Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/617

 fugitive from service or labor is recaptured, would be a virtual denial of justice to the claimant of such fugitive, and would he tantamount to a positive refusal to execute the provision of the constitution, the same objections do not apply to such a trial in the state from which he fled. In the slaveholding states, full justice is administered, with entire fairness and impartiality, in cases of all actions for freedom. The person claiming his freedom is allowed to sue in forma pauperis; counsel is assigned him; time is allowed him to collect his witnesses and to attend the sessions of the court; and his claimant is placed under bond and security, or is divested of the possession during the progress of the trial, to insure the enjoyment of these privileges; and, if there be any leaning on the part of courts and juries, it is always to the side of the claimant for freedom.

"In deference to the feelings and prejudices which prevail in non-slaveholding states, the committee propose such a trial in the state from which the fugitive fled, in all cases where he declares to the officer giving the certificate for his return that he has a right to his freedom. Accordingly, the committee have prepared, and report herewith, (marked C,) two sections which they recommend should be incorporated in the fugitive bill, pending in the senate. According to these sections, the claimant is placed under bond, and required to return the fugitive to that county in the state from which he fled, and there to take him before a competent tribunal, and allow him to assert and establish his freedom, if he can, affording to him for that purpose all needful facilities.

"The committee indulge the hope that if the fugitive bill, with the proposed amendments, shall be passed by congress, it will be effectual to secure the recovery of all fugitives from service or labor, and it will remove all causes of complaint which have hitherto been experienced on that irritating subject. But if, in its practical operation, it shall be found insufficient, and if no adequate remedy can be devised for the restoration to their owners of fugitive slaves, those owners shall have a just title to indemnity out of the treasury of the United States.

"It remains to report upon the resolutions in relation to slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia. Without discussing the power of congress to abolish slavery within the district, in regard to which a diversity of opinion exists, the committee are of opinion that it ought not to be abolished. It could not be done without indispensable conditions which are not likely to be agreed to. It could not be done without exciting great apprehension and alarm in the slave states. If the power were exercised within this district, they would apprehend that, under some pretext or another, it might hereafter be attempted to be exercised within the slaveholding states. It is true that, at present, all such power within those states is almost unanimously disavowed and disclaimed in the free states. But experience in public affairs has too often shown that where there is a desire to do a particular thing, the power to accomplish it, sooner or later, will be found or assumed.

"Nor does the number of slaves within the district make the abolition of slavery an object of any such consequence as appears to be attached to it in