E 
 
 AN APPEAL 
 
 *x 
 
 ■F E^ ED O M, 
 
 MADK IN THB 
 
 ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF KEW YORK, 
 
 IVIA-RCH 7tli, 18S9. 
 
 BY 
 
 HON. CHARLES S. SPENCER, 
 
 OF THE CITT OF KEW YORK. 
 
 ALBANY: 
 
 WEED, PAKSONS &. COMPANY, 
 
 1859. 
 
Book • OIO - 
 
AN APPEAL 
 
 F E E E D O M, 
 
 iiAJDE IK THE 
 
 ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, 
 
 Mi^RCH T'tli, 1859. 
 
 *^/^ V. 
 
 BY 
 
 y 
 
 HON. CHAELES S. SPENCER, 
 
 OP THE CITY OP NEW YOEK. 
 
 ^ ALBANY : 
 
 WEED, PARSONS & COMPANY. 
 1859. 
 
AN APPEAL FOR FREEDOM. 
 
 Messrs. Shotwell Powell, Charles S. Spencer, 
 Alma^nzor Hutchinson and James M. Northrup, from 
 a Select Committee, reported the following bill : 
 
 AN ACT 
 
 TO PROTECT THE RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES OF THE CITIZENS OF THE 
 STATE OF NEW YORK. 
 
 The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate 
 'and Assembly, do enact as follows t 
 
 Section 1. No person within this state shall be considered as pro- 
 perty, or siil.)ject as such to sale, purchase or delivery ; nor shall any 
 person within the limits of this state at any ixvae be deprived of lib- 
 <€rty or property without due process of law^ 
 
 § 2. Due process of law, mentioned in the preceding section of this 
 act, shall in all cases be defined to mean the usual process and forms 
 in force by the laws of this state, and issued by the C9urts thereof; 
 ^and under such process such person shall be entitled to a trial by jury. 
 
 § 3. Whenever any person in this state shall be deprived of liberty, 
 arrested or detained, on th« ground that such person owes service or 
 labor to another person, not an inhabitant of this state, either party 
 may claim a trial by jury^ and shall have twenty peremptory chal- 
 
Jenges, and in addition thereto the other challenges to which a persoifr 
 indicted in this state is entitled. 
 
 § i. Every person who shall deprive or attempt to deprive any- 
 other person of his or her liberty,, contrary to the provisions of the- 
 preceding sections of this act, sliall be guilty of a felony, and shall^ 
 on conviction thereof^ be suljected to a fine not exceeding five thou- 
 sand dollars nor less than one thousand dollars, and by imprisonment 
 in the state prison for a term not exceeding twenty years nor less tha&. 
 five years : provided, that nothiag in said preceding sections shall 
 apply to or aflfect the right to arrest or imprison for any contempt of 
 court. 
 
 § 5. Neither descent, near of remote, from an African,, whether such 
 African is or may have been a slave or not, nor color of skin or com_ 
 plexion, shall disqualify any person from being or becoming a citizen 
 of this state, nor deprive sucrl person of the rights and privileges- 
 thereof. 
 
 § 6. Every person who- may have been held as a slave, who shall 
 come or be brought or be in this state with the consent of his or her 
 alleged master or mistress, or who shall!, come or be brought or be m 
 this state, shall be free. 
 
 § "Z. Every person who shall hold or attempt to hold in this state, 
 in slavery, or as a slave, any person, or any free person in any form,. 
 or for any time however short, under the pretence that such person is 
 or has been a slave, shall, on conviction thereof, be imprisoned in the- 
 state prison for a terra not less than five years nor more than twenty 
 years, and be fined not less than one thousand dollars nor more than 
 ken thousand dollars. 
 
 § S. Any person sustaining wrong or injury, by any proceeding 
 punishable by the preceding sections of this act, may maintain an 
 action and recover damages therefor in any court of record in this- 
 state. 
 
