Note A — THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW, AND ITS VICTIMS.
Reading edition
"The first of these misapprehensions," he said, "is an exaggerated sense of the actual evil of the reclamation of fugitive slaves, felt by Massachusetts and the other New England States. What produced that? The cases do not exist. There has not been a case within the knowledge of this generation, in which a man has been taken back from Massachusetts into slavery by process of law, not one." * * * * "Not only has there been no case, so far as I can learn, of the reclamation of a slave by his master, which ended in taking him back to slavery, in this generation, but I will add, that, as far as I have been able to go back in my researches, as far as I have been able to hear and learn, in all that region there has been no one case of false claim. * * * There is no danger of any such violation being perpetrated."[A]—Webster's Speech on the Compromise Bill, in the United States Senate, 17th of July, 1850, edition of Gideon & Co., Washington, pp. 23-25.
[A]
See also Mr. Webster's letter to the Citizens of Newburyport, dated May 15th, 1850, wherein he urges the same point, with great pains of argument.