Here is an Act, bearing on its face the arrogant will of South Carolina, setting aside all constitutional rights, and denying the validity of stipulations made by the United States in her general commercial laws.  She asserts her right to disregard citizenship, to make criminals of colored men, because they are colored, and to sell them for slaves to pay the expenses which she had incurred to make them such.  And what is still worse, is, that the exercise of this misconceived and unjust law is so unrelentingly enforced, and so abused by those who carry it out.

During this time the consul had been unremitting in his endeavors to procure the man’s release.  The mayor had no power in the premises; the attorney-general was not positive in regard to the extent of his power in such a case, though he admitted the case to be an aggravated one; the judges could only recognise him as a nigger, consequently must govern their proceedings by legislative acts.  Upon the whole, he found that he was wasting his time, for while they all talked sympathy, they acted tyranny.  Cold, measured words about niggers, “contrary to law,” constitutional rights, inviolable laws, State sovereignty and secession, the necessary police regulations to protect a peculiar institution, and their right to enforce them, everywhere greeted his ears.  There was about as much in it to relieve Manuel, as there would have been had a little bird perched upon the prison-wall and warbled its song of love to him while strongly secured in his cell-more tantalizing because he could hear the notes, but not see the songster.

Notwithstanding the commendable energy of the consul, he had the satisfaction of knowing that several very improbable reports touching his course, and construing it into an interference with the institution of slavery, had been widely circulated, and were creating a feeling against him among a certain class of “fire-eating” secessionists.  He was too well aware of the source from which they originated to awaken any fears, and instead of daunting his energy they only increased it, and brought to his aid the valuable services of the Hon. James L. Petigru, a gentleman of whom it is said, (notwithstanding his eminence at the bar,) that had it not been for his purity of character, his opinions in opposition to the State would have long since consigned him to a traitor’s exile.  The truth was-and much against Mr. Petigru’s popularity in his own State-that he was a man of sound logic, practical judgment, and legal discrimination.  Thus endowed with the requisite qualities of a good statesman, and pursuing a true course to create a conservative influence in the State, he failed to become popular beyond his legal sphere.  Had he espoused that most popular of all doctrines in South Carolina-nullification and secession-and carried abstraction to distraction, James L. Petigru would have added another “Roman name” to that which has already passed from South Carolina’s field of action.