the other way." In 1792 the Southern representatives demanded that an anti-slavery petition should be sent back to the petitioners. To its shame the House consented, and unfortunately it was not the only time that the House agreed to this direct violation of the right of petition when these petitions came from abolitionists. In January, 1793, by forty-eight votes to seven, an Act was passed giving to slaveholders the right to seize and return to slavery their fugitive bondmen; and, under color of this Act, not only were fugitive slaves captured, but a number of free colored persons kidnapped. Petitions were presented to Congress asking for protection against kidnapping. One memorial came from persons of African descent, natives of North Carolina, who had been emancipated and re-enslaved. The memorialists urged that, under the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Act, free colored persons were always liable to be seized and carried into bondage. To avoid this they had to flee from their country and separate from those nearest and dearest to them. This petition was presented by the representative of Pennsylvania, who spoke with horror of a reward offered for one of the petitioners, "ten dollars if taken alive, fifty dollars if found dead, and no questions asked." The Southern members asked that the petition should not be received, that it should be sent back to the petitioners. Eventually the House refused the petition. In 1799 a petition from some colored people, praying for a revision of the Fugitive Slave Act, and legislation which would tend to emancipate their brethren, was met by the Maryland representative, saying he hoped the petition would go "under the table rather than on it." He would make the Fugitive Act "stronger" instead of weakening it. Another member thought the temper of revolt was perceptible among the slaves, whilst arrogant Georgia hoped the petition would be treated with "the contempt it merited and thrown under the table."
Notwithstanding the stringent provisions of the Act, slaveholders found much difficulty in recapturing their runaway slaves, and time after time efforts were made to secure a law which would give slaveowners more power. In 1821 the Maryland representative complained to Congress of the interference of Quakers and others in preventing the reclamation of runaways, and "significantly hinted, that if effectual means were not taken to secure the rights of Southern States, they might be driven to take up arms in support of their rights." Notwithstanding threatening speeches like these, all efforts to strengthen this infamous law were unsuccessful until 1850. If the slaveholders were cruel and arrogant, there were a few abolitionists stern and devoted. One of those "Quakers and others," whose proud privilege it was, at the beginning of the present century, to give perhaps more cause of complaint to slaveholders than any other private man, was Isaac T. Hopper.
