In 1838, Rev. John B. Mahan, a Methodist preacher, residing in Ohio, was reported to have given aid and shelter to fugitive slaves from Kentucky, and forthwith the Grand Jury of Mason County, in that State, indicted him, as being "late of the County of Mason," for aiding two slaves in making their escape from said county. On the strength of this indictment, Governor Clark, of Kentucky, issued his requisition on the Governor of Ohio, wherein he stated that the said Mahan "_has fled from justice, and is now going at large in the State of Ohio_;" and that by virtue of the authority vested in him by the "Constitution and Laws of the United States, he did demand the said John B. Mahan, as _a fugitive from the justice of the laws of this State_." On this requisition Mahan was seized, carried into Kentucky, put in irons, and kept in prison as a felon for about ten weeks, when, after a trial which lasted six days, he was acquitted by the jury. Now it was a matter of notoriety, and _admitted_ by the prosecution, that Mahan had not been in Kentucky for about _twenty years_!! Yet day after day was spent in endeavors to procure the conviction of a man who had committed no offence against the laws of the State, and whose person had been seized in consequence of a gross fraud, and a palpable and acknowledged falsehood. But how happened it that the slaveholders permitted their prey to escape? Fortunately for Mahan, the Governor of Ohio, after surrendering him, discovered the imposition that had been practised, and officially informed the Governor of Kentucky, that he could not consent that a citizen of Ohio should be taken to another State, and tried for an offence not committed within her jurisdiction. The publication of this letter drew the attention of the community to the infamous outrage that had been practised. If, after this, Mahan had been Lynched, or even judicially punished, a controversy would have arisen between the two States, which would necessarily have given new strength and influence to the anti-slavery cause. But perhaps the most insolent attempt yet made to pervert the Federal Constitution to the support of slavery, was the expedient devised in Alabama to muzzle the Northern press. An article appeared in a newspaper published in New York, in 1835, which gave offence to certain planters in that State; and forthwith a grand jury, _on their oaths_, indicted the New York publisher, "late of the County of Tuscaloosa," for endeavoring to excite insurrection among the slaves, by circulating a seditious paper; and on this indictment the Governor had the impudence to make a formal requisition for the surrender of the publisher, as a _fugitive from justice_, although he had never breathed the air of Alabama.