Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 3

[277] to overcome Northern repugnance to that measure, the rest of his ‘indescribably base and wicked speech,’ as¹ Mr. Garrison termed it, was simply confirmatory of his depravation. His historical dust-cloud about the origin² of slavery in America, and of its guarantees in the Constitution; his pretext, in regard to California and New Mexico, that their physical conditions debarred African slavery, and he “would not take pains to reaffirm an ordinance of Nature, nor to reenact the will of God” Lib. 20.43 cf. 21.93.; his offer to support a Government scheme of colonizing³ the free colored population of the South⁴—all was mere surplusage. It was his advocacy of the duty of slave-hunting which brought upon him the withering censure of Northern manhood, the hollow applause of the South, the immoral thanks of the trader and the doughface. When he rose in his place on March 7 to break the word of promise to the hope of his eager constituency, the Fugitive Slave Bill was even more objectionable than at⁵ the time of its final passage. Its unwarranted extension of the Federal judiciary placed the liberty of every alleged fugitive at the mercy of any commissioner, clerk, or⁶ marshal of a Federal court, or Federal postmaster, or collector of customs, in the State where the seizure was made. The ‘Expounder of the Constitution’ was prepared to support this iniquity ‘to the fullest extent,’⁷ along with Senator Mason's amendments of January 23,⁸ affixing, not only to the rescue of an alleged fugitive, but⁹ to the harboring or concealing of any such, a penalty of one thousand dollars fine and twelve months imprisonment (ultimately mitigated, as regards imprisonment, to¹⁰ a term not exceeding six months); and denying the