every service rendered to despotism is well paid. Men with foreheads of brass, with iron elbows, with consciences of gum elastic, whose chief commandment of their law, their prophets, and their gospel, is to
"—— crook the pregnant hinges of the knee,
Where thrift may follow fawning;"
verily they shall have their reward! They shall become Fugitive Slave Bill judges; yea, attorneys of the United States! In 1836, a poor slave girl named Med, who had been brought from Louisiana to Boston by her master, sued for her freedom in the courts of Massachusetts. Mr. Benjamin R. Curtis appeared as the slave-hunter's counsel, long, and stoutly, and learnedly contending that she should not receive her freedom by the laws, constitution, and usages of this Commonwealth, but should be sent back to eternal bondage.[1] On the 7th of March, 1850, Mr. Webster made his speech against Freedom, so fatal to himself; but soon after found such a fire in his rear that he must return to Massachusetts to rescue his own popularity—then apparently in great peril. On the 29th of April, the same Mr. Curtis, faithful to his proclivities towards Slavery, made a public address to the apostate senator, at the Revere House, and expressed his "abounding gratitude for the ability and fidelity" which Mr. Webster had "brought to the defence of the Constitution and the Union;" praising him as "eminently vigilant, wise, and faithful to pur country, without shadow of turning." At the Union meeting in Faneuil Hall (Nov. 26th), Mr. Curtis declared the fugitive slaves "a class of foreigners," "with whose rights Massachusetts has nothing to do. It is enough for us that they have no right to be here." Other services,
- ↑ The girl was set free, and the principle laid down that slaves coming: to a free State with the consent of their masters, secured their freedom. An account of the case was published in the Boston Daily Advertiser of August 29, 1836, and introduced with the following editorial comment:—"In some of the States there is, we believe, legislative provision for cases of this sort [namely, allowing the master to bring and keep slaves in bondage], and it would seem that some such provision is necessary in this State, unless we would prohibit citizens of the slave-holding States from travelling in this State with their families, and unless we would permit such of them as wish to emancipate their slaves, to throw them at their pleasure upon the people of this State."
