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+Project Gutenberg's The Trial of Theodore Parker, by Theodore Parker
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Trial of Theodore Parker
+       For the "Misdemeanor" of a Speech in Faneuil Hall against
+       Kidnapping, before the Circuit Court of the United States,
+       at Boston, April 3, 1855, with the Defence
+
+Author: Theodore Parker
+
+Release Date: February 17, 2010 [EBook #31298]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRIAL OF THEODORE PARKER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Meredith Bach, Linda Cantoni, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's Note: A table of contents has been added for the
+reader's convenience. Errors listed in the Errata section have been
+noted with a [Transcriber's Note]; other obvious printer errors have
+been corrected without note.]
+
+
+
+
+THE TRIAL
+
+OF
+
+THEODORE PARKER,
+
+FOR THE
+
+"MISDEMEANOR"
+
+OF
+
+A Speech in Faneuil Hall against Kidnapping,
+
+BEFORE THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES,
+
+AT BOSTON, APRIL 3, 1855.
+
+WITH
+
+THE DEFENCE,
+
+
+BY
+
+THEODORE PARKER,
+
+MINISTER OF THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGREGATIONAL SOCIETY IN BOSTON.
+
+
+BOSTON:
+PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR.
+1855.
+
+Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by
+
+THEODORE PARKER,
+
+In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
+  Massachusetts.
+
+CAMBRIDGE:
+ALLEN AND FARNHAM, PRINTERS.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+PREFACE
+INTRODUCTION
+DEFENCE
+ERRATA
+OTHER WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+JOHN PARKER HALE
+
+AND
+
+CHARLES MAYO ELLIS,
+
+MAGNANIMOUS LAWYERS,
+
+FOR THEIR LABORS IN A NOBLE PROFESSION,
+
+WHICH HAVING ONCE IN ENGLAND ITS KELYNG, ITS SAUNDERS, ITS JEFFREYS,
+AND ITS SCROGGS, AS NOW IN AMERICA ITS SHARKEY, ITS GRIER, ITS CURTIS,
+AND ITS KANE, HAS YET ALSO SUCH GENEROUS ADVOCATES OF HUMANITY AS
+EQUAL THE GLORIES OF HOLT AND ERSKINE, OF MACKINTOSH AND ROMILLY,
+
+FOR THEIR ELOQUENT AND FEARLESS DEFENCE OF TRUTH, RIGHT, AND LOVE,
+
+THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED,
+
+BY THEIR CLIENT AND FRIEND,
+
+THEODORE PARKER.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+TO THE PEOPLE OF THE FREE STATES OF AMERICA.
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS AND FRIENDS,--
+
+If it were a merely personal matter for which I was arraigned before
+the United States Court, after the trial was over I should trouble the
+public no further with that matter; and hitherto indeed, though often
+attacked, nay, almost continually for the last fourteen years, I have
+never returned a word in defence. But now, as this case is one of such
+vast and far-reaching importance, involving the great Human Right to
+Freedom of Speech, and as the actual question before the court was
+never brought to trial, I cannot let the occasion pass by without
+making further use of it.
+
+When Judge Curtis delivered his charge to the Grand-Jury, June 7th,
+1854, I made ready for trial, and in three or four days my line of
+defence was marked out--the fortifications sketched, the place of the
+batteries determined; I began to collect arms, and was soon ready for
+his attack. When that Grand-Jury, summoned with no special reference
+to me, refused to find a bill and were discharged, I took public
+notice of the conduct of Judge Curtis, in a Sermon for the Fourth of
+July.[1] But I knew the friends of the fugitive slave bill at Boston
+and Washington too well to think they would let the matter sleep; I
+knew what arts could be used to pack a jury and procure a bill. So I
+was not at all surprised when I heard of the efforts making by the
+Slave Power in Boston to obtain an indictment by another grand-jury
+summoned for that purpose. It need not be supposed that I was wholly
+ignorant of their doings from day to day. The arrest was no
+astonishment to me. I knew how much the reputation of this Court and
+of its Attorney depended on the success of this prosecution. I knew
+what private malignity was at work.
+
+[Footnote 1: 2 Parker's Additional Speeches, 178-283.]
+
+After my arraignment I made elaborate preparation for my defence. I
+procured able counsel, men needing no commendation, to manage the
+technical details which I knew nothing about and so could not meddle
+with, while I took charge of other matters lying more level to my own
+capacity. I thought it best to take an active part in my own
+defence,--for the matter at issue belonged to my previous studies and
+general business; my personal friends and the People in general,
+seemed to expect me to defend myself as well as I could.
+
+A great political revolution took place between the Judge's charge and
+my arraignment, June 7th, and November 29th, 1854, and I thought the
+Court would not allow the case to come to open argument. For
+certainly, it would not be a very pleasant thing for Judge Sprague and
+Judge Curtis, who have taken such pains to establish slavery in
+Massachusetts, to sit there--each like a travestied Prometheus,
+chained up in a silk gown because they had brought to earth fire from
+the quarter opposite to Heaven--and listen to Mr. Hale, and Mr.
+Phillips and other anti-slavery lawyers, day after day: there were
+facts, sure to come to light, not honorable to the Court and not
+pleasant to look at in the presence of a New England community then
+getting indignant at the outrages of the Slave Power. I never thought
+the case would come to the jury. I looked over the indictment, and to
+my unlearned eye it seemed so looped and windowed with breaches that a
+skilful lawyer might drive a cart and six oxen through it in various
+directions; and so the Court might easily quash the indictment and
+leave all the blame of the failure on the poor Attorney--whom they
+seemed to despise, though using him for their purposes--while they
+themselves should escape with a whole reputation, and ears which had
+not tingled under manly speech.
+
+Still, it was possible that the trial would come on. Of course, I knew
+the trial would not proceed on the day I was ordered to appear--the
+eighty-fifth anniversary of the Boston Massacre. It would be
+"unavoidably postponed," which came to pass accordingly. The Attorney,
+very politely, gave me all needed information from time to time.
+
+At the "trial," April 3d, it was optional with the defendant's counsel
+to beat the Government on the indictment before the Court; or on the
+merits of the case before the Jury. The latter would furnish the most
+piquant events, for some curious scenes were likely to take place in
+the examination of witnesses, as well as instruction to be offered in
+the Speeches delivered. But on the whole, it was thought best to blow
+up the enemy in his own fortress and with his own magazine, rather
+than to cut him to pieces with our shot in the open field. So the
+counsel rent the indictment into many pieces--apparently to the great
+comfort of the Judges, who thus escaped the battle, which then fell
+only on the head of the Attorney.
+
+At the time appointed I was ready with my defence--which I now print
+for the Country. It is a Minister's performance, not a lawyer's. Of
+course, I knew that the Court would not have allowed me to proceed
+with such a defence--and that I should be obliged to deliver it
+through the press. Had there been an actual jury trial, I should have
+had many other things to offer in reference to the Government's
+evidence, to the testimony given before the grand-jury, and to the
+conduct of some of the grand-jurors themselves. So the latter part of
+the defence is only the skeleton of what it otherwise might have
+been,--the geological material of the country, the Flora and Fauna
+left out.
+
+It would have been better to publish it immediately after the decision
+of the case: but my _brief_ was not for the printer, and as many
+duties occurred at that time, it was not till now, in a little
+vacation from severer toils, that I have found leisure to write out my
+defence in full. Fellow-Citizens and Friends, I present it to you in
+hopes that it may serve the great cause of Human Freedom in America
+and the world; surely, it has seldom been in more danger.
+
+THEODORE PARKER.
+
+BOSTON, _24th August_, 1855.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+On Tuesday, the 23d of May, 1854, Charles F. Suttle of Virginia,
+presented to Edward Greeley Loring, Esquire, of Boston, Commissioner,
+a complaint under the fugitive slave bill--Act of September 18th,
+1850--praying for the seizure and enslavement of Anthony Burns.
+
+The next day, Wednesday, May 24th, Commissioner Loring issued the
+warrant: Mr. Burns was seized in the course of the evening of that
+day, on the false pretext of burglary, and carried to the Suffolk
+County Court House in which he was confined by the Marshal, under the
+above-named warrant, and there kept imprisoned under a strong and
+armed guard.
+
+On the 25th, at about nine o'clock in the morning, the Commissioner
+proceeded to hear and decide the case in the Circuit Court room, in
+which were stationed about sixty men serving as the Marshal's guard.
+Seth J. Thomas, Esquire, and Edward Griffin Parker, Esquire, members
+of the Suffolk Bar, appeared as counsel for Mr. Suttle to help him and
+Commissioner Loring make a man a Slave. Mr. Burns was kept in irons
+and surrounded by "the guard." The Slave-hunter's documents were
+immediately presented, and his witness was sworn and proceeded to
+testify.
+
+Wendell Phillips, Theodore Parker, Charles M. Ellis, and Richard H.
+Dana, with a few others, came into the Court room. Mr. Parker and some
+others, spoke with Mr. Burns, who sat in the dock ironed, between two
+of the Marshal's guard. After a little delay and conference among
+these four and others, Mr. Dana interrupted the proceedings and asked
+that counsel might be assigned to Mr. Burns, and so a defence allowed.
+To this Mr. Thomas, the senior counsel for the Slave-hunters,
+objected. But after repeated protests on the part of Mr. Dana and Mr.
+Ellis, the Commissioner adjourned the hearing until ten o'clock,
+Saturday, May 27th.
+
+On the evening of Friday, May 26th, there was a large and earnest
+meeting of men and women at Faneuil Hall. Mr. George R. Russell, of
+West Roxbury, presided; his name is a fair exponent of the character
+and purposes of the meeting, which Dr. Samuel G. Howe called to order.
+
+Speeches were made and Resolutions passed. Mr. Phillips and Mr.
+Parker, amongst others, addressed the meeting; Mr. Parker's speech, as
+reported and published in the newspapers, is reprinted in this volume,
+page 199. While this meeting was in session there was a gathering of a
+few persons about the Court House, the outer doors of which had been
+unlawfully closed by order of the Marshal; an attempt was made to
+break through them and enter the building, where the Supreme Court of
+Massachusetts was sitting engaged in a capital case; and the Courts of
+this State must always sit with open doors. In the strife one of the
+Marshal's guard, a man hired to aid in the Slave-hunt, was killed--but
+whether by one of the assailing party, or by the Marshal's guard, it
+is not yet quite clear. It does not appear from the evidence laid
+before the public or the three Grand-Juries, that there was any
+connection between the meeting at Faneuil Hall and the gathering at
+the Court House.
+
+Saturday, 27th, at ten o'clock, the Commissioner opened his Court
+again, his prisoner in irons before him. The other events are well
+known. Mr. Burns was taken away to Slavery on Friday, June 2d, by an
+armed body of soldiers with a cannon.
+
+The May Term of the Circuit Court at Boston began on the 15th of that
+month, and the Grand-Jury for that term had already been summoned.
+Here is the list:--
+
+UNITED STATES CIRCUIT COURT, }
+  MASSACHUSETTS DISTRICT.    }
+
+May Term, 1854. ss. May 15, 1854.
+
+
+GRAND-JURY.
+
+ 1 Sworn.      Isaac Tower,            Randolph,  Foreman.
+
+ 2   "         Elbridge G. Manning,    Andover.
+
+ 3   "         Asa Angier,                "
+
+ 4   "         Ballard Lovejoy,           "
+
+ 5   "         Levi Eldridge,          Chatham.
+
+ 6   "         Isaac B. Young,            "
+
+ 7   "         Josiah Peterson,        Duxbury.
+
+ 8   "         James Curtis,              "
+
+ 9 Not Sworn.  William Amory,          Boston,    Excused first day.
+                                                  Member of the bar.
+
+10 Sworn.      James P. Bush,             "       Absent June 28th.
+
+11   "         John Clark,                "
+
+12   "         Charles H. Mills,          "
+
+13   "         William N. Tyler,          "
+
+14   "         Samuel Weltch,             "
+
+15   "         Reuben Nichols,         Reading.
+
+16   "         Benjamin M. Boyce,         "
+
+17   "         Ephraim F. Belcher,     Randolph.
+
+18   "         Thomas S. Brimblecome,  Fairhaven.
+
+19   "         Obed F. Hitch,             "
+
+20   "         Lowell Claflin,         Hopkinton.
+
+21   "         William Durant,         Leominster.
+
+22   "         Charles Grant,             "
+
+23   "         Jeremiah B. Luther,     Douglas.
+
+On the 7th of June, Judge Curtis gave to this Grand-Jury his
+charge.[2] In that he spoke of the enforcement of the fugitive slave
+bill; and he charged the Jury especially and minutely upon the Statute
+of the United States of 1790, in relation to resisting officers in
+service of process as follows.
+
+[Footnote 2: The charge is printed below, at page 170.]
+
+That not only those who are present and actually obstruct, resist, and
+oppose, and all who are present leagued in the common design, and so
+situated as to be able in case of need, to afford assistance to those
+actually engaged; but all who, though absent, did procure, counsel,
+command, or abet others to commit the offence; and all who, by
+indirect means, by _evincing an express liking, approbation, or assent
+to the design, were liable as principals_. And he added, "My
+instruction to you is, that language addressed to persons who
+immediately afterwards commit an offence, actually intended by the
+speaker to incite those addressed to commit it, and adapted thus to
+incite them, is such a counselling, or advising to the crime as the
+law contemplates, and the person so inciting others is liable to be
+indicted as a principal," and _it is of no importance that his advice
+or directions were departed from in respect to the time, or place, or
+precise mode, or means of committing it_.
+
+That Jury remained in session a few weeks: pains were taken to induce
+them to find bills against the speakers at Faneuil Hall; but they
+found no indictment under the law of 1790, or that of 1850; they were
+discharged.
+
+On the 22d of September, _venires_ were issued by order of the Court
+for a new Grand-Jury; and, on the 16th of October, twenty-three were
+returned by Marshal Freeman, and impanelled. Here is the list of new
+Grand-Jurors:--
+
+UNITED STATES CIRCUIT COURT, }
+  MASSACHUSETTS DISTRICT.    }
+
+October Term, 1854. ss. October 16, 1854.
+
+GRAND-JURY.
+
+ 1 Sworn.      Enoch Patterson, Jr.,   Boston,     Foreman.
+
+ 2   "         David Alden,               "
+
+ 3   "         Stephen D. Abbott,      Andover.
+
+ 4   "         Isaac Beal,             Chatham.
+
+ 5   "         John Burrill,           Reading.
+
+ 6   "         Mathew Cox,             Boston.
+
+ 7   "         Richard B. Chandler,    Duxbury.
+
+ 8   "         Charles L. Cummings,    Douglas.
+
+ 9   "         Charles Carter,         Leominster.
+
+10   "         Warren Davis,           Reading.
+
+11   "         William W. Greenough,   Boston.
+
+12   "         George O. Hovey,           "
+
+13   "         John M. Howland,        Fairhaven.
+
+14 Sworn.      Manson D. Haws,         Leominster.
+
+15   "         John Holbrook,          Randolph.
+
+Excused.       Nathaniel Johnson,      Hopkinton,  Excused first day,
+                                                   October 16th, for
+                                                   the term.
+
+16 Sworn.      George Londen,          Duxbury.
+
+17   "         Nathan Moore,           Andover.
+
+18   "         Samuel P. Ridler,       Boston.
+
+19   "         Christopher Ryder,      Chatham.
+
+20   "         John Smith,             Andover.
+
+21   "         Appollos Wales,         Randolph.
+
+22   "         Samuel L. Ward,         Fairhaven.
+
+This Grand-Jury was not charged by the Judge upon the statute of 1790,
+or 1850, but was referred to Mr. Hallett, the Attorney, for the
+instructions previously given to the Jury that had been discharged,
+namely, for his charge of June 7th, already referred to. Mr. William
+W. Greenough, brother-in-law of Judge Curtis, was one of the Jury.
+They found the following indictment against Mr. Parker:--
+
+     UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
+
+     _Circuit Court of the United States of America, for the
+     District of Massachusetts._
+
+     At a Circuit Court of the United States of America, for the
+     District of Massachusetts, begun and holden at Boston, the
+     aforesaid District, on the sixteenth day of October, in the
+     year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four
+     (the fifteenth day of said October being Sunday).
+
+     The Jurors of the United States within the aforesaid
+     District, on their oath, present.
+
+     1st. That heretofore to wit,--on the twenty-fourth day of
+     May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and
+     fifty-four, a certain warrant and legal process directed to
+     the Marshal of the said District of Massachusetts, or either
+     of his Deputies, was duly issued under the hand and seal of
+     Edward G. Loring, Esquire, who was then and there a
+     Commissioner of the Circuit Court of the United States, for
+     said District, which said warrant and legal process was duly
+     delivered to Watson Freeman, Esquire, who was then and there
+     an officer of the United States, to wit, Marshal of the
+     United States, for the said District of Massachusetts, at
+     Boston, in the District aforesaid, on the said twenty-fourth
+     day of May in the year aforesaid, and was of the purport and
+     effect following, that is to say:--
+
+     UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
+
+     MASSACHUSETTS DISTRICT, SS.
+
+     To the Marshal of our District of Massachusetts, or either
+     of his Deputies, _Greeting_:
+
+     In the name of the President of the United States of
+     America, you are hereby commanded forthwith to apprehend
+     Anthony Burns, a negro man, alleged now to be in your
+     District, charged with being a fugitive from labor, and with
+     having escaped from service in the State of Virginia, if he
+     may be found in your precincts, and have him forthwith
+     before me, Edward G. Loring, one of the Commissioners of the
+     Circuit Court of the United States for the said District,
+     then and there to answer to the complaint of Charles F.
+     Suttle, of Alexandria, in the said State of Virginia,
+     Merchant, alleging under oath that the said Anthony Burns on
+     the twenty-fourth day of March last, did and for a long time
+     prior thereto had, owed service and labor to him the said
+     Suttle, in the said State of Virginia, under the laws
+     thereof, and that, while held to service there by said
+     Suttle, the said Burns escaped from the said State of
+     Virginia, into the State of Massachusetts; and that the said
+     Burns still owes service and labor to said Suttle in the
+     said State of Virginia, and praying that said Burns may be
+     restored to him said Suttle in said State of Virginia, and
+     that such further proceedings may then and there be had in
+     the premises as are by law in such cases provided.
+
+     Hereof fail not, and make due return of this writ, with your
+     doings therein before me.
+
+     Witness my hand and seal at Boston, aforesaid, this
+     twenty-fourth day of May, in the year one thousand eight
+     hundred and fifty-four.
+
+     EDWARD G. LORING, _Commissioner_. [L.S.]
+
+     And the Jurors aforesaid do further present, that the said
+     warrant and legal process, being duly issued and delivered
+     as aforesaid, afterwards to wit, on the twenty-fifth day of
+     May, in the year aforesaid, at Boston in said District, the
+     said Watson Freeman then and there being an officer of the
+     said United States, to wit Marshal of the District
+     aforesaid, and in pursuance of said warrant and legal
+     process, did then and there arrest the said Anthony Burns
+     named therein, and had him before the said Edward G. Loring,
+     Commissioner, for examination--and thereupon the hearing of
+     the said case was adjourned by the said Commissioner until
+     Saturday the twenty-seventh day of May, in the year
+     aforesaid, at ten o'clock in the forenoon; and the said
+     Marshal, who had so made return of the said Warrant, was
+     duly ordered by the said Commissioner to retain the said
+     Anthony Burns in his custody, and have him before the said
+     Commissioner on the said twenty-seventh day of May in the
+     year aforesaid, at the Court House in said Boston, which
+     said last-mentioned legal process and order was duly issued
+     under the hand of the said Edward G. Loring, Commissioner,
+     and was of the purport and effect following, that is to say:
+
+     U.S. OF AMERICA, DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS.
+
+     _Boston, May 25_, 1854.