 § 9. No person, while holding any office of honor, trust or emolu- 
 ment under the laws of this stale, .shall in any capacity issue any 
 warrant o-r other process, or grant any certificate under or by virtu® 
 of an act of the Congress of the United States, approved ihe twelfth 
 day of February, A. D. seventeen hundred and ninety-three, entitled 
 *' An act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping fron> 
 ihe service of their masters/' or under and by virtue of an act of said 
 
6 
 
 Congress, approved Ihe eigliteenth day of September, A. D. eighteett 
 hundred and fifty, entitled " An act to amend and supplementary to 
 ?in act respecting fugitives from justice, or persons escaping from 
 the service of their masters," or shall in any capacity serve any such 
 warrant or other precess. 
 
 § 10. Any person who shall violate any of the provisions of section 
 nine of this act shall be deemed to have resigned any commission 
 from this state which he may possess, his office shall be deemed 
 vacant, and he shall be forever thereafter ineligible to any office of 
 trust, honor or emolument under the laws of this state. 
 
 § 11. Any pei-son who shall act as counsel or attorney for any 
 claimant of any alleged fugitive from service or labor, under or by 
 virtue of the act of Congress mentioned in the ninth section of this 
 act, shall be deemed to have resigned any commission from this state 
 that he may possess, and he shall be thereafter incapacitated from 
 appearing as counsel or attorney in the courts of this state. 
 
 § 12. Any sheriff, deputy sheriff, jailor, coroner, constable or offi- 
 cer of this state, or any policeman <5f any city or town, or any district, 
 ■county, city or town officer, or any officer or other member of the 
 militia d( this state, who shall hereafter arrest, imprison, detain or 
 return, or aid in arresting, imprisoning, detaining or returning any 
 person, for the reason that he is claimed or adjudged to be a fugitive 
 from service or labor, shall be punished by a fine not less than one 
 thousand dollars nor more than five thousand dollars, and by impri- 
 sonment in the state prison for not less than two years nor more than 
 ten years. 
 
 § 13. The governor of this state, by and with the advice and con- 
 sent of the senate, shall appoint for every county of this state an 
 attorney, whose duty it shall be to defend every person claimed as a 
 fugitive, under the provisions of the acts of Congress mentioned in 
 the ninth section of this act, and each of said attorneys so appointed 
 shall receive fifty dollars for each person defended by him under the 
 provisions of this act, and shall be paid by the state treasurer, on a 
 warrant to be issued by the governor. 
 
 § 14. This act shall take effect immediately. 
 
 This bill was made a special order for Monday, March 7, 
 
 1859, 
 
On that day the House went into Committee of the Whole- 
 upon the bill, Mr. Bushnell in the Chair, and Mr. Charles. 
 S. Spencer, of New York, addressed the House as follows f 
 
 Mr. Chairman : 
 
 <^We live in a republic, whose basis is the principle of lib- 
 erty and equality ^ in a republic which was the fruit of a 
 revolution incited by oppression ; in a republic, the vitality 
 of which is embraced in the spirit of the expression, "Resist- 
 ance to tyranny is obedience to God." Upon a considerable 
 portion of this republic rests with deadly weight the curse of 
 human slavery, and the shadow of this eurse is thrown over 
 the whole republic. We live in a state called Free, in con- 
 tradistinction to those states called Slave. What a bitter 
 reflection is that which brings to us the conviction that under 
 a common constitution, purporting to promulgate the eternal 
 principles of freedom, there are a portion of our fellow-citi- 
 zens recognizing, by the laws of the states in which they livCf 
 the right of man to buy, sell and own his fellow-man, as he 
 buys, sells and owns the brute beasts of the field, and to 
 pursue and reclaim these human chattels upon soil where no 
 law repudiates and denies tke right of every man to own 
 himself Until there are material amendments made in our 
 federal constitution, or until those states recognizing and 
 maintaining the institution of slavery shall emancipate their 
 bondmen, and restore them to that liberty for which God 
 created them, or until injustice and cruelty shall breathe the 
 breath of vigorous life into insurrection, which shall strike 
 down the oppressor and break the fetters of the oppressed^ 
 the cry of the suffering slave must mingle with the boastful 
 and vain shoutings for freedom and independence of his ma»- 
 
