Note 169 — Chapter III · PRINCIPAL CASES FROM 1789 TO 1860.

Mr. Quincy also states, that "about a fortnight elapsed, when I was called upon by Rufus Green Amory, a lawyer of eminence at the Boston bar in that day, who showed me a letter from a Southern slaveholder, directing him to prosecute Josiah Quincy for the penalty under the law of 1793, for obstructing the agent of the claimant in obtaining his slave under the process established by that law. Mr. Amory felt, no less than myself, the folly of such a pretence; and I never heard from him, or from any one, anything more upon the subject of prosecution. This fact, and the universal gratification which the fact appeared to give to the public, satisfied my mind, that, unless by accident, or stealth, or in some very thin settled part of the country, the law of 1793 would be forever inoperative, as the event has proved in Massachusetts."—Meeting at Faneuil Hall to protest against the Fugitive Slave Law, letter read from Josiah Quincy, Boston Atlas, Oct. 15, 1850; Goodell, Slavery and Antislavery, 232; Appendix D, No. 12.