By Lee Cary ——Bio and Archives--September 10, 2017
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'One of these [laws in question] has already become the subject of serious discussion, and of alarming movement; that is the act, entitled An act to amend and a supplementary to the act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their masters, approved on 12th February 1793, and authenticated by the illustrious signatures of George Washington, John Adams, and Jonathan Trumbull. This act is denounced; it has been made the basis of lawless and criminal violence; it has transferred he seat of nullification from Charleston to Boston; it is made the pretext for a course of combined and simultaneous action, subversive of established authority and order, and fatal, if unchecked, to the government under which we live.' (italics in original) {snip} 'I say that this [1850] fugitive slave law, in its substance, in its details, in all its features and all its provisions is in perfect harmony with the Constitution of our country...They who framed our Constitution were neither fanciful nor fanatic. They laid the broad foundation of a Union of sovereign States in a practical manner and for perpetual duration. They discarded Utopian notions. They took the sovereign states as they found them, with their respective usages and habits and institutions, over which, for change or modification, they knew and felt they possessed no delegated power whatever. Their object was a general government for purposes common to all their constituent commonwealths, and not a government whose consolidated powers would reach into domestic jurisdictions and over-ride or absorb mere local institutions and laws.
Again, I say, this fugitive slave law is just. And finally, fellow citizens, I say this law is an expedient one. After too tranquilly witnessing for the last twenty years, the progress of an imported fanaticism in its efforts to depreciate our constitution, and gradually to weaken the bonds of our union, the critical moment has come for deciding whether we will hold fast to the glorious government of our fathers, or immolate it at the shrine of reckless, senseless, remorseless abolition. I solemnly believe the country to be staked on the permanency and stern execution of this law. We should endeavor to rouse and rectify a public opinion that has remained too long and too injuriously inert. If ever it has pleased the Almighty to give his blessing to any form of temporal polity, it was bestowed upon that of our Union. To continue worthy of that blessing, it must be upheld in its original purity. And I know no mode so certain of preserving and sustaining it as good faith in fulfilling every one of its obligations, towards every one of its members.' " (bolding added)On June 28, 1864, both Fugitive Slave Acts were repealed by Congress. On January 31, 1865, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery in America--one month to the day after Dallas died. The City of Dallas is named after a prominent antebellum politician who supported the Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850. As the City of Dallas decides if Confederate monuments are to be removed, will it also examine Dallas the man's fundamental views on slavery? Coming Next in Part 5: What do we know about the race-based sentiments of George Mifflin Dallas?
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