" Take another,--"A _free negro_ may be arrested, and put
in jail for 3 months, on _suspicion_ of being a runaway; and if he is
not able to _prove_ his freedom in 12 months, _he is to be sold as a
slave_ TO PAY HIS JAIL FEES!" Are there not hundreds of free men, both
black and white, who could not _prove_ their freedom under such
circumstances? Yet, for this _crime_, they are reduced to perpetual
bondage _by authority of Congress_. And all this the North upholds!
Washington, the capital, thus governed, is but the great mart of the
national man-trade. From the adjoining port of Alexandria, 7 miles off,
the victims are shipped for the South. Listen to the _Gazette_ of that
place,--"Here you may behold fathers and brothers leaving behind them
the dearest objects of affection, and moving slowly along in the mute
agony of despair,--there the young mother sobbing over the infant,
whose innocent smiles seem but to increase her misery. From some you
will hear the burst of bitter lamentation; while from others the loud
hysteric laugh breaks forth, denoting still deeper agony."
But you will be told that it is not in the power of Northern members to
alter this state of things.
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