There have been wars of _pretext_; but here was an act of legislation, which, whenever enforced, was a _Petty War_, and its origin was a pretext. It was nothing but a pretext, through which the representatives of Slavery sought to enforce a flagitious power. The pretext was worthy of the legislation, and both pretext and legislation were in harmony with the authors, who drew their motives of conduct from Slavery and nothing else. The same spirit which triumphed in this Fugitive Slave Act, on a pretext, has at last broken forth in rebellion, on a pretext also. Each was under pretext of maintaining Slavery, and each proceeded from the same influence. Speaking, then, in general terms, the authors of the Fugitive Slave Act were the authors of the Rebellion. The one and the other have the same paternity, as unquestionably they have a family likeness. If, however, we go still further, and seek the individual authors of this odious measure, the forerunner of the Rebellion, it is easy to point them out. The bill was reported to the Senate by Mr. Butler, of South Carolina, so that in origin it may be traced directly to the hot-house of nullification, treason, and rebellion. But Mr. Mason, of Virginia, subsequently moved a substitute, which, being adopted, became the existing statute, and this enormity stalked into life under the patronage of a Senator from Virginia. Public report, which is entitled to belief, attributes this substitute to the cunning hand of Mr. Faulkner, also of Virginia; but, on moving it in the Senate, Mr. Mason made it his own, and pressed it with untiring pertinacity, as the “Globe” amply attests, until it became the law of the land, so far as such a measure can in any just sense be “law.” But whether its authors be found in States or individuals, there is in it the same pernicious virus, which, breaking out first in South Carolina, inoculated Virginia, like the Rebellion itself. A Senator from Virginia took from South Carolina the final responsibility, as an aged madman from Virginia asked and obtained permission to point the first gun at Fort Sumter. Nor are the two events unlike in character. The Fugitive Slave Act was levelled at the Union hardly less than the batteries at Charleston, when they opened upon Fort Sumter. Such are the authors, general and special, of this wickedness. The Senator from South Carolina is dead; but the representatives of Slavery still live, and so also do the two madmen from Virginia. Thus the representatives of Slavery, though now in open rebellion, continue, through unrepealed statute, to insult the loyal States, to degrade the Republic, and to rule the country which they tried to ruin. And thus two audacious Rebels, one the pretended Minister of the Rebellion at London, and the other an officer in the Rebel forces, still exert among us a malignant power, while, with a long arm not yet amputated, they reach even into the streets of Washington, and fasten the chains of the slave. CONCLUSION.