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![handle is hein.slavery/isusmns0001 and id is 1 raw text is:
38-ri Uo.\unEss, SENATE. jREP. (X.i
1st session. No 24.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.
FEBRUARY 29, 1864.-Ordered to be printed.
Mr. SUMNER submitted the following
REPORT.
[To accompany bill S. No. 141.]
The select committee on Slavery and the treatment of Freedmen, to whom werere
ferred sundry petitions asking for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave A ct of 1850,
and, also, askingfor the repeal of all actsfor the rendition of fugitire slaves,
have had the same under consideration and ask leave to make the following
report:
There are two fugitive slave acts which still continue unrepealed on our
statute-book. The first, dated as long ago as 1793, was preceded by an official
correspondence, which was supposed to show the necessity for legislation. The
second, dated in 1850, was introduced by a report from Mr. Butler, of South
Carolina, at that time chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the senate. In
proposing the repeal of all legislation on the subject it seems advisable to
imitate the latter precedent by a report, assigning briefly the reasons which
have governed the committee.
RELATIoN BETWEEN SLAVERY AND THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACTS.
These acts nr~y be viewed as part of the system of Slavery, and, therefore,
obnoxious to the judgment which civilization is accumulating against this Bar-
barism; or they may be viewed as independent agencies. But it is difficult
to consider them in the latter character alone, for if slavery be the offence,
which it doubtless is, then must it infect all the agencies which it employs.
Especially at this moment, when Slavery is recognized, by common consent, as
the origin and life of the rebellion, must all ics agencies be regarded with more
than ordinary repugnance.
If, in lime of peace, all fugitive slave acts were offensive, as requiring what
humanity and religion both condemn, they must be still more offensive at this
morneitt, when Slavery, in whose behalf they were made, has risen in arms
against the national government, it is bad enough to thrust an escaped slave
back into bondage at any time. It is absurd to thrust him back at a moment
when Slavery is rallying all its forces for the conflict which it has madly chal-
lenged. But the crime of such a transaction is not diminished by its absurdity.
A slave, with courage and address to escape from his master, has the qualities
needed for a soldier of freedom ; but existing statutes require his arrest and
sentence to bondage.
In annulling these statutes Congress simply withdraws an irrational support
from Slavery. It does nothing against Slavery, but it merely refuses to
do anything for it. In this respect the present proposition differs from all pre-
Reproduced with permission from the University of Illinois at Chicago](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.slavery/isusmns0001&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)