By the abolitionists, at whom it was directed, this law was detested. A government, whose first national manifesto contained the exalted principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, stooping to the task of slave-catching, violated all their ideas of national dignity, decency and consistency. Many persons, indeed, justified their opposition to the law in the familiar words: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." The scriptural injunction "not to deliver unto his master the servant that hath escaped,"[44] was also frequently quoted by men whose religious convictions admitted of no compromise. They pointed out that the law virtually made all Northern citizens accomplices in what they denominated the crime of slave-catching; that it denied the right of trial by jury, resting the question of lifelong liberty on ex-parte evidence; made ineffective the writ of habeas corpus; and offered a bribe to the commissioner for a decision against the negro.[45] The penalties of fine and imprisonment for offenders against the law were severe, but they had no deterrent effect upon those engaged in helping slaves to Canada. On the contrary, the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 stimulated the work of secret emancipation. "The passage of the new law," says a recent investigator, "probably increased the number of anti-slavery people more than anything else that had occurred during the whole agitation. Many of those formerly indifferent were roused to active opposition by a sense of the injustice of the Fugitive Slave Act as they saw it executed in Boston and elsewhere.... As Mr. James Freeman Clarke has said, 'It was impossible to convince the people that it was right to send back to slavery men who were so desirous of freedom as to run such risks. All education from boyhood up to manhood had taught us to believe that it was the duty of all men to struggle for freedom.'"[46] [44] _Deut._ xxiii, 15, 16. [45] See _Some Recollections of the Anti-Slavery Conflict_, by S. J. May, p. 345 _et seq._; Stroud's _Sketch of the Laws Relating to Slavery in the Several States_, 2d ed., 1856, pp. 271-280; Wilson, _History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power_, Vol. II, pp. 304-322. [46] M. G. McDougall, _Fugitive Slaves_, p. 43; J. F. Clarke, _Anti-Slavery Days_, p. 92.