ter. The freemen of the states of the Union where all men, 
 who forfeit not freedom by crime, are free, can only attack 
 the great national evil of slavery by such federal and state 
 legislation as is permitted by the federal and state constitu- 
 tions under which they live. Such legislation is eminently 
 humane, is eminently just, and is of an importance which 
 entitles it to prompt and careful consideration. The slave 
 driver, and the institution which his lash, his revolver, his 
 bowie-knife and his insolent arrogance sustain, ought to be 
 attacked whenever and wherever he can be assailed under the 
 constitution. He should have his " pound of flesh, no more, 
 no less, but not one drop of blood." He should be permitted 
 to reach the limit which he legally can reach, but forbidden 
 to advance a hair's breadth beyond. He should be taught by 
 the action of the representatives of the Free states in Con- 
 gress, and by the action of the Legislatures of the Free 
 states, that his traffic in human flesh is viewed with horror and 
 disgust, and will be obstructed, harassed and assailed in every 
 manner permitted by the constitution and laws of the land. 
 
 Mr. Chairman: The passage, by tjiis Legislature, of the 
 "Personal Liberty Bill," which is now the subject of our 
 consideration, will strike a severe blow at this infamous insti- 
 tution of slavery. Sir: A gifted citizen of Massachusetts, 
 the Quaker poet, Whittier, than whom there breathes not a 
 truer friend of the slave, has said, 
 
 "For us and for our children, the vow which we have given, 
 For Freedom and Humanity, is registered in Heaven. 
 No slave hunt in our boi-ders, no jnrate on our strand, 
 No fetter in the Bay State, no slave upon our land." 
 
 IThe Legislature of Massachusetts, with its glorious past 
 and proud present, has given force and vitality to the senti- 
 
8 
 
 ments of this poet by legislative enactments. Vermont, the 
 home of revolutionary heroes, whose soil has drank deeply 
 the blood of freemen battling for liberty — Vermont, the star 
 of freedom that never sets, has preceded us in the enactment 
 of a law shnilar to that now before us, and embracing the 
 bulk of its sections. Outraged humanity calls upon this 
 imperial state to follow in the train of these noble common- 
 wealths, and I believe that the call will be answered. The 
 provisions of this bill have, doubtless, been carefully read by 
 every member of this house. We have read denunciations 
 of it in the Democratic public press. The Republicans of 
 this house have been charged with having unfurled the black 
 bannei' of nullification, with aii attempt to compass uncon- 
 stitutional legislation. We are told that the State of New 
 York is, under the constitution of our country, a free slave- 
 hunting GROUND, where southern blood-hounds have the 
 right to howl upon the track of the weary fugitive, where 
 any man in whose veins courses a drop of negro blood can be 
 claimed to be a slave, and without a trial by a jury, and 
 through the instrumentality of a. hurried and oftentimes a 
 prejudiced examination before a single commissioner, dragged 
 to a southern plantation, there, without money and without 
 friends, to try the question whether he is a slave or a freeman. 
 Sir : I am not surprised that northern Democracy is the 
 advocate for the southern slaveholder! Gratitude, rather 
 than conscientious conviction, may be the exciting cause of 
 this advocacy, for 
 
 " The cant of Democrary dwells on the lips ' 
 
 Of the forgers of fetters and wielders of whips." 
 
 The advocates of the law ask not for money from your 
 treasury, ask not for any exclusive or special privileges for 
 
an individual or an incorporation ; they ask that you recog- 
 nize by your legislative action the sovereignty of feeedom 
 over the soil of New York, and the right of every man to be 
 protected in the enjoyment of its blessings, except when he 
 forfeits them for causes acknowledged by the laws of your 
 states They ask that through you the voice of New York 
 shall be heard throughout the civilized world, declaring that 
 under her constitution and laws men are not chattels, and 
 that within her boundaries they shall not be treated as such ; 
 but whenever claimed to be slaves, shall have the presump- 
 tion of liberty at the outset in their favor ; shall have the 
 right of trial by jury; shall have counsel assigned to aid 
 them in their peril ; shall at all events, when struggling with 
 federal officials for liberty, have the same right of challenge 
 of the jurors summoned to try the question of the owner- 
 ship of themselves which the law gives the murderer, and 
 shall have the right, when found by the verdict of the jury 
 to owe no service or labor, to sue the baffled kidnapper in 
 the courts of the state for damages, and to prosecute him 
 therein for felony. They ask that tl>js Legislature declare . 
 that God created all men free and equal ; that neither color 
 of skin nor African descent is a disqualification for citizen- 
 ship ; that the master bringing his slave to this state frees 
 him hy the act; that the officers of the state, of every grade, 
 shall confine themselves within the sphere of their legitimate 
 official duty ; that the attorney-general shall not leave his 
 brief, the secretary of state his office, the justice of the 
 Supreme Court his seat of justice, the policeman bis guardian- 
 ship of the property and the lives of our citizens, and join 
 bands of slave-hunters and blood-hounds baying on the track 
 of alleged fugitive slaves; that those state officials who pre- 
 
