October 20th, 1851.

Frederick Douglass:—For the information of the friends of "Law and Order," who are hunting for stolen property which lately took legs, please publish the following:

"----, 10th mo. 16th, 1851.

Respected Friend:—D---- and another man came to my house about 11 oclock one week ago to night, and brought two persons, with rather dark skin, which they said, were introduced into the neighborhood by thee, [...] being very fond of such company, [...] the next night to get them to [the lake]shore; and lest they might become trouble to me, I hired two men, and [gave] them $3 to row them across the lake into Canada. With respect, &c."

This same friend, some years ago, even before our Government required all good citizens to chase down fugitives, assisted me in [illegible] off to Canada a woman and her son, who stole their own bodes from Maryland.

And, now again, he has rid the country of two men, who but for his interposition, might have committed high treason, in defending their pretended Liberty, in violation of our republican and democratic institutions. For they asserted that God created them with all the natural rights possessed by WebsterWebster, Daniel

Daniel Webster (1782–1852) was a lawyer and statesman known for his stirring oratory. As a lawyer, he successfully argued many cases before the Supreme Court, such as the 1816 Dartmouth College case and the 1819 McCulloch v. Maryland case, earning a reputation as a strong nationalist. During the War of 1812 Webster represented New Hampshire in Congress (1812–46). Then, in 1827, he was elected to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts, where he remained in service through most of his life. He continued to take strong nationalist positions in political debates, attacking Andrew Jackson’s 1832 veto of the Second Bank of the United States and opposing Nullification in 1832–33. Webster accepted appointment as secretary of state under William Henry Harrison and was the sole cabinet member from Harrison’s presidency to retain his office during John Tyler’s administration. In 1842 he negotiated the Webster-Ashburton Treaty with Great Britain, establishing the modern boundary between the United States and Canada, but resigned his post a year later and returned to the Senate in 1845. In 1848 Webster made an unsuccessful bid for the Whig presidential nomination, losing to war hero Zachary Taylor. In 1850 Webster once again left the Senate to act as secretary of state under Millard Fillmore, a move that placed him in a good position to bid for the presidency; but he lost the 1852 Whig nomination to Winfield Scott. Though not an abolitionist, he opposed the extension of slavery in the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the Mexican-American War, and the enforcement of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law. Robert V. Remini, Daniel Webster: The Man and His Time (New York, 1997), 15–21; ANB, 22:865–68; DAB, 11:585–92. or FillmoreFillmore, Millard

Millard Fillmore (1800-74), thirteenth president of the United States, represented the Buffalo region in the New York state legislature (1828-32) and in the U.S. House of Representatives (1833-35, 1837-43), where he generally voted with the Henry Clay wing of the Whig party. Defeated in the 1844 New York governor's race, Fillmore secured the Whig vice-presidential nomination in 1848 and assumed the presidency upon Zachary Taylor's death in July 1850. Fillmore vigorously advocated passage of the Compromise of 1850 and signed each of its measures into law. Denied his party's nomination in 1852, Fillmore ran for president on the American party ticket in 1856 and supported John Bell and the Constitutional Union party in 1860. NCAB, 6:177-78; DAB, 6:380-82. ; and that God forbade any man or power on earth to alienate those rights. They, in fact, relied more on the old abrogated Declaration of the Whigs of '76, than the Declaration of the Whigs and Democrats both combined of '[51]

Friend to Law.