A Subject of the Fugitive Slave Law

A SUBJECT OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. There is a great deal of suggestiveness in an advertisement which appears in the columns of the Hartford, Ct., papers, headed "Runaway from the Subscriber." It is signed by one Simons, a silversmith of Philadelphia, where Passmore Williamson lives, and Rev. Mr. Furness preaches, and offers ten dollars to any one who shall - do what? "Give information of the whereabouts of John E. Day, an indented apprentice - about 17 years old, 5 feet 8 inches high, dark hair  and eyes, fair complexion, and with an impediment of speech, and lodge him in prison," so that the said silversmith can secure him. Moreover, "all persons are cautioned against harboring or giving employment" to the "runaway," on penalty of being "prosecuted according to law." It seems that the master has reason to believe his "chattol" is lurking somewhere in that "land of steady habits," in which this advertisement is thus put in circulation.

Now as the constitution is under which we lives provides, among other things, that "the citizens of each State shall be entitled to al- privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States," we suppose that Mr. Simons, of Pennsylvania, has a right to make the demand he has done upon the community of Connecticut; and, as there is another clause of the same section of the same article of the constitution, which provides that a person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall be delivered upon the claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due," we further presume that Connecticut (if she can catch him) will promptly deliver up Mr. Simons's fugitive. 

But John E. Day is a white man. Were he but black he would have a right good show for his freedom from the few years longer "service and labor," to which, without any act, or, perhaps, wish of his own, he was "bound" in his infancy. "Circumstances alter cases."