Volume 7 — THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT MUST BE A DEAD LETTER.

Letter to a Public Meeting at Syracuse, New York, September 9, 1860.

This meeting was one of a series, known as “Jerry Rescue Celebration,” being on the anniversary of the rescue of the fugitive slave Jerry from the hands of slave-hunters.

Boston, September 9, 1860.

MY DEAR SIR,—You know well how much I sympathize with you personally, and also how much I detest the Fugitive Slave Bill, as a flagrant violation of the Constitution, and of the most cherished human rights,—shocking to Christian sentiments, insulting to humanity, and impudent in all its pretensions. Of course I agree with you that such an enactment, utterly without support in Constitution, Christianity, or reason, should not be allowed to remain on the statute-book; and so long as it is there, I trust that the honorable, freedom-loving, peaceful, good, and law-abiding citizens, acting in the name of a violated Constitution, and for the sake of law, will see that this infamous counterfeit is made a dead letter. I am happy to believe that this can be accomplished by an aroused Public Opinion, which, without violence of any kind, shall surround every “person” who treads our soil with all safeguards of the citizen, teaching the Slave-Hunter, whenever he shows himself, that he can expect from Northern men no sympathy or support in his barbarous pursuit.

At your proposed meeting, which it will not be in my power to attend, I trust that just hatred of Slavery in all its pretensions will be subjected to that temperate judgment which knows how to keep a sacred animosity within the limits of Constitution and Law.

Accept my thanks for the invitation with which you have honored me, and believe me, with much personal regard and constant sympathy,

Sincerely yours,

Charles Sumner.

Rev. S. J. May.