amount to any question
of party allegiance. These demonstrations were vigorously seconded
by leading clergymen and doctors of divinity, whose sermons were
plentifully scattered over the land under the frank of members of
Congress and otherwise. The press put forth its whole power on
the side of anti-slavery submission and peace, while the Executive
and Judicial departments of the Government made haste to abase
themselves by their super-serviceable zeal in the enforcement of
the new Fugitive Slave law. The tables seemed to be completely
turned, and the time-honored rule of our slave-masters impregnably
re-established. The anti-slavery commotion which a little while
before had rocked the country from one end of the Union to the
other was hushed in the restored order which succeeded, and gave
promise of that longed-for "finality" for which the two great
parties had so ardently labored.

In no section of the non-slaveholding States was this reaction more
strikingly felt than in the West, and especially in Illinois and
Indiana. These States were outlying provinces of the empire of
slavery. Their black codes and large Southern population bore
witness to their perfect loyalty to slave-holding traditions.
Indiana, while a Territory, had repeatedly sought the introduction
of slavery into her borders. Her black laws had disfigured her
legislation from the beginning, and in 1850 were made still blacker
by her new Constitution, the 13th article of which, forbidding
negroes from coming into the State and white men from encouraging
them to remain, was submitted to the people separately, and ratified
by a popular majority of nearly ninety thousand votes. Ten years
before, in the Harrison campaign, Mr. Bigger, the Whig candidate
for Governor, made himself very popular by proving that Van Buren
had favored negro suffrage in New York. In 1842, four of the
Indiana delegation in Congress--namely, Lane, Wallace, Thompson,
and Kennedy--voted for the censure of Mr. Giddings, which Mr. Clay
indignantly denounced at the time, and two only--namely, White and
Cravens--voted in the negative. Although the execution of the
Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 was a matter of Federal cognizance
exclusively, yet the State code made the harboring of a fugitive
an offense against its peace and dignity, punishable by fine and
imprisonment. The colored people were denied any share in the
school fund, but were taxed for its support; and under the law
f