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| THE FUGITIVE SLA VE BILL OF 1860. 343 hood. His view was a superficial one, it meant only that they had not been beaten aud starved half to death. As the heroic adveutur«s and sufferings of Slaves struggling for freedom, shall be read by corning generations, were it not for unquestioned statutes upholding Slavery in its cfreadful heinousness, people will hardly bo able to believe that such atrocities were enacted in the nineteenth century, under a highly enlightened, Christianized, and civilized government. Having already copied a statute enacted by the State of Virginia, as a sample of Southern State laws, it seems fitting that the Fugitive Slave Bill, enacted by the Congress of the United States, shall be also copied, in order to commemorate that most infamous deed, by which, it may be seen, how great were the bulwarks of oppression to be surmounted by all who sought to obtain freedom by flight. THE FUGITIVE SLAVE BILL OF 1850. "AX ACT KESPECrlXQ FUGITIVES FROM JUSTICE, AND TEUSOKS ESCAPING FROM THE SERVICE OF THEIR MASTERS." Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America iu Congress assembled: That the persons who have been, or may hereafter be appointed commissioners, in virtue of any Act of Congress, by the circuit courts of the United States, and who, iu consequence of such appointment, are authorized to exercise the powers that any justice of the peace or other magistrate of any of the United States, may exercise in respect to offenders for any crime or offence against the United States, by arresting, imprisoning, or bailing the same under and by virtue of the thirty-third section of the act of the twenty-fonrth of September, seventeen hundred and eighty-nine, entitled, " An act to establish the judicial courts of the United States," shall be, and are hereby authorized and required to exercise and discharge all the powers and duties conferred by this act. Sec. 2. Aud be it further enacted: That the superior court of each organized territory of the United States, shall have the same power to appoint roremiissioners to take acknowledgment? of bail and affidavit, and to take depositions of witnesses in civil causes, which is now possessed by the circuit courts of the United States, and all commissioners, who shall hereafter l)e appointed for such purposes, by the superior court of any organized territory of the United States, shall possess all the powers, and exercise all the duties conferred by law, upon the commissioners appointed by the circuit |