C. Edwards Lester, Life and public services of Charles Sumner: Born Jan. 6, 1811. Died March 11, 1874.

[158] and an infraction of rights secured to the States; and secondly, as a denial of Trial by Jury, in a question of Personal Liberty and a suit at common law; that its glaring unconstitutionality finds a prototype in the British Stamp Act, which our fathers refused to obey as unconstitutional on two parallel grounds—first, because it was a usurpation by Parliament of powers not belonging to it under the British Constitution, and an infraction of rights belonging to the Colonies; and secondly, because it was a denial of Trial by Jury in certain cases of property; that as Liberty is far above property, so is the outrage perpetrated by the American Congress far above that perpetrated by the British Parliament; and, finally, that the Slave Act has not that support in the public sentiment of the States where it is to be executed, which is the life of all law, and which prudence and the precept of Washington require.

Briefly, the States are prohibited from any ‘law or regulation’ by which any ‘person’ escaped from ‘service or labor’ may be discharged therefrom, and on establishment of the claim to such ‘service or labor,’ he is to be ‘delivered up.’ But the mode by which the claim is to be tried and determined is not specified. All this is obviously within the control of each State. It may be done by virtue of express legislation, in which event any Legislature, justly careful of Personal Liberty, would surround the fugitive with every shield of the law and Constitution. But here a fact, pregnant with Freedom, must be studiously observed. The name Slave—that litany of wrong and woe—does not appear in the clause. Here is no unambiguous phrase, incapable of a double sense; no ‘positive’ language, applicable only to slaves, and excluding all other classes; no word of that absolute certainty in every particular, which forbids any interpretation except that of Slavery, and makes it impossible ‘to catch at anything in favor of Liberty.’ Nothing of this kind is here. But passing from this; ‘cruelly and impiously’ renouncing for the moment all leanings for Freedom; refusing ‘to catch at anything in favor of Liberty;’ abandoning the cherished idea of the Fathers, that ‘It was wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea of property in man;’ and, in the face of these commanding principles, assuming two things, first, that, in the evasive language of this clause, the Convention, whatever may have been the aim of individual members, really intended fugitive slaves, which is sometimes questioned; and, secondly, that, if they so intended, the language employed can be judicially regarded as justly applicable to fugitive slaves, which is often and earnestly denied; then the whole proceeding, without any express