10 
 
 fer the service of the South, in this the most disgusting and 
 detestable of its requirements, shall be deemed to have 
 resigned all service in official capacity they owe to this 
 state. 
 
 Mr. Chairman : These are the provisions of this law. It 
 covers no more ground than this ; it seeks to compass no 
 other objects than these. We are told that when, at a former 
 session of this body, an eloquent and distinguished friend of 
 freedom, who now graces and adorns the Speaker's chair of 
 this house, arose in his place and advocated similar senti- 
 ments, another member, with startling effect, cried, Treason ! 
 Treason ! ! Treason ! ! ! That cry may be repeated during 
 this discussion. Sir: In the language of Patrick Henry, 
 uttered in the Virginia House of Delegates, when the same 
 cry of Treason ! Treason ! ! Treason ! ! ! interrupted his 
 burning, eloquent, bitter denunciations of oppression, I say, 
 if this is treason, make the most of it. Sir : Those who 
 oppose this bill tell us that it is in conflict with the constitu- 
 tion of the United States. It is not alleged that it is in con- 
 flict with the constitution of the State of New York. On the 
 contrary, I think that it will be universally admitted that 
 were the State of New York an absolutely independent sove- 
 reignty, whose citizens were bound to recognize no other 
 constitution than that of the state, this bill would not only 
 not conflict with the constitution, but would on the contrary 
 give force and practical effect to its provisions. It is only 
 alleged that this bill contains provisions which, under a 
 sound and correct construction of our federal constitution, 
 cannot be sustained. 
 
 Mr. Chairman : I assert, and I believe that by logical 
 reasoning I can demonstrate, that this bill does not conflict, 
 
11 
 
 in any of its provisions, with the constitution of the United 
 States, as fairly and properly interpreted and expounded. 
 
 Sir : I do not propose at this time to argue here the ques- 
 tion whether there does not exist a Higher Law, before which 
 the ]aws of men pale and shrink into insignificance, and lose 
 their binding force ; a Higher Law established by Him who 
 holds us in the hollow of His hand, and in whose awful pre- 
 sence the bond and the free, who shall have well performed 
 their duties here, shall hereafter, in common, enjoy the Free- 
 dom OP Immortality. I do not propose to base my argu- 
 ment, that this bill should receive the votes of the honorable 
 members upon the floor of this house, upon the allegation of 
 another, that if the law is not constitutional, it ought to be. I do 
 not think that it is necessary to take either of these positions. 
 Sir : It is a proposition, which I am confident will not be 
 disputed by any well informed gentleman, that each state of 
 this Union is an independent and absolute sovereignty, as 
 against all other states or governments, except where it has 
 delegated a portion of that sovereignty to our federal govern- 
 ment, or is expressly prohibited by our federal constitution 
 from its exercise. Every person within this state was pro- 
 tected in life, liberty and property by its constitution and laws, 
 before the framing and ratification of the federal constitution, and 
 could not be deprived of life, liberty or property without due 
 process of law, such due process of law being, by all sound 
 and recognized construction, the usual process and forms in 
 force by the laws of this state, and providing for a jury trial. 
 This state has never parted with this riglit of absolute protec- 
 tion of those upon her soil. Nor does the federal constitution 
 forbid this state to grant the benefits of this provision of its 
 constitution, in existence before the framing of the federal 
 
