W. S. ROBINSON, MEMBER OF THE FREE SOIL COUNTY COMMITTEE OF MIDDLESEX
At the time this 1851 circular was printed, William Stevens Robinson (then of Lowell) and Addison Grant Fay (of Concord) were members of the Free Soil County Committee of Middlesex County.
In preparing the circular, the committee focused on the oppressiveness of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and the importance of voting Free Soil to counteract governmentally enforced injustice: "To the Free Soil men of Massachusetts is committed, in an especial manner the duty of making a stand against the powers of despotism, here in the United States. The last two years have witnessed, here as in Europe, a reaction against republican principles. Freedom is prostrated in the Northern States of America A law, infamous enough in its words, but doubly and trebly horrible when carried into detail, has been enforced against an unoffending people, and all symptoms of dissatisfaction with its operations are denounced as treasonable. The Administration of Mr. Fillmore is at the head of the MAN-HUNT, now going on in the (nominally) free states. To sustain that Administration or in any way to give it aid and comfort, is to give support to a persecution more wicked than the Austrian barbarities against the Hungarians. It therefore becomes every Anti-Slavery voter to do his utmost, in the place where his influence is, to bring to the polls on election day, every Free Soil voter, and to take care that the present kidnapping Government at Washington has no occasion to rejoice over the result."
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