+
+     And now the hearing of this case being adjourned to
+     Saturday, May 27, 1854, 10 A.M., the said Marshal, who has
+     made return of this warrant, is hereby ordered to retain the
+     said Anthony Burns in his custody, and have him before me at
+     the time last mentioned, at the Court House in Boston, for
+     the further hearing of the Complaint on which the warrant
+     was issued.
+
+     EDWARD G. LORING, _Commissioner_.
+
+     And the Jurors aforesaid do further present, that on the
+     twenty-sixth day of May, in the year aforesaid, in pursuance
+     of the warrant and legal process aforesaid, and of said
+     further legal process and order last mentioned, the said
+     Watson Freeman, Marshal as aforesaid, then and there, at the
+     said Court House in said Boston, had in his custody the
+     person of the said Anthony Burns, in the due and lawful
+     execution of the said warrant and legal process, and of the
+     said further legal process and order, in manner and form as
+     he was therein commanded--and one Theodore Parker, of
+     Boston, in said District, Clerk, then and there well knowing
+     the premises, with force and arms did knowingly and wilfully
+     obstruct, resist, and oppose the said Watson Freeman, then
+     and there being an officer of the said United States, to
+     wit, Marshal of the said District, in serving and attempting
+     to serve and execute the said warrant and legal process, and
+     the said further legal process and order in manner and form
+     as he was therein commanded, to the great damage of the said
+     Watson Freeman, to the great hinderance and obstruction of
+     Justice, to the evil example of all others, in like case
+     offending, against the peace and dignity of the said United
+     States, and contrary to the form of the Statute in such case
+     made and provided.
+
+     2d. And the Jurors aforesaid, on their oath aforesaid, do
+     further present, that on the twenty-sixth day of May, in the
+     year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four,
+     at Boston, in said District, one Theodore Parker, of Boston,
+     in said District, Clerk, with force and arms, did knowingly
+     and wilfully obstruct, resist, and oppose one Watson
+     Freeman, who was then and there the Marshal of the United
+     States of America, for the District of Massachusetts, and an
+     officer of the said United States, in serving and attempting
+     to serve and execute a certain warrant and legal process,
+     which before that time, to wit, on the twenty-fourth day of
+     May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and
+     fifty-four, had been duly issued under the hand and seal of
+     Edward G. Loring, Esquire, a Commissioner of the Circuit
+     Court of the United States, for said District of
+     Massachusetts, and directed to the Marshal of the District
+     of Massachusetts, or either of his deputies, which said
+     warrant and legal process the said Freeman, in the due and
+     lawful execution of his said office, had then and there in
+     his hands and possession for service of the same, and which
+     he was then and there serving and attempting to serve and
+     execute; which said warrant commanded the said Freeman to
+     apprehend one Anthony Burns and to have him forthwith before
+     the said Commissioner, then and there to be dealt with
+     according to law. Against the peace and dignity of the said
+     United States, and contrary to the form of the Statute in
+     such case made and provided.
+
+     3d. And the Jurors aforesaid, on their oath aforesaid, do
+     further present, that on the twenty-sixth day of May, in the
+     year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four,
+     at Boston, in said District, the said Theodore Parker, with
+     force and arms, did knowingly and wilfully obstruct, resist,
+     and oppose one Watson Freeman, who was then and there an
+     officer of the said United States, to wit, the Marshal of
+     the United States for the said District of Massachusetts, in
+     serving and attempting to serve and execute a certain legal
+     process which before that time, to wit, on the 25th day of
+     May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and
+     fifty-four, had been duly issued under the hand of Edward G.
+     Loring, who was then and there a Commissioner of the Circuit
+     Court of the United States, for the said District of
+     Massachusetts, and was then and there duly empowered to
+     issue said legal process, and which said legal process was
+     duly committed for obedience and execution to the said
+     Freeman, Marshal as aforesaid, wherein and whereby and in
+     pursuance of the command whereof the said Freeman was then
+     and there lawfully retaining, detaining, and holding one
+     Anthony Burns for the further hearing and determination of a
+     certain complaint, upon which a warrant before that time, to
+     wit, on the twenty-fourth day of said May, had been duly
+     issued under the hand and seal of the said Commissioner, by
+     force of which warrant the said Anthony Burns had been duly
+     arrested and apprehended by the said Freeman, and in
+     execution of the same, on the twenty-fifth day of said May
+     had been brought by the said Freeman before the said
+     Commissioner.
+
+     4th. And the jurors aforesaid, on their oath aforesaid, do
+     further present, that on the twenty-sixth day of May, in the
+     year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four,
+     at Boston, in said district, the said Theodore Parker, with
+     force and arms, did knowingly and wilfully obstruct, resist,
+     and oppose one Watson Freeman, who was then and there an
+     officer of the said United States, to wit, Marshal of the
+     United States, for the District of Massachusetts, in serving
+     and attempting to serve and execute a certain warrant and
+     legal process, which before that time, to wit, on the
+     twenty-fourth day of May, in the year of our Lord one
+     thousand eight hundred and fifty-four, had been duly issued
+     under the hand and seal of Edward G. Loring, Esquire, a
+     Commissioner of the Circuit Court of the United States, for
+     the District of Massachusetts, and directed to the Marshal
+     of the said District of Massachusetts or either of his
+     Deputies, which the said Freeman, in the due and lawful
+     execution of his said office, had then and there in his
+     hands and possession for service of the same, and which he
+     was then and there serving and attempting to serve and
+     execute; which warrant commanded the said Freeman to
+     apprehend one Anthony Burns, and to have him forthwith
+     before the said commissioner and that such further
+     proceedings might then and there be had in the premises, as
+     are by law in such cases provided,--and also in serving and
+     attempting to serve and execute a certain further legal
+     process which before that time, to wit, on the twenty-fifth
+     day of May, in the year aforesaid, had been duly issued
+     under the hand of the said Commissioner, and duly committed
+     for obedience and execution to the said Freeman, wherein and
+     whereby, and in pursuance of the command whereof, the said
+     Freeman was then and there lawfully retaining, detaining,
+     and holding the said Anthony Burns for the further hearing
+     and determination of a certain complaint upon which the
+     warrant aforesaid had been issued by the said Commissioner.
+
+     5th. And the Jurors aforesaid on their oath aforesaid, do
+     further present that one Theodore Parker, of Boston, in said
+     District, Clerk, on the 26th day of May, in the year of our
+     Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four, at Boston,
+     in the said District of Massachusetts, with force and arms,
+     in and upon one Watson Freeman, then and there in the peace
+     of the said United States being, an assault did make, he the
+     said Freeman also then and there being an officer of the
+     said United States, to wit, Marshal of the United States,
+     for the said District of Massachusetts, and then and there
+     also being in the due and lawful discharge of his duties as
+     such officer. And so the jurors aforesaid, on their oath
+     aforesaid, do say and present that the said Theodore Parker,
+     at Boston aforesaid, on the said twenty-sixth day of said
+     May, with force and arms assaulted the said Freeman as such
+     officer, and knowingly and wilfully obstructed, resisted,
+     and opposed him in the discharge of his lawful duties in
+     manner and form aforesaid, against the peace and dignity of
+     the said United States, and contrary to the form of the
+     Statute in such cases made and provided. And the Jurors
+     aforesaid, on their oath aforesaid, do further present that
+     the said Theodore Parker was first apprehended in said
+     District of Massachusetts, after committing the aforesaid
+     offence, against the peace and dignity of the said United
+     States, and contrary to the form of the statute in such case
+     made and provided. A true bill.
+
+     ENOCH PATTERSON, JR., _Foreman_.
+
+     B.F. HALLETT, _United States Attorney for the District of
+     Massachusetts_.
+
+Similar indictments were found against Mr. Phillips, Mr. Stowell, Rev.
+T.W. Higginson, John Morrison, Samuel T. Proudman, and John C. Cluer.
+
+Mr. Parker was arraigned on Wednesday, November 29th, and ordered to
+recognize in bonds of $1,500 for his appearance at that Court, on the
+5th of March, 1855. His bondsmen were Messrs. Samuel May, Francis
+Jackson, and John R. Manley; his counsel were Hon. John P. Hale, and
+Charles M. Ellis, Esq. The other gentlemen were arraigned afterwards
+at different times.
+
+After considerable uncertainty about the engagements of Hon. Justice
+Curtis, Tuesday, April 3d, was fixed for the commencement of the
+trials. At that time there appeared as counsel for the government,
+Hon. Benjamin F. Hallett, District Attorney, and Elias Merwin, Esq.,
+formerly a law partner of Judge Curtis; on the other side were Hon.
+John P. Hale, and Charles M. Ellis, Esq., for Mr. Parker; Wm. L. Burt,
+Esq., John A. Andrew, Esq., and H.F. Durant, Esq., counsel for Messrs.
+Phillips, Higginson, Stowell, Bishop, Morrison, Proudman, and Cluer.
+
+Mr. Hale, as senior counsel, stated to the court that the counsel for
+the defendants in several of the cases had conferred, and
+concluded--on the supposition that the Court and Government would
+assent to the plan as most for their own convenience, as well as that
+of the defendants' counsel--to file the like motion on the different
+cases; and, instead of each counsel going over the whole ground for
+each case, to divide the matter presented for debate, and for each to
+discuss some particular positions on behalf of them all. This was
+assented to; and motions, of which the following is a copy, were filed
+in the several cases:--
+
+     CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, MASSACHUSETTS DISTRICT,
+     SS.
+
+     _United States by Indictment_ v. _Theodore Parker._
+
+     And now said Theodore Parker comes and moves that the
+     indictment against him be quashed, because,
+
+     "1. The writ of venire for the jury that found said
+     indictment was directed to and returned by Watson Freeman,
+     the Marshal, who was not an indifferent person, and it was
+     not served and returned as the law directs.
+
+     "2. Because said Jury was not an impartial Jury of the
+     District, designated as the laws require, but the jury
+     Districts for this court embrace but a portion of the
+     District and of the population, and said jury was in fact
+     chosen and designated from but a fraction of the District
+     and contrary to law.
+
+     "3. Because the matters and things alleged in said
+     indictment do not constitute any crime under the statute on
+     which said indictment is framed, the said statute not
+     embracing them, or being, so far as it might embrace them,
+     repealed by the statute of eighteen hundred and fifty.
+
+     "4. Because said indictment does not allege and set forth
+     fully and sufficiently the authority and the proceedings
+     whereon the alleged warrant and order were based, or facts
+     sufficient to show that the alleged process and order were
+     lawfully issued by any person duly authorized, and his
+     authority and jurisdiction, and that the same were within
+     such jurisdiction, and issued by the authority of the law,
+     and originated, issued, and directed as the law prescribes;
+     said warrant and order not being alleged to have issued from
+     any court or tribunal of general or special jurisdiction,
+     but by a person vested with certain specific statute
+     authority.
+
+     "5. Because said indictment and the several counts thereof
+     are bad on the face of them, as follows, viz.:--
+
+     "First, it nowhere appearing that the same were found by a
+     grand-jury, because the second and third counts do not
+     conclude, against the form of the statute, and have no
+     conclusion, because the third and fourth counts do not set
+     forth the estate, degree, or mystery of the person therein
+     charged.
+
+     "Because said indictment and the counts thereof are
+     repugnant and inconsistent, the same being based on an
+     alleged obstruction, resistance, and opposition to the
+     service of an action, order, or warrant, which is therein
+     averred to have been already served, executed, and returned.
+
+     "Because the first and fifth counts are double.
+
+     "Because the alleged order of May 25th, referred to therein,
+     was a void and illegal, order.
+
+     "Because, if the alleged warrant was served as therein
+     alleged, said Watson Freeman did not, and by law could not
+     thereafter, hold the person described therein, under any
+     process or order.
+
+     "And because the same do not set forth and allege fully and
+     specifically the acts charged to be offences against the
+     statute, so as to inform said party charged, of the nature
+     and cause of the accusation.
+
+     "6. Because the warrant set forth and referred to therein
+     was void on its face, and issued from and ran into a
+     jurisdiction not authorized by law, and directed the arrest
+     of a person without legal cause, and because said indictment
+     is otherwise bad, uncertain, and insufficient."
+
+Mr. Wm. L. Burt commenced the argument of the motions, and presented
+several of the points. He was followed by Mr. C.M. Ellis, J.A. Andrew,
+and H.F. Durant, who severally discussed some of the grounds of the
+motions.
+
+Elias Merwin, Esquire, and Mr. Attorney Hallett, replied.
+
+The Court stated that they did not wish to hear Hon. John P. Hale, who
+was about to rejoin and close in support of the motion, and decided
+that the allegation, on the indictment, that Edward G. Loring was a
+Commissioner of the Circuit Court of the United States for said
+District, was not a legal averment that he was such a Commissioner as
+is described in the bill of 1850, and therefore the indictments were
+bad.
+
+The Court said they supposed it to be true that Mr. Loring was such a
+Commissioner, and that his authority could be proved by producing the
+record of his appointment; that they did not suppose the absence of
+this averment could be of any practical consequence to the defendants,
+so far as respected the substantial merits of the cases; and it was
+true the objection to the indictment was "technical;" but they held it
+sufficient, notwithstanding the averment that the warrant was "_duly
+issued_," and ordered the indictment against Stowell to be quashed. On
+every other point, save that that the Court could properly construct
+the Jury _roster_ and return the Jury from a portion of the District,
+the Judge said they would express no opinion.
+
+Mr. Hallett insisted on his right to enter a _nolle prosequi_ in the
+other cases; and the Judges decided that, though all the cases had
+been heard upon the motion, yet as it could make no difference whether
+an entry were made that this indictment be quashed, or an entry of
+_nolle prosequi_, the Attorney might enter a _nolle prosequi_ if he
+chose to do so _then_, before the Court passed any order on the
+motions.
+
+Mr. Hallett accordingly entered a _nolle prosequi_ in all the other
+cases, and the whole affair was quashed.[3]
+
+[Footnote 3: See Law Reporter for June, 1855.]
+
+
+
+
+DEFENCE.
+
+
+MAY IT PLEASE THE COURT:
+
+GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY.--It is no trifling matter which comes before
+you this day. You may hereafter decide on millions of money, and on
+the lives of your fellow men; but it is not likely that a question of
+this magnitude will ever twice be brought before the same jurymen.
+Opportunities to extend a far-reaching and ghastly wickedness, or to
+do great service for mankind, come but seldom in any man's life. Your
+verdict concerns all the people of the United States; its influence
+will reach to ages far remote, blessing or cursing whole generations
+not yet born. The affair is national in its width of reach,--its
+consequences of immense duration.
+
+In addressing you, Gentlemen, my language will be more didactic than
+rhetorical, more like a lecture, less like a speech; for I am not a
+lawyer but a minister, and do not aim to carry a Measure, which with
+you will go of its own accord, so much as to set forth a Principle
+that will make such prosecutions as impossible hereafter, as a
+conviction now is to-day.
+
+Gentlemen, I address you provisionally, as Representatives of the
+People. To them, my words are ultimately addressed,--to the People of
+the Free States of America. I must examine many things minutely, not
+often touched upon in courts like this. For mine is a Political Trial;
+I shall treat it accordingly. I am charged with no immoral act--with
+none even of selfish ambition. It is not pretended that I have done a
+deed, or spoken a word, in the heat of passion, or vengeance, or with
+calculated covetousness, to bring money, office, or honor, to myself
+or any friend. I am not suspected of wishing to do harm to man or
+woman; or with disturbing any man's natural rights. Nay, I am not even
+charged with such an offence. The Attorney and the two Judges are of
+one heart and mind in this prosecution; Mr. Hallett's "Indictment" is
+only the beast of burthen to carry to its own place Mr. Curtis's
+"Charge to the Grand-Jury," fit passenger for fitting carriage! The
+same tree bore the Judge's blossom in June, and the Attorney's fruit
+in October,--both reeking out the effluvia of the same substance. But
+neither Attorney nor Judge dares accuse me of ill-will which would
+harm another man, or of selfishness that seeks my own private
+advantage. No, Gentlemen of the Jury, I am on trial for my love of
+Justice; for my respect to the natural Rights of Man; for speaking a
+word in behalf of what the Declaration of Independence calls the
+"self-evident" Truth,--that all men have a natural, equal, and
+unalienable Right to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. I am
+charged with words against what John Wesley named, the "Sum of all
+Villanies," against a national crime so great, that it made
+freethinking Mr. Jefferson, with all his "French Infidelity,"
+"tremble" when he remembered "that God is just." I am on trial for my
+manly virtue,--a Minister of the Christian Religion on trial for
+keeping the Golden Rule! It is alleged that I have spoken in Boston
+against kidnapping in Boston; that in my own pulpit, as a minister, I
+have denounced Boston men for stealing my own parishioners; that as a
+man, in Faneuil Hall, the spirit of James Otis, of John Hancock, and
+three Adams's about me, with a word I "obstructed" the Marshal of
+Boston and a Boston Judge of Probate, in their confederated attempts
+to enslave a Boston man. When the Government of the United States has
+turned kidnapper, I am charged with the "misdemeanor" of appealing
+from the Atheism of purchased officials to the Conscience of the
+People; and with rousing up Christians to keep the golden rule, when
+the Rulers declared Religion had nothing to do with politics and there
+was no Law of God above the fugitive slave bill!
+
+Such are the acts charged. Gentlemen of the Jury, you are summoned
+here to declare them a Crime, and then to punish me for this
+"offence!" You are the Axe which the Government grasps with red hand
+to cleave my head asunder. It is a trial where Franklin Pierce,
+transiently President of the United States, and his official
+coadjutors,--Mr. Caleb Cushing, Mr. Benj. R. Curtis, and Mr. Benj. F.
+Hallett,--are on one side, and the People of the United States on the
+other. As a Measure, your decision may send me to jail for twelve
+months; may also fine me three hundred dollars. To me personally it is
+of very small consequence what your verdict shall be. The fine is
+nothing; the imprisonment for twelve months--Gentlemen, I laugh at it!
+Nay, were it death, I should smile at the official gibbet. A verdict
+of guilty would affix no stain to my reputation. I am sure to come out
+of this trial with honor--it is the Court that is sure to suffer
+loss--at least shame. I do not mean the Court will ever feel remorse,
+or even shame, for this conduct; I am no young man now, I know these
+men,--but the People are sure to burn the brand of shame deep into
+this tribunal. The blow of that axe, if not parried, will do me no
+harm.
+
+But it is not I, merely, now put to trial. Nay, it is the unalienable
+Rights of Humanity, it is truths self-evident. For on the back of that
+compliant Measure, unseen, there rides a Principle. The verdict
+expected of you condemns liberal institutions: all Religion but
+priestcraft--the abnegation of religion itself; all Rights but that to
+bondage--the denial of all rights. The word which fines me, puts your
+own purse in the hands of your worst enemies; the many-warded key
+which shuts me in jail, locks your lips forever--your children's lips
+forever. No complaint against oppression hereafter! Kidnapping will go
+on in silence, but at noonday, not a minister stirring. Meeting-houses
+will be shut; all court houses have a loaded cannon at their door,
+chains all round them, be stuffed with foreign soldiers inside, while
+commissioners swear away the life, the liberty, and even the Estate of
+the subjected "citizens." All Probate Judges will belong to the family
+of man-stealers. Faneuil Hall will be shut, or open only for a "Union
+Meeting," where the ruler calls together his menials to indorse some
+new act of injustice,--only creatures of the Government, men like the
+marshal's guard last June, allowed to speak words paid for by the
+People's coward sweat and miserable blood. The blow which smites my
+head will also cleave you asunder from crown to groin.
+
+Your verdict is to vindicate Religion with Freedom of Speech, and
+condemn the stealing of men; or else to confirm Kidnapping and condemn
+Religion with Freedom of Speech. You are to choose whether you will
+have such men as Wendell Phillips for your advisers, or such as
+Benjamin F. Hallett and Benjamin R. Curtis for your masters, with the
+marshal's guard, for their appropriate servants. Do you think I doubt
+how you will choose?
