"
It will be seen by the facts we have adduced that slavery in
Massachusetts never had a legal existence. The ermine of the judiciary
of the Puritan state has never been sullied by the admission of its
detestable claims. It crept into the Commonwealth like other evils and
vices, but never succeeded in clothing itself with the sanction and
authority of law. It stood only upon its own execrable foundation of
robbery and wrong.
With a history like this to look back upon, is it strange that the people
of Massachusetts at the present day are unwilling to see their time-
honored defences of personal freedom, the good old safeguards of Saxon
liberty, overridden and swept away after the summary fashion of "the
Fugitive Slave Bill;" that they should loathe and scorn the task which
that bill imposes upon them of aiding professional slave-hunters in
seizing, fettering, and consigning to bondage men and women accused only
of that which commends them to esteem and sympathy, love of liberty and
hatred of slavery; that they cannot at once adjust themselves to
"constitutional duties" which in South Carolina and Georgia are reserved
for trained bloodhounds? Surely, in view of what Massachusetts has been,
and her strong bias in favor of human freedom, derived from her great-
hearted founders, it is to be hoped that the Executive and Cabinet at
Washington will grant her some little respite, some space for turning,
some opportunity for conquering her prejudices, before letting loose the
dogs of war upon her.
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