May 14, 1852
An account of the expenses for the government in arresting, holding, trying, and restoring to his master, the fugitive, Sims. The total comes to $8, 841.05. “Mr. Webster has the gratification of seeing the law – a solemn compact – enforced in Massachusetts, after an expenditure of $8000, against the resistance of the abolitionists. Beautiful! But it is not every owner that can incur, like Mr. Potter, of Georgia, the loss of his time in the recovery of a single runaway slave. The luxury is too expensive. In point of fact, the test proves the Fugitive Slave Law to be a dead letter — a practical nullity – in Massachusetts.”
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