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was declared occasion for war between independent nations, and new guarantees were demanded of Congress
1 and unsuccessfully attempted to be procured.
From the same source and from
Missouri, appeal was next made to
2 the legislatures of the several States for cooperation in obtaining a new fugitive-slave law, investing any Federal postmaster or collector of customs with the authority of the
Federal courts in the matter of apprehension, custody, conviction, and rendition of the unhappy victims.
This Southern grievance had been fully ventilated in the U. S. Senate during the exciting debates growing out
3 of the Drayton and Sayres case; and, on the complaint of
Kentucky that her fugitive-slave processes were
4 obstructed in
Michigan,
Senator Butler of
South Carolina offered a bill to make slave-catching easy.
Naturally, the
5 subject was prominent in
Calhoun's Address, and it was
6 upon this portion that
Mr. Garrison proudly but overconfidently commented, when he said:
The times have indeed changed, and a radical alteration7 has taken place in public opinion on this subject.
Probably not another slave will be allowed to be seized, whether against law or in conformity thereto, on the soil of New England, to say nothing of the other free States, and hurried back to bondage.
It would be at his peril for a slave-hunter to make his appearance in this quarter; and for several years past, ever since the famous Latimer case, no attempt has been made to8 recapture a fugitive slave here.
At the
New England Anti-Slavery Convention on May 29,
Edmund Quincy spoke to his own resolution couched in these words:
Resolved, That it is our duty to agitate the question of slavery till the soil of New England is pure enough to free every man who sets foot upon it; and meanwhile, we pledge ourselves to trample under foot any law which allows the slaveholder to hunt the fugitive slave through our borders, and not only to make New England, so far as in us lies, an asylum for the oppressed, but to proclaim the fact so loudly that the glad tidings may reach every slave hut of the South.
Lib. 19.89.
