obtuseness of intellect which marked him as a fit subject
for a commission of lunacy, declared, "He had no doubt of the identity
of the prisoner with the slave Emery Rice, and that _all other
proceedings must be before the courts of Maryland_, whither he would
send him."[1] And so the prisoner, without seeing his wife and children,
whom he had that morning parted from unsuspicious of danger and
unconscious of crime, was hurried off at the expense of our glorious
model republic, under an escort of officers, who delivered him, not to
the courts of Maryland, but to Mr. William S. Knight, the reputed owner.
But Mr. Knight told the officers, "You have brought me a wrong man; this
is not Emery Rice; this man is no slave of mine." And so Adam Gibson
returned to Philadelphia, and is now a living illustration of the
abominable iniquity of one of the most accursed laws to be found in the
statute-book of any civilized nation.

[1] See report in the _New York Tribune_, 25th December, 1850.

You do not think your law more barbarous than that of 1793. Let me
further enlighten you. Judge McLean of the Supreme Court, in his opinion
delivered last May in the case of _Norris_ v. _Newton et al._,
remarks,--"In regard to the arrest of fugitives from labor, the law [act
of 1793] _does not impose any active duties on our citizens generally_";
and he argues in defence of the law, that "it gives no one a just right
to complain; he has only to refrain from an express violation of the
law." In other words, the law only required individuals to be passive
spectators of a horrible outrage, and did not compel them to be active
participators in other men's villany. Now, what says your law? Why, that
every commissioner may appoint as many official slave-catchers as he
pleases, and that each of these menials may "summon and call to their
aid the _by-standers_ or _posse comitatus_ of the proper county, when
necessary to insure a faithful observance of the clause of the
Constitution referred to in conformity with the provisions of this act,
AND ALL GOOD CITIZENS ARE HEREBY COMMANDED TO AID AND ASSIST in the
prompt and efficient execution of this law, whenever their services may
be required." And what is the fate you have provided for the "good
citizen," who, believing slavery to be sinful, cannot, in the fear of
God, "aid and assist" in making a fellow-man a slave? Any person "who
shall aid, abet, or assist" the fugitive "directly or indirectly"
(cunnin