We come now to the crowning act of infamy on the part of the general government towards the colored inhabitants of the United States--an act so vile in its nature, that rebellion against its demands should be promptly made in every attempt to enforce its infernal provisions.
In the history of national existence, there is not to be found a parallel to the tantalizing insult and aggravating despotism of the provisions of Millard Fillmore’s Fugitive Slave Bill, passed by the Thirty-third Congress of the United States, with the approbation of a majority of the American people, in the year of the Gospel of Jesus Christ eighteen hundred and fifty.
This bill had but one object in its provisions, which was fully accomplished in its passage, that is, the reduction of every colored person in the United States--save those who carry free papers of emancipation, or bills of sale from former claimants or owners--to a state of relative _slavery_; placing each and every one of us at the _disposal of any and every white_ who might choose to _claim_ us, and the caprice of any and every upstart knave bearing the title of “commissioner.”
Did any of you, fellow-countrymen, reside in a country, the provisions of whose laws were such that any person of a certain class, who, whenever he, she, or they pleased, might come forward, lay a claim to, make oath before (it might be) some stupid and heartless person, authorized to decide in such cases, and take, at their option, your horse, cow, sheep, house and lot, or any other property, bought and paid for by your own earnings,--the result of your personal toil and labor,--would you be willing, or could you be induced by any reasoning, however great the source from which it came, to remain in that country? We pause, fellow-countrymen, for a reply.
If there be not one yea, of how much more importance, then, is your _own personal safety_ than that of property? Of how much more concern is the safety of a wife or husband, than that of a cow or horse; a child, than a sheep; the destiny of your family, to that of a house and lot?
And yet this is precisely our condition. Any one of us, at any moment, is liable to be _claimed_, _seized_, and _taken_ into custody by any white, as his or her property--to be _enslaved for life_--and there is no remedy, because it is the _law of the land_! And we dare predict, and take this favorable opportunity to forewarn you, fellow-countrymen, that the time is not far distant, when there will be carried on by the white men of this nation an extensive commerce in the persons of what now compose the free colored people of the North. We forewarn you, that the general enslavement of the whole of this class of people is now being contemplated by the whites.