Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 16.djvu/327

 The Southern Cause Vindicated. 321

especially when we are founding States, all these laws must be brought to the standard of the law of God, must be tried by that standard, and must stand or fall by it. To conclude on this point, we are not slaveholders, we cannot in our judgment be true Chris- tians or real freemen, if we impose on others a claim that we defy all human power to fasten on ourselves." He also said : " Wherein do the strength and security of slavery lie ? You answer, that they lie in the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and laws of the slaveholding States. Not at all. It is in the erroneous sentiments of the American people. Constitutions and laws can no more rise above the virtue of the people than the limpid stream can rise above its spring. Inculcate the love of freedom and the equal rights of man under the paternal roof; see to it that they are taught in the schools and in the churches. Reform your code. Extend a cordial welcome to the fugitive who lays his weary limbs at your door, and defend him as you would your paternal gods. Correct your error, that slavery has any constitutional guarantee which may not be released and ought not to be relinquished. Say to slavery, when it shows its bond and demands the pound of flesh, that if it draws one drop of blood its life shall pay the forfeit. Inculcate that free States can maintain the rights of hospitality and humanity ; that executive authority can forbear to favor slavery." Thus it was urged, and attempted to be taught, that the Constitution was the em- bodiment of crime and oaths to support it of no effect or binding force. That we must regard such obligations as baubles, as things to deceive, as snares to entrap. We were asked to make such doc- trines a part of our education and a controlling feature of our reli- gion. To make perjury a pillar of Church and State, and the crime of larceny a commendable virtue. The seeds so sown bore fruit.

Article IV, section 2, of the United States Constitution, ordains : "A person charged in any State with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice and be found in another State, shall, on demand of the executive authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up to be removed to the State having jurisdiction of the crime."

In two instances, Kent and Fairfield, Governors of Maine, refused to comply with this provision on requisitions by the Governor of Georgia for negro thieves.

Governor Seward (afterwards Senator), of New York, made a similar refusal to the same State, saying it was not against the laws of New York to steal a negro. He made a similar refusal to Vir-