rted the people, saying, "Execute true judgment,
and show mercy and compassion every man to his brother: and oppress
not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and
let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart. But
they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped
their ears, that they should not hear; yea, they made their hearts
as an adamant stone." "Shall I not visit for these things? saith the
Lord. Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?"

Whatever doubt may have rested on any honest mind, respecting the
meaning of the clause in relation to persons held to service or labor,
must have been removed by the unanimous decision of the Supreme
Court of the United 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