12 
 
 constitution, and providing that no person shall be deprived 
 of life, liberty or property without due process of law. The 
 right of every person to be thus protected, in this state, there- 
 fore, exists. Nor is any distinction of race or color made by 
 the constitution. It gives protection to all. Due process of 
 law, therefore, must have reference to the usual process 
 and forms in force by the laws of this state, and must contem- 
 plate the right of trial by jury. Hence, any law that enacts 
 that a man can be dragged from our soil without due process 
 of law, as thus defined, without trial by jury and upon ex 
 •parte affidavits taken in a foreign state — declared by the infa- 
 mous Fugitive Slave Act to be conclusive evidence of the 
 right of the claimant to remove the alleged fugitive — and hur- 
 ried to that foreign state, there to try the main issue of liberty, 
 is not warranted by the federal constitution, and is repugnant 
 to the provisions of our oion. Hence it follows that the fugi- 
 tive slave laws enacted by the Congress of the United States 
 cannot and do not constitutionally deprive the Legislature of 
 this state of the right to enact laws protecting, in the full and 
 absolute enjoyment of life, liberty and property, all classes 
 and races of persons .protected by our constitution in such 
 enjoyment before the framing of the federal constitution. All 
 classes and races of persons were fully and absolutely thus 
 protected then, therefore we have the right to 'protect them now. 
 Mr. Chairman : I have thus shown that the provisions of 
 the bill before the house do not conflict with the constitution 
 of the Union ; and that the Fugitive Slave Law, so far as it 
 authorizes any person, while on the free soil of this state, to 
 be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process 
 of law, as defined and recognized by the laws of the state, is 
 unconstitutional. Now, by no due process of law, thus 
 
13 
 
 defined and recognized-by the laws of this state, can any man 
 be deprived of his ownership of himself or of his liberty, 
 except for crime or fraudulent indebtedness. Therefore the 
 slave, when his foot presses the soil of New York, becomes a 
 freeman ; and the sixth section of this act, which declares that 
 every person who may have been held as a slave, who shall 
 be brought or come to this state, shall be free, is constitu- 
 tional as well as just. This section is the heart of this law ; 
 and if the heart beats with a strong and healthy pulsation, it 
 imparts vitality and vigor to the whole body. 
 
 But, Mr. Chairman, there is yet another position which I 
 believe to be impregnable in support of the constitutionality 
 of this law, and which would give us the right to enact it 
 even if the State of New York, at the time the federal 
 constitution was framed, had ceded away the right to protect 
 all persons in the enjoyment of life, liberty and property. 
 The constitution of the United States is an aQ;reement or 
 compact between several sovereign and independent states, 
 by whicli, in consideration of mutual advantages and rights 
 given by the one to the other, each yields an equivalent of 
 advantage and of right. It can properly be likened to an 
 agreement between individuals, by the provisions of which, 
 for a tangible and valuable consideration, each party to the 
 agreement binds himself to perform certain acts, to assume 
 certain obligations. Now, in the matter of all agreements 
 and compacts between individuals, if one violates the agree- 
 ment or the compact, the other is absolved from all legal 
 obligation to fulfill it on his part. 
 
 Sir : The states of the South, holding to the states of the 
 North the same relation held by individuals making a com- 
 pact or agreement to each other, have, since the making o£ 
 
14 
 
 this compact or agreement, called the constitution of the 
 United States, repeatedly violated it on their part. 
 The constitution of the United States provides that "The 
 citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and 
 immunities of citizens in the several states." Since the 
 framing of the constitution, states have been forced into thig 
 Union, by the Slave oligarchy, with constitutions depriving 
 a portion of the citizens of the Free states of the benefits of 
 this provision of the constitution of the Union. In some of 
 the Southern states, citizens of the Free states have, under 
 the authority of laws enacted by the state legislatures, been 
 imprisoned, merely because they came into Southern ports 
 on board of vessels, as seamen, engaged in the legitimate and 
 lawful service of commerce ; and the Legislature of South 
 Carolina enacted a law by which any citizen of a Free state, 
 coming into South Carolina and defending his fellow-citizens 
 thus imprisoned, and contesting the constitutionality of the 
 law, should be deemed to have committed a felony, and should 
 be subjected to incarceration in a state prison. 
 