+
+Already a power of iniquity clutches at your children's throat; stabs
+at their life--at their soul's life. I stand between the living tyrant
+and his living victim; aye, betwixt him and expected victims not yet
+born,--your children, not mine. I have none to writhe under the
+successful lash which tyrants now so subtly braid therewith, one day,
+to scourge the flesh of well-descended men. I am to stand the champion
+of human Rights for generations yet unborn. It is a sad distinction!
+Hard duties have before been laid on me,--none so obviously demanding
+great powers as this. Whereto shall I look up for inspiring aid? Only
+to Him who gave words to the slow tongue of Moses and touched with
+fire Esaias' hesitating lips, and dawned into the soul of tent-makers
+and fishermen with such great wakening light, as shining through them,
+brought day to nations sitting in darkness, yet waiting for the
+consolation. May such Truth and Justice enable me also, to speak a
+testimony unto the Gentiles; He who chose the weak things, to bring to
+nought the mighty, may not despise such humble services as mine.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, my ministry deals chiefly with the Laws of God,
+little with the statutes of men. My manhood has been mainly passed in
+studying absolute, universal truth, teaching it to men, and applying
+it to the various departments of life. I have little to do with courts
+of law. Yet I am not now altogether a stranger to the circuit court
+room of the United States, having been in it on five several occasions
+before.
+
+1. A Polish exile,--a man of famous family, ancient and patrician
+before Christendom had laid eyes on America, once also of great
+individual wealth, a man of high rank alike acquired and inherited,
+once holding a high place at the court of the Czar,--became a fugitive
+from Russian despotism, seeking an asylum here; he came to the circuit
+court room to lecture on the Roman Law. I came to contribute my two
+mites of money, and receive his wealth of learning.
+
+2. The next time, I came at the summons of Thomas Sims. For a creature
+of the slave-power had spontaneously seized that poor and friendless
+boy and thrust him into a dungeon, hastening to make him a slave,--a
+beast of burthen. He had been on his mock trial seven days, and had
+never seen a Judge, only a commissioner, nor a Jury; no Court but a
+solitary kidnapper. Some of his attendants had spoken of me as a
+minister not heedless of the welfare and unalienable rights of a black
+man fallen among a family of thieves. I went to the court house.
+Outside it was belted with chains. In despotic Europe I had seen no
+such spectacle, save once when the dull tyrant who oppressed Bavaria
+with his licentious flesh, in 1844 put his capital in a brief state of
+siege and chained the streets. The official servant of the kidnapper,
+club in hand, a policeman of this city, goaded to his task by Mayor
+Bigelow and Marshal Tukey,--men congenitally mingled in such
+appropriate work,--bade me "Get under the chain." I pressed it down
+and went over. The Judges of our own Supreme Court, _they went
+under_,--had gone out and in, beneath the chain! How poetry mingles
+with fact! The chain was a symbol, and until this day remaineth the
+same chain, untaken away in the reading of the fugitive slave bill;
+and when the law of Massachusetts is read, the chain is also upon the
+neck of that court! Within the court house was full of armed men. I
+found Mr. Sims in a private room, illegally, in defiance of
+Massachusetts law, converted into a jail to hold men charged with no
+crime. Ruffians mounted guard at the entrance, armed with swords,
+fire-arms, and bludgeons. The door was locked and doubly barred
+besides. Inside the watch was kept by a horrid looking fellow, without
+a coat, a naked cutlass in his hand, and some twenty others, their
+mouths nauseous with tobacco and reeking also with half-digested rum
+paid for by the city. In such company, I gave what consolation
+Religion could offer to the first man Boston ever kidnapped,--consolations
+which took hold only of eternity, where the servant is free from his
+master, for there the wicked cease from troubling. I could offer him
+no comfort this side the grave.
+
+3. I visited the United States court a third time. A poor young man
+had been seized by the same talons which subsequently griped Sims in
+their poison, deadly clutch. But that time, wickedness went off
+hungry, defeated of its prey; "for the Lord delivered him out of their
+hands," and Shadrach escaped from that Babylonish furnace, heated
+seven times hotter than its wont: no smell of fire had passed on him.
+But the rescue of Shadrach was telegraphed as "treason." The innocent
+lightning flashed out the premeditated and legal lie,--"it is levying
+war!" What offence it was in that Fourth One who walked with the
+Hebrew children, "making their good confession," and sustained the old
+Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, I know not. But the modern countrymen
+of the African Shadrach, charged with some great crime, were haled
+into this court to be punished for their humanity! I came to look on
+these modern Angels of the Deliverance, to hear counsel of Mr. Dana,
+then so wise and humane, and to listen to the masterly eloquence which
+broke out from the great human heart of my friend, Mr. Hale, and
+rolled like the Mississippi, in its width, its depth, its beauty, and
+its continuous and unconquerable strength.
+
+4. The fourth time, a poor man had been kidnapped, also at night, and
+forced into the same illegal jail. He sat in the dock--an innocent
+man, to be made into a beast. The metamorphosis had begun;--he was
+already in chains and his human heart seemed dead in him; sixty
+ruffians were about him, aiding in this drama, hired out of the
+brothels and rum-shops for a few days, the lust of kidnapping serving
+to vary the continual glut of those other and less brutal appetites of
+unbridled flesh. While that "trial" lasted, whoredom had a Sabbath
+day, and brawlers rested from their toil. Opposite sat the Boston
+Judge of Probate, and the Boston District Attorney,--the Moses and
+Elias of this inverted transfiguration; there sat the marshal, two
+"gentlemen" from Virginia, claiming that a Boston man was their beast
+of burthen, owing service and labor in Richmond; two "lawyers,"
+"members of the Suffolk bar," pistols in their coats, came to support
+the allegation and enforce the claim. Honorable men stood up to defend
+him. There is one of them,--to defend me [Charles M. Ellis.] You know
+very well the rest of that sad story,--the mock trial of Anthony Burns
+lasted from May 25th till June 2d. I was here in all the acts of that
+Tragedy. My own life was threatened; friend and foe gave me public or
+anonymous warning. I sat between men who had newly sworn to kill me,
+my garments touching theirs. The malaria of their rum and tobacco was
+an offence in my face. I saw their weapons, and laughed as I looked
+those drunken rowdies in their coward eye. They touch me!
+
+5. The fifth time I came here at the summons of an officer of this
+court,--very politely delivered, let me say it to his credit,--indicted
+and arrested for a "misdemeanor." I gave bail and withdrew.
+
+6. The sixth time,--Gentlemen,--it is the present, whereof I shall
+erelong have much to say.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the first visit I found only scholarly and philanthropic gentlemen,
+coming out of sympathy with a Polish exile, a defeated soldier of
+freedom, from his broken English to learn sound Roman Law. On each of
+the other visits I have been in quite different company. I have
+invariably met this Honorable Court, its kinsfolk and its most
+intimate friends,--some member of the family of the distinguished
+Judge, now fitly presiding over this trial.
+
+1. It was Mr. George T. Curtis, the only brother of the honorable
+Justice now on the bench,--born of the same mother and father,--who
+had the glory of kidnapping Mr. Sims; it was he who seized Shadrach,
+and gave such witness against one of the Angels of the Deliverance,
+and then came back and enlarged his testimony; it was he who declared
+the rescue an act of "treason;" he who hung the court house in chains,
+and brought down the pliant neck of the Massachusetts Judges beneath
+that symbolic line of linked fetters long drawn out. To what weak
+forces will such necks bow when slavery commands!
+
+2. It was the honorable Judge now on the distinguished bench who tried
+men for the rescue of Shadrach. How he tried them is well known.
+
+3. It was Edward G. Loring, another of this family so distinguished,
+who kidnapped Mr. Burns and held him in irons; he whose broom swept up
+together the marshal's guard; he who advised Mr. Burns's counsel to
+make no defence,--"put no obstructions in the way of his going back,
+as he probably will;" he who, in the darkness of midnight, sought to
+sell his victim, before he had examined the evidence which might prove
+him a free man; he who delivered him up as a slave, against evidence
+as against law.
+
+4. Another of the same family, William W. Greenough, brother-in-law of
+Hon. Judge Curtis, was one of the grand-jury which found the
+indictment against me, and "the most active of all in that work."
+
+5. When I came here on the 29th of last November, the Hon. Judge
+Curtis sat on the bench and determined the amount of my bail, and the
+same eye which had frowned with such baleful aspect on the rescuers of
+Shadrach, quailed down underneath my look and sought the ground.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In thus mentioning my former visits to the court, I but relate the
+exploits of the Hon. Justice Curtis, of his kinsfolk and friends,
+adding to their glory and their renown. Their chief title to
+distinction rests on their devotion to the fugitive slave bill. It and
+their honor are "one and inseparable." Once only humanity and good
+letters brought me here, I met only scholars and philanthropists; on
+five other occasions, when assaults on freedom compelled my
+attendance, I have been confronted and surrounded with the loyalty of
+the distinguished Judge and his kinsfolk and friends, valiantly and
+disinterestedly obeying the fugitive slave bill "with alacrity;"
+patriotically conquering their prejudices against man-stealing--if
+such they ever had;--and earning for themselves an undying reputation
+by "saving the Union" from Justice, Domestic Tranquillity, general
+Welfare, and the Blessings of Liberty.
+
+If I am to be arraigned for any act, I regard it as a special good
+fortune that I am charged with such deeds, with seeking to arouse the
+noblest emotions of Human Nature; and by means of the grandest Ideas
+which Human History has brought to light. I could not have chosen
+nobler deeds in a life now stretching over nearly half a hundred
+years. I count it an honor to be tried for them. Nay, it adds to my
+happiness to look at the Court which is to try me--for if I were to
+search all Christendom through, nay, throughout all Heathendom, I know
+of no tribunal fitter to try a man for such deeds as I have done. I am
+fortunate in the charges brought; thrice fortunate in the judges and
+the attorney,--the Court which is to decide;--its history and
+character are already a judgment.
+
+6. For my sixth visit, I was recognized to appear on the fifth of
+March, 1855--the eighty-fifth anniversary of the Boston Massacre. I
+might have been bound over to any other of the great days of American
+history--22d of December, 19th of April, 17th of June, or the 4th of
+July. But as I am the first American ever brought to trial for a
+speech in Faneuil Hall against kidnapping; as I am the first to be
+tried under the act of 1790 for "obstructing an officer" with an
+argument, committing a "misdemeanor" by a word which appeals to the
+natural justice of mankind, so there could not perhaps be a fitter
+time chosen. For on the fifth of March, 1770, British despotism also
+delivered its first shot into the American bosom. Not far from this
+place the hand of George III. wounded to death five innocent citizens
+of Boston,--one of them a negro. It was the first shot Britain ever
+fired into the body of the American people, then colonial subjects of
+the king-power. That day the fire was not returned,--only with ringing
+of bells and tumult of the public, with words and resolutions. The
+next day that American blood lay frozen in the street. Soon after the
+British government passed a law exempting all who should aid an
+officer in his tyranny from trial for murder in the place where they
+should commit their crime. Mr. Toucey has humbly copied that precedent
+of despotism. It was very proper that the new tyranny growing up here,
+should select that anniversary to shoot down freedom of thought and
+speech among the subjects of the slave-power. I welcomed the omen. The
+Fifth of March is a red-letter day in the calendar of Boston. The
+Court could hardly have chosen a better to punish a man for a thought
+and a word, especially a Boston man, for such a word in Faneuil
+Hall--a word against man-stealing. But I knew the case would never
+come to trial on that day--of course it was put off.
+
+Mr. Sims and Mr. Burns were accused of no crime but birth from a
+mother whom some one had stolen. They had only a mock trial, without
+due process of law, with no judge, no jury, no judicial officer. But
+I, accused of a grave offence, am to enjoy a trial with due process of
+law. It is an actual judge before me and another judge at his side,
+both judicial officers known to the constitution. I know beforehand
+the decision of the court--its history is my judgment. Justice
+Curtis's Charge of last June, would make my daily talk a
+"misdemeanor," my public preaching and my private prayers a "crime,"
+nay, my very existence is constructively an "obstruction" to the
+marshal. On that side my condemnation is already sure.
+
+But there is another element. Gentlemen of the Jury, the judges and
+attorney cannot lay their hand on me until you twelve men with one
+voice say, "Yes! put him in jail." In the mock trial of Sims and Burns
+it was necessary to convince only a single official of the United
+States Court, a "ministerial" officer selected and appointed to do its
+inferior business, a man who needed no conviction, no evidence but the
+oath of a slave-hunter and the extorted "admission" of his victim, an
+official who was to have ten dollars for making a slave, five only for
+setting free a man! But you are a Massachusetts Jury, not of purchased
+officials, but of honest men. I think you have some "prejudices" to
+conquer in favor of justice. It has not appeared that you are to be
+paid twice as much for sending me to jail, as for acquitting me of the
+charge. I doubt that you have yet advised my counsel to make no
+defence, "put no obstructions in the way" of my being sent to jail as
+"he probably will."
+
+Gentlemen, a United States Commissioner has his place on condition
+that he performs such services as his masters "require." These United
+States Judges have their seat in consequence of services rendered to
+the ruling power of America, and for others of like sort yet to be
+paid to the stealers of men. Other rewards shine before them alluring
+to new service,--additional salary can pay additional alacrity. But
+you, Gentlemen, are not office-holders nor seekers of office, not
+hoping to gain money, or power, or honor, by any wickedness. You are
+to represent the unsophisticated Conscience of the People,--not the
+slave-power, but the power of Freedom.
+
+It is to you I shall address my defence! MY defence? No, Gentlemen,
+YOUR defence, the defence of your own Rights, inherent in your
+national Institutions as Americans, ay, in your Nature as Men. It is a
+singular good fortune that to you, as judges, I am pleading your own
+cause. You have more interest at stake than I. For at death my name
+will perish, while children and children's children, I trust, will
+gently mingle your memories in that fair tide of human life which
+never ends.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So much have I said by way of introduction, treating only of the
+accidents pertaining to this case. I will now come to the Primary
+Qualities and Substance thereof.
+
+This is a Political Trial. In _form_, I am charged with violating a
+certain statute never before applied to actions like mine; never meant
+to apply to such actions; not legally capable of such application. But
+in _fact_, my offence is very different from what the indictment
+attempts to set forth. The judges know this; the attorney knows it,
+and "never expected to procure a conviction." It is your cause, even
+more than mine, that I plead. So it concerns you to understand the
+whole matter thoroughly, that you may justly judge our common cause.
+To make the whole case clear, I will _land_ it out into four great
+parcels of matter, which your mind can command at once, and then come
+to the details of each, ploughing it all over before your face, furrow
+by furrow. I shall speak,
+
+I. Of the State of Affairs in America which has led to this
+prosecution,--the Encroachments of a Power hostile to Democratic
+Institutions.
+
+II. Of the Mode of Operation pursued by this Encroaching Power, in
+other times and in our own,--of Systematic Corruption of the
+Judiciary.
+
+III. Of the great Safeguard which has been found serviceable in
+protecting Democratic Institutions and the Rights of Man they are
+designed to defend,--of the Trial by Jury.
+
+IV. Of the Circumstances of this special case, UNITED STATES _versus_
+THEODORE PARKER.
+
+I shall speak of each in its order, and begin at the head.
+
+
+I. OF THE STATE OF AFFAIRS IN AMERICA, WHICH HAS LED TO THIS
+PROSECUTION--THE ENCROACHMENTS OF A POWER HOSTILE TO DEMOCRATIC
+INSTITUTIONS.
+
+In a republic where all emanates from the People, political
+institutions must have a Basis of Idea in the Nation's Thought, before
+they can acquire a Basis of Fact in the Force of the Nation. Now in
+America there are two diverse Ideas recognized as principles of
+Action--the Idea of Freedom and the Idea of Slavery. Allow me to read
+my analysis and description of each.
+
+     The Idea of Freedom first got a national expression on the
+     Fourth of July, 1776. Here it is. I put it in a philosophic
+     form. There are five points to it.
+
+     First, All men are endowed by their Creator with certain
+     natural rights, amongst which is the right to life, liberty,
+     and the pursuit of happiness.
+
+     Second, These rights are unalienable; they can be alienated
+     only by the possessor thereof; the father cannot alienate
+     them for the son, nor the son for the father; nor the
+     husband for the wife, nor the wife for the husband; nor the
+     strong for the weak, nor the weak for the strong; nor the
+     few for the many, nor the many for the few; and so on.
+
+     Third, In respect to these, all men are equal; the rich man
+     has not more, and the poor less; the strong man has not
+     more, and the weak man less:--all are exactly equal in these
+     rights, however unequal in their powers.
+
+     Fourth, It is the function of government to secure these
+     natural, unalienable, and equal rights to every man.
+
+     Fifth, Government derives all its divine right from its
+     conformity with these ideas, all its human sanction from the
+     consent of the governed.
+
+     That is the Idea of Freedom. I used to call it "the American
+     Idea;" that was when I was younger than I am to-day. It is
+     derived from human nature; it rests on the immutable Laws of
+     God; it is part of the natural religion of mankind. It
+     demands a government after natural Justice, which is the
+     point common between the conscience of God and the
+     conscience of mankind; it is the point common also between
+     the interests of one man and of all men.
+
+     Now this government, just in its substance, in its form must
+     be democratic: that is to say, the government of all, by
+     all, and for all. You see what consequences must follow from
+     such an idea, and the attempt to reënact the Law of God into
+     political institutions. There will follow the freedom of the
+     people, respect for every natural right of all men, the
+     rights of their body and of their spirit--the rights of mind
+     and conscience, heart and soul. There must be some
+     restraint--as of children by their parents, as of bad men by
+     good men; but it will be restraint for the joint good of all
+     parties concerned; not restraint for the exclusive benefit
+     of the restrainer. The ultimate consequence of this will be
+     the material and spiritual welfare of all--riches, comfort,
+     noble manhood, all desirable things.
+
+     That is the Idea of Freedom. It appears in the Declaration
+     of Independence; it reappears in the Preamble to the
+     American Constitution, which aims "to establish Justice,
+     insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common
+     defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the
+     blessings of Liberty." That is a religious idea; and when
+     men pray for the "Reign of Justice" and the "Kingdom of
+     Heaven" to come on earth politically, I suppose they mean
+     that there may be a Commonwealth where every man has his
+     natural rights of mind, body, and estate.
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     Next is the Idea of Slavery. Here it is. I put it also in a
+     philosophic form. There are three points which I make.
+
+     First, There are no natural, unalienable, and equal rights,
+     wherewith men are endowed by their Creator; no natural,
+     unalienable, and equal right to life, liberty, and the
+     pursuit of happiness.
+
+     Second, There is a great diversity of powers, and in virtue
+     thereof the strong man may rule and oppress, enslave and
+     ruin the weak, for his interest and against theirs.
+
+     Third, There is no natural law of God to forbid the strong
+     to oppress the weak, and enslave and ruin the weak.
+
+     That is the Idea of Slavery. It has never got a national
+     expression in America; it has never been laid down as a
+     Principle in any act of the American people, nor in any
+     single State, so far as I know. All profess the opposite;
+     but it is involved in the Measures of both State and Nation.
+     This Idea is founded in the selfishness of man; it is
+     atheistic.
+
+     The idea must lead to a corresponding government; that will
+     be unjust in its substance,--for it will depend not on
+     natural right, but on personal force; not on the
+     Constitution of the Universe, but on the compact of men. It
+     is the abnegation of God in the universe and of conscience
+     in man. Its form will be despotism,--the government of all,
+     by a part, for the sake of a part. It may be a single-headed
+     despotism, or a despotism of many heads; but whether a
+     Cyclops or a Hydra, it is alike "the abomination which
+     maketh desolate." Its ultimate consequence is plain to
+     foresee--poverty to a nation, misery, ruin.
