Slavery was an institution that required unusual guarantees for its
security wherever it existed; and in a country like ours where the
larger portion of it was free territory inhabited by an intelligent and
well-to-do population, the people would naturally have but little
sympathy with demands upon them for its protection. Hence the people of
the South were dependent upon keeping control of the general government
to secure the perpetuation of their favorite institution. They were
enabled to maintain this control long after the States where slavery
existed had ceased to have the controlling power, through the assistance
they received from odd men here and there throughout the Northern
States. They saw their power waning, and this led them to encroach upon
the prerogatives and independence of the Northern States by enacting
such laws as the Fugitive Slave Law. By this law every Northern man
was obliged, when properly summoned, to turn out and help apprehend
the runaway slave of a Southern man. Northern marshals became
slave-catchers, and Northern courts had to contribute to the support
and protection of the institution.
This was a degradation which the North would not permit any longer than
until they could get the power to expunge such laws from the statute
books. Prior to the time of these encroachments the great majority of
the people of the North had no particular quarrel with slavery, so long
as they were not forced to have it themselves.
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