 The venerable and respected Samuel Hoar, delegated by 
 the sovereign State of Massachusetts to defend her citizens^ 
 iinprisoned because thus as seamen they had entered the port 
 of Charleston, was driven from that city, and, if he had re- 
 mained and discharged the duties for which he was sent 
 there, he would have been imprisoned also. Colored seamen, 
 free native-born citizens of the Free states, have been sold 
 into slavery for no other reason than because they came into 
 Southern ports and assumed the rights of citizens of the 
 country. We have the authority of Daniel "Webster, the old 
 man eloquent, who so long and so gallantly "stood as a 
 sentinel on the watch-tower of liberty," John Quincy Adams, 
 
15 
 
 and of other great statesmen, that when a portion of the 
 states of this Union violate the federal constitution, the 
 other states are released from its obligations. I have shown 
 that Southern states have violated its provisions. 
 
 The Northern states are, therefore, no longer bound by 
 them. Hence it follows that I have shown that which I 
 asserted I could demonstrate ; I have proven that even if all 
 persons were not protected in life, liberty and property by 
 the constitution of our state, before the framing of the federal 
 constitution, and even if originally under that constitution 
 the provisions of this "Personal Liberty Bill" would have 
 been unconstitutional, they are no longer so, and we have a 
 right to enact them. 
 
 Sir : There is yet another argument upon which, as iipon a 
 rock, I base my assertion that the Personal Liberty Bill is 
 constitutional. It has been contended already by Hildreth, 
 by Horace Mann, by Charles Sumner — bludgeoned on the 
 floor of the United States Senate chamber by a Southern 
 member of Congress because he spoke for freedom — and by 
 many other statesmen and jurists, that by no legitimate and 
 sound construction of the constitution of the United States 
 can authority be found therein to pursue and retake, upon 
 the soil of a Free state, the slave who has fled from his mas- 
 ter, and that the Fugitive Slave Laws of 1793 and 1S50 are 
 flagrantly and clearly unconstitutional. 
 
 Sir : Neither the word slavery nor the word slave can be 
 found in the federal constitution. The perusal of the debates 
 of the convention that framed that constitution shows that 
 the delegates therein expressly refused to indorse the institu- 
 tion of slavery. Any construction of the federal constitution 
 which recognizes the nationality of slavery contradicts and 
 
16 
 
 nullifies the spirit of its preamble, which, among other things, 
 declares that it is framed for the purpose of promoting the 
 general welfare, and securing the blessings of liberty to the 
 People of the United States and their posterity. 
 
 Sir : If the black man is a person he is one of the People, 
 and thus secured in the enjoyment of liberty ; and the first 
 subdivision of the ninth section of the first article of the 
 federal constitution, which has reference to the importation 
 of slaves, as we also learn from the published debates of the 
 convention, denominates them Persons, and they were so 
 designated after a prolonged discussion upon the question 
 whether they should be referred to as property, in which Roger 
 Sherman, Mr. Madison and others took part. Sir : This federal 
 constitution nowhere recognizes property in human beings ; and 
 in the convention by which it was framed, Gouverneur Morris, 
 Oliver Ellsworth, Elbridge Gerry and others successfully 
 opposed such recognition. Sir : The state conventions in the 
 New England and Middle States, called to pass upon the 
 question whether the federal constitntion should be ratified, 
 in their debates and discussions, voted and discussed upon 
 the hypothesis and under the belief that by the adoption of 
 the constitution they did not, in the most remote manner or 
 to the slightest extent, indorse or come in contact with any 
 question connected with slavery. For proof of this asser- 
 tion I appeal to the truth of history. 
 
