three years afterwards, an occasion arose for V 7 their intervention. A fugitive from Virginia, who for some days had trod the streets of Boston as a freeman, was seized as a slave. The whole community was aroused, while Bunker Hill and Faneuil Hall quaked with responsive indignation. Then, sir, the President, anxious that no tittle of Slavery should suffer, was curiously eager in the enforcement of the statute. The despatches between him and his agents in Boston attest his zeal. Here are some of them: Boston, May 27, 1S54. To the President of the United States : In consequence of an attack upon the Court-house, last night, for the purpose of rescuing a fugitive slave, under arrest, and in which one of my own guards was killed, I have availed myself of the resources of the United States, placed under my control by letter from the War and Navy departments, in 1851, and now have two companies of Troops, from Fort Independence,, stationed in the Courthouse. Everything is now quiet. The attack was repulsed by my own guard. WATSON FREEMAN. United States Marshal, Boston, Mass. Washington, May, 27,1S54. To Watson Freeman, United States Marshal, Boston, Mass. Your conduct is approved. The law must be executed. FRANKLIN PIERCE. Washington, May, 30,1854. To Hon. B. F. Hallett Bolton, Mass. What is the state of the case of Burns ? SIDNEY WEBSTER. [Private Secretary of the President.'} Washington, May, 31,1854. To B. F. Hallett, United States Attorney, Boston, Mass. Incur any expense deemed necessary by the Marshal and yourself, for City Military, er Otherwise, to insure the execution of the law. FRANKLIN PIERCE. But the President was not content with such forces as were then on hand in the neighborhood. Other posts also were put under requisition. Two companies of National troops, stationed at New York, were kept under arms, ready at any moment to proceed to Boston; and the Adjutant General of the Army was directed to repair to the scene, there to superintend the execution of the statute. All this was done for the sake of Slavery; but during long months of menace suspended over the Free Soil of Kansas, breaking forth in successive invasions, the President has folded his hands in complete listlessness, or, if he has moved at all, it has been only to encourage the robber propagandists. And now the intelligence ot the country is insulted by the Apology, that the President had no power to interfere. Why, sir, to make this confession is to confess our Govern- ment to be a practical failure—which I will never do, except, indeed, as it is administered I now. No, sir; the imbecility of the Chief Magistrate shall not be charged upon our American Institutions. Where there is a will, 1 there is a wav; and in his case, had the wil J and triumphant, to guard against the Crim] we now deplore. His powers were in ever I respect ample; and this I will prove by th| statute book. By the Act of Congress of 28tJ February, 1795, it is enacted, “ that wheneve the laws of the United States shall be i'pi posed, or the execution thereof obstructed id any State, by combinations too powerful to b! suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in tin marshals,” the President “ may call forth th I militia.” By the supplementary act of 3/1 . in all cases where he is autho! March, 1807, rized to call forth the militia for the puij pose of causing the laws to be duly executed 1 the President is further empowered, in any State or Territory, “to employ for the same purposes such part of the land or naval fore/ and of the United States as shall be judged necesj sary.” There is the letter of the law; you will please to mark the power conferred] In no case where the Ictus of the United States are opposed, or their execution obstruct^ ed, is the President constrained to wait for the requisition of a Governor, or even the petition of a citizen. Just so soon as he learns the fact, no matter by what channel, he is invested by law with full power to counteract it. True it is, that when the laics of a are obstructed, he can interfere only on the application of the Legislature of such State, or of the Executive, when the Legislature cannot be convened; but when the Federal laws are obstructed, no such preliminary application is necessary. It is his high duty, under his oath of office, to see that they are executed, and, if need be, by the Federal forces. And, sir, this is the precise exigency that' has arisen in Kansas—precisely this; nor more, nor less. The Act of Congress, constituting the vevy organic laic of the Territory,' which, in peculiar phrase, as if to avoid ambiguity, declares, as “its true intent and mean ing,” that the people thereof “ shall be left perfectly free to form and regulate their domeshas been tic institutions in their own way,” has bee from the beginning opposed and obstructed^. its execution. If the President had power to employ the Federal forces in Boston, when he supposed the Fugitive Slave Bill was obstructed, and merely in anticipation of such obstruction, it is absurd to say that he had not power in Kansas, when, in the face of the whole country, the very organic law of the Territory was trampled under foot by successive invasions, and the freedom ot the people overthrown. To assert ignorance of this obstruction—premeditated, long-continued, and stretching through months—attributes to him not merely imbecility, but idiocy. And thus do I dispose of this Apology.
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