dget arrived from Berlin, Md. Each had
different owners. Oliver stated that Mose Purnell had owned him, and
that he was a tolerably moderate kind of a slave-holder, although he was
occasionally subject to fractious turns. Oliver simply gave as his
reason for leaving in the manner that he did, that he wanted his "own
earnings." He felt that he had as good a right to the fruit of his labor
as anybody else. Despite all the pro-slavery teachings he had listened
to all his life, he was far from siding with the pro-slavery doctrines.
He was about twenty-six years of age, chestnut color, wide awake and a
man of promise; yet it was sadly obvious that he had been blighted and
cursed by slavery even in its mildest forms. He left his parents, two
brothers and three sisters all slaves in the hands of Purnell, the
master whom he deserted.

Isaac, his companion, was about thirty years of age, dark, and in
intellect about equal to the average passengers on the Underground Rail
Road. He had a very lively hope of finding his wife in freedom, she
having escaped the previous Spring; but of her whereabouts he was
ignorant, as he had had no tidings of her since her departure. A lady by
the name of Mrs. Fidget held the deed for Isaac. He spoke kindly of her,
as he thought she treated her slaves quite as well at least as the best
of slave-holders in his neighborhood. His view was a superficial one, it
meant only that they had not been beaten and starved half to death.

As the heroic adventures and sufferings of Slaves struggling for
freedom, shall be read by coming generations, were it not for
unquestioned statutes upholding Slavery in its dreadful heinousness,
people will hardly be able to believe that such atrocities were enacted
in the nineteenth century, under a highly enlightened, Christianized,
and civilized government. Having already copied a statute enacted by the
State of Virginia, as a sample of Southern State laws, it seems fitting
that the Fugitive Slave Bill, enacted by the Congress of the United
States, shall be also copied, in order to commemorate that most infamous
deed, by which, it may be seen, how great were the bulwarks of
oppression to be surmounted by all who sought to obtain freedom by
flight.

THE FUGITIVE SLAVE BILL OF 1850.

"AN ACT RESPECTING FUGITIVES FROM JUSTICE, AND PERSONS ESCAPING FROM THE
SERVICE OF THEIR MASTERS."

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
Un