Note 258 — THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.

In the New York Independent for January 2, 1851, there is a sermon delivered by Rev. Richard S. Storrs, Jr., of Brooklyn, Dec. 12, 1850, in which his opposition to the fugitive slave bill is expressly placed on the injustice of slavery. He argues the matter almost exclusively on that ground. "To what," he asks, "am I required to send this man [the slave] back? To a system which . . . no man can contemplate without shuddering." Again, "Why shall I send the man to this unjust bondage? The fact that he has suffered it so long already is a reason why I should not. . . . . Why shall I not help him, in his struggle for the rights which God gave him indelibly, when he made him a man? There is nothing to prevent, but the simple requirement of my equals in the State; the parchment of the law, which they have written." This is an argument against the Constitution and not against the fugitive slave law. It is an open refusal to comply with one of the stipulations of our national compact. If it has any force, it is in favor of the dissolution of the Union. Nay, if the argument is sound it makes the dissolution of the Union inevitable and obligatory. It should, therefore, in all fairness be presented in that light, and not as an argument against the law of Congress. Let it be understood that the ground now assumed is that the Constitution can not be complied with. Let it be seen that the moralists of our day have discovered that the compact framed by our fathers, which all our public men in the general and state governments have sworn to support, under which we have lived sixty years, and whose fruits we have so abundantly enjoyed, is an immoral compact, and must be repudiated out of duty to God. This is the real doctrine constantly presented in the abolition prints; and if properly understood we should soon see to what extent it commends itself to the judgment and conscience of the people.