Union—one which, ought to dissolve it, if put in action:
that is, a serious attempt to execute the fugitive slave
law, here and in all the North. I mean an attempt to recover and take back all the fugitive slaves in the North, and to punish, with fine and imprisonment, all who aid or conceal them. The South has browbeat us again and
again. She has smitten us on the one cheek with "Protection," and we have turned the other, kissing the rod; she has smitten that with "Free trade." She has imprisoned our citizens; driven off, with scorn and loathing, our officers sent to ask constitutional justice. She has spit upon us. Let her come to take back the fugitives—and trust me, she "will wake up the lion."
In my humble opinion, this law is a wedge—sharp at one end, but wide at the other—put in between the lower planks of our Ship of State. If it be driven home, we go to pieces. But I have no thought that that will be done quite yet. I believe the great politicians, who threatened to drive it through the gaping seams of our argosy, will think twice before they strike again. Nay, that they will soon be very glad to bury the wedge "where the tide ebbs and flows four times a day." I do not expect this of their courage, but of their fears; not of their justice—I am too old for that—but of their concern for property, which it is the "great object of government" to protect. I know how some men talk in public, and how they act at home. I heard a man the other day, at Faneuil Hall, declare the law must be kept, and denounce, not very gently, all who preached or prayed against it, as enemies of "all law." But that was all talk, for this very man, on that very day, had violated the law; had furnished the golden wheels on which fugitives rode out of the reach of the arms which the marshal would have been sorry to lift. I could tell things more surprising—but it is not wise just now![1]
I do not believe there is more than one of the New England men who publicly helped the law into being, but would violate its provisions; conceal a fugitive; share his loaf with a runaway; furnish him golden wings to fly with. Nay, I think it would be difficult to find a magistrate in New England, willing to take the public odium of
- ↑ Nor even yet. November 24, 1851.
