reading
whatever he thinks proper. You have introduced in your argument a great
many irrelevant matters, Mr. Dana, and Mr. Lunt may do the same.

_Mr. Lunt._--This is the account,--Reads from the Boston Post of October
15, 1850.

THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW MEETING.

"The call for a meeting of the opponents of the fugitive slave law, at
Faneuil Hall, last night, collected a large audience, comprising a
considerable number of colored people. There were about three hundred
colored females in the galleries. The meeting was called to order by
Francis Jackson, and organized as follows:--Charles Francis Adams,
President; Samuel E. Sewall, Gershom B. Weston, Francis Jackson, and
Timothy Gilbert, Vice Presidents; J. W. Stone, and J. W. Thornton,
Secretaries.

"Upon taking the chair, Mr. Adams delivered a carefully prepared
address, in which he maintained that the law was repugnant to the spirit
of our institutions and the constitution, and fraught with as much
danger to free colored people as to fugitives.

"He was followed by Frederick Douglass, who described the consternation
the law had created among the colored people, free and fugitive, and
said that he knew of hundreds of both classes who were fleeing to
Canada. The free colored people were in fear of seizure by conspiring
complainants, aided by perjured affidavits.

"Richard H. Dana, Jr., after expressing regret that the meeting was not
made up of somewhat different material, of the leading men in all
branches of business, and of men of property and reputed respectability,
read a long letter from Josiah Quincy, senior, declaring against the
law, but at the same time expressing his belief that there was no real
ground for alarm, for, in his opinion, the enforcement of the law in
Massachusetts would prove to be impracticable.

"At the request of the President, Mr. Dana also read a series of
resolutions, author unknown, declaring that the moral sense of the
individuals composing the meeting, revolted against the law; denouncing
it as contradictory to the declaration of independence, and inconsistent
with the purposes of the constitution, and in direct violation of its
habeas corpus provision, and the right of the people to be secure from
unreasonable seizure, &c.; that the meeting could not believe that any
citizen of Boston and its vicinity could be so destitute of love of his
country and of his race, or devoid of a sense of justice, as to take
part in returning a f