Classic Poem

In 'fifty, Congress passed a Bill,
Which proved a crude and bitter pill
At least in many a northern mouth,
Though sweet as honey at the South.
It was the object of this Act
(By priests and politicians backed)
That masters might with ease retake
The wretched slaves who chanced to break
Away from servitude thenceforth,
And sought a refuge at the North.

It was the purpose of this Act
To make the Northern States, in fact,
The brutal master's hunting grounds,
To be explored by human hounds
Who would, for shining gold, again
Bind on the bleeding captive's chain.
This Bill most clearly was designed
To prejudice the public mind
In favor of the master's claim,
Howe'er circuitous or lame.

From officers of baser sort,
The Bill sought sanction and support:
And lawyers bought of no repute
And bribed the dough-faced judge to boot,
It gave encouragement to knaves,
It mocked the suff'rings of the slaves
By giving, if the slave went free,
The judge five dollars as his fee.
But if the judge bound on his chains,
He won ten dollars for his pains.

Go to yon Capitol and look
On this free nation's statute book,
And there you'll find the monstrous Bill
Upon the nation's records still.
And dough-faced politicians now
Their rev'rence for the Act avow,
And hundreds impudently say
That all should peacefully obey
The Act, and yield to its demands,
And give back to the master's hands
The poor, dejected, bleeding slave,
This great Confederacy to save.
We scarce can quench our indignation,
Aroused by such an intimation,
For government should man befit,
And not man sacrifice to it.
And if the Union long has stood

Cemented with the bondsman's blood;
If human hearts and human bone
Are truly its chief corner stone;
If State from State would soon divide
If not with negro sinews tied;
Then let th' accursed Union go,
And let her drift, or, sink below,
Or, let her quick in sunder break
And so become a shattered wreck.

And is that vile requirement just
Which tramples manhood in the dust?
Shall we arrest escaping slaves
At every beck of Southern knaves?
Shall Northern freemen heed a few
Of that untoward apostate crew,
And, let them hunt upon their soil
And drag to unrequited toil
A man, however rude or raw,
Because of that nefarious law
Which causes liberty to bleed,
And gravely sanctions such a deed?