man, but a mere president, general, governor, representative, sheriff, juror, or constable; he is absolved from all allegiance to God’s law of the universe when it conflicts with mans law of the land; his official business as a magistrate supersedes his natural duty as a man. In virtue of this theory, President Polk, and his coadjutors in Congress and out of it, with malice, afore-thought, and intent to rob and to kill, did officially invade Mexico, and therein "slay, kill, and murder" some thousands of men, as well Americans as Mexicans. This is thought right because he did it officially. But the fact that he and they were magistrates, doing official business, did not make the killing any the less a wrong than if he and they had been private men, with General Lopez and not General Taylor to head or back them. The official killing of a man who has not alienated his right to life, is just as much violation of the law of God, and the natural duty of man, as the un-official killing of such a person. Because you and I and some other foolish people put a man in a high office, and get him to take an oath, does that, all at once, invest him with a natural right to kill anybody he sees fit; to kill an innocent Mexican? All his natural rights he had before.
Church-street. Their object was to denounce the fugitive slave law; and this was done with hearty good-will, or, we should say, malediction.
"The steam would have been well up, without any extraneous elements of excitement; but what added a special interest to the occasion, and raised the temperament to blood-heat, was the announcement, made by Mr Downing, that the wife of James Hamlet (the fugitive slave who was returned to his owner in Baltimore, a few days since, under a process of law) had died yesterday, of grief and convulsions.
"This filled the measure of indignation which burned in the bosoms of all present, against a law which, besides its other abominations, could produce such fatal effects. In the fever of the moment, a contribution was called for, to defray the expense of her funeral, and about twenty dollars was collected.
"Shortly after, information was received that it was all a mistake about her dying of convulsions, or in any other way; and that she was as well as ever. This was a damper upon the enthusiasm of the occasion, but the money was already collected, and seeing it could not be applied just now to defray her funeral expenses, it was very properly decided to apply it to her living expenses. The meeting adjourned.
"Mrs Hamlet was in our office yesterday, accompanied by her mother and a coloured man. She appeared to be in good health (though of course distressed at the misfortune of her husband), and we hope she will live a thousand years. She certainly shall, if his return will have that effect."—N. Y. Journal of Commerce.
I print these passages, hoping that some hundred years hence they may be found in some old library, and valued as monuments of the state of Christianity in the free States in the year 1850.