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     These two Ideas are now fairly on foot. They are hostile;
+     they are both mutually invasive and destructive. They are in
+     exact opposition to each other, and the nation which
+     embodies these two is not a figure of equilibrium. As both
+     are active forces in the minds of men, and as each idea
+     tends to become a fact--a universal and exclusive fact,--as
+     men with these ideas organize into parties as a means to
+     make their idea into a fact,--it follows that there must not
+     only be strife amongst philosophical men about these
+     antagonistic Principles and Ideas, but a strife of practical
+     men about corresponding Facts and Measures. So the quarrel,
+     if not otherwise ended, will pass from words to what seems
+     more serious; and one will overcome the other.
+
+     So long as these two Ideas exist in the nation as two
+     political forces, there is no national unity of Idea, of
+     course no unity of action. For there is no centre of gravity
+     common to Freedom and Slavery. They will not compose an
+     equilibrious figure. You may cry "Peace! Peace!" but so long
+     as these two antagonistic Ideas remain, each seeking to
+     organize itself and get exclusive power, there is no peace;
+     there can be none.
+
+     The question before the nation to-day is, Which shall
+     prevail--the Idea and Fact of Freedom, or the Idea and the
+     Fact of Slavery; Freedom, exclusive and universal, or
+     Slavery, exclusive and universal? The question is not
+     merely, Shall the African be bond or free? but, Shall
+     America be a Democracy or a Despotism? For nothing is so
+     remorseless as an idea, and no logic is so strong as the
+     historical development of a national idea by millions of
+     men. A measure is nothing without its Principle. The Idea
+     which allows Slavery in South Carolina will establish it
+     also in New England. The bondage of a black man in
+     Alexandria imperils every white woman's daughter in Boston.
+     You cannot escape the consequences of a first Principle more
+     than you can "take the leap of Niagara and stop when
+     half-way down." The Principle which recognizes Slavery in
+     the Constitution of the United States would make all America
+     a Despotism, while the Principle which made John Quincy
+     Adams a free man would extirpate Slavery from Louisiana and
+     Texas. It is plain America cannot long hold these two
+     contradictions in the national consciousness. Equilibrium
+     must come.[4]
+
+[Footnote 4: See this statement in Mr. Parker's Additional Speeches,
+Addresses, and Occasional Sermons. Boston, 1855, vol. ii. p. 250, _et
+seq._]
+
+These two ideas are represented by two parties which aim at the
+ultimate organization of their respective doctrines, the party
+indicating the special tendency towards Democracy or Despotism. The
+Party of Freedom is not yet well organized; that of Slavery is in
+admirable order and discipline. These two parties are continually at
+war attended with various success.
+
+1. In the individual States of the North, since the Revolution, the
+Party of Freedom has gained some great victories; it has abolished
+Personal Slavery in every northern State, and on a deep-laid
+foundation has built up Democratic Institutions with well proportioned
+beauty. The Idea of Freedom, so genial to the Anglo-Saxon, so welcome
+to all of Puritanic birth and breeding, has taken deep root in the
+consciousness of the great mass of the People at the North. In the
+severe simplicity of national deduction they will carry it to logical
+conclusions not yet foreseen by human providence. The free States are
+progressively democratic.
+
+But in all the Northern States, and more especially in its
+cities,--and here chiefly among the men of exclusive intellectual
+culture and the votaries of commerce and its riches,--there are
+exceptional men who embrace the Idea of Slavery and belong to its
+Party. They know no law higher than the transient interest of their
+politics or their commerce, their ease or ambition. They may not
+theoretically hate the People, but they so love their own money, their
+own ease or pleasure, that practically they oppose what promotes the
+welfare of mankind, and seek their own personal advancement to the
+injury of the human race. These are Northern men with Southern
+"Principles." They have their Journals too well known in Boston to
+need mention here.
+
+2. In the individual States of the South, the Idea and Party of
+Slavery has also gained great victories and been uniformly successful;
+it has extended and strengthened personal slavery, which has now a
+firmer hold in the minds of the controlling classes of Southern
+men,--the rich and "educated,"--than in 1776, or ever before. The
+Southern States are progressively despotic.
+
+Still, in all the Southern States there are exceptional men, hostile
+to slavery,--the intelligent and religious from conviction, others
+from mere personal interest. These are Southern men with Northern
+Principles. They are much oppressed at home--kept from political
+advancement or social respectability, as much as democrats would be at
+Rome or Naples,--have no journals and little influence.
+
+3. In the Federal Government, the warfare goes on, each party seeking
+for mastery over the whole United States--the contest is carried on in
+Congress, in all the local legislatures; newspapers, speeches, even
+sermons, resound with the din of battle. See what forces contend and
+with what results.
+
+The nation lives by its productive industry, whereof there are these
+five chief departments:--Hunting and Fishing, the appropriation of the
+spontaneous live products of the land and sea; Agriculture, the use of
+the productive forces of the earth's surface; Mining, the
+appropriation of the metallic products of her bosom; Manufactures, the
+application of toil and thought to the products of Hunting and
+Fishing, Mining and Agriculture; Commerce, the exchange of value,
+distribution of the products of these four departments of industry,
+directly productive.
+
+Hunting and Fishing, Mining, Manufactures, Commerce, are mainly in the
+hands of Northern men--the South is almost wholly Agricultural. Her
+wealth consists of land and slaves. In 1850 the fifteen slave States
+had not fourteen hundred millions of other property. In the South
+property, with its consequent influence, is in few hands--in the North
+it is wide spread.
+
+Now the few controlling men of the South, the holders of land and
+slaves, have Unity of pecuniary Interest--the support of Slavery as a
+local measure,--for it is the source of their material wealth, and
+also a consequent Unity of political Idea, the support of Slavery as a
+universal Principle, for it is the source likewise of their political
+power. Accordingly the South presents against the North an even and
+well-disciplined front of veteran soldiers, is always hostile to
+Freedom, and as her "best educated" men devote much time to politics,
+making it the profession of their whole lives, it is plain they become
+formidable antagonists.
+
+But the North has a great variety of conflicting interests, a great
+amount of intellectual activity, where education and its consequent
+habits of reading and thinking are so wide spread, and therefore a
+great variety of opinion. Accordingly there is not the same Unity of
+pecuniary Interest and of political Idea, which distinguishes the
+South. Besides, in the North the ablest and best educated men do not
+devote their time to the thankless and stormy calling of politics;
+Virginia cares for nothing but Negroes and Politics, her loins and her
+brains gender but this twofold product: Massachusetts and New York
+care for much beside. So the North does not present against the South
+an even and well-disciplined front of veteran soldiers, but a ragged,
+discordant line of raw recruits, enlisting for a short time with some
+special or even personal local interest to serve.
+
+What makes the matter yet worse for us, Gentlemen of the Jury, is
+this: While the great mass of the people at the North, engrossed in
+direct productive industry, are really hostile to slavery, those
+absorbed in the large operations of commerce, taken as a whole class,
+feel little interest in the Idea of Freedom; nay, they are positively
+opposed to it. Before the African Slave-trade was treated like other
+kindred forms of piracy, as a capital crime, they had their ships in
+that felonious traffic; and now their vessels engage in the American
+Slave-trade and their hand still deals in the bodies of their fellow
+men. In all the great commercial cities, like Philadelphia, New York
+and Boston these men prevail, and are the "eminent citizens,"
+overslaughing the press, the pulpit, the bar, and the court, with the
+Ideas of their lower law, and sweeping along all metropolitan and
+suburban fashion and respectability in their slimy flood. Hence the
+great cities of the North, governed by the low maxims of this class,
+have become the asylum of Northern men with Southern "Principles," and
+so the strong-hold of Slavery. And hitherto these great cities have
+controlled the politics of the Northern States, crowding the Apostles
+of Freedom out from the national board, and helping the party of
+slavery to triumph in all great battles.
+
+Thus aided, for many years the South has always elected her candidate
+for the Presidency by the vote of the people. But the American
+Executive is twofold,--part Presidential, part Senatorial. Sometimes
+these two Executives are concordant, sometimes discordant. The
+Senatorial Executive has always carried the day against the less
+permanent Presidential power, except in the solitary case where
+General Jackson's unconquerable will and matchless popularity enabled
+him to master the senate itself, who "registered" his decrees, or
+"expunged" their own censure, just as the iron ruler gave orders.
+
+Now by means of the control which the Northern Cities have over the
+Northern States, and such Commercial Men over those cities, it has
+come to pass that not only the Presidential, but also the Senatorial
+Executive, has long been hostile to the Idea of Freedom.
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, the direct consequence is obvious,--the Party
+of Slavery has long been the conqueror in the field of Federal
+politics. In the numerous and great conflicts between the two, Freedom
+has prevailed against Slavery only twice since the close of the
+Revolutionary War,--in prohibiting involuntary servitude in the
+North-west Territory in 1787, and in the abolition of the African
+Slave-trade in 1808. Her last triumph was forty-seven years ago,--nay,
+even that victory was really achieved twenty years before at the
+adoption of the constitution. In this warfare we have not gained a
+battle for freedom since 1788!
+
+For a time it seemed doubtful which would triumph, though Slavery
+gained Kentucky and Tennessee, and Louisiana was purchased as slave
+soil in 1803. But in 1820 slavery became the obvious and acknowledged
+master in the Federal Territory, marched victorious over the
+Mississippi, planted itself in Missouri, and has subsequently taken
+possession of Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas, all slave States; has
+purchased Florida; "reannexed" Texas; conquered Utah, New Mexico and
+California, all slave soil; and from Freedom and the North has just
+now reconquered Kansas and Nebraska. Ever since the Missouri
+Compromise in 1820 Slavery has been really the master, obviously so
+since the annexation of Texas in 1845. The slave-power appoints all
+the great national officers, executive, diplomatic, judicial, naval
+and military,--it controls the legislative departments. Look at this
+Honorable Court, Gentlemen, and recognize its power!
+
+The idea of Slavery must be carried out to its logical consequence, so
+our masters now meditate two series of Measures, both necessary to the
+development of Slavery as a Principle.
+
+(I.) African Slavery is to be declared a Federal Institution, national
+and sectional, and so extended into all the Territories of the United
+States. New soil is to be bought or plundered from Hayti, Spain,
+Mexico, South America "and the rest of mankind," that slavery may be
+planted there; that is the purpose of all the Official Fillibustering
+of the Government, and the Extra-official Fillibustering which it
+starts, or allows; Quitman "Enterprises," Kinney "Expeditions," Black
+Warrior and El Dorado "difficulties," all point to this; the "Ostend
+Conference" is a step in that direction; Slavery is to be restored to
+the so called "Free States," reëstablished in all the North. That is
+the design of the fugitive slave bill in 1850, and the kidnapping of
+northern men consequent thereon for the last five years; of President
+Pierce's inaugural declarations in behalf of slavery in 1853; of Mr.
+Toombs's threat in 1854, that "soon the master with his slaves will
+sit down at the foot of Bunker Hill Monument;" of Mr. Toucey's Bill in
+1855, providing that when a kidnapper violates the local laws of any
+State, he shall be tried by the fugitive slave bill court. Then the
+African Slave-trade is to be restored by federal enactments, or
+judicial decisions of the "Supreme Court of the United States." All
+these steps belong to Measure number One. The Supreme Court is ready
+to execute the commands of its lord. Soon you will see more
+"decisions" adverse to humanity.
+
+(II.) The next movement is progressively to weaken and ultimately to
+destroy the Democratic Institutions of the North,--yes, also of the
+South. This design is indicated and sustained by some of the measures
+already mentioned as connected with the first purpose.
+
+To this point tend the words of President Pierce addressed to the
+soldiers of 1812 on the 8th of January 1855, in which he speaks of
+such as "disseminate political heresies," that is, the Idea of
+Freedom; "revile the government,"--expose its hostility against the
+unalienable Rights of man; "deride our institutions,"--to wit, the
+patriarchal institution of Slavery; "sow political dissensions,"--advise
+men not to vote for corrupt tools of the government; "set at defiance
+the laws of the land,"--meaning the fugitive slave bill which commands
+kidnapping.
+
+There belong the attempts of the Federal courts to enlarge their
+jurisdiction at the expense of State Rights; the cry, "Union first and
+Liberty afterwards;" the shout "No higher law," "Religion nothing to
+do with Politics."
+
+Thence come the attacks made on the freedom of the pulpit, of the
+press, and all freedom of speech. The Individual State which preserves
+freedom must be put down,--the individual person who protests against
+it must be silenced. No man must hold a federal office,--executive,
+diplomatic, judicial, or "ministerial,"--unless he has so far
+conquered his "prejudices" in favor of the natural Rights of man that
+he is ready to enslave a brother with alacrity. All these steps belong
+to Measure number Two.
+
+This latter Measure advances to its execution, realizing the Idea of
+Slavery, with subtle steps, yet creeps on rapid-moving feet. See how
+it has gained ground latterly. Obviously the fugitive slave bill
+struck only at the natural Rights of Colored men--as valuable as those
+of white men, but the colored are few and the white many,--the
+experiment must be made on the feebler body. But this despotism cannot
+enslave a black girl without thereby putting in peril the liberty of
+every white man. At first our masters only asked of Boston a little
+piece of chain, but just long enough to shackle the virtuous hands of
+Ellen Craft, a wife and mother, whom her Georgian "owner" wished to
+sell as a harlot at New Orleans! A meeting was summoned at Faneuil
+Hall, and Boston answered, "Yes, here is the chain. Let the
+woman-hunter capture Ellen Craft, make her a Prostitute at New
+Orleans. She is a virtuous wife and mother,--but no matter. Slavery is
+king and commands it. Let the 'owner' have his chain."
+
+There is no escaping the consequence of a first Principle. Soon that
+little chain lengthened itself out, and coiled itself all round the
+court house, and how greedily your judges stooped to go under! This
+Anaconda of the Dismal Swamp wound its constricting twists about the
+neck of all your courts, and the Judges turned black in the face, and
+when questioned of law, they could not pronounce "Habeas Corpus,"
+"Trial by Jury," nor utter a syllable for the Bible or the
+Massachusetts Constitution, but only wheeze and gurgle and squeak and
+gibber out their defences of Slavery! No, Boston could not bewray a
+woman wandering towards freedom, without chaining the court house and
+its judges, putting the town in a state of siege,--insolent soldiers
+striking at the people's neck. Now the attempt is making by this
+Honorable Court to put the same chain round Faneuil Hall, so that the
+old Cradle of Liberty shall no more rock to manhood the noble sons of
+freedom, but only serve as a nest that the spawn of Bondage may
+hibernate therein.
+
+I am on trial because I hate Slavery, because I love freedom for the
+black man, for the white man, and for all the human Race. I am not
+arraigned because I have violated the statute on which the indictment
+is framed--no child could think it--but because I am an advocate of
+Freedom, because my Word, my Thoughts, my Feelings, my Actions, nay,
+all my Life, my very Existence itself, are a protest against Slavery.
+Despotism cannot happily advance unless I am silenced. It is very
+clear logic which indicts me. Private personal malice, deep, long
+cherished, rancorous, has doubtless jagged and notched and poisoned
+too the public sword which smites at my neck. Still it is the public
+sword of Slavery which is wielded against me. Against ME? Against YOU
+quite as much--against your children. For as Boston could not venture
+to kidnap a negro woman, without bringing down that avalanche of
+consequences connected with the Principle of Slavery,--without chains
+on her Judges, falsehood in her officers, blood in her courts, and
+drunken soldiers in her streets, and hypocrisy in her man-hunting
+ministers,--no more can she put me to silence alone. The thread which
+is to sew my lips together, will make your mouths but a silent and
+ugly seam in your faces. Slavery is Plaintiff in this case; Freedom
+Defendant. Before you as Judges, I plead your own cause--for you as
+defendant. I will not insult you by the belief or the fear that you
+can do other than right, in a matter where the law is so plain, and
+the Justice clear as noonday light. But should you decide as the
+wicked wish, as the court longs to instruct you, you doom your mouths
+to silence; you bow your manly faces to the ground, destine your
+memories to shame, and your children to bondage worse than negro
+slavery.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Such, Gentlemen of the Jury, is the state of affairs leading to this
+Prosecution--such the past, present, and prospective Encroachments of
+a Power hostile to Democratic Institutions and the unalienable Rights
+they were designed to protect. Such also are the two Measures now in
+contemplation,--the Extension of African Bondage, and the Destruction
+of American Freedom.
+
+
+II. LOOK NEXT AT THE MODE OF OPERATION HITHERTO PURSUED BY THIS
+ENCROACHING POWER, IN OTHER TIMES AND NATIONS, AND IN OUR OWN,
+SYSTEMATIC CORRUPTION OF THE JUDICIARY.
+
+Here I shall show the process by which that Principle of Slavery
+becomes a Measure of political ruin to the People.
+
+In substance Despotism is always the same, Spanish or Carolinian, but
+the form varies to suit the ethnologic nature and historical customs
+of different people. I shall mention two forms--one to illustrate, the
+other to warn.
+
+(I.) The open Assumption of Power by military violence. This method is
+followed in countries where love of Individual Liberty is not much
+developed in the consciousness of the people, and where democratic
+institutions are not fixed facts in their history; where the nation is
+not accustomed to local self-government, but wonted to a strong
+central power directed by a single will. This form prevails in Russia,
+Turkey, and among all the Romanic tribes in Europe, and their
+descendants in America. Military usurpation, military rule is
+indigenous in France,--where two Napoleons succeed thereby,--in Italy,
+in Spain, and most eminently in Spanish America. But no people of the
+Teutonic family for any length of time ever tolerated a usurping
+soldier at the head of affairs, or submitted to martial arbitrary
+rule, or military violence in the chief magistrate. It is against our
+habit and disposition.
+
+Neither Cromwell nor William of Orange could do with the Anglo-Saxon
+what it would have been impossible not to do with Spaniards or
+Italians. Even warlike Swiss--Teutonic tribes--will have a government
+with due process of law, not by the abrupt violence of the soldier.
+Washington could not have established a military monarchy in America
+had he been so wickedly disposed. Even William the Conqueror must rule
+the Saxons by Saxon law.
+
+(II.) The corruption of the acknowledged safeguards of public
+security. This is attempted in nations who have a well-known love of
+individual liberty, and institutional defences thereof, the habit of
+Local Self-government by Democratic Law-making and Law-administering.
+For example, this experiment has been repeatedly made in England. The
+monarch seeking to destroy the liberty of the people, accomplishes
+his violent measure by the forms of peaceful law, by getting the
+judicial class of men on the side of despotism. Then all the
+wickedness can be done in the name, with the forms, and by "due
+process" of law, by regular officers thereof--done solemnly with the
+assistance of slow and public deliberation.
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, this is a matter of such importance to the
+People of America just now, that I must beg you to bear with me while
+I explain this subtle operation. I will select examples from the
+history of England which are easy to understand, because her blood is
+kindred to our own, and the institutions of the two countries are
+related as parent and child. And besides, her past history affords
+alike warning and guidance in our present peril.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+(I.) The first step in this process of political iniquity is, to
+appoint men for judges and other officers of the court, who know no
+law higher than the selfish will of the hand that feeds them, mere
+creatures of the rest [Transcriber's Note: for 'rest' read
+'government'; see Errata].
+
+I will select instances of this from the reign of the Stuart kings and
+one of their successors, from a period full of melancholy warning to
+America.
+
+I will begin with James I. (1603-1625), the first King of New England.
+At his very accession he had high notions of his royal Prerogative,
+and maintained that all the privileges of the House of Commons were
+derived from his royal grant. "I am your King," said he, "I am placed
+to govern you, and I shall [must] answer for your errors." It was
+quite enough to answer for his own,--poor man. "Let me make the
+Judges," said he, "and I care not who makes the laws."
