January 21, 1842
This is a notice from the Governor, to the state Legislature, “laying before it a law of Virginia, calculated to embarrass our commerce.” The message includes the reasons why the Governor has refused to “surrender three persons heretofore demanded by the Lieutenant Governor of that Commonwealth as fugitives from justice.
June 3, 1842
Here are resolutions passed by a large gathering of colored citizens at the Infant School Room, May 28th, 1842 . The Resolutions petition the Legislature to “prohibit their officers and citizens from interfering to aid slaveholders in seizing and returning fugitive slaves.” The Resolutions will also ask Congress to repeal the 1793 law, and to secure the right of trial “to persons claimed as fugitive slaves.” There was introduced to the meeting a fugitive, who told of his ordeal. A purse was collected to enable him to reach Victoria’s dominion.
November 4, 1842
Here are long accounts of the Faneuil Hall meeting, speeches made, of strong controversy, discussion on all sides, in which the Latimer case is lifted in the context of human rights, and appeals for personal liberty laws by the state. There is also a copy of a notice which had invited people to the meeting, with this call to the meeting: “A repeal of the union between northern liberty and southern slavery is essential to the abolition of the one, and the preservation of the other.”Resolutions at the Faneuil Hall meeting called for the state legislature to pass laws which should “apply to any person who willfully aids the return of fugitive slaves”, and such persons should be “incapacitated for holding any office of trust, honor or emolument, under the Constitution or laws of this State.”
December 23, 1842
Record of another meeting in Waltham, urging action against fugitive slave law.
March 3, 1843
A very long report, taking a large portion of the paper, concludes with an act to submit to the legislature an Act “Further to Protect Personal Liberty”. It includes a statement that “No sheriff, deputy-sheriff, coroner, constable, jailor, or other officer of the Commonwealth , shall hereafter arrest or detain, or aid in the arrest or detention, or imprisonment in any jail or other building of the Commonwealth, or to any county, city, or town thereof, of any person for the reason that he is claimed as a fugitive slave.” It further indicates that violation of this act shall result in a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars or one year in the county jail for each offence.
January 18, 1850
Notice of Mr. Mason’s bill, providing ‘for the more effective execution of the third clause of the second section of the fourth article of the Constitution of the United States,’ is as follows: (then follows the content of the bill), then this: “Mr. Mason has given notice that he intends to prosecute the consideration of this bill, and has desired the Judiciary Committee to report it back as soon as convenient, for the action of the Senate. It is a deliberate movement to arrest the proceedings of the fugitive slave conspiracies and underground railroads in the North, for running off, harboring and aiding in the escape of the slaves of the South from their masters. It is clearly a measure based upon the Constitution, and will test the good faith of the North to that instrument.”
September 6, 1850
A N.Y. Tribune correspondent is the source of this, from Baltimore, unsigned. The article sites instances of escaping slaves, which have “added new fuel to the indignation of the ‘flesh and blood’ owners and traders. The result of this will be the most active measures to protect slave property, and to secure it when abducted…..It is openly avowed here, that in case another body of slaves abscond, and can be successfully pursued, that it shall be done with an armed band of fifty or an hundred men, if necessary …. Should this be done, we shall have an open border warfare at once, for the Free States will not quietly submit to have their territory invaded by armed posses. …there are thousands in this State and Virginia who will dare the issue, let the consequences be what they may.”
September 27, 1850
An Address to The People of Massachusetts, by the Board of Managers of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society occupies the most of a full page, signed by Francis Jackson, Pres., and Edmund Quincy, Secretary. The statement is a refutation of the bill at every one of its main legal points. “But there are other and far higher and more important objections to this law, and the clause of the Constitution under which it is framed, than any or all of those which have been alluded to. Even if we could be perfectly sure that none but those who are legally slaves would be returned to bondage – even if it was capable of demonstration, that under this law and constitutional provision, the rights of every free citizen would be protected – still, it would be morally wrong to support these laws. Slaveholding is always wrong. It is wrong to hold any man in slavery. It is wrong to return or aid in returning a fugitive slave. These things are wrong – the Constitution of the United States and law of 1850 to the contrary notwithstanding. Not all the constitutions and laws of the universe can make wrong in the slightest degree right. No one hesitates to deny the right of anyone to hold us in slavery. Every one admits that if we were slaves, it would be right to escape if we could, and wrong for anyone to force us back into slavery. But if it is wrong for anyone to enslave us, or to force us back into slavery, it is just as great a wrong for us to enslave any one else, or to aid in returning any one else to slavery. The soul of each man responds to the laws of God -’Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’-'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself’ – and the slave is toiling on a Southern plantation, and the slave who manfully compassed his escape, are no less our neighbors than the friend whom we have known and loved since boyhood. God is the common Father of us all. All men, black as well as white, are brethren.”
October 4, 1850
The meeting was held on Sept 30, at Rev. Samuel Snowden’s church. “The house was densely crowded, and at an early hour many were compelled to leave for lack of room.” Lewis Hayden was chosen for chairman and Nell, for Secretary. Hayden calls for the adoption of “ways and means for the protection of those in Boston liable to be seized by the prowling man-thief. He said that safety was to be obtained only by an united and persevering resistance of this ungodly, anti-republican law, and that, as this meeting would likely be followed by another, he hoped, conducive to an end worthy of those who, at all hazards, would defend the liberties of themselves and friends.”… “Garrison (whose presence was hailed with enthusiastic demonstrations) responded to a call to read the Fugitive Bill, … and in commenting on its several features, electrified the audience by his bold denunciations of the law and its supporters, and by his earnest appeal to all lovers of liberty now to test their principles, at whatever cost.!”
October 11, 1850
From the Boston Courier : “The public have been treated to some bugbear stories upon this subject, which have afforded an excellent occasion to a certain class of persons for letting off a portion of the steam which has been accumulating in their indignant insides for some time past. Slave-catchers were among us, forsooth!….None of these tales have the slightest foundation. All of the excitement has been got up by agitators, for their own private benefit.”