 The federal constitution does not grant to Congress imwer to 
 enact laws for the recovery of the fugitive slaves, but evidently 
 contemplates legislation by the several states upon the clause 
 having reference to persons escaping from service or labor. 
 There is therefore no constitutional act in existence which 
 prevents the passage of this bill, even if I concede that the con- 
 
17 
 
 stitution by any legal construction of its terms has reference 
 to slaves. The fugitive slave laws are unconstitutional, be- 
 cause they refuse the right of trial by jury to the alleged 
 slave upon the great question of his right to himself — 
 a right which, under the common law of England, has 
 existed for centuries, of which Congress cannot deprive him, 
 and which is not denied to the petty scoundrel who steals 
 your pocket-book, or to the midnight assassin who kills your 
 friend by a coward and stealthy blow. Because, therefore, 
 the constitution has not given to Congress the power to pass 
 a uniform law for the recovery of fugitives from service or 
 labor — a power of legislation expressly given as to the man- 
 ner of proof, in each state, of the public acts, records and 
 judicial proceedings of every other state, but omitted in this 
 subdivision of section second, article fourth, upon which the 
 fugitive slave laws are based — and because the fugitive slave 
 laws deny to the alleged fugitive the right of trial by jury, I 
 assert that they are unconstitutional, and that whatever may 
 be the construction of the constitution with reference to the 
 question whether it recognizes property in man, the Legisla- 
 ture of every state has the sole and exclusive power to legis- 
 late as to the manner in which the fugitive is to be recovered. 
 Sir : Liberty is a natural and inherent right, of which a 
 person can only be deprived, under any circumstances, by 
 positive and direct command of law, expressed in clear and 
 unmistakable language. The allegations that slavery is 
 recognized by the constitution, and that under the constitu- 
 tion Congress has the right to pass a fugitive slave law, are 
 only based upon far-fetched and labored rules of interpreta- 
 tion and construction. Slavery cannot thus be nationalized. 
 2 
 
18 
 
 Such construction is not warranted. Every intendment is in 
 favor of Liberty. 
 
 I have thus far, Mr. Chairman, given the reason why I con- 
 tend that the fugitive slave laws are unconstitutional ; why 
 the provisions of the bill now before the house, and which 
 has been reported by a committee of which I have the honor 
 of being a member, are constitutional. We cannot repeal the 
 Fugitive Slave Law, but we can enact laws which will prac- 
 tically prevent its execution, vindicate the right of this proud 
 »tate to protect its citizens in the enjoyment of the rights 
 guaranteed to them by our state constitution, and demon- 
 strate by our legislative action our abhorrence of an institu- 
 tion condemned by Washington, the elder and the younger 
 Adams, John Jay, whose surviving grandson inherits his great 
 and generous heart, Jefferson and the other fathers of our 
 republic. Sir : It is asserted that there is no pressing neces- 
 sity for the passage of this law. There are many reasons 
 why this Legislature should pass this bill. It is time that 
 the hundreds of fugitives passing through this state should 
 not be compelled to tax the benevolence of our citizens to 
 provide the means for their transportation to the soil to which 
 attaches the protection of the British constitution. It is 
 time that the fugitive should be permitted with safety to re- 
 main with us, and by his labor contribute to his own comfort 
 and add ta the wealth of the state. The number of fugitives 
 needing the protection of this law every year is greater than 
 many suppose. I have. Sir, in my hand a list of the fugitive 
 slaves that have passed through this city of Albany, on their 
 route to freedom, between the 3d of June last and 1st of 
 January last. The number is one hundred and seventy-six, 
 and hundreds of dollars have been expended in this city in 
 
19 
 
 clothing them, nursing them, and sending them on their way. 
 One of them I find to have been a slave of a senator from the 
 great mother of Presidents, the slave-breeding State of Vir- 
 ginia ; another belonged to a deacon in a Baptist church in 
 Virginia, who sold forty slaves, including this fugitive, for 
 exportation to plantations farther south, there to be over- 
 worked and abused for a short time and then die. Thirty- 
 nine were probably delivered on the contract of purchase ; 
 the fortieth fixed his eye on the beacon of light to freedom, 
 the north star, struggled through thickets and morasses, swam 
 rivers, bravely struggled on, and, ragged, weary and foot-sore, 
 reached friends who helped him on his way, and is now in 
 Canada, enjoying under a limited monarchy that freedom 
 denied him in a republic. 
 
