which we started-the condition of the National Era. And yet the positions we have been stating are strikingly illustrated by the proscription of that paper by the Know-Nothings. Dr. Bailey stands where he has stood for years, on the broad platform of the equality of men in rights. The so-called antislavery Know-Nothings have left that platform and adopted another, which makes man's rights depend on the place of his birth-a matter over which he had no control. The order is also developing, in most of the States, the most thorough pro-slavery proclivities. It is becoming clear, almost beyond possibility of doubt, that Know-Nothingism is but the ghost of Hunker-Whiggery, trying to sneak back to life. Yet there are thousands of antislavery men in the order who have been blinded to its real purposes. And these men, regarding the slavery question as the one great overshadowing question of the country, and as controlling all other questions, can yet be so hoodwinked by their connection with a secret society as to proscribe and try to destroy one of the most important antislavery agencies in the country. Can stronger evidence be needed of the dangerous and pernicious influence of secret oath-bound associations?

The Era is not the only paper that has suffered from the same cause. The Ohio Columbian, the able and efficient antislavery organ at our State capital, has been the object of the same unrighteous proscription. That our own list has not suffered in the same way is owing, we presume, entirely to the fact that we have probably not a dozen Know-Nothing subscribers on our books.

That all the members of this secret order sympathize with its intolerant spirit we do not suppose. Once in a while a man can be found in their ranks with magnanimity enough to tolerate a difference of opinion on a few points while there is full agreement on many points. But such magnanimity is, we fear, exceedingly rare; and the direct tendency of the influences of the order is to destroy it.

IS THERE A LAW FOR THE RENDITION OF FUGITIVE SLAVES?

We take the negative of this question. We deny that there is either moral or civil law binding the people of the free States to aid in the recapture of fugitive slaves, or even to permit them to be pursued and captured on their soil.

This question may be regarded as stale and unprofitable by some, but the outrages upon the feelings of the North which slave-catchers are constantly perpetrating, force the question upon us as one of the highest practical import. It is, after all the discussion that has been had on the subject, an unsettled question, and until it is settled the country can enjoy no real quiet.

So far from God's law sanctioning the return of the escaping slave, it forbids it in express terms. "Thou shalt not return unto his master the servant that is escaped from his master unto thee," is the explicit mandate of Jehovah. The return of the fugitive is also forbidden by direct and necessary implication in all those passages which command to show mercy to the poor, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to hide the outcast, etc. A more direct, flagrant, impious and diabolical violation of God's law than the infamous fugitive act of 1850, was never conceived or executed by man. Every person who gives the least aid in executing this act, does it at the peril of his soul's salvation. It is a sin that will inevitably secure his eternal damnation unless he repents; and those professed ministers of the gospel who defend this atrocious enactment will be doubly damned without the most deep and bitter repentance.

But not only is the return of the escaping bondman a violation of the revealed will of God, but also of the law of nature, written on every human heart. Heathen nations have always held the right of hospitality to be sacred. It is considered by them intensely base and wicked to betray the wanderer who takes shelter under their roof. Even his bitterest enemy is safe if he breaks bread in the tent of an Arab. This is not the only instance in which the virtues of heathenism shame the crimes of nominal Christendom.

But leaving this point, we inquire is there civil law for the rendition of fugitives? We deny that there is, for the three following reasons:

1. All civil enactments which violate God's law, are null and void.

2. The Constitution of the United States gives Congress no power to enact such a law, and Congress has no power of legislation except what is conferred by the Constitution.

3. If there had been a Constitutional compact for the return of fugitives, the repeated and habitual violation by the South of other provisions of the Constitution, have freed the North from all moral and civil obligation to keep such compact.

The first of these positions is distinctly taught by all writers on civil law of any standing. It is, moreover, a position which none but a downright atheist will deny. If there be a God, the creator and upholder of all things, it is not only his right but (speaking after the manner of men) his duty to govern the universe he has made. None but an almighty and infinite being is fit to rule over intelligent spirits. Hence he only can rightfully govern. But his law must be supreme and above all other laws, or his power is not absolute and his right to rule is a farce. It follows from this that those professed ministers of the gospel who teach that human enactments, like the fugitive bill, which contravene God's law, shall be obeyed, are the worst practical atheists.

Our second position is that the Constitution invests Congress with no power to pass a statute for the recovery of fugitive slaves. The article of the Constitution claimed as conferring such power, refers to persons owing service or labor in certain States by the laws of those States. But according to the so-called laws of the Southern States, the slave is a chattel, and not a person held to service by law. The slave is held to labor by brute force, not by law. Legal obligation to labor is always based on the assumption that an adequate compensation is paid to the laborer. But the very essence of slavery consists in making the slave property, and forcing him to labor without wages. Eminent Southern statesmen deny that there is any law in the Southern States establishing the relation of master and slave. The government of those States found the slave in the hands of his captor, and merely interposed to regulate the relation. The slaves are held to labor precisely as the captives on a pirate ship are held to labor; and it is an abuse of the holy term law to apply it to any enactments made either to establish or to regulate this piratical robbery.

