The Palmyra (Mo.) Courier, in August, 1846, says:--"We understand that a gentleman, living in Macon county, while out hunting with his rifle, last week, came suddenly upon two fugitive slaves, who gave him battle. He shot one, and split the other's skull with the barrel of his gun. He then started for home, but before reaching it he met a man in the road, who inquired if he had seen or heard of two runaway negroes--describing them. The gentleman replied, that he had just killed two, and related the circumstance. On proceeding to the spot, the stranger identified them as his slaves." THE FUGITIVE SLAVE. [Illustration] A Slave Hunter Killed. The following is from the Washington (Pa.) Patriot of 1846: "We learn that a few days ago, a fugitive slave from Maryland was pursued and overtaken in Somerset county, in this State by a man named Holland, a wagoner from Ohio, who was tempted to the task by the reward offered, $150. When they reached McCarty's tavern the slave attempted to escape, but was caught by Holland while in the act of climbing a fence. The slave drew a long knife, which he had concealed about his person, and plunged it into Holland's heart, causing his death instantly. He made good his escape, immediately pursued by the people of the neighborhood, who at nightfall, had surrounded him, but in the darkness of the night he eluded their vigilance, and is now beyond their reach." The Rights of the Fugitive. The Hon. J. R. Giddings, in a speech in the House of Representatives, at Washington, Feb. 18, 1846, said--"In regard to arresting slaves, we [of the free States] owe no duties to the master; on the contrary, all our sympathies, our feelings, and our moral duties, beyond what I have stated, are with the slave. We will neither arrest him for the master, nor will we assist the master in making such arrest. I am aware that the third clause of the second section of the first article of the Constitution was once believed, by some, to impose upon the people of these free States the duty of arresting fugitive slaves. But it is now judicially settled that no such obligation rests upon us. Indeed a proposition to impose upon us such a duty, at the time of framing the Constitution, was rejected, without a division, by the Convention. We, therefore, leave the master to arrest the slave if he can; and we leave the slave to defend himself against the master if he can. We do not interfere between them. The slave possesses as perfect a right to defend his person and his liberty against the master as any citizen of our State. Our laws protect him against every other person, except the master or his agent, but they leave him to protect himself against them. If he, while defending himself, slays the master, our laws do not interfere to punish him in any way, further than they would any other person who should slay a man in actual self-defence. The laws of the slave State cannot reach him, nor is there any law, of God or man, that condemns him.