XXIX.

THE RIGHT VICTIM.

The Fugitive Law enforced on a Democrat makes a Man of him.

A CITIZEN of the free states, who always shouted long and loudly for whatever the leaders of his party pronounced democratic, was particularly gratified with the enactment of a law restoring fugitive slaves to their masters; and whenever he came into the presence of Slaveholders he took occasion to speak very flatteringly of the statute. And what he said, that he practised. If a fugitive passed through his neighborhood he was ever ready and willing to join in the pursuit. As a professed democrat, he was wont to refer to his zeal for the execution of the Fugitive Law as proof that his democracy was genuine.

Living near the line that separates the slave and free states, he was as often in the one territory as the other, but ever the same advocate and defender of whatever the Slave Power made law. It happened that certain Slaveholders who had often heard him defend their institution, and had wit

nessed his activity in their cause, grew sick of his servility and meanness, and determined to give him a taste of the sweets of Slavery. So, finding him on his own territory, they kidnapped him, and were about to hurry him away into Slavery. And this they would have done at once, if certain strangers had not interfered in his behalf. But even their intervention availed little. For, his kidnappers bringing him before one authorized to decide the freedom of fugitives, the facts of his case were inquired into, and false witnesses were produced, who swore that they had known him a slave, and knew him to be the property of his captors. The democrat protested that he was a freeman, and a free citizen. But the dark complexion which nature chanced to have given him, and curly hair, with the false oaths, and the bribe of ten dollars which the law itself offered the judge who should condemn any one whose liberty was in question, all wrought against him, and he was pronounced a slave,-even the strangers who had interfered to save him, abandoning his cause. So he was taken away to a distant part of the country, and sold at auction for a high price.

He had hardly gone into the possession of his master before he commenced the story of his wrongs, telling how he had been kidnapped and brought before a United States Commissioner, and had lost his liberty by the oaths of false witnesses, and that he was a democrat, and had ever been one, and had helped execute the Fugitive Law himself.

When the master had heard all this, he immediately took him to the nearest tree, and, stripping him to his bare back, tied him up by the thumbs and ordered his overseer to give him forty lashes. So the overseer plied the scourge, and at every blow the skin flew in ribbons, and the blood streamed down, while his merciless master stood by, reviling.

Impudent scoundrel, said he, talk to me of your being a freeman! I am used to such tricks. Every run-away is a freeman till he is caught. But you think to escape by calling yourself a democrat likewise. A pretty device! I know not where you have learned the word. But I am the only democrat here, and I will give you a sense of its meaning. Lay on the lash, overseer! Teach him the rudiments of democracy!

So the free citizen groaned in bondage for months, and every time that he opened his mouth to talk of his freedom, he received his inevitable forty lashes. But, at last, becoming desperate, he put every thing at hazard, and, fleeing, safely reached his former home.

But never thereafter did he utter a word in favor of the Fugitive Law, nor did he justify Slavery, nor huzza for Democracy.

XXX.

THE POLITIC SLAVEHOLDERS.

The dread of Disunion, and the cry of Democracy are the means with which the Slave Power subdues the People.

A COMPANY of Slaveholders assembled to devise ways and means to perpetuate the Institution, and to rally about it the strength of the whole nation, that they might be forever the People's masters.

Then one among them arose and spoke as follows: The pillar of all social order is to have, in a community, as few free-holders as possible. For the more freeholders there exist among a people, the more equality there is among them, and of course the more independence, and the less disposition on the part of the many to submit to the rule of a few.

With us in the South, the authority of the few over the many is on a permanent basis, because we have a large slave population which we govern as we choose, and own as property. And the presence of these slaves among our non-slaveholding freemen makes the labor of the freemen cheap; so cheap that it is impossible for many of them to be freeholders, So that we govern them with our slaves by the same bond and lash. For by the

control of the slaves we get control of the land, and make our non-slaveholding freemen first homeless and landless, and at last servile.

If we wish, then, to make our authority as Slaveholders permanent in the nation, we must make Slavery national. We cannot, however, do this at one leap. We must first subject the territories to the rule of Slavery, and creep on by degrees until we get it legalized in all the free states.

In those states, we shall have two classes to deal with. The one consists of the men of small properties, who follow the lead of the wealthy capitalists; the other is made up of the landless poor. The first class we must intimidate with threats of disunion, for to their leaders disunion means loss of southern trade, and they will act as their leaders order. These leaders' interests are in harmony with ours, and after a time they will begin to understand, and act with us cheerfully. For the wealthy traders of the North who make their fortunes out of the labor of others by profits, and who return no equivalent to society, are in principle nothing less than Slaveholders. But at present we must subdue them by fear of disunion.

With the landless poor, and so many of the small freeholders as we can influence, whose interests are entirely adverse to ours, we must pursue a different policy. While the virgin territory of the Republic is settling, we must encourage the monopoly of the soil by large landholders, and as Slaveholders can take up and occupy more territory in the same time than Non-Slaveholders, we must estab