Again, the so-called fugitive clause of the Constitution speaks of service and labor as due from one person to another. But is any thing due to the man-thief from his victim? Nothing, unless it be cold lead or a halter. The law of God pronounces the man-thief worthy of death, and it would be passing strange if an innocent man could owe lifelong service to a culprit condemned to die. He who forfeits his right to life, forfeits his right to every thing else, and, of course, to all claim of service or labor from his fellow-man.

But, finally, admitting the existence of a Constitutional compact for the rendition of fugitives, and we claim that the

South, by its habitual violation of other parts of the compact, has released the North from all obligation of whatever character, to keep it. A compact or bargain always implies two parties and mutual obligation. It is an undisputed doctrine, both in law and morals, that when one party violates any part of the bargain, the other is legally and morally free. Now, the slaveholding States have habitually and persistently trampled down the plainest provisions of the national compact, and have violated every act of Congress passed under the Constitution when it suited their purposes to do so. The Constitution declares that the citizens of one State shall enjoy all the rights of a citizen of the United States in all the other States. But in the South the citizens of the free States are seized the moment they step on Southern soil, thrust into prison, and then, if no one appears to buy them out, are sold to pay their jail fees. The freedom of speech and of the press is guaranteed to all persons by the Constitution, but in the South it is certain death to attempt to exercise this right in speaking or writing against slavery. Compacts which stood a generation are coolly repudiated by the South. After securing their own part of the property in stipulation, they turn round, and, without a word of excuse, attempt to steal that part which had, by their own solemn compact, been secured to the North. By these and a thousand similar acts of villainy, the slaveholders have proved themselves incapable of keeping faith, and hence no faith should be kept with them. They should be commanded to give up their stolen goods, including three millions of men, women and children, and if they refuse, should be hunted from the earth as pirates are hunted from the seas.

In view of these indisputable facts and principles, we are amazed that the Republican party, and nearly all the papers in its interest, continue to concede to the slaveholder the right to pursue and capture his escaped victim on Northern soil. If justice and manhood prevailed, every free State would pass a law securing freedom to the fugitive slave the moment he set his foot upon their soil, whether he came with or without his so-called master's consent; and making it a penitentiary offense for the latter to pollute their territory by his presence in pursuit of his victim. If God's law were in force in Ohio, the poor fugitives now on trial for their liberty, in Cincinnati, would dwell safely " where it liked them best" in the State, and their pursuers would be doing the State service in a public institution at Columbus.

HIGHER AND LOWER LAW.

The reader will find a specimen of each in our paper to-day. On the first page is the eloquent, thrilling, Christian speech of Mr. Jolliffe; on the fourth page is the weak, inhuman, atheistic decision of Judge Leavitt. How great the contrast! The antagonism between light and darkness, holiness and crime, Christianity and atheism, we have rarely seen more broadly marked. The decision of Judge Leavitt, as a mere specimen of legal ability, is weakness personified. The whole question of the relative rights of the marshal and the sheriff to hold the fugitives, is made to turn on the mere accident of the marshall having come first into possession of them. But in the nature of the case it could not possibly be otherwise. They were arrested by warrant, issued by the commissioner under the fugitive act, in the hands of the marshal. At the very moment of arrest, the killing of the child, which gave rise to the indictment for murder, took place. The arrest was the cause of the killing. The act was barely consummated when they were seized by the marshal, and hence it was an utter impossibility that an arrest for murder should take place before the arrest under the fugitive act. But on this mere casual incident, Judge Leavitt decides the broad and momentous question of the relative jurisdiction of the State of Ohio and of the United States. Could the fugitives have been first arrested on charge of murder, the right of the sheriff to hold them in spite of the commissioner's warrant, according to Judge Leavitt, would have been undoubted. Was ever such a grave legal question before decided on such trivial grounds? Was there ever judicial trifling equal to this?

But the legal weakness of the decision is not its worst feature. It moral character is even worse. The Hon. Judge reiterates the lower law atheism, which has been the current teaching of venal pulpits and religious presses for the last five years. Speaking of that compound of meanness and villainy, the fugitive act, he says:

"And I may here remark, that, speaking judicially, this question is not affected by the fact that the law of the United States under which the process issues, and these persons are in custody, may be viewed, even by a majority of community, as inexpedient, unjust and oppressive. Until repealed, or adjudged void on the ground of unconstitutionality, by the proper judicial tribunal of the Union, it must be be respected and observed as law."