Tuskegee (AL) Republican, "A Tempest in a Tea-Pot," November 7, 1850

    A Tempest in a Tea-Pot.

      A NEW PROPHET!

    The Passage of the Fugitive Slave Bill, and the prompt and successful manner in which it has been carried into execution, seem to have stirred up Runawayniggerdom, to its lowest depths. The "fugitives" are holding numerous indignation meetings at the North, and denouncing the law as an infraction of their rights? Many of them are making a stampede for Canada, while others seem determined to resist the law, hoping to receive the aid of their free soil sympathizers. 

   We suspect there is a great deal of humbuggery in all this. The free blacks are very numerous in most of the Northern cities, but the number of fugitive slaves is comparatively small. Three or four hundred is the largest estimate we have seen of fugitive slaves, of all ages and sizes, in the city of Boston. But it is more than likely that this number will now be trebled our quadrupled by the voluntary accessions from the ranks of free blacks, who, ambitious of being regarded as martyrs, will pretend to be fugitive slaves for the purpose of enlisting sympathy and extorting money from their abolition dupes. This game may be played very successfully for a few months, and quite a number of curly headed "Hamlets" and fragrant "Julianas," who were born and raised in the chaste vicinity of the "Five Points," will be hurried off upon a pleasurable excursion to Canada, at the expense of their "lubbing brudders," the abolitionists. But this expensive sympathy will soon wear out, and we predict that in less than twelve months, the fugitive slave law will be as little opposed and as easily executed, as any other tradition [extradition] law now in force. 

   Upon this subject we observe a paragraph in the last Greensboro' Beacon, to the effect that our representative, the Hon. S.W. Inge, while passing through Greensboro' a few days ago, stated "that a brief visit to some of the non-slaveholding States, which he made after the adjournment of Congress, and sufficed to satisfy him of the great unpopularity at the North of the fugitive slave law, and also, that the law would be repealed by the next Congress." We are aware that in the eyes of his numerous admirers, our distinguished representative has long been regarded as the personification of all merely human excellences, but this is the first time we have heard of his claiming to be endowed with the gift of prophecy. And if we ever wagered at all, we would freely bet our old hat against Morrison's latest importation from Genin's, that the Hon. Samuel––unlike his namesake of old––will turn out to be a false prophet. Repeal this fugitive slave law! Never. For even should fanaticism force a numerical majority into the House of Representatives, in favor of its repeal, still the Senate––with thirty Senators from slaveholding States, with the Senators from half a dozen free States utterly opposed to its repeal––will present an immovable barrier against which the waves of fanaticism will beat in vain. If Col. Inge expects to get up an excitement in his district upon this ground, he is reckoning without his host.––Monitor.