Heading: (Vermont)
Author:
Title: Vermont Petition for a Law to Prevent the Recapture of Fugitive Slaves
Place Published: Vermont
Publisher:
Date Published: November 15, 1858
Description:

A partially printed and manuscript document, 21x7".

Dated November 15, 1858 and serving as a petition to the Vermont Senate and House of Representatives, apparently in response to the Governor's message as it related to slavery. The document is docketed, by George Bigelow Asst. Clerk as a petition of Avery Fitts of Braintree, Orange County Vermont, and additionally signed by 65 other Vermont citizens to "enact that no person, who has been held as a slave, shall be delivered up, by any officer or court, State, Federal, within the State, to anyone claiming him on the ground that he owes "service or labor" to such claimant, by the laws of one of the Slave States of the Union". This message is printed on the top of the document followed by the personal signatures, a few in ink and the majority in pencil. Most people seem to be resident of the town and adjoining areas. Folded, as it was obviously carried around in an effort to garner petition signatures. An added piece of letter paper added to the bottom to of the document to accommodate additional signatures. The collection of Vermont historian, Calvin P. Otto.

A closed tear at the bottom edge, not affecting any writing.