Joseph H. Baynet to Frederick Douglass, April 5, 1852
Letter from Joseph H. Baynet.
Frederick Douglass:—This intrusion you must excuse; but, as one of the laborers in the field of our progression and elevation, I have deemed it fit again to speak. We are here the sentinels of the army of freedom, standing on the outposts. We can almost hear the moanings of the slave as borne on the zephyr across the Pararie State; yet are we treated with cold indifference, and no voice of ours is heard through our own paper, or no light radiate from us through the North Star. But time will prove it was not well to treat us thus.
In endeavoring to indite these lines to you, it is to call your attention to doctrinal relations of the states to the Federal Government, or the doctrines of state rights. I fell my inability to do justice to the subject, and for that reason I have thought fit to bring it before your observation; but I shall endeavor to show in what light I hold the same and the cause of my addressing you.
Shortly after the passage of Mason's Fugitive Bill, meetings, in common, were held through the country, and expressions were made concerning the same; some of my friends doubted the ability of the government to execute the law. I, with my friend G. H. Clarke, held adverse opinions, which, subsequently, have been verified. We accepted the law as constitutional, being passed by a majority of Congress, and, subsequently, receiving the sanction of the people, and agreeing with the pro-slavery clause of the Constitution; yet we told our friends either to go to Canada, or to resolve to die, for the law would be sustained at all hazards; and
we [...]. We had a talk [...]. He said that efforts would be made to [...] if we [...] doubted and accepted the same as a finality. But in accepting it, the [...] of state rights haunted us, as the only remedy that we could see, the only ray of hope we could catch in those, the dark moments of our trial. Knowing that each sovereign state possessed certain rights, which never at any time been ceded to the Federal Government, and among these rights, were trial by jury, the habeas corpus writ, and fugitives fleeing from one state into another on requisition, &c., shall be given up to the authorities of such state, &c. Well, by the law, these two, the former two, have been taken from the states by Mason's Law. Now for the last, which is the most important feature, and it is a poor rule that won't work both ways, is now to be tried, or will be tried; and my word for it, a prophet must arise, and must be met on none other but pure constitutional grounds, both of individual grounds, both of individual States
and the Federal Government. Let me now come nearer to my subject, approaching the question. Oh! how I feel my inability, but I soon shall leave it to you.
Wm. Smith, a fugitive from service, is murdered in Pennsylvania, by an officer from Maryland, serving a writ of the United States by a requisition from Maryland. Has Pennsylvania a right, according to her local law and state rights, to require the Governor of Maryland, to deliver up to the authorities of Pennsylvania the said Ridgely? And, then, supposing a refusal, will the government use its prerogative to establish or sustain the Fugitive Law of both state and federal acts? Now, Ridgely has not committed any act against the Federal Government, but has violated the local law of Pennsylvania in the capacity of a United States officer as a murderer. The Federal Government has no power in the States to punish; but Ridgely, acting for the government, has its protection, while the sovereign State of Pennsylvania is dependent of hers under the same constitution that guarantees to both that fugitives from State shall be given up, &c. This is not the first instance of the clashing of local laws with the federal law; but the states have reserved their rights, and the government hers. The states and the government must settle this, for dog must not eat dog. I hope you will enlarge on this subject.
I am, with much respect,
Joseph H. Baynet
Chicago, April 5th, 1852.