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The Fugitive slave law: a sermon

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The South gained one real benefit, so it seemed, in the compromise measures of 1850--passage of a much stronger Fugitive Slave Law. The law of 1793 did not have a strong enough bite nor sharp enough teeth to satisfy the demands of Southern slaveholders.The new law was to settle forever the interference of the states through their personal liberty laws and guarantee the involvement of the Federal government in its execution. Like all slavery laws it aroused the church on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line and every conceivable stance on the issue of the Biblical justification of slavery and abolition.

Our author explains, "matters purely political may sometimes be left to political men [but there are times when the ministerof Christ must] warn the wicked and enunciate the will of God (page 3)." The usual voices of scripture are noted where even the Jews are held in servitude, where laws of God are issued for the treatment of slaves, and less we forget St. Paul himself returned a fugitive slave named Onesimus to his Christian master Philemon. The author makes a number of claims about this tiny epistle that will not hold water with anyone who has studied the letter to Philemon. But the points he makes are the ones so often made by anti-slavery preachers (pages 10-14). The fact he uses the epistle which very few today even know exists is indicative of its over use in the decades vollowing the compromise. As Henry Beecher said, "Men used it (Philemon) as a club."

Reverend Hall ends his sermon telling Congress, the administration, and slavery sympathizers, "The righteous God, who is the avowed enemy of opression, will, I trust, give you success in enforcing this first law of nature,--self-defence, self-preservation. We regard it as the imperious duty of every freeman to petition Congress at its next session, to wipe this foul blot from the National statute book....WE WILL NOT OBEY YOUR MANDATE IN THIS THING, NOR WORSHIP THE IMAGE THAT YOU HAVE SET UP (pages 19-20)."

We have to assume the preacher's congregation must have been pleased at least with the brevity of this sermon. If you are interested in the Compromise of 1850 I heartily recommend this book.