m,
and _no man_ had a right to deliver him back to him again, and not only
so, but the absconded servant was to _choose_ where he should live, and
no Jew was permitted to oppress him. He left his master just as our
Northern servants leave us; we have no power to compel them to remain
with us, and no man has any right to oppress them; they go and dwell in
that place where it chooseth them, and live just where they like. Is it
so at the South? Is the poor runaway slave protected _by law_ from the
violence of that master whose oppression and cruelty has driven him from
his plantation or his house? No! no! Even the free states of the North
are compelled to deliver unto his master the servant that is escaped
from his master into them. By _human_ law, under the _Christian
Dispensation_, in the _nineteenth century_ we are commanded to do, what
_God_ more than _three thousand_ years ago, under the _Mosaic
Dispensation_, _positively commanded_ the Jews _not_ to do. In the wide
domain even of our free states, there is not _one_ city of refuge for
the poor runaway fugitive; not one spot upon which he can stand and say,
I am a free man--I am protected in my rights as a _man_, by the strong
arm of the law; no! _not one_. How long the North will thus shake hands
with the South in sin, I know not. How long she will stand by like the
persecutor Saul, _consenting_ unto the death of Stephen, and keeping the
raiment of them that slew him, I know not; but one thing I do know, the
_guilt of the North_ is increasing in a tremendous ratio as light is
pouring in upon her on the subject and the sin of slavery. As the sun of
righteousness climbs higher and higher in the moral heavens, she will
stand still more and more abashed as the query is thundered down into
her ear, "_Who_ hath required _this_ at thy hand?" It will be found _no_
excuse then that the Constitution of our country required that _persons
bound to service_ escaping from their masters should be delivered up; no
more excuse than was the reason which Adam assigned for eating the
forbidden fruit. _He was condemned and punished because_ he hearkened to
the voice of _his wife_, rather than to the command of his Maker; and
_we_ will assuredly be condemned and punished for obeying _Man_ rather
than _God_, if we do not speedily repent and bring forth fruits meet for
repentance. Yea, are we not receiving chastisement even _now_?

But by the second of these laws a still more astonishing fact