Excerpt from The Personal Liberty Bill: An Address to the Legislature and People of New York Do not say this hazard is imaginary. It is real. Again and again have free colored persons been persecuted under this statute in Free States; it is one of the most {common features of the enforcement of the law. Again and again have Commissioners sent away free colored people as slaves. We have not yet forgotten that Commissioner Ingraham sent Adam Gibson into slavery, in most indecent haste, and Mr. Knight, of Maryland, refused to accept him as his slave. Other cases have occurred where witnesses have sworn to falsehood, and the Commissioner decided, in the face of justice, a free man a slave. We have only to read the history of the cases under this law to learn how many such attempts have been made; how often they have succeeded how a few victims have been rescued by great effort. But who can tell how many free men and women have been spirited away in secret by the facilities afforded through this infamous edict of despotism. The Fugi tive Slave Law is really a law to encourage kidnapping for it leaves the whole free colored population without defense against that power which proclaims the black man the natural slave of the white man. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.