Title:  The Duty of Disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 9, An Appeal To The Legislators Of Massachusetts

Author:  Lydia Maria Child

Release Date:  November 9, 2004 [EBook #13989]

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

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Anti-slavery tracts.  No. 9.  New Series.

THE

DUTY OF DISOBEDIENCE

TO THE

Fugitive slave act: 

AN APPEAL TO THE

Legislators of Massachusetts,

By L. Maria child.

  “Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is
   escaped from his master unto thee.”—­DEUT. 23:15.

BOSTON:  PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 1860.

APPEAL

TO THE

Legislators of Massachusetts.

I feel there is no need of apologizing to the Legislature of Massachusetts because a woman addresses them.  Sir Walter Scott says:  “The truth of Heaven was never committed to a tongue, however feeble, but it gave a right to that tongue to announce mercy, while it declared judgment.”  And in view of all that women have done, and are doing, intellectually and morally, for the advancement of the world, I presume no enlightened legislator will be disposed to deny that the “truth of Heaven” is often committed to them, and that they sometimes utter it with a degree of power that greatly influences the age in which they live.

I therefore offer no excuses on that score.  But I do feel as if it required some apology to attempt to convince men of ordinary humanity and common sense that the Fugitive Slave Bill is utterly wicked, and consequently ought never to be obeyed.  Yet Massachusetts consents to that law!  Some shadow of justice she grants, inasmuch as her Legislature have passed what is called a Personal Liberty Bill, securing trial by jury to those claimed as slaves.  Certainly it is something gained, especially for those who may get brown by working in the sunshine, to prevent our Southern masters from taking any of us, at a moment’s notice, and dragging us off into perpetual bondage.  It is something gained to require legal proof that a man is a slave, before he is given up to arbitrary torture and unrecompensed toil.  But is that the measure of justice becoming the character of a free Commonwealth? “Prove that the man is property, according your laws, and I will drive him into your cattle-pen with sword and bayonet,” is what Massachusetts practically says to Southern tyrants.  “Show me a Bill of Sale from the Almighty!” is what she ought to say.  No other proof should be considered valid in a Christian country.