+
+Accordingly for judicial officers he appointed such men as would
+execute his unlawful schemes for the destruction of public liberty. To
+such considerations was Francis Bacon mainly indebted for his
+elevation from one legal rank to another, until he reached the seat of
+the Lord Chancellor. A man whom Villers declared, "of excellent parts,
+but withal of a base and ungrateful temper, and an arrant knave, yet a
+fit instrument for the purposes of the government." He did not receive
+his appointment for that vast, hard-working genius which makes his
+name the ornament of many an age, but only for his sycophantic
+devotion to the royal will. Sir Edward Coke was promoted rapidly
+enough, whilst wholly subservient to the despotic court, but
+afterwards, though a miracle of legal knowledge, not equalled yet
+perhaps, he must not be appointed Lord Chancellor on account of "his
+occasional fits of independence." Chief Justice Ley was one of the
+right stamp, but it was thought "his subserviency might prove more
+valuable by retaining him to preside over the Court of King's Bench."
+"For in making the highest judicial appointments the only question
+was, what would suit the arbitrary schemes of governing the
+country."[5] Hobart had resisted some illegal monopolies of the
+all-powerful Buckingham, and he was "unfit for promotion."
+
+[Footnote 5: 2 Campbell, 372, 374.]
+
+James thought the Prerogative would be strengthened by the appointment
+of clergymen of the national church, perhaps the only class of men not
+then getting fired with love of liberty,--and made Williams, Bishop of
+Lincoln, Lord Keeper, a "man of rash and insolent, though servile
+temper, and of selfish, temporizing, and trimming political conduct,"
+who at that time had never acted as "a judge except at the Waldegrave
+Petty Sessions in making an order of bastardy or allowing a rate for
+the Parish poor," and was "as ignorant of the questions coming before
+him as the door-keepers of his court." But he was subservient, and had
+pleased the King by preaching the courtly doctrine that "subjects hold
+their liberties and their property at the will of the Sovereign whom
+they are bound in every extremity passively to obey."[6] Men like
+Fleming and other creatures of the throne, sanctioning the King's
+abundant claim to absolute power, were sure of judicial distinction;
+while it was only the force of public opinion which gave the humblest
+place of honor to such able and well-studied lawyers as would respect
+the constitutional Rights of the People and the just construction of
+the laws, and at all hazards maintain their judicial independence.
+Ecclesiastics who taught that the King "is above the laws by his
+absolute power," and "may quash any law passed by Parliament," were
+sure of rapid preferment. Thus Bancroft was promoted; thus Abbot was
+pushed aside; and for his mean, tyrannical and subservient disposition
+Rev. William Laud was continually promoted in expectation of the
+services which, as Archbishop, he subsequently performed in the
+overthrow of the Liberty of the People. But time would fail me to read
+over the long dark list of men whose personal shame secured them
+"official glory."
+
+[Footnote 6: 2 Campbell, 368, 374; 3 Howell State Trials, 824.]
+
+In his address to the Judges in the Star-Chamber in 1616 James gave
+them this charge, "If there falls out a question which concerns any
+Prerogative or mysterie of State, _deale not with it till you consult
+with the King_ or his Council, or both; for they are Transcendent
+Matters, and must not be slibberly carried with over rash
+wilfullnesse." "And this I commend unto your special care, as some of
+you of late have done very much, to _blunt the edge and vaine popular
+humor of some lawyers at the Barre_, that think they are not eloquent
+and bold-spirited enough, except they _meddle with the King's
+Prerogative_." "_That which concerns the mysterie of the King's Power
+is not lawful to be disputed._"[7] Gentlemen, that was worthy of some
+judicial charges which you and I have heard.
+
+[Footnote 7: Speache in the Starre-Chamber, London, 1616.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Charles I. (1625-1659,) pursued the same course of tyranny by the same
+steps. Coventry could be implicitly relied on to do as commanded, and
+was made Lord Keeper in 1625. When the question of Ship-money was to
+be brought forward in 1636, Chief Justice Heath was thought not fit to
+be trusted with wielding the instrument of tyranny, and accordingly
+removed; "and Finch, well known to be ready to go all lengths, was
+appointed in his place." For he had steadfastly maintained that the
+King was absolute, and could dispense with law and parliament,--a fit
+person to be a Chief Justice, or a Lord Chancellor, in a tyrant's
+court, ready to enact iniquity into law. His compliance with the
+King's desire to violate the first principle of Magna Charta,
+"endeared him to the Court, and secured him further preferment as soon
+as any opportunity should occur." So he was soon made Lord Chancellor
+and raised to the peerage. Littleton had once been on the popular
+side, but deserted and went over to the Court--he was sure of
+preferment; and as he became more and more ready to destroy the
+liberties of the People, he was made Chief Justice, and finally Lord
+Chancellor in 1641. Lane was a "steady friend of the prerogative," and
+so was made Attorney-General to the Prince of Wales, and thence
+gradually elevated to the highest station.
+
+Other Judicial appointments were continually made in the same spirit.
+Thus when Sir Randolf Crewe was Chief Justice of the King's Bench, the
+government questioned him to ascertain if he were "sound," and were
+shocked to hear him declare that the King had no right to levy taxes
+without consent of Parliament, or imprison his subjects without due
+process of law. He was "immediately dismissed from his office,"
+(1626,) and Sir Nicolas Hyde appointed in his place. By such means the
+courts were filled with tools of the King or his favorites, and the
+pit digged for the liberties of the People, into which at last there
+fell--the head of the King!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Charles II. and James II., (1655-1686,) did not mend the evil, but
+appointed for judges "such a pack as had never before sat in
+Westminster Hall." Shaftesbury and Guildford had the highest judicial
+honors. Lord Chancellor Finch, mentioned already, had been accused by
+the Commons of High Treason and other misdemeanors, but escaped to the
+continent, and returned after the Restoration. He was appointed one of
+the Judges to try the Regicides. Thus he "who had been accused of high
+treason twenty years before by a full parliament, and who by flying
+from their justice saved his life, was appointed to judge some of
+those who should have been his Judges."[8] He declared in Parliament
+that Milton, for services rendered to the cause of liberty while Latin
+Secretary to Cromwell, "deserved hanging."[9]
+
+[Footnote 8: Ludlow, quoted in 2 Campbell, 470.]
+
+[Footnote 9: 4 Parl. Hist. 162.]
+
+In these reigns such men as Saunders, Wright, and Scroggs, were made
+Judges, men of the vilest character, with the meanest appetites,
+licentious, brutal, greedy of power and money, idiotic in the moral
+sense, appointed solely that they might serve as tools for the
+oppression of the People. Among these infamous men was George
+Jeffreys, of whom Lord Campbell says,--"He has been so much abused
+that I began my critical examination of his history in the hope and
+belief that I should find that his misdeeds had been exaggerated, and
+that I might be able to rescue his memory from some portion of the
+obloquy under which it labors; but I am sorry to say that in my
+matured opinion his cruelty and his political profligacy have not been
+sufficiently exposed or reprobated; and that he was not redeemed from
+his vices by one single solid virtue."[10] But in consequence of his
+having such a character, though not well-grounded in law, he was made
+a Judge, a Peer, and a Lord Chancellor! Wright, nearly as infamous,
+miraculously stupid and ignorant, "a detected swindler, knighted and
+clothed in ermine, took his place among the twelve judges of
+England."[11] He also was made Chief Justice successively of the
+Common Pleas and the King's Bench! Lord Campbell, himself a judge, at
+the end of his history of the reign of Charles and James, complains of
+"the irksome task of relating the actions of so many men devoid of
+political principle and ready to suggest or to support any measures,
+however arbitrary or mischievous, for the purpose of procuring their
+own advancement."[12] It was the practice of the Stuarts "to dismiss
+judges without seeking any other pretence, who showed any disposition
+to thwart government in political prosecutions."[13] Nor was this
+dismissal confined to cases where the judge would obey the law in
+merely Political trials. In 1686 four of the judges denied that the
+king had power to dispense with the laws of the land and change the
+form of religion: the next morning they were all driven from their
+posts, and four others, more compliant, were appointed and the
+judicial "opinion was unanimous." Hereupon Roger Coke says well,--"the
+king ... will make the judges in Westminster Hall to murder the common
+law, as well as the king and his brother desired to murder the
+parliament by itself; and to this end the king, when he would make any
+judges would make a bargain with them, that they should declare the
+king's power of dispensing with the penal laws and tests made against
+recusants, out of parliament."[14]
+
+[Footnote 10: 3 Campbell, 394.]
+
+[Footnote 11: 2 Campbell Chief Justices, 86.]
+
+[Footnote 12: 3 Campbell, 473.]
+
+[Footnote 13: 3 Hallam, 142.]
+
+[Footnote 14: 8 St. Tr. 195, note.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Here, Gentlemen of the Jury, I must mention three obscure judges who
+received their appointments under Stuart kings. Before long I shall
+speak of their law and its application, and now only introduce them to
+you as a measure preliminary to a more intimate acquaintance
+hereafter.
+
+1. The first is Sir William Jones, by far the least ignoble of the
+three. He was descended from one of the Barons who wrung the Great
+Charter from the hands of King John in 1618 [Transcriber's Note: for
+'1618' read '1215'; see Errata], and in 1628 dwelt in the same house
+which sheltered the more venerable head of his Welsh ancestor. In 1628
+he was made judge by Charles I. He broke down the laws of the realm to
+enable the king to make forced loans on his subjects, and by his
+special mandate (Lettre de Cachet) to imprison whom he would, as long
+as it pleased him, and without showing any reason for the commitment
+or the detention! Yes, he supported the king in his attempt to shut up
+members of parliament for words spoken in debate in the house of
+commons itself; to levy duties on imports, and a tax of ship-money on
+the land. He was summoned before parliament for his offences against
+public justice, and finally deprived of office, though ungratefully,
+by the king himself.[15]
+
+[Footnote 15: Account of him in Preface to his Reports, (1675); 3 St.
+Tr. 162, 293, 844, 1181; 2 Parl. Hist. 869; 1 Rushworth, 661, _et
+al._; Whitlocke, 14, _et al._]
+
+2. Thomas Twysden was counsel for George Coney in 1655, a London
+merchant who refused to pay an illegal tax levied on him by
+Cromwell--who followed in the tyrannical footsteps of the king he
+slew. Twysden was thrown into the Tower for defending his client--as
+Mr. Sloane, at Sandusky, has just been punished by the honorable court
+of the United States for a similar offence,--but after a few days made
+a confession of his "error," defending the just laws of the land,
+promised to offend no more, and was set at liberty, ignominiously
+leaving his client to defend himself and be defeated. This Twysden was
+made judge by Charles II. The reporters recording his decisions put
+down "_Twysden in furore_," thinly veiling the judicial wrath in
+modest Latin. He was specially cruel against Quakers and other
+dissenters, treating George Fox, Margarett Fell, and John Bunyan with
+brutal violence.[16]
+
+[Footnote 16: 6 St. Tr. 634; 1 Campbell Justices, 442.]
+
+3. Sir John Kelyng is another obscure judge of those times. In the
+civil war he was a violent cavalier, and "however fit he might be to
+_charge_ the Roundheads under Prince Rupert, he was very unfit to
+_charge_ a jury in Westminster Hall." In 1660 he took part in the
+trial of the Regicides and led in the prosecution of Colonel Hacker,
+who in 1649 had charge of the execution of Charles I. In 1662 he took
+part in the prosecution of Sir Henry Vane, and by his cruel subtlety
+in constructing law, that former governor of Massachusetts,--one of
+the most illustrious minds of England, innocent of every crime, was
+convicted of high treason and put to death.[17] For this service, in
+1663 Kelyng was made a judge; and then, by loyal zeal and judicial
+subserviency, he made up "for his want of learning and sound sense."
+But he was so incompetent that even the court of Charles II. hesitated
+to make him more than a puny judge. But he had been a "valiant
+cavalier," and had done good service already in making way with such
+as the king hated, and so after the death of Sir Nicolas Hyde, he was
+made Lord Chief Justice in his place. "In this office," says Judge
+Campbell, he "exceeded public expectation by the violent, fantastical,
+and ludicrous manner in which he conducted himself."[18] But I will
+not now anticipate what I have to say of him in a subsequent part of
+this defence.
+
+[Footnote 17: 6 St. Tr. 161.]
+
+[Footnote 18: 1 Campbell Justices, 401.]
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, we shall meet these three together again before
+long, and I shall also speak of them "singly or in pairs." In the mean
+time I will mention one similar appointment in the reign of George the
+III.--the last king of New England.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In 1770 Sergeant Glynn, in Parliament, moved for an inquiry into the
+administration of criminal justice. Edmund Thurlow, a rough venal man,
+then recently appointed solicitor-general, proposed that a severe
+censure should be passed on him for the motion. Thurlow wanted the
+trial by jury abolished in all cases of libel, so that the liberty of
+the people should be in the exclusive care of government attorneys and
+judges appointed by the crown. Hear him speak on the 6th of December,
+1770.
+
+     "In my opinion no man should be allowed with impunity to
+     make a wanton attack upon such venerable characters as the
+     judges of the land. We award costs and damages to the
+     aggrieved party in the most trifling actions. By what
+     analogy, then, can we refuse the same justice in the most
+     important cases, to the most important personages? If we
+     allow every pitiful patriot thus to insult us with
+     ridiculous accusations, without making him pay forfeit for
+     his temerity, we shall be eternally pestered with the
+     humming and buzzing of these stingless wasps. Though they
+     cannot wound or poison, they will tease and vex. They will
+     divert our attention from the important affairs of State to
+     their own mean antipathies, and passions, and prejudices.
+     Did they not count upon the spirit of the times and imagine
+     that the same latitude which is taken by the libellers is
+     here allowable, they would not have dared to offer so gross
+     an outrage. I hope we shall now handle them so roughly as to
+     make this the last of such audacious attempts. They are
+     already ridiculous and contemptible. To crown their
+     disgrace, let us inflict some exemplary punishment. Else
+     none of us is safe. Virtue and honor, you see from this
+     instance, are no safeguard from their attacks."
+
+     "The nature, the direct effect, and the remote consequences
+     of a State libel, are so complicated and involved with
+     various considerations of great pith and moment, that few
+     juries can be adequate judges. So many circumstances are at
+     once to be kept in view, so many ponderous interests are to
+     be weighed, so many comparisons to be made, and so many
+     judgments formed, that the mind of an ordinary man is
+     distracted and confounded, and rendered incapable of coming
+     to any regular conclusion. None but a judge, a man that has
+     from his infancy been accustomed to decide intricate cases,
+     is equal to such a difficult task. If we even suppose the
+     jury sufficiently enlightened to unravel those knotty
+     points, yet there remains an insuperable objection. In State
+     libels, their passions are frequently so much engaged, that
+     they may be justly considered as parties concerned against
+     the crown."
+
+     "In order, therefore, to preserve the balance of our
+     constitution, _let us leave to the judges_, as the most
+     indifferent persons, _the right of determining the malice or
+     innocence of the intention_."
+
+     "It is not that I think the intention a matter of fact; no,
+     in the sense put upon it by the judges, it is a matter of
+     law."
+
+     "Much dust has been raised about civil and criminal actions.
+     But to what purpose? Is not reparation to be made to the
+     public for any injury which it may have sustained, as much
+     as to an individual? Is the welfare of the nation in
+     general, of less consequence than that of a single person?
+     Where then is the propriety of making such a bustle about
+     the malice or innocence of the intention? The injury done is
+     the only proper measure of the punishment to be inflicted,
+     as well as of the damage to be assessed. Since you cannot
+     plead the intention as a mitigation in the latter case,
+     neither can you in the former."[19]
+
+[Footnote 19: 16 Parl. Hist. 1291, 1292, 1293.]
+
+What followed? On the 23d of July, 1771, he was made Attorney-General.
+His subsequent history did not disappoint the prophecy uttered above
+by his former conduct and his notorious character. "In truth his
+success was certain, with the respectable share he possessed of real
+talents and of valuable requirements--strongly marked features,
+piercing eyes, bushy eyebrows, and a sonorous voice, all worked to the
+best effect by an immeasurable share of self-confidence--he could not
+fail."[20] He hated America with the intense malignity of a low but
+strong and despotic nature, and "took a most zealous part and uttered
+very violent language against the colonists. He scorned the very
+notion of concession or conciliation; he considered 'sedition' and
+'treason,' (like _tobacco_ and _potatoes_,) the peculiar plants of the
+American soil. The natives of these regions he thought were born to be
+taxed."[21] He favored the Stamp Act, the Coercion Bill,--quartering
+soldiers upon us, sending Americans beyond seas for trial,--the Boston
+Port Bill, and all the measures against the colonies. "To say that we
+have a right to tax America and never exercise that right, is
+ridiculous, and a man must abuse his understanding very much not to
+allow of that right;" "the right of taxing was never in the least
+given up to the Americans."[22] On another occasion he said, that "as
+attorney-general he had a right to set aside every charter in
+America."[23] What followed? Notwithstanding his youthful profligacy,
+the open profanity of his public and private speech, and his living in
+public and notorious contempt of matrimony,--he was made Lord
+Chancellor and elevated to the peerage in 1778! Him also we shall meet
+again.
+
+[Footnote 20: 5 Campbell, 398.]
+
+[Footnote 21: 5 Campbell, 410.]
+
+[Footnote 22: 17 Parl. Hist. 1313.]
+
+[Footnote 23: 18 St. Tr. 999.]
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, I might as well try to bale all the salt water
+out of the sea as to mention every glaring and notorious instance
+where an oppressive government has appointed some discarder of all
+Higher Law for its servant in crushing the People. Come therefore to
+the next point.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+(II.) The next step is by means of _such Judges to punish and destroy
+or silence men who oppose the wickedness of the party in power, and
+the encroachments of despotism_. Let me describe the general mode of
+procedure, and then illustrate it by special examples.
+
+1. In the Privy Council, or elsewhere, it is resolved to punish the
+obnoxious men,--and the business is intrusted to the law-officers of
+the crown, appointed for such functions.
+
+2. They consult and agree to pervert and twist the law--statute or
+common--for that purpose. By this means they gratify their master, and
+prepare future advancement for themselves.
+
+3. The precedent thus established becomes the basis for new operations
+in the future, and may be twisted and perverted to serve other cases
+as they occur.
+
+Now, Gentlemen, look at some examples taken from British history, in
+times of the same Kings mentioned before.
+
+1. In 1610 two Puritans for refusing the _ex officio_ oath, were
+clapped in Jail by the commissioners. They were brought on _habeas
+corpus_ before a court, and Mr. Fuller, their counsel, a learned
+lawyer, insisted that they were imprisoned without due process of law.
+For this "contempt of court" he was thrown into jail by Archbishop
+Bancroft, whence he was rescued only by death.[24]
+
+[Footnote 24: Peirce's Vindication, (1717,) 174.]
+
+2. In 1613 there were many murmurs among the People of England at the
+tyranny of James. Fine and imprisonment did not quell the disturbance;
+so a more dreadful example was thought needful. The officials of
+Government broke into the study of Rev. Edmund Peacham, a Protestant
+minister, sixty or seventy years old. In an uncovered cask they found
+a manuscript sermon, never preached, nor designed for the pulpit or
+the press, never shown to any one. It contained some passages which
+might excite men to resist tyranny. He was arrested, and thrown into
+Jail, all his papers seized. The Government resolved to prosecute him
+for high treason. Francis Bacon, the powerful and corrupt
+Attorney-General, managed the prosecution. Before trial was ventured
+upon, he procured an extrajudicial opinion of the Judges appointed for
+such services,--irregularly given, out of court, that they would
+declare such an act high treason.
+
+But a manuscript sermon, neither preached nor designed for the public,
+was hardly evidence enough of treason even for such Judges--so
+purchased, for such an Attorney--so greedy of preferment, with such a
+Cabinet and such a King. For all those, like the Pharisees of old,
+"feared the People." So their victim was tortured on the rack, and
+twelve leading questions prepared by the Government officials, were
+put to him there. I quote Secretary Winwood's record--still extant in
+his own handwriting--"He was this day examined before torture, in
+torture, between torture, and after torture; notwithstanding nothing
+could be drawn from him, he still persisting in his obstinate and
+insensible denials and former answers." Bacon was present at the
+torture, which took place in the Tower, Jan. 19, 1614, O.S. (30th Jan.