 Sir : By the passage of this bill you will give the protec- 
 tion of law to these men and women, aye, and children, thus 
 bravely struggling to secure the blessings of liberty gua- 
 ranteed by your federal constitution to the ^people of this 
 country. The feelings of the people of this state are of that 
 nature which authorize me to assert that if, by the passage 
 of this bill, personal liberty is not protected, a human being 
 cannot in many portions of the state be attempted to be 
 dragged into slavery without imminent peril of insurrection 
 and bloodshed. 
 
 Sir: One great purpose of this law is to exhibit the feeling 
 of the people of the North; is to, on our part, throw the 
 gauntlet down ; to legislate in as unfriendly a manner towards 
 slavery as we legally can ; to shadow forth the fact that there 
 is a limit to the endurance of the North ; and if ever the 
 wave of popular indignation, increased it its volume and 
 accelerated in its progress by the aggressions and the inso- 
 
20 
 
 lence of the Slave oligarchy, shall roll over the line novp- 
 existing between Freedom and Slavery, it will sweep away, 
 as with the power of a resistless whirlwind, the infamous 
 institution of slavery, which impoverishes us at home and dis- 
 graces us abroad. 
 
 Sir : There is necessity for the passage of this bill. Slavery 
 has been abolished in New York for many years, but it is 
 contended that the soil of New York does not yet, when 
 pressed by the foot of the bondman, transform him into a 
 freeman : I contend that we should enact that no Southern 
 slave should have a residence here as a slave, and no Southern 
 slaveholder hold his slaves here. The doctrine of the Dred 
 Scott decision points in a diiferent direction ; although as yet 
 it is but " doctrine, dictum," for the material points claimed 
 to have been decided in this Dred Scott case are outside of 
 the issues in the case, and therefore not authority. It is, 
 however, claimed by the dicta of this decision, and by the 
 South, that Slavery is national and Freedom sectional ; that 
 the slaveholder has a right to hold his slaves in traiisitu 
 through a Free state or states, and that he has a right to take 
 and permanently hold them in any territory of the United 
 States ; and that the legislature of the territory, the conven- 
 tion called to form a constitution for the territory, the state 
 legislature of the state admitted under the constitution formed 
 by such convention, have neither of them a right to prevent 
 any citizen of the South from planting and perpetuating 
 Slavery within the limits of the territory, either while it 
 remains a territory or after it is admitted to be a state. One 
 of the purposes of this law is to demonstrate that the citizens 
 of the State of New York regard Slavery as sectional and 
 Freedom as national ; that the legal presumption should be 
 
21 
 
 that a man is not a slave; that the burden of proof should be 
 thrown upon the claimant to prove his ownership of the man 
 he claims to own ; that a case of probable cause, to be passed 
 upon by a single official, should not suffice ; that the main 
 body of an inquiry, upon which hinges results so important, 
 should not be postponed and sabmitted to the judgment of a 
 jury of slaveholders, when the party most interested has no 
 fair opportunity and no means for defence, but should, im- 
 mediately upon his arrest as a slave, be speedil}'', fairly, 
 impartially, and upon free soil, decided by a jury of freemen. 
 Sir : The tendency of laws like that now under considera- 
 tion is to check, the Slave power in its aggressive march, to 
 roll back the black and threatening wave of Southern oppres- 
 sion, to teach the Slave power that it will have absolute need 
 of its utmost efforts to preserve its existence within its present 
 boundaries, without grasping by robbery or bribery the terri- 
 tories of other governments in order to aggrandize and per- 
 petuate Slavery. Sir : This bill will show to the enlightened 
 nations of the world that New York detests the institution of 
 Slavery. The effect of the existence of Slavery in this 
 country upon the progress of Republicanism and upon the 
 amelioration of the condition of the oppressed in other por- 
 tions of the world is blighting and deadly. 
 
 " Go, let us ask of Constantino 
 
 To loose his grasp on Poland's throat, 
 Or beg the Prince of Mahmoud's lino 
 
 To spare the struggling Suliote ; 
 Will not the scorching answer come, 
 
 From turbaned Turk and fiery Russ, 
 Go, loose your fettered slaves at home, 
 
 Then come and ask the like of us." 
 
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