Without discrimination of color even, and in violation of every
presumption of freedom, the Act surrenders all who may be claimed as
"owing service or labor" to the same tyrannical proceeding. If there be
any whose sympathies are not moved for the slave, who do not cherish the
rights of the humble African, struggling for divine Freedom, as warmly
as the rights of the white man, let him consider well that the rights of
all are equally assailed. "Nephew," said Algernon Sidney in prison, on
the night before his execution, "I value not my own life a chip; but
what concerns me is, that the law which takes away my life may hang
every one of you, whenever it is thought convenient."
Whilst thus comprehensive in its provisions, and applicable to all,
there is no safeguard of Human Freedom which the monster Act does not
set at nought.
It commits this great question--than which none is more sacred in the
law--not to a solemn trial, but to summary proceedings.
It commits this great question, not to one of the high tribunals of the
land, but to the unaided judgment of a single petty magistrate.
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