Excerpt from Appeal of Forty Thousand Citizens, Threatened With Disfranchisement, to the People of Pennsylvania

Unmanned and turned into chattels - we mean (those whose hands are hardened by daily toil. Fellow citizens, will 'you take the first step towards 'reimposing the chains which have now rusted for more than fifty years? Need we inform you that every colored man in Pennsylvama 1s exposed to be arrested as a fugitive from slavery. 7 and that it depends not upon the verdict of a jury of his peers, but upon the decision of a judge on summary process, whether or not he shall be dragged into southern bondage? The Constitution of the United States provides that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law - by which is certainly meant a trial BY jury. Yet the act of'congress of 1793, for the recovery offugitive slaves, ' authorizes the claimant to seize his victim without a warrant from any magistrate, and allows him to drag him before any magistrate of a county, city, or town corporate, where such seizure has been made, and upon proving, by oral testimony or affidavit, to the satisfaction of such magistrate that the man is his slave, gives him a right to take him into everlasting bondage. Thus may alfree-born citizen of Pennsylvania be arrested, tried without counsel, jury, or power to call witnesses, condemned by a single man, and carried across Mason and Dixon's line, within the compass of a single day. Ah act of this commonwealth, passed 1820, and enlarged and re enacted in 1825, it is true, puts s_ome restraint upon the power of the claimant under the act of Congress but it still leaves the case to the decision of a single j udge, without the privilege of a jury! What unspeakably aggravates our loss of the right of suffrage at this moment is, that, while the increased activity of the slave-catchers enhances our danger, the Reform (convention has refused to amend the Constitution so as to protect our liberty by a jury trial! We entreat you to makefour case your own imagine your own wives and children to be' trembling at the ap proach of every stranger, lest their husbands and fathers should be dragged into a slavery worse than Algerine - worse than death! Fellow citizens, if there is one of us who has abused the right of suffrage, let him be tried and punished according to law. But in the name of humanity, in the name ofjustice, 1n the name of the God you profess to worship, who has no respect.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.