The Government of the United States creates no Slaves; it only recognises as lawful the Slavery existing in the several States, or to use the words of the Constitution, "held to service or labor, under the laws thereof." The _laws_ of the several slave-holding States are made the standard for the general government's action upon this subject. No quibble can possibly evade this, for it is not necessary to prove that a runaway Slave justly owes service to his master, but only if he does, under the _the laws of his master_. The master has made certain laws, claiming his Slaves as absolute property; the Constitution says, "persons owing service under these laws," shall be returned, thus making the most complete provision for the support of the system. The laws of the State in which the claimant lives, are the rule to go by, not the feelings of the judge, respecting the abstract question of the possibility of one human being owing compulsory service to another. It is just as much a violation of his oath, for a judge to refuse to deliver a Slave proved to be such, under the laws of the State, without "a bill of sale from the Almighty," as the Vermont judge did, as it would be to refuse to deliver the Slave _with_ the bill of sale from the Almighty. If it is the bond that we contend for so strictly, as the Jew did for the pound of flesh, we must abide by the bond, which says, not if the _Almighty_ furnishes a bill of sale, shall the Slave be delivered up; but if the _laws of the State_ say he is a Slave. The recent decision of judge Edmonds in behalf of Belt, the most favorable one on record, fully recognises this principle; and Belt owes his liberty not so much to the humanity of the judge, as to the absence of positive proof that the laws of Maryland uphold Slavery. A copy of the Slave laws of Maryland was produced, but it only said published by authority, and not by the authority of the legislature, therefore Belt was allowed to go free. The omission of one word in a book, saved Belt from the jaws of Slavery, more than any other thing. To be sure, it was proved that the master did not take legal steps after the seizure of Belt, and therefore had no right to him; but the main reason for his discharge was, not the wrongfulness of delivering him up, not because God had given Lee no _bill of sale_, but because a lawyer could not swear that a certain book was the laws of Maryland!