The Abolition agitation for the dissolution of the Union was assisted not a little by sundry occurrences of national importance. The increasing arrogance and violence of the South in Congress on all matters relating to the subject of slavery was one of these occurrences. Freedom of debate and the right of petition, Southern intolerance had rendered well nigh worthless in the National Legislature. In this way the North, during several months in every year, was forced to look at the reverse and the obverse faces of the Union. These object-lessons taught many minds, no doubt, to count the cost which the preservation of the Union entailed upon the free States-“to reflect upon their debasement, guilt, and danger” in their partnership with slaveholders. Another circumstance which induced to this kind of reflection was the case of George Latimer, who was seized as a fugitive slave in Boston in the autumn of 1842. From beginning to end the Latimer case revealed how completely had Massachusetts tied her own hands as a party to the original compact with slavery whose will was the supreme law of the land. In obedience to this supreme law Chief-Justice Shaw refused to the captive the writ of habeas corpus, and Judge Story granted the owner possession of the fugitive, and time to procure evidence of his ownership. But worse still Massachusetts officials and one of her jails were employed to aid in the return of a man to slavery. This degradation aroused the greatest indignation in the State and led to the enactment of a law prohibiting its officials from taking part in