+1615, N.S.). In August he was tried for high treason--"compassing and
+imagining the King's death"--before a packed jury; against law, and
+without legal evidence. He was of course found guilty under the ruling
+of the Court! But public opinion, even then making tyrants "tremble in
+their capitals," was so indignant at the outrage that the execution
+was not ventured on, and he was left to languish in Jail, till on the
+27th of March, 1616, a King more merciful took the old minister where
+the wicked cease from troubling.[25]
+
+[Footnote 25: 2 St. Tr. 869; 16 Montagu's Bacon, clxvi.; 2 Campbell,
+291.]
+
+In this case, Gentlemen of the Jury, you will notice three violations
+of the law.
+
+(1.) The opinion of the Judges before the trial was extrajudicial and
+illegal.
+
+(2.) The application of torture was contrary to law.
+
+(3.) The statute of Treason was wrested to apply to this case--and a
+crime was constructed by the servants of the court.
+
+It is curious to read the opinion of James himself. "The British
+Solomon" thus wrote:--
+
+     "So the only thing the Judges can doubt of is of the
+     delinquent's intention, on his bare denial to clear him
+     [himself], since nature teaches every man to defend his life
+     as he may; and whether in case there was a doubt herein, the
+     Judges should not rather incline to that side [namely, the
+     side of the Government,] wherein all probability lies: but
+     if Judges will needs trust rather the bare negative of an
+     _infamous delinquent_--then all the probabilities, or rather
+     infallible consequences upon the other part, caring more for
+     the safety of _such a monster_ than the preservation of a
+     crown in all ages following, whereupon depend the lives of
+     many millions, happy then are all _desperate and seditious
+     knaves_, but the fortune of this crown is more than
+     miserable. Which God forefend."[26]
+
+[Footnote 26: 2 St. Tr. 879.]
+
+3. In 1633, Laud, a tyrannical, ambitious man, and a servile creature
+of the King, mentioned before, was made Archbishop of Canterbury,
+continuing Bishop of London at the same time. Charles I. was strongly
+inclined to Romanism, Laud also leaned that way, aiming to come as
+near as possible to the Papal and not be shut out of the English
+Church. He made some new regulations in regard to the Communion Table
+and the Lord's Supper. John Williams, before mentioned, Dean of
+Westminster and Bishop of Lincoln, who had been Lord Keeper under King
+James, wrote a book against those innovations; besides, in his
+episcopal court he had once spoken of the Puritans as "good subjects,"
+and of his knowing "that the King did not wish them to be harshly
+dealt with." In 1637 Laud directed that he should be prosecuted in the
+Star-Chamber for "publishing false news and tales to the scandal of
+his Majesty's government;" and "for revealing counsels of State
+contrary to his oath of a Privy Counsellor." He was sentenced to pay a
+fine of £10,000,--equal to $50,000, or thrice the sum in these times;
+to be suspended from all offices, and kept a close prisoner in the
+Tower during the King's pleasure--whence the Revolution set him at
+liberty. Besides he wrote private letters to Mr. Osbalderston, and
+called Laud "the little great man," for this he, in 1639, was fined
+£5,000 to the King, and £3,000 to the Archbishop. Osbalderston in his
+letters had spoken of the "great Leviathan" and the "little Urchin,"
+and was fined £5,000, to the King, and the same to the Archbishop, and
+sentenced also to stand in the pillory with his ears nailed to it![27]
+
+[Footnote 27: 3 St. Tr. 769; 2 Campbell, 400.]
+
+4. In 1629 Richard Chambers, a merchant of London, complained to the
+Privy Council of some illegal and unjust treatment, and declared "that
+the merchants in no part of the world are so screwed and wrung as in
+England; that in Turkey they have more encouragement." Laud, who hated
+freedom of speech and liberal comments on the government as much as
+"eminent citizens" nowadays, is said to have told the king, "If your
+majesty had many such Chambers, you would soon have no Chamber left to
+rest in." The merchant was tried before the "commissioners" at the
+Star-Chamber, and fined £2,000, and condemned to make a "submission
+for his great offence,"[28] which the stout Puritan refused to do, and
+was kept in prison till the Court of King's Bench, faithful to the
+law, on Habeas Corpus, admitted him to bail: for which they were
+reprimanded. Laud and all the ecclesiastical members of the
+"commission" wished his fine £3,000.
+
+[Footnote 28: 3 St. Tr. 373; Franklyn, 361; 2 Hallam (Paris, 1841), 6
+_ac etiam_ 13; 2 Mrs. Macaulay, 16, 45, 65.]
+
+5. In his place in Parliament in 1629, Sir John Eliot, one of the
+noblest men in England's noblest age, declared that "the Council and
+Judges had all conspired to trample underfoot the liberties of the
+subject." Gentlemen, the fact was as notorious as the advance of the
+Slave Power now is in America. But a few days after the king (Charles
+I.) had dismissed his refractory Parliament, Eliot, with Hollis, Long,
+Selden, Strode, and Valentine, most eminent members of the commons,
+and zealous for liberty and law, was seized by the king's command and
+thrown into prison. The Habeas Corpus was demanded--it was all in
+vain, for Laud and Strafford were at the head of affairs, and the
+priests and pliant Judges in Westminster Hall--Jones was one of
+them--clove down the law of the land just as their subcatenated
+successors did in Boston in 1851. The court decreed that they should
+be imprisoned during the king's pleasure, and not released until
+making submission and giving security for good behavior. Eliot was
+fined £2,000, Hollis and Valentine in smaller sums. Eliot--the brave
+man--refused submission, and died in the Tower. Thus was the attack
+made on all freedom of speech in Parliament![29]
+
+[Footnote 29: 3 St. Tr. 293; 1 Rushworth; 2 Hallam, 2; 2 Parl. Hist.
+488, 504; Foster's Eliot, 100; 2 Mrs. Macaulay, ch. i. ii.]
+
+6. In 1630, the very year of the first settlement of Boston, on the
+4th of June, Rev. Dr. Alexander Leighton was brought before the Court
+of High Commission, in the Star-Chamber, to be tried for a seditious
+libel. He had published "An Appeal to the Parliament, or a Plea
+against Prelacy," a work still well known, remonstrating against
+certain notorious grievances in church and State, "to the end the
+Parliament might take them into consideration and give such redress as
+might be for the honor of the king, the quiet of the people, and the
+peace of the church," the court of commissions accounted it "a most
+odious and heinous offence, deserving the most serious punishment the
+court could inflict, for framing a book so full of such pestilent,
+devilish, and dangerous assertions." The two Chief Justices declared
+if the case had been brought to their courts, they would have
+proceeded against him for Treason, and it was only "his majesty's
+exceeding great mercy and goodness" which selected the milder
+tribunal. His sentence was a fine of £10,000, to be set in the
+pillory, whipped, have one ear cut off; one side of his nose slit, one
+cheek branded with S.S., Sower of Sedition, and then at some
+convenient time be whipped again, branded, and mutilated on the other
+side, and confined in the Fleet during life! Before the punishment
+could be inflicted he escaped out of prison, but was recaptured and
+the odious sentence fully executed. Those who "obstructed" the officer
+in the execution of that "process" were fined £500 a piece.[30]
+Gentlemen of the Jury, which do you think would most have astonished
+the Founders of Massachusetts, then drawing near to Boston, that trial
+on the 4th of June, 1630, or this trial, two hundred and twenty-five
+years later? At the court of Charles it was a great honor to mutilate
+the body of a Puritan minister.
+
+[Footnote 30: 3 St. Tr. 383; Laud's Diary, 4th November; 2 Hallam,
+28.]
+
+But not only did such judges thus punish the most noble men who wrote
+on political matters, there was no freedom of speech allowed--so
+logical is despotism!
+
+7. William Prynn, a zealous Puritan and a very learned lawyer, wrote a
+folio against theatres called "a Scourge for Stage-Players," dull,
+learned, unreadable and uncommon thick. He was brought to the
+Star-Chamber in 1632-3, and Chief Justice Richardson--who had even
+then "but an indifferent reputation for honesty and veracity"--gave
+this sentence: "Mr. Prynn, I do declare you to be a Schism-Maker in
+the Church, a Sedition-Sower in the Commonwealth, a wolf in sheep's
+clothing; in a word 'omnium malorum nequissimus'--[the wickedest of
+all scoundrels]. I shall fine him £10,000, which is more than he is
+worth, yet less than he deserveth; I will not set him at liberty, no
+more than a plagued man or a mad dog, who though he cannot bite, yet
+will he foam; he is so far from being a sociable soul that he is not a
+rational soul; he is fit to live in dens with such beasts of prey as
+wolves and tygers like himself; therefore I do condemn him to
+perpetual Imprisonment, as those monsters that are no longer fit to
+live among men nor to see light." "I would have him branded in the
+forehead, slit in the nose, and his ears cropped too." The sentence
+was executed the 7th and 10th of May, 1633.[31] But nothing
+intimidated, the sturdy man committed other offences of like nature,
+"obstructing" other "officers," and was punished again, and banished.
+But on the summoning of Parliament returned to England, and became
+powerful in that Revolution which crushed the tyrants of the time.
+
+[Footnote 31: 3 St. Tr. 561; 2 Hallam, 28, and his authorities. See
+also 2 Echard, 109, _et seq._, 124, _et seq._, 202, 368, 510; the
+remarks of Hume, Hist. ch. lii., remind me of the tone of the fugitive
+slave bill Journals of Boston in 1850-54.]
+
+8. In 1685, James II. was in reality a Catholic. He wished to restore
+Romanism to England and abolish the work of the Reformation, the
+better to establish the despotism which all of his family had sought
+to plant. He was determined to punish such as spoke against the Papal
+Church, though no law prohibited such speaking. Judge Jeffreys, a
+member of the cabinet and favorite of the king, was at that time chief
+justice--abundantly fit for the work demanded of him. The pious and
+venerable Richard Baxter was selected for the victim. Let Mr. Macaulay
+tell the story.
+
+     "In a Commentary on the New Testament, he had complained,
+     with some bitterness, of the persecution which the
+     Dissenters suffered. That men, who, for not using the
+     Prayerbook, had been driven from their homes, stripped of
+     their property, and locked up in dungeons, should dare to
+     utter a murmur, was then thought a high crime against the
+     State and Church. Roger Lestrange, the champion of the
+     government, and the oracle of the clergy, sounded the note
+     of war in the Observator. An information was filed. Baxter
+     begged that he might be allowed some time to prepare for his
+     defence. It was on the day on which Oates was pilloried in
+     Palace Yard that the illustrious chief of the Puritans,
+     oppressed by age and infirmities, came to Westminster Hall
+     to make this request. Jeffreys burst into a storm of rage.
+     'Not a minute,' he cried, 'to save his life. I can deal with
+     saints as well as with sinners. There stands Oates on one
+     side of the pillory; and if Baxter stood on the other, the
+     two greatest rogues in the kingdom would stand together.'"
+
+     "When the trial came on at Guildhall, a crowd of those who
+     loved and honored Baxter, filled the court. At his side
+     stood Doctor William Bates, one of the most eminent
+     Non-conformist divines. Two Whig barristers of great note,
+     Pollexfen and Wallop, appeared for the defendant."
+
+     "Pollexfen had scarce begun his address to the jury, when
+     the chief justice broke forth: 'Pollexfen, I know you well.
+     I will set a mark on you. You are the patron of the faction.
+     This is an old rogue, a schismatical knave, a hypocritical
+     villain. He hates the Liturgy. He would have nothing but
+     longwinded cant without book;' and then his lordship turned
+     up his eyes, clasped his hands, and began to sing through
+     his nose in imitation of what he supposed to be Baxter's
+     style of praying, 'Lord, we are thy people, thy peculiar
+     people, thy dear people.' Pollexfen gently reminded the
+     court that his late majesty had thought Baxter deserving of
+     a bishopric. 'And what ailed the old blockhead then,' cried
+     Jeffreys, 'that he did not take it?' His fury now rose
+     almost to madness. He called Baxter a dog, and swore that it
+     would be no more than justice to whip such a villain through
+     the whole city."
+
+     "Wallop interposed, but fared no better than his leader.
+     'You are in all these dirty causes, Mr. Wallop,' said the
+     judge. 'Gentlemen of the long robe ought to be ashamed to
+     assist such factious knaves.' The advocate made another
+     attempt to obtain a hearing, but to no purpose. 'If you do
+     not know your duty,' said Jeffreys, 'I will teach it you.'
+
+     "Wallop sat down, and Baxter himself attempted to put in a
+     word; but the chief justice drowned all expostulation in a
+     torrent of ribaldry and invective, mingled with scraps of
+     Hudibras. 'My lord,' said the old man, 'I have been much
+     blamed by Dissenters for speaking respectfully of bishops.'
+
+     "'Baxter for bishops!' cried the judge; 'that's a merry
+     conceit indeed. I know what you mean by bishops--rascals
+     like yourself, Kidderminster bishops, factious, snivelling
+     Presbyterians!'
+
+     "Again Baxter essayed to speak, and again Jeffreys bellowed,
+     'Richard, Richard, dost thou think we will let thee poison
+     the court? Richard, thou art an old knave. Thou hast written
+     books enough to load a cart, and every book as full of
+     sedition as an egg is full of meat. By the grace of God,
+     I'll look after thee. I see a great many of your brotherhood
+     waiting to know what will befall their mighty Don. And
+     there,' he continued, fixing his savage eye on Bates, 'there
+     is a doctor of the party at your elbow. But, by the grace of
+     God Almighty, I will crush you all!'
+
+     "Baxter held his peace. But one of the junior counsel for
+     the defence made a last effort, and undertook to show that
+     the words of which complaint was made, would not bear the
+     construction put on them by the information. With this view
+     he began to read the context. In a moment he was roared
+     down. 'You sha'n't turn the court into a conventicle!' The
+     noise of weeping was heard from some of those who surrounded
+     Baxter. 'Snivelling calves!' said the judge."[32]
+
+[Footnote 32: 1 Macaulay, (Harper's Ed.) 456-8.]
+
+He was sentenced to pay a fine of 500 marks, to lie in prison till he
+paid it, and be bound to good behavior for seven years. Jeffreys, it
+is said, wished him also to be whipped at the tail of a cart.[33] But
+the King remitted his fine.
+
+[Footnote 33: 1 Macaulay, 456; 11 St. Tr. 493.]
+
+Throughout the reign of James II. the courts of law became more and
+more contemptible in the eyes of the people. "All the three common law
+courts were filled by incompetent and corrupt Judges."[34] But their
+power to do evil never diminished.
+
+[Footnote 34: 2 Campbell's Justices, 87.]
+
+9. James II. wished to restore the Catholic form of religion, rightly
+looking on Protestantism as hostile to his intended tyranny; so he
+claimed a right to dispense with the laws relating thereto, put a
+Jesuit into his Privy Council, expelled Protestants from their
+offices, and filled the vacancy thus illegally made with Papists; he
+appointed Catholic bishops.[35] In 1688 he published a proclamation.
+It was the second of the kind,--dispensing with all the laws of the
+realm against Catholicism; and ordered it to be read on two specified
+Sundays during the hours of service in all places of public worship.
+This measure seemed to be a special insult to the Protestants. The
+declaration of indulgence was against their conscience, and in
+violation of the undisputed laws of the land, but Chief Justice Wright
+declared from the bench his opinion that it was "legal and
+obligatory," and on the day appointed for reading the decree attended
+church "to give weight to the solemnity," and as it was not read--for
+the clerk "had forgot to bring a copy,"--he "indecently in the hearing
+of the congregation abused the priest, as disloyal, seditious, and
+irreligious."
+
+[Footnote 35: See 2 Brewster's Newton, 108.]
+
+But the clergy thought differently from the Chief
+Justice--Episcopalians and Dissenters agreeing on this point. Seven
+bishops petitioned the King that they might not be obliged to violate
+their conscience, the articles of their religion, and the laws of the
+realm, by reading the declaration. They presented their petition in
+person to the King, who treated it and them with insolence and wrath.
+
+     "The king, says Kennet, was not contented to have this
+     declaration published in the usual manner, but he was
+     resolved to have it solemnly read in all churches as the
+     political gospel of his reign. The bishops and clergy were,
+     of all others the most averse to the subject-matter of the
+     declaration, as being most sensible of the ill design and
+     ill effects of it; and therefore the court seemed the more
+     willing to mortify these their enemies, and make them become
+     accessory to their own ruin; and even to eat their own dung,
+     as father Petre proudly threatened, and therefore this order
+     of council was made and published."[36]
+
+[Footnote 36: 12 St. Tr. 239.]
+
+The petition was printed and published with great rapidity, the
+bishops were seized, thrown into the Tower, and prosecuted in the
+court for a "false, feigned, malicious, pernicious, and seditious"
+libel.
+
+Judge Allybone thus addressed the Jury.
+
+     "And I think, in the first place, that _no man can_ take
+     upon him to _write against the actual exercise of the
+     government, unless he have leave from the government_, but
+     he makes a libel, be what he writes true or false; for if
+     once we come to impeach the government by way of argument,
+     it is the argument that makes it the government, or not the
+     government. So that I lay down that, in the first place,
+     _the government ought not to be impeached by argument_, nor
+     the exercise of the government shaken by argument; because I
+     can manage a proposition, in itself doubtful, with a better
+     pen than another man; this, say I, is a libel.
+
+     "Then I lay down this for my next position, that _no private
+     man can take upon him to write concerning the government at
+     all_; for _what has any private man to do with the
+     government_, if his interest be not stirred or shaken? It is
+     the business of the government to manage matters relating to
+     the government; it _is the business of subjects to mind only
+     their own properties and interests_. If my interest is not
+     shaken, _what have I to do with matters of government_? They
+     are not within my sphere. If the government does come to
+     shake my particular interest, the law is open for me, and I
+     may redress myself by law; and when I intrude myself into
+     other men's business that does not concern my particular
+     interest, I am a libeller.
+
+     "These I have laid down for plain propositions; now, then,
+     let us consider further, whether, if I will take upon me to
+     contradict the government, any specious pretence that I
+     shall put upon it, shall dress it up in another form and
+     give it a better denomination? And truly I think it is the
+     worse, because it comes in a better dress; for by that rule,
+     every man that can put on a good vizard, may be as
+     mischievous as he will, to the government at the bottom, so
+     that, whether it be in the form of a supplication, or an
+     address, or a petition, if it be what it ought not to be,
+     let us call it by its true name, and give it its right
+     denomination--it is a libel."
+
+     "The government here has published such a declaration as
+     this that has been read, relating to matters of government;
+     and _shall_, or ought _anybody_ to come and _impeach that as
+     illegal, which the government has done_? Truly, in my
+     opinion, I do not think he should, or ought; for by this
+     rule may every act of the government be shaken, when there
+     is not a parliament _de facto_ sitting.
+
+     "When the house of lords and commons are in being, it is a
+     proper way of applying to the king; there is all the
+     openness in the world for those that are members of
+     parliament, to make what addresses they please to the
+     government, for the rectifying, altering, regulating, and
+     making of what law they please; but if every private man
+     shall come and interpose his advice, I think there can never
+     be an end of advising the government.
+
+     "_We are not to measure things from any truth they have in
+     themselves, but from that aspect they have upon the
+     government; for there may be every tittle of a libel true,
+     and yet it may be a libel still_; so that I put no great
+     stress upon that objection, that the matter of it is not
+     false; and for sedition, it is that which every libel
+     carries in itself: and as every trespass implies _vi and
+     armis_, so every libel against the government carries in it
+     sedition, and all the other epithets that are in the
+     information. This is my opinion as to law in general. I will
+     not debate the prerogatives of the king, nor the privileges
+     of the subject; but as this fact is, I think these venerable
+     bishops did meddle with that which did not belong to them;
+     they took upon them, in a petitionary, to contradict the
+     actual exercise of the government, which I think no
+     particular persons, or singular body, may do."[37]
+
+[Footnote 37: 12 St. Tr. 427, 428, 429.]
