deeds. Is there no
protection for the free blacks of the North, except by a denial of the
clear and unquestionable constitutional rights of the South? If not,
then we should be willing to submit; but there is a remedy against such
foul abuse of the law of Congress in question, and, as we conceive, a
most ample remedy.

The master may recapture his fugitive slave. This is his constitutional
right. But, in the language of the Supreme Court of New York, already
quoted, if a villain, under cover of a pretended right, proceeds to
carry off a freeman, he does so "_at his peril, and would be answerable
like any other trespasser or kidnapper_." He must be caught, however,
before he can be punished. Let him be caught, let the crime be proved
upon him, and we would most heartily concur in the law by which he
should himself be doomed to slavery for life in the penitentiary.

The Fugitive Slave Law is not the only one liable to abuse. The innocent
may be, and often have been, arrested for crime; but this is no reason
why the law of arrest should be abolished, or even impaired in its
operation. Nay, innocent persons have often been maliciously prosecuted;
yet no one, on this account, ever dreamed of throwing obstacles in the
way of prosecution for crime. The innocent have been made the victims
of perjury; but who imagines that all swearing in courts of justice
should therefore be abolished? Such evils and such crimes are sought to
be remedied by separate legislation, and not by undermining the laws of
which they are the abuses. In like manner, though we wish to see the
free blacks of the North protected, and would most cheerfully lend a
helping hand for that purpose, yet, at the same time, we would maintain
our own constitutional rights inviolate. The villain who, under cover of
the law made for the protection of our rights, should seek to invade the
rights of Northern freemen, is as much abhorred by us as by any
abolitionists on earth. Nor, on the other hand, have we any sympathy
with those who, under cover of a law _to be made_ for the protection of
the free bl