boasted freedom?' Here was an innocent child treated like a felon;
manacled, and sent back to slavery and the lash; deprived of the
fostering care which even the brute is allowed to exercise toward
its young. The slender boy was seeking the protection of a father.
Did humanity aid him? No. Humanity was prevented by the law, which
consigns one portion of the people to the control and brutality of
the other. Humanity can only look on and weep. 'The laws must be
obeyed.'"

Legislators of Massachusetts! suppose for one moment that poor
abused boy was your own little Johnny or Charley, what would you say
of the law _then_? Truly, if we have no feeling for the children of
_others_, we deserve to have our own children reserved for such a
fate; and I sometimes think it is the only lesson that will teach
the North to respect justice and humanity.

It is not long ago, since a free colored man in Baltimore was
betrothed to a young slave of eighteen, nearly white, and very
beautiful. If they married, their children would be slaves, and he
would have no power to protect his handsome wife from any outrages
an unprincipled master, or his sons, might choose to perpetrate.
Therefore, he wisely resolved to marry in a land of freedom. He
placed her in a box, with a few holes in it, small enough not to
attract attention. With tender care, he packed hay around her, that
she might not be bruised when thrown from the cars with other
luggage. The anxiety of the lover was dreadful. Still more terrible
was it, when waiting for her in Philadelphia, he found that the
precious box had not arrived. They had happened to have an unusual
quantity of freight, and the baggage-master, after turning the box
over, in rough, railroad fashion had concluded to leave it till the