+
+Listen, Gentlemen of the Jury, to the words of Attorney-General
+Powis:--
+
+     "And I cannot omit here to take notice, that _there is not
+     any one thing that the law is more jealous of_, or does more
+     carefully provide for the prevention and punishment of,
+     _than all accusations and arraignments of the government. No
+     man is allowed to accuse even the most inferior magistrate
+     of any misbehavior in his office_, unless it be in a legal
+     course, _though the fact is true_. No man may say of a
+     justice of the peace, to his face, that he is unjust in his
+     office. _No man may tell a judge, either by word or
+     petition, you have given an unjust, or an ill judgment_, and
+     I will not obey it; _it is against the rules and laws of the
+     kingdom, or the like_. No man may say of the great men of
+     the nation, much less of the great officers of the kingdom,
+     that they do act unreasonably or unjustly, or the like;
+     least of all may any man say any such thing of the king; for
+     these matters tend to possess the people, that the
+     government is ill administered; and the consequence of that
+     is, to set them upon desiring a reformation; and what that
+     tends to, and will end in, we have all had a sad and too
+     dear bought experience."[38]
+
+[Footnote 38: 12 St. Tr. 281.]
+
+Hearken to the law of Solicitor-General Williams:--
+
+     "If any person have slandered the government in writing, you
+     are _not to examine the truth of that fact_ in such writing,
+     but the slander which it imports to the king or government;
+     and _be it never so true_, yet if slanderous to the king or
+     the government, _it is a libel and to be punished_; in that
+     case, _the right or wrong_ is _not to be examined, or if
+     what was done by the government be legal, or no_; but
+     whether the party have done such an act. If the king have a
+     power (for still I keep to that), to issue forth
+     proclamations to his subjects, and to make orders and
+     constitutions in matters ecclesiastical, if he do issue
+     forth his proclamation, and make an order upon the matters
+     within his power and prerogative; and if any one would come
+     and bring that power in question otherwise than in
+     parliament, that the matter of that proclamation be not
+     legal, I say that is sedition, and you are not to examine
+     the legality or illegality of the order or proclamation, but
+     the slander and reflection upon the government."
+
+     "If a person do a thing that is libellous, you shall not
+     examine the fact, but the consequence of it; whether it
+     tended to stir up sedition against the public, or to stir up
+     strife between man and man, in the case of private persons;
+     as if a man should say of a judge, he has taken a bribe, and
+     I will prove it.
+
+     "They tell the king it is inconsistent with their honor,
+     prudence, and conscience, to do what he would have them to
+     do. And if these things be not reflective upon the king and
+     government, I know not what is.
+
+     "I'll tell you what they should have done, Sir. If they were
+     commanded to do any thing against _their consciences, they
+     should have acquiesced till the meeting of the parliament_.
+     [At which some people in the court hissed.]
+
+     "_If the king will impose upon a man what he cannot do, he
+     must acquiesce_; but shall he come and fly in the face of
+     his prince? Shall he say it is illegal? and the prince acts
+     against prudence, honor, or conscience, and throw dirt in
+     the king's face? Sure that is not permitted; that is
+     libelling with a witness."[39]
+
+[Footnote 39: 12 St. Tr. 415, 416, 417.]
+
+Here, however, there was a JURY--the seven bishops were acquitted amid
+the tumultuous huzzas of the people, who crowded all the open spaces
+in the neighborhood of Westminster Hall, and rent the air with their
+shouts, which even the soldiers repeated.[40]
+
+[Footnote 40: See 2 Campbell's Justices, 95.]
+
+Two of the Judges--Sir John Powell and Sir Richard Holloway--stood out
+for law and justice, declaring such a petition to the King was not a
+libel. They were presently thrust from their offices.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, the Stuarts soon filled up the measure of their
+time as of their iniquity, and were hustled from the throne of
+England. But, alas, I shall presently remind you of some examples of
+this tyranny in New England itself. Now I shall cite a few similar
+cases of oppression which happened in the reign of the last King of
+New England.
+
+I just now spoke of Edmund Thurlow, showing what his character was and
+by what means he gained his various offices, ministerial and judicial.
+I will next show you one instance more of the evil which comes from
+putting in office such men as are nothing but steps whereon despotism
+mounts up to its bad eminence.
+
+10. On the 8th of June, 1775,--it will be eighty years on the first
+anniversary of Judge Curtis's charge to the grand-jury,--John Horne,
+better known by his subsequent name John Horne Tooke, formerly a
+clergyman but then a scholarly man devoting himself to letters and
+politics--published the following notice in the _Morning Chronicle and
+London Advertiser_, as well as other newspapers:--
+
+     "King's-Arms Tavern, Cornhill, June 7, 1775. At a special
+     meeting this day of several members of the Constitutional
+     Society, during an adjournment, a gentleman proposed that a
+     subscription should be immediately entered into by such of
+     the members present who might approve the purpose, for
+     raising the sum of £100, to be applied to the relief of the
+     widows, orphans, and aged parents of our beloved American
+     fellow-subjects, who, faithful to the character of
+     Englishmen, preferring death to slavery, were for that
+     reason only inhumanly murdered by the king's troops at or
+     near Lexington and Concord, in the province of
+     Massachusetts, on the 19th of last April; which sum being
+     immediately collected, it was thereupon resolved that Mr.
+     Horne do pay to-morrow into the hands of Mess. Brownes and
+     Collinson, on account of Dr. Franklin, the said sum of
+     100_l._ and that Dr. Franklin be requested to apply the same
+     to the above-mentioned purpose."
+
+At that time Thurlow, whom I introduced to you a little while ago, was
+Attorney-General, looking for further promotion from the Tory
+Government of Lord North. Mansfield was Chief Justice, a man of great
+ability, who has done so much to reform the English law, but whose
+hostility to America was only surpassed by the hatred which he bore to
+all freedom of speech and the rights of the Jury. The Government was
+eager to crush the liberty of the American Colonies. But this was a
+difficult matter, for in England itself there was a powerful party
+friendly to America, who took our side in the struggle for liberty.
+The city of London, however, was hostile to us, wishing to destroy our
+merchants and manufacturers, who disturbed the monopoly of that
+commercial metropolis. The government thought it necessary to punish
+any man who ventured to oppose their tyranny and sympathize with
+America. Accordingly it was determined that Mr. Horne should be
+brought to trial. But as public opinion, stimulated by Erskine, Camden
+and others, favored the rights of the Jury, it seems to have been
+thought dangerous to trust the case to a Grand-Jury. Perhaps the Judge
+had no brother-in-law to put on it, or the Attorney-General--though
+famous also for his profanity,--doubted that any _swearing_ of his
+would insure a bill; nay, perhaps he did not venture to "bet ten
+dollars that I will get an indictment against him." Be that as it may,
+the Attorney-General dispensed with the services of the Grand-Jury and
+filed an information _ex officio_ against Mr. Horne, therein styling
+him a "wicked, malicious, seditious, and ill-disposed person;"
+charging him, by that advertisement, with "wickedly, maliciously, and
+seditiously intending, designing, and venturing to stir up and excite
+discontents and sedition;" "to cause it to be believed that divers of
+his Majesty's innocent and deserving subjects had been inhumanly
+murdered by ... his Majesty's troops; and unlawfully and wickedly to
+encourage his Majesty's subjects in the said Province of Massachusetts
+to resist and oppose his Majesty's Government." He said the
+advertisement was "a false, wicked, malicious, scandalous, and
+seditious libel;" "full of ribaldry, Billingsgate, scurrility,
+balderdash, and impudence;" "wicked is a term too high for this
+advertisement;" "its impudence disarmed its wickedness." In short, Mr.
+Horne was accused of "resisting an officer," obstructing the execution
+of the "process" whereby the American Provinces were to be made the
+slave colonies of a metropolitan despotism. The usual charge of doing
+all this by "force and arms," was of course thrown in. The publication
+of the advertisement was declared a "crime of such heinousness and of
+such a size as fairly called for the highest resentment which any
+court of justice has thought proper to use with respect to crimes of
+this denomination;" "a libel such that it is impossible by any
+artifice to aggravate it;" "It will be totally impossible for the
+imagination of any man, however shrewd, to state a libel more
+scandalous and base in the fact imputed, more malignant and hostile to
+the country in which the libeller is born, more dangerous in the
+example if it were suffered to pass unpunished, than this:" "It is in
+language addressed to the lowest and most miserable mortals, ... it is
+addressed to the lowest of the mob, and the bulk of the people, who it
+is fit should be otherwise taught, who it is fit should be otherwise
+governed in this country."
+
+Mr. Horne was brought to trial on the 4th of July, 1777. He defended
+himself, but though a vigorous writer, he was not a good speaker, and
+was in a strange place, while "Thurlow fought on his own dunghill,"
+says Lord Campbell, "and throughout the whole day had the advantage
+over him." There was a special jury packed for the purpose by the
+hireling sheriff,--a "London jury" famous for corruption,--a
+tyrannical and powerful judge, ready to turn every weapon of the court
+against the defendant and to construct law against the liberty of
+speech. Of course Mr. Horne was convicted.
+
+But how should he be punished? Thurlow determined.
+
+     "My Lords, the punishments to be inflicted upon misdemeanors
+     of this sort, have usually been of three different kinds;
+     fine, corporal punishment by imprisonment, and infamy by the
+     judgment of the pillory. With regard to the _fine_, it is
+     impossible for justice to make this sort of punishment,
+     however the infamy will always fall upon the offender;
+     because it is well known, that men who have more wealth, who
+     have better and more respectful situations and reputations
+     to be watchful over, employ men in desperate situations both
+     of circumstances and characters, in order to do that which
+     serves their party purposes; and when the punishment comes
+     to be inflicted, this court must have regard to the apparent
+     situation and circumstances of the man employed, that is, of
+     the man convicted, with regard to the punishment.
+
+     "With regard to _imprisonment_, that is a species of
+     punishment not to be considered alike in all cases, but ...,
+     that it would be proper for the judgment of the court to
+     state circumstances which will make the imprisonment fall
+     lighter or heavier, ... that would be proper, if I had not
+     been spared all trouble upon that account, by hearing it
+     solemnly avowed ... by the defendant himself, that
+     imprisonment was no kind of inconvenience to him; for that
+     certain employments, ... would occasion his confinement in
+     so close a way, that it was mere matter of circumstance
+     whether it happened in one place or another; and that the
+     longest imprisonment which this court could inflict for
+     punishment, was not beyond the reach of accommodation which
+     those occasions rendered necessary to him. In this respect,
+     therefore, imprisonment is not only, ... not an adequate
+     punishment to the offence, but the public are told, ... that
+     it will be _no punishment_.
+
+     "I stated in the third place to your Lordships, _the pillory
+     to have been the usual punishment for this species of
+     offence_. I apprehend it to have been so, in this case, for
+     above two hundred years before the time when prosecutions
+     grew rank in the Star-Chamber ... the punishment of the
+     pillory was inflicted, not only during the time that such
+     prosecutions were rank in the Star-Chamber, but it also
+     continued to be inflicted upon this sort of crime, and that
+     by the best authority, after the time of the abolishing the
+     Star-Chamber, after the time of the Revolution, and while my
+     Lord Chief Justice Holt sat in this court.
+
+     "I would desire no better, no more pointed, nor any more
+     applicable argument than what that great chief justice used,
+     when it was contended before him that an abuse upon
+     government, upon the administration of several parts of
+     government, amounted to nothing, because there was no abuse
+     upon any particular man. That great chief justice said, they
+     amounted to much more; they are _an abuse upon all men_.
+     Government cannot exist, if the law cannot restrain that
+     sort of abuse. Government cannot exist, unless ... the full
+     punishment is inflicted which the most approved times have
+     given to offences of much less denomination than these, of
+     much less. I am sure it cannot be shown, that in any one of
+     the cases that were punished in that manner, the
+     aggravations of any one of those offences were any degree
+     adequate to those which are presented to your Lordship now.
+     If offences were so punished then, which are not so punished
+     now, they lose that expiation which the wisdom of those ages
+     thought proper to hold out to the public, as a restraint
+     from such offences being committed again.
+
+     "I am to judge of crimes in order to the prosecution; your
+     lordship is to judge of them ultimately for punishment. I
+     should have been extremely sorry, if I had been induced by
+     any consideration whatever, to have brought a crime of the
+     magnitude which this was (of the magnitude which this was
+     when I first stated it) into a court of justice, if I had
+     not had it in my contemplation also that it would meet with
+     an adequate restraint, which I never thought would be done
+     without affixing to it the _judgment of the pillory_; I
+     should have been very sorry to have brought this man here,
+     after all the aggravations that he has superinduced upon the
+     offence itself, if I had not been persuaded that those
+     aggravations would have induced the _judgment of the
+     pillory_."[41]
+
+[Footnote 41: 20 St. Tr. 780-783.]
+
+But Mansfield thought otherwise, and punished him with a fine of £200
+and imprisonment for twelve months.[42]
+
+[Footnote 42: 20 St. Tr. 651; 5 Campbell, 415.]
+
+"Thus," says Lord Brougham, "a bold and just denunciation of the
+attacks made upon our American Brethren, which nowadays would rank
+among the very mildest and tamest effusions of the periodical press,
+condemned him to prison for twelve months."[43]
+
+[Footnote 43: Statesmen, 2 Series, 109.]
+
+Thurlow was a man of low intellect, of a fierce countenance, a saucy,
+swaggering, insolent manner, debauched in his morals beyond the
+grossness of that indecent age,--ostentatiously living in public
+concubinage,--a notorious swearer in public and private. But he knew
+no law above the will of the hand that fed and could advance him, no
+justice which might check the insolence of power. And in less than a
+month after Mr. Horne was sent to jail, Thurlow was made Lord
+Chancellor of England, and sat on the woolsack in the House of Lords.
+His chief panegyrist can only say, "in worse times there have been
+worse chancellors." "But an age of comparative freedom and refinement
+has rarely exhibited one who so ill understood, or at least so ill
+discharged, the functions of a statesman and legislator."
+
+I will enrich this part of my argument with an example of the opinions
+of this Judge, which would endear him to the present administration
+in America, and entitle him to a high place among southern
+politicians. In 1788 a bill was brought into Parliament to mitigate
+the horrors of the African slave-trade. The Lord Chancellor, Thurlow,
+opposed it and said:--
+
+     "It appears that the French have offered premiums to
+     encourage the African [slave] trade, and that they have
+     succeeded. The natural presumption therefore is, that _we
+     ought to do the same_. For my part, my Lords, I have no
+     scruple to say that if the 'five days' fit of philanthropy'
+     [the attempt to abolish the slave-trade] which has just
+     sprung up, and which has slept for twenty years together,
+     were allowed to sleep one summer longer, it would appear to
+     me rather more wise than thus to take up a subject
+     piecemeal, which it has been publicly declared ought not to
+     be agitated at all till next session of Parliament. Perhaps,
+     by such imprudence, the slaves themselves may be prompted by
+     their own authority, to proceed at once to a 'total and
+     immediate abolition of the trade.' One witness has come to
+     your Lordship's bar with a face of woe--his eyes full of
+     tears, and his countenance fraught with horror, and said,
+     '_My Lords, I am ruined if you pass this bill! I have risked
+     £30,000 on the trade this year! It is all I have been able
+     to gain by my industry, and if I lose it I must go to the
+     hospital!_' I desire of you to think of such things, my
+     Lords, in your _humane phrensy, and to show some humanity to
+     the whites as well as to the negroes_."[44]
+
+[Footnote 44: 5 Campbell, 460; 27 Parl. Hist. 638.]
+
+One measure of tyranny in the hands of such Judges is Constructive
+Crime, a crime which the revengeful, or the purchased judge distils
+out of an honest or a doubtful deed, in the alembic he has made out of
+the law broken up and recast by him for that purpose, twisted, drawn
+out, and coiled up in serpentine and labyrinthine folds. For as the
+sweet juices of the grape, the peach, the apple, pear, or plumb may be
+fermented, and then distilled into the most deadly intoxicating
+draught to madden man and infuriate woman, so by the sophistry of a
+State's Attorney and a Court Judge, well trained for this work, out of
+innocent actions, and honest, manly speech, the most ghastly crimes
+can be extorted, and then the "leprous distilment" be poured upon the
+innocent victim,
+
+     "And a most instant tetter barks about,
+     Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust,
+     All his smooth body!"
+
+Here is an example. In 1668 some London apprentices committed a riot
+by pulling down some houses of ill-fame in Moorfields, which had
+become a nuisance to the neighborhood; they shouted "Down with Bawdy
+Houses." Judge Kelyng had them indicted for High Treason. He said it
+was "an accroachment of royal authority." It was "levying war." He
+thus laid down the law. "The prisoners are indicted for levying war
+against the King. By levying war is not only meant when a body is
+gathered together as an army, but if a _company of people will go
+about any public reformation, this is high treason_. These people do
+pretend their design was against brothels; now let men to go about to
+pull down brothels, with a captain [an apprentice "walked about with a
+green apron on a pole"] and an ensign and weapons,--if this thing be
+endured, _who is safe_? It is high treason because it doth betray the
+peace of the nation, and _every subject is as much wronged as the
+King_; for if every man may reform what he will, no man is safe;
+therefore the thing is of desperate consequence, and we must make this
+for a public example. There is reason why we should be very cautious;
+we are but recently delivered from rebellion [Charles I. had been
+executed nineteen years before, and his son had been in peaceable
+possession of the throne for eight years], and we know that that
+rebellion first began under the pretence of religion and the law; for
+the Devil hath always this vizard upon it. We have great reason to be
+very wary that we fall not again into the same error. Apprentices for
+the future shall not go on in this manner. It proved that Beasly went
+as their captain with his sword, and flourished it over his head [this
+was the "weapons,"] and that Messenger walked about Moorfields with a
+green apron on the top of a pole [this was the "ensign"]. What was
+done by one, was done by all; in high treason all concerned are
+principals."[45]
+
+[Footnote 45: 1 Campbell's Justices, 404-5; Kelyng's Reports, 70.]
+
+Thereupon thirteen apprentices who had been concerned in a riot were
+found guilty of high treason, sentenced, and four hanged. All of the
+eleven Judges--Twysden was one of them--concurred in the sentence,
+except Sir Matthew Hale. He declared there was no treason committed;
+there was "but an unruly company of apprentices."[46]
+
+[Footnote 46: 6 St. Tr. 879, note 911.]
+
+This same Judge Kelyng, singularly thick-headed and ridiculous, loved
+to construct crimes where the law made none. Thus he declares, "in
+cases of high treason, if any one do any thing by which he showeth his
+_liking_ and _approbation_ to the Traitorous Design, this is in him
+High Treason. For all are Principals in High Treason, who contribute
+towards it by Action or Approbation."[47] He held it was an overt act
+of treason to print a "treasonable proposition," such as this, "The
+execution of Judgment and Justice is as well the people's as the
+magistrates' duty, and if the magistrates pervert Judgment, the people
+are bound by the law of God to execute judgment without them and upon
+them."[48] So the printer of the book, containing the "treasonable
+proposition," was executed. A man, by name Axtell, who commanded the
+guards which attended at the trial and execution of Charles I., was
+brought to trial for treason. He contended that he acted as a soldier
+by the command of his superior officer, whom he must obey, or die. But
+it was resolved that "that was no excuse, for his superior was a
+Traitor and all that joined with him in that act were Traitors, and
+did by that approve the Treason, and when the command is Traitorous,
+then the Obedience to that Command is also Traitorous." So Axtell must
+die. The same rule of course smote at the head of any private soldier
+who served in the ranks![49]
+
+[Footnote 47: Kelyng's Reports, 12.]
+
+[Footnote 48: Ibid. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 49: Kelyng's Reports, 13.]
