A NEW AMERICAN SLAVERY QUESTION.
IF we were to seek a proof that the state of information and opinion in this country has made a decided advance on the subject of slavery in the United States, we should find it in the Times of Thursday. That journal rapidly surveyed the whole question; and with a trifling exception or two, the paper is a very correct and fair view. The nature of the " compromise," which passed the Fugitive Slave Act, not on its own merits, but as one in a a bundle of measures generally of a beneficial tendency, is recog- nized; the pretence that the slaveholding interest has been gain- ing ground over the free portion of the Union is quietly laid aside ; and the other fallacies in which the Abolitionists trade so largely are expressly or tacitly brushed away. This is an immense ad- vance, and we hail it as conducive to the cause of Negro freedom ; for after all, when respectfully uttered, public opinion in this coun- try has a considerable influence with the Americans. Having shared in their error by anticipation, so we may aid them in the path to that atonement in which also we have led the way. The object of the compromise in which the Fugitive Slave Act was included is well known. It was, without invasion of existing rights, to set boundaries between the, Slaveholding and the Free ; and the subsequent growth of the Union has tended greatly in fa- vour of the Free States. Still difficulties arise, partly aggravated by causes not foreseen. The Lemmon slaves were introduced by their owner into New York, and claimed ipso facto to be free, under a State law intended to prevent the importation of Ne- groes. During the trial, there has appeared in New York one Levi, a slave who had escaped from a cruel master, and had been kept in concealment by friends of the Negro. In the Lemmon slaves he recognized friends and relatives. Indeed, he belonged to a knot of fugitives, some of whom are settled in Canada, and whose stories are very affecting and very damaging to " the South." The operation of the Fugitive Slave Act is to drag many of these slaves to light; and to extort from the authorities in Free States, which own very imperfect if any sympathies with slavery, an active cooperation in slave-hunting. These undeniable evils are aggravated by every increase to the facilities of transit, which is daily multiplying the chances of escape and the incidents of pur- suit, with all the consequent heartburnings. It is not at all Rro- bable that these consequences of the act were foreseen at the time of its passing. Least of all was it foreseen that the act would have an incessant and most dangerous tendency to bring' State into collision with State. Is not a Federal statute which has so hazardous an effect a fit subject for revision ? There is another view of the whole subject. The American law is attended by great practical inconvenience in the relations with an important ally, Great Britain. Let us state the case in the con- crete form. The West Indies derive a considerable part of their " lumber" from Canada; vessels conveying lumber are often man- ned by Blacks; it happens sometimes that stress of weather drives them into the ports of South Carolina. Now, by the law of that State, no Black can be introduced ; but if he enter accidentally, as in a ship seeking refuge or trade, he must be put in gaol during the stay of the vessel. Thus it happens that British subjects, charged with no crime, have been seized and put into gaol; express treaty stipulations, securing "liberty of commerce" to British subjects, notwithstanding. England claims an observance of the treaty on the grounds of international law ; but a reply is given in the official correspondence between Mr. Mathews, the British Consul in the Carolinas, and the Governor, which appears to us to quash any such claim.
" In 1835, the brig Enterprise sailed from the District of Columbia for one of the ports of this State, (Charleston,) with slaves on board. She was on a lawful voyage with regular papers, but was, unhappily, forced by stress of weather into Port Hamilton, Bermuda Island; where the Negroes on board were forcibly seized and detained by the local authorities. The owners of the Negroes, after applying in vain to the local authorities for their sur- render, made application to the Federal Government for redress ; but, after a long negotiation, the British Government refused to make any justified on the ground that their local law, emancipating slaves, ustified the seizure of the property of our fellow citizens.' Even as late as 1842, when the case of the Creole (a vessel carried into the port of Nassau by Negroes, who had committed mutiny and murder) was the subject of corre- spondence between our Secretary of State and the British Minister, Lord Ashburton declined to make a distinct recognition of the .-ule which had been unanimously agreed to in the Senate of the United States, that the flag should protect a vessel driven by stress of weather into a friendly port, against the interference of the local authorities with the relations of the persons on board."
England has no locus standi after such a reply. But although it does not become us to urge our demands very peremptorily, our being silenced does not dispose of the difficulties inherent in the case. British subjects will continue to claim protection from the British Government ; and their imprisonment in a free country will continue to be a scandal. The very fact that Canada is a re- fuge for the slave is a reciprocal inconvenience to both powers—a source of heartburning. As State is set against State within the Union, so State is set against State across the frontier.
About to enter into new commercial relations with the United States, it has been said, fairly enough on ordinary grounds, that we might take the opportunity of stipulating for a relaitation of a Carolinian rule which impedes commercial freedom : but we could neither extort such a concession, nor if we could would it com- pensate the fact, that our use of the opportunity to introduce Blacks into Carolina would only multiply the occasions for bad feeling. We can enforce nothing upon a great and free country like America, save by moral opinion acting upon her own free con- viction. Our American readers will not suspect the Spectator of pandering to Abolitionist agitations. It is not for us to advise, or to point out the proper course. But it may be permitted us respectfully to submit the consideration, whether certain provi- sions to enforce the laws of slavery, in respect of persons not be- longing to the State in which such laws are to be executed, do not
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prove, in the working, to be productive of inconveniences and dangers not foreseen by their authors, and not compensated by sufficient advantages ?
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