And Law, an unloosed maniac, strong,We may readily imagine the frame of mind in which these events left Garrison. At the 4th of July celebration of the Abolitionists at Framingham, Massachusetts, in 1854, he made an address in the open air, in the course of which he produced a copy of the Fugitive Slave Law, and setting fire to it, burned it to ashes. “And let all people say, Amen,” he cried; and a shout of “Amen” went up from the vast crowd. Then he burned the decision of the commissioner ordering the surrender of a slave, and also the charge of Judge Curtis to the grand jury. “And let all the people say, Amen.” Then
Blood-drunken, through the blackness trod,
Hoarse-shouting in the ear of God
The blasphemy of wrong.
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United States;” and that honorable body complied with his request.
President Pierce, a New Hampshire man, ordered out the troops to make sure the delivery of the unfortunate captive.
Congress, bent upon proving that it was as much enslaved to the slave-holders as the Negroes themselves, in obedience to its task-masters, swept aside the Missouri Compromise, and passed the Nebraska Bill, which opened to slavery a vast region which had been solemnly dedicated by the same body to freedom.
True indeed were Whittier's lines:
Chicago: the Public Publishing Company, 1905.
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