That Which Appears To Me To Be The Most Remarkable Feature In All
This Is The Antagonism Between United States Law And Individual
State Feeling.
Through the whole proceeding the Governor and the
State of Maryland seemed to have considered it quite reasonable to
oppose the constitutional power of the President and his
government.
It is argued in all the speeches and written documents
that were produced in Maryland at the time, that Maryland was true
to the Union; and yet she put herself in opposition to the
constitutional military power of the President. Certain
Commissioners went from the State legislature to Washington in May,
and from their report it appears that the President had expressed
himself of opinion that Maryland might do this or that "as long as
she had not taken and was not about to take a hostile attitude to
the Federal government!" From which we are to gather that a denial
of that military power given to the President by the Constitution
was not considered as an attitude hostile to the Federal
government. At any rate, it was direct disobedience to Federal
law. I cannot but revert from this to the condition of the
Fugitive Slave Law. Federal law, and indeed the original
constitution, plainly declare that fugitive slaves shall be given
up by the free-soil States. Massachusetts proclaims herself to be
specially a Federal law-loving State. But every man in
Massachusetts knows that no judge, no sheriff, no magistrate, no
policeman in that State would at this time, or then, when that
civil war was beginning, have lent a hand in any way to the
rendition of a fugitive slave.
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