If you resort to the alleged legal obligation to return fugitives,
it has more plausibility, but has it in reality any firm foundation?
Americans boast of making their own laws, and of amending them
whenever circumstances render it necessary. How, then, can they
excuse themselves, or expect the civilized world to excuse them, for
making, or sustaining, unjust and cruel laws? The Fugitive Slave Act
has none of the attributes of law. If two highwaymen agreed between
themselves to stand by each other in robbing helpless men, women
and children, should we not find it hard work to "conquer our
prejudices" so far as to dignify their bargain with the name of
_law_? That is the light in which the compact between North and
South presents itself to the minds of intelligent slaves, and we
should view it in the same way, if we were in their position. Law
was established to maintain justice between man and man; and this
Act clearly maintains injustice. Law was instituted to protect the
weak from the strong; this Act delivers the weak completely into the
arbitrary power of the strong, "Law is a rule of conduct, prescribed
by the supreme power, commanding what is right, and forbidding what
is wrong.
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