cause him to be sent out of the state, or sold as a slave, or in any manner to transfer his service or labour, or the actual selling or transferring the service of such person, by imprisonment in the state prison from one to two years, or by fine of from 500 to 1,000 dollars. The consent of the person seized, sold, or transferred, not to be a defence, unless it appear to the jury that it was not obtained by fraud, nor extorted by duress or by threats.

The law of the state of Iowa is similar to that of Indiana, except that the maximum of the punishment is five years in the stateprison, and a fine of 1,000 dollars.

The following is an analysis of these laws :-States which prohibit their officers and citizens from aiding in the execution of the law of Congress, are-Maine, Connecticut, New York, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Michigan, Vermont.

States which deny the use of all public edifices in aid of the master, are Maine, Rhode Island, Vermont, Michigan, Massachusetts.

States which provide defence for the fugitive, are— -Maine, New York, Wisconsin, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Michigan. States which declare the fugitive free, if brought by the master into the state, are- -Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont.

State that declares him free absolutely, is New Hampshire. The following is a recapitulation of the penalties provided for the master who pursues his rights under the law of Congress and constitution, but in contravention of state statutes framed for the purpose of embarrassing his action, defeating his claim, and in every possible way ingenuity can suggest, rendering the law entirely ineffectual:-In Maine, $1,000 fine, and five years' imprisonment; Vermont, $2,000, and fifteen years; Massachusetts, $5,000, and five years; Connecticut, $5,000, and five years; Pennsylvania, $1,000, and three months; Indiana, $5,000, and fourteen years; Michigan, $1,000, and ten years; Wisconsin, $1,000, and two years; Iowa, $1,000, and five years.

It will be observed that the northern states have passed laws to try the fugitive slave case by jury. The object of this is to test the right of property in man-the legality of slavery in the abstract. The constitution seems to be

nought with them; and they interpret that great organic charter, not as it declares, nor as it was intended to mean; but as most comports with their spleen against the southern states-not because they hate slavery, but because they love the south less.

VATTEL ON THE INTERPRETATION OF TREATIES.

We will include in this, the most painful of all the chapters in this work, a quotation from Vattel's Law of Nations; which, to us, seems full of relevancy in the premises.

"The rules that establish a lawful interpretation of treaties are sufficiently important to be made the subject of a distinct chapter. For the present, let us simply observe, that an evidently false interpretation is the grossest imaginable violation of the faith of treaties. He that resorts to such an expedient, either impudently sports with that sacred faith, or sufficiently evinces his inward conviction of the degree of moral turpitude annexed to the violation of it; he wishes to act a dishonest part, and yet preserve the character of an honest man; he is a puritanical impostor, who aggravates his crime by the addition of a detestable hypocrisy. Grotius quotes several instances of evidently false interpretations put upon treaties. The Plateaus having promised the Thebans to restore their prisoners, restored them after they had put them to death. Pericles, having promised to spare the lives of such of the enemy as laid down their arms, ordered all those to be killed that had iron clasps to their cloaks. A Roman general having agreed with Antiochus to restore him half his fleet, caused each of the ships to be sawed in two. All these interpretations are as fraudulent as that of Rhadamistus, who, according to Tacitus's account, having sworn to Mithridates that he would not employ either poison or steel against him, caused him to be smothered under a heap of clothes."

When the colonial states ratified the constitution, and united in the organisation of the government, each had a

right to expect from the other an honest fulfilment of the constitution, and that each would deliver up a fugitive from service to the owner; but the northern states interpret the compact to authorise them to fine and imprison the owner demanding the delivery; by which the said owner is for ever thereafter disqualified to vote, to sit on a jury, or to give evidence in court; and is, on account of the penal servitude, with his wife and children disgraced beyond all possibility of restoration.

It may be said, that, notwithstanding these severe personal liberty laws of the non-slaveholding states, the southern man has ever gone to the northern states and secured possession of his slave, and has been permitted to take his property back to his home. But, in answer to this, we can, with a knowledge of facts, state to the contrary. Ask Kentucky how many of her noble sons have been incarcerated within the gloomy, rock-walled cells of the northern prisons, because they went to those states in search of their fugitive slaves?

CHAPTER XIX.

The Free Negroes and Africans of Mixed Blood-their Condition in the United States, and their Immunities in the Non-Slaveholding States.

FREE NEGROES.

FREE negroes are not considered to be the equals of the whites in any of the states of America, except by a few fanatics. The civil liberties enjoyed by them in some of the northern states, have been conceded by political parties from time to time, not because they were considered the equals of the whites, but in order to secure popular elections in closely contested states. Occasionally the political parties in those states have been nearly equally divided; and they have been in the habit of yielding some franchise for the negro, in order to secure the suffrages of the whites, who seemed to have an especial affection or sympathy for that race. In this chapter, we propose, in the first place, to give an account of the condition of the free negroes in the slaveholding states; and secondly, their condition and immunities in the non-slaveholding or free states. As preliminary, we deem it proper to state what distinguishes the white race from the negro. A free negro is an individual, not a slave, having, in whole or in part, African blood; and society makes no distinction with respect to the degree of the mixture of blood. If there be the least

African blood in the child, though there be every appearance common to the white race, and even the straight black hair; it is, according to law, a negro, excepting when the issue is from a white mother. That is to say, if a child be born of a white woman, and the father be a full negro, the law recognises the child to be white; but society refuses to consider it except as a negro; and the mother is looked upon as a loathsome, hated, and despised creature. In all cases the child takes the condition of the mother; and if the father be a negro, the child is illegitimate, because there can be no marriage between the white and negro races. The revised statutes of Tennessee of 1858, fairly present the law in the premises

"No white person can intermarry with a negro, mulatto, or other person of mixed blood, to the third generation."

All such marriages are void; and, besides, the parties are liable to be convicted of misdemeanor; and the penalty for which is, in all cases, either a fine or imprisonment, or both, at the discretion of the court. Such are the facts with respect to the free negro blood in all the states of America. We will now proceed to cite some of the laws.

FREE NEGROES IN THE SLAVEHOLDING STATES.

A free negro has certain civil liberties in the southern states; though in none of them are they equal, as a whole, to those enjoyed by a white man. The negro cannot vote; yet his evidence, in certain cases, is received with the same degree of force as that given by a white witness. In the slaveholding states there are many very stringent laws