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'ALEXANDRIA:WEDNESDAY EVENING, JUNE 15, 1864,W. J. COWING,.........Principal Editor.B. W. GIIiLIS . .. Associate EditorFOR PRESIDENTABRABMIOF ILLINOIS. 1* r FOR YICR PRESIDENT-MDREW JOHYSOH,OF TENNESSEE.Repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law.In the Houseo of Representatives, June 13tli,1864, the following bill was passed-'by a vote of yeas 92, nays 58.Beit enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of. America in Congress assembled, That sections three and four of an act entitled ‘-An act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of theif masters,” passed February 12, 1793, and an act entitled “An act to amend, and supplementary to, the act entitled ‘An act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their masters, passed February 12, 1793,’ passed September, 1850,' ’ he, and the same are hereby repealed.We presume that man) who imagine we are living in the same times we were when the Missouri Compromise was adopted, or when the compromise of 1850 was agreed upon, and who, having got into the rut of compromises with, and concessions to, what was the slave power and have never been able to get out will see in the above action of the House of Representatives, -something very alarming and dangerous to tlie public welfare. That class of deluded souls who imagine that slavery yet lives, are as ready as ever to do its bidding. In the debate on the above bill, Mr. Cox, of Ohio, said he “would deliver up to their musters runaway negroes found in the ranks of the Union army;'1 while, with admirable consistency, he condemned the government for delivering up to the authorities of Cuba, the scoundrel Ar-guelles who have violated its penal laws by iending dozens of his fellow men into slavery.In other words, Mr. Cox would go all lengths to remand an escaped negro to servitude, and he would go just as far to shield the ruffian who had been caught, in another country, in the act of consigning hi9 fellow men to servitude, and who in consequence thereof had been obliged to flee from punishment. The remanding of the negro soldier to slavery in this country, is sought to be done under the canting plea of devotion to the constitution ; but pray where is the constitutional right of the ruffians and assassins of other countries to claim protection from the hand of justice, by escaping to our shores ? The Constitution cannot be set up as the plea in the latter case.It is sympathy with slavery, and a lova for the man who will do its hellish bidding, whether he do it in this country, under the Constitution, or elsewhere, without the Constitution, that binds these villains together, and makes them always sure of each others assistance. The Arguelle3 case has only unmasked the wretches and shown to the people how insincere is their professed regard for aui^ the Constitution. Then wheu they raise anew the howl about interfering with the constitutional rights of slaveholders, as they assuredly will over this repeal of the fugitive slave law,.we shall know just what value toplace upon their professions. We shall remember how in the case of Arguelle3, with which the Constitution had nothing to do, they were just as loud and zealous in protecting the slave-monger—and we shall probably consider the noise about the Constitution as only the means, with which, without regard to its correctness or truth, they seek to intimidate the opponents of slavery. For our part, as we rejoiced over the emancipation of our colored citizens, so we rejoice over the expurgation from our statutes of everything which would ever remind us that we had been ocne capable, of doing such injustice to our fellow man as to hold them in slavery.We hope the bill will become a law. No loyal State except Kentucky and Delaware can be affected by it, and they will soon follow in the footsteps of Virginia and Maryland. As for the disloyal States, together with their friends and well wishers, the Vallandighams and Cox’s of the North, tie more they dislike such action the better.The Senate Military Committee favor the* «v L .proposed repeal of the $300 commutation -clause of the Enrollment bill with the excep-
Newspaper Details
Alexandria Virginia State Journal
Alexandria, Virginia, US
Wed, Jun 15, 1864
Page 2
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