+
+These wicked constructions of treason by the court, out of small
+offences or honest actions, continued until Mr. Erskine attacked them
+with his Justice, and with his eloquence exposed them to the
+indignation of mankind, and so shamed the courts into humanity and
+common sense.[50] Yet still the same weapon lies hid under the
+Judicial bench as well of England as of America, whence any malignant
+or purchased Judge, when it suits his personal whim or public
+ambition, may draw it forth, and smite at the fortune, the reputation,
+or the life of any innocent man he has a private grudge against, but
+dares not meet in open day. Of this, Gentlemen of the Jury, in due
+time.
+
+[Footnote 50: See his Defence of Hardy, 24 St. Tr. 877.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The mass of men, busy with their honest work, are not aware what power
+is left in the hands of judges--wholly irresponsible to the people;
+few men know how they often violate the laws they are nominally set to
+administer. Let me take but a single form of this judicial
+iniquity--the Use of Torture, borrowing my examples from the history
+of our mother country.
+
+In England the use of torture has never been conformable either to
+common or to statute law; but how often has it been practised by a
+corrupt administration and wicked judges! In 1549 Lord Seymour of
+Sudley, Admiral of England, was put to the torture;[51] in 1604 Guy
+Fawkes was "horribly racked."[52] Peacham was repeatedly put to
+torture as you have just now heard, and that in the presence of Lord
+Bacon himself in 1614.[53] Peacock was racked in 1620, Bacon and Coke
+both signing the warrant for this illegal wickedness,--"he deserveth
+it as well as Peacham did," said the Lord Chancellor, making his own
+"ungodly custom" stand for law.[54] In 1627 the Lord Deputy of Ireland
+wanted to torture two priests, and Charles I. gave him license, the
+privy council consenting--"all of one mind that he might rack the
+priests if he saw fit, and hang them if he found reason!"[55] In 1628
+the judges of England solemnly decided that torture was unlawful; but
+it had always been so,--and Yelverton, one of the judges, was a member
+of the commission which stretched Peacham on the rack.[56] Yet, spite
+of this decision, torture still held its old place, and a warrant from
+the year 1610 still exists for inflicting this illegal atrocity on a
+victim of the court.[57] Yet even so late as 1804, when Thomas Pictou,
+governor of Trinidad, put a woman to tortures of the most cruel
+character, by the connivance of the court he entirely escaped from all
+judicial punishment.[58] Yes, torture was long continued in England
+itself, though not always by means of thumbscrews and Scottish boots
+and Spanish racks; the monstrous chains, the damp cells, the perpetual
+irritation which corrupt servants of a despotic court tormented their
+victims withal, was the old demon under another name.[59] Nay, within
+a few months the newspapers furnish us with examples of Americans
+being put to the torture of the lash to force a confession of their
+alleged crime--and this has been done by the power which this court
+has long been so zealous to support--the Slave Power of America.
+
+[Footnote 51: See 2 St. Tr. 774, note.]
+
+[Footnote 52: 1 Jardine, Crim. Tr. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 53: 2 St. Tr. 871.]
+
+[Footnote 54: 1 Jardine, 19.]
+
+[Footnote 55: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 56: 3 St. Tr. 371. See 30 St. Tr. 892.]
+
+[Footnote 57: 1 Jardine, 20. See Emlyn, Preface to St. Tr. in 1
+Hargrave, p. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 58: 30 St. Tr. 225.]
+
+[Footnote 59: See case of Huggins in 17 St. Tr. 297, 309.]
+
+It has been well said:--
+
+     "It must be owned that the Guards and Fences of the law have
+     not always proved an effectual security for the subject. The
+     Reader will ... find many Instances wherein they who hold
+     the sword of Justice did not employ it as they ought to in
+     punishment of Evil-Doers, but to the Oppression and
+     Destruction of Men more righteous than themselves. Indeed it
+     is scarce possible to frame a Body of Laws which a
+     tyrannical Prince, influenced by wicked Counsellors and
+     corrupt Judges, may not be able to break through.... The Law
+     itself is a dead letter. Judges are the interpreters of it,
+     and if they prove men of no Conscience nor Integrity, they
+     will give what sense they will to it, however different from
+     the true one; and when they are supported by superior
+     authority, will for a while prevail, till by repeated
+     iniquities they grow intolerable and throw the State into
+     convulsions which may at last end in their own ruin. This
+     shows how valuable a Blessing is an upright and learned
+     Judge, and of what great concern it is to the public that
+     none be preferred to that office but such whose Ability and
+     Integrity may be safely depended on."[60]
+
+[Footnote 60: 1 Hargrave's St. Tr. 6.]
+
+Thus, Gentlemen of the Jury, is it that judges who know no law but the
+will of "the hand that feeds them," appointed for services rendered to
+the enemies of mankind and looking for yet higher rewards, have sought
+to establish the despotism of their masters on the ruin of the People.
+But the destruction of obnoxious individuals is not the whole of their
+enormity; so I come to the next part of the subject.
+
+(III.) The next step is for such judges to interpret, wrest, and
+pervert the laws so as to prepare for prospective Acts of Tyranny.
+
+Here, Gentlemen of the Jury, I shall have only too many examples to
+warn you with.
+
+Early in his reign James I. sought to lay burthensome taxes on the
+people without any act of Parliament; this practice was continued by
+his successors.
+
+1. In 1606 came "the great Case of Impositions," not mentioned in the
+ordinary histories of England. The king assumed the right to tax the
+nation by his own prerogative. He ordered a duty of five shillings on
+every hundred pounds of currants imported into the kingdom to be
+levied in addition to the regular duty affixed by Act of Parliament.
+This was contrary to law, nay, to the Constitution of England, her
+Magna Charta itself provided against unparliamentary taxation. Sir
+John Bates, a London merchant, refused to pay the unlawful duty, and
+was prosecuted by information in the Star-Chamber. "The courts of
+justice," says Mr. Hallam, "did not consist of men conscientiously
+impartial between the king and the subject; some corrupt with hopes of
+promotion, many more fearful of removal, or awe-struck by the fear of
+power." On the "trial" it was abundantly shown that the king had no
+right to levy such a duty. "The accomplished but too pliant judges,
+and those indefatigable hunters of precedents for violations of
+constitutional government, the great law-officers of the crown,"
+decided against the laws, and Chief Justice Fleming maintained that
+the king might lay what tax he pleased on imported goods! The corrupt
+decision settled the law for years--and gave the king absolute power
+over this branch of the revenue, involving a complete destruction of
+the liberty of the people,--for the Principle would carry a thousand
+measures on its back.[61] The king declared Fleming a judge to his
+"heart's content." Bacon's subserviency did not pass unrewarded. Soon
+after James issued a decree under the great seal, imposing heavy
+duties on almost all merchandise "to be for ever hereafter paid to the
+king and his successors, on pain of his displeasure."[62] Thus the
+Measure became a Principle.
+
+[Footnote 61: 2 St. Tr. 371, and 11 Hargrave, 29; 1 Campbell's
+Justices, 204.]
+
+[Footnote 62: 1 Hallam, 231. See 1 Parl. Hist. 1030, 1132, 1150;
+Baker's Chronicle, 430.]
+
+2. James, wanting funds, demanded of his subjects forced contributions
+of money,--strangely called "Benevolences," though there was no
+"good-will" on either side. It was clearly against the fundamental
+laws of the kingdom. Sir Oliver St. John refused to pay what was
+demanded of him, and wrote a letter to the mayor of Marlborough
+against the illegal exaction. For this he was prosecuted in the
+Star-Chamber in 1615 by Attorney-General Bacon. The court, with Lord
+Chancellor Ellesmere at its head, of course decided that the king had
+a right to levy Benevolences at pleasure. St. John was fined five
+thousand pounds, and punished by imprisonment during the king's
+pleasure. This decision gave the king absolute power over all property
+in the realm,--every private purse was in his hands![63] With such a
+court the king might well say, "Wheare any controversyes arise, my
+Lordes the Judges chosene betwixte me and my people shall discide and
+rulle me."[64]
+
+[Footnote 63: 2 St. Tr. 899; 1 Hallam, 251; 2 Campbell, 291.]
+
+[Footnote 64: 1 Parl. Hist. 1156.]
+
+3. Charles I. proceeded in the steps of his father: he levied forced
+loans. Thomas Darnel and others refused to pay, and were put in prison
+on a General Warrant from the king which did not specify the cause of
+commitment. They brought their writs of _habeas corpus_, contending
+that their confinement was illegal. The matter came to trial in 1627.
+Sir Randolf Crewe, a man too just to be trusted to do the iniquity
+desired, was thrust out of office, and Sir Nicolas Hyde appointed
+chief justice in his place. The actual question was, Has the king a
+right to imprison any subject forever without process of law? It was
+abundantly shown that he had no such right. But the new chief justice,
+put in power to oppress the people, remembering the hand that fed him,
+thus decreed,--"Mr. Attorney hath told you that the _king hath done
+it, and we trust him in great matters_, and he is bound by law, and he
+bids us proceed by law; ... and we make no doubt but _the king_, if
+you look to him, he knowing the cause why you are imprisoned, _he will
+have mercy_; but that we believe that ... he cannot deliver you, but
+_you must be remanded_." Thus the judges gave the king absolute power
+over the liberties of any subject.[65]
+
+[Footnote 65: 3 St. Tr. 1. See also 2 Parl. Hist. 288; 1 Rushworth and
+1 Mrs. Macaulay, 341.]
+
+But the matter was brought up in Parliament and discussed by men of a
+different temper, who frightened the judge by threats of impeachment,
+and forced the king to agree to the PETITION OF RIGHT designed to put
+an end to all such illegal cruelty. Before Charles I. would sign that
+famous bill, he asked Judge Hyde if it would restrain the king "from
+committing or restraining a subject _without showing cause_." The
+crafty judge answered, "_Every law_, after it is made, _hath its
+exposition, which is to be left to the courts of justice to
+determine_; and although the Petition be granted _there is no fear of
+[such a] conclusion as is intimated in the question_!" That is, the
+court will interpret the plain law so as to oppress the subject and
+please the king! As the judges had promised to annul the law, the
+king signed it.[66] Charles dissolved Parliament and threw into jail
+its most noble and powerful members--one of whom, Eliot, never left
+the prison till death set him free.[67] The same chief justice gave an
+extrajudicial opinion justifying the illegal seizure of the
+members,--"that a parliament man committing an offence against the
+King in Parliament not in a parliamentary course, may be punished
+after the Parliament is ended;" "that by false slanders to bring the
+Lords of the Council and the Judges, not in a parliamentary way, into
+the hatred of the people and the government into contempt, was
+punishable out of Parliament, in the Star-Chamber, as an offence
+committed in Parliament beyond the office, and beside the duty of a
+parliament man."[68] Thus the judges struck down freedom of speech in
+Parliament.
+
+[Footnote 66: 1 Campbell, Justices, 311; 2 Parl. Hist. 245, 350, 373,
+408, _et al._; 3 St. Tr. 59.]
+
+[Footnote 67: See above, p. 29.]
+
+[Footnote 68: 1 Campbell's Justices, 315.]
+
+4. In 1634 Charles I. issued a writ levying ship-money, so called, on
+some seaport towns, without act of Parliament. London and some towns
+remonstrated, but were forced to submit, all the courts being against
+them. Chief Justice Finch, "a servile tool of the despotic court,"
+generalized this unlawful tax, extending it to inland towns as well as
+seaboard, to all the kingdom. All landholders were to be assessed in
+proportion to their property, and the tax, if not voluntarily paid,
+collected by force. The tax was unpopular, and clearly against the
+fundamental law of the kingdom. But if the government could not get
+the law on its side it could control its interpreters, for "every law
+hath its exposition." So the Judges of Assize were ordered in their
+circuits to tell the people to _comply with the order and pay the
+money_! The King got all extrajudicial opinion of the twelve Judges
+delivered irregularly, out of court, in which they unanimously
+declared that in time of danger the _King might levy such tax as he
+saw fit, and compel men to pay it_. He was the sole judge of the
+danger, and of the amount of the tax.[69]
+
+[Footnote 69: 3 St. Tr. 825. See the opinion of the Judges with their
+twelve names, 844, and note [dagger symbol].]
+
+John Hampden was taxed twenty shillings--he refused to pay, though he
+knew well the fate of Richard Chambers a few years before. The case
+came to trial in 1637, in the Court of Exchequer before Lord
+Chancellor Coventry, a base creature, mentioned before. It was "the
+great case of Ship-money." The ablest lawyers in England showed that
+the tax was contrary to Magna Charta, to the fundamental laws of the
+realm, to the Petition of Right and to the practice of the kingdom.
+Hampden was defeated. Ten out of the twelve Judges sided with the
+King. Croke as the eleventh had made up his mind to do the same, but
+his noble wife implored him not to sacrifice his conscience for fear
+of danger, and the Woman, as it so often happens, saved the man.[70]
+Attorney-General Banks thus set forth the opinion of the Government,
+and the consequent "decision" of the Judges. He rested the right of
+levying Ship-money on the "intrinsic, absolute authority of the King."
+There was no Higher Law in Old England in 1634! Banks said, "this
+power [of arbitrary and irresponsible taxation] is innate in the
+person of an absolute King, and in the persons of the Kings of
+England. All-magistracy it is of nature; and obedience and subjection
+[to] it is of nature. This power is not anyways derived from the
+people, but reserved unto the King when positive laws first began. For
+the King of England, he is an absolute monarch; nothing can be given
+to an absolute prince but what is inherent in his person. He can do no
+wrong. He is the sole judge and we ought not to question him, whom the
+law trusts we ought not to distrust." "The Acts of Parliament contain
+no express words to take away so high a prerogative; and the King's
+prerogative, even in lesser matters, is always saved, where express
+words do not restrain it."[71]
+
+[Footnote 70: Whitelocke, Memor. 25.]
+
+[Footnote 71: 2 Hallam, 16.]
+
+It required six months of judicial labor to bring forth this result,
+which was of "infinite disservice to the crown." Thereupon Mr. Hallam
+says:--
+
+     "Those who had trusted to the faith of the judges were
+     undeceived by the honest repentance of some, and looked with
+     indignation on so prostituted a crew. That respect for
+     courts of justice which the happy structure of our Judicial
+     administration has in general kept inviolate, was exchanged
+     for distrust, contempt, and a desire of vengeance. They
+     heard the speeches of some of the Judges with more
+     displeasure than even their final decision. Ship-money was
+     held lawful by Finch and several other Judges, not on the
+     authority of precedents which must in their nature have some
+     bounds, but on principles subversive of every property or
+     privilege in the subject. Those paramount rights of
+     monarchy, to which they appealed to-day in justification of
+     Ship-money, might to-morrow serve to supersede other laws,
+     and maintain more exertions of despotic power. It was
+     manifest by the whole strain of the court lawyers that no
+     limitations on the King's authority could exist but by the
+     King's sufferance. This alarming tenet, long bruited among
+     the churchmen and courtiers, now resounded in the halls of
+     justice."[72]
+
+[Footnote 72: 2 Hallam, 18.]
+
+Thus by the purchased vote of a corrupt Judiciary all the laws of
+Parliament, all the customs of the Anglo-Saxon tribe, Magna Charta
+itself with its noble attendant charters, were at once swept away, and
+all the property of the kingdom put into the hands of the enemy of the
+People. These four decisions would make the King of England as
+absolute as the Sultan of Turkey, or the Russian Czar. If the opinion
+of the Judges in the case of Impositions and Ship-money were accepted
+in law,--then all the Property of the People was the King's; if the
+courts were correct in their judgments giving the King the power by
+his mere will to imprison any subject, during pleasure, and also to do
+the same even with members of Parliament and punish them for debates
+in the House of Commons, then all liberty was at an end, and the
+King's Prerogative extended over all acts of Parliament, all property,
+all persons.
+
+5. One step more must be taken to make the logic of despotism perfect,
+and complete the chain. That work was delegated to clergymen purchased
+for the purpose--Rev. Dr. Robert Sibthorpe and Rev. Dr. Roger
+Mainwaring. The first in a sermon "of rendering all their dues,"
+preached and printed in 1627, says, "the Prince who is the Head, and
+makes his Court and Council, it is his duty to direct and make laws.
+'He doth whatsoever pleaseth him;' 'where the word of the King is
+there is power, and who may say unto him, What doest thou?'" And
+again, "If Princes command any thing which subjects may not perform,
+because it is against the Laws of God, or of Nature, or impossible;
+yet Subjects are bound to undergo the punishment, without either
+resisting, or railing, or reviling, and are to yield a Passive
+Obedience where they cannot exhibit an Active one, ... but in all
+others he is bound to active obedience."[73]
+
+[Footnote 73: Cited in Franklyn, 208; 1 Rushworth, 422, 436, 444.]
+
+Mainwaring went further, and in two famous sermons--preached, one on
+the 4th of July, 1628, the other on the 29th of the same
+month--declared that "the King is not bound to observe the Laws of the
+Realm concerning the Subject's Rights and Liberties, but that his
+_Royal will and Command_, in imposing Loans, and Taxes, without
+consent of Parliament, _doth oblige the subject's conscience upon pain
+of eternal damnation_. That those who refused to pay this Loan
+offended against the Law of God and the King's Supreme Authority, and
+became guilty of Impiety, Disloyalty, and Rebellion. And that the
+authority of Parliament is not necessary for the raising of Aid and
+Subsidies; and that the slow proceedings of such great Assemblies were
+not fitted for the Supply of the State's urgent necessities, but would
+rather produce sundry impediments to the just designs of Princes."
+"_That Kings partake of omnipotence with God._"[74]
+
+[Footnote 74: Franklyn, 208, 592. These two Sermons were published in
+a volume with the title "Religion and Allegiance."... "Published by
+his Majesty's special command." (London, 1628.) Prof. Stuart seems
+inspired by this title in giving a name to his remarkable
+publication--written with the same spirit as Dr. Mainwaring's--"Conscience
+and the Constitution." (Andover, 1851.) See 3 St. Tr. 335; 1
+Rushworth, 422, 436, 585, _et al._; 1 Hallam, 307; 2 Parl. Hist. 388,
+410.]
+
+The nation was enraged. Mainwaring was brought before Parliament,
+punished with fine and imprisonment and temporary suspension from
+office and perpetual disability for ecclesiastical preferment. But the
+King who ordered the publication of the sermons, and who doubtless had
+induced him to preach them, immediately made him Rector of Stamford
+Parish, soon appointed him Dean of Worcester, and finally in 1645 made
+him Bishop of St. David's. A few years ago such clerical apostasy
+would seem astonishing to an American. But now, Gentlemen of the Jury,
+so rapid has been the downfall of public virtue, that men filling the
+pulpits once graced and dignified by noblest puritanic piety, now
+publicly declare there is no law of God above the fugitive slave bill.
+Nay, a distinguished American minister boldly proclaimed his readiness
+to send his own Mother (or "Brother") into eternal bondage! Thus
+modern history explains the old; and the cheap bait of a republican
+bribe can seduce American dissenters, as the wealthy lure of royal
+gifts once drew British churchmen into the same pit of infamy. Alas,
+hypocrisy is of no sect or nation.
+
+Gentlemen, the Government of England once decreed "that every
+clergyman, four times in the year, should instruct his parishioners in
+the Divine right of Kings, and the damnable sin of resistance."[75] No
+Higher Law! America has ministers who need no act of Parliament to
+teach them to do the same; they run before they are sent.
+
+[Footnote 75: 2 Campbell, 460; 1 Rushworth, 1205.]
+
+6. After the head of one Stuart was shorn off and his son had
+returned, no wiser nor better than his father, the old progress of
+despotism began anew. I pass over what would but repeat the former
+history, and take two new examples to warn the nation with, differing
+from the old only in form.
+
+In 1672, Charles II. published a proclamation denouncing rigorous
+penalties against all such as _should speak disrespectfully of his
+acts_, or _hearing others thus speak should not immediately inform the
+magistrates_! Nay, in 1675, after he had sold himself to the French
+king, and was in receipt of an annual pension therefrom, he had this
+test-oath published for all to sign: "I do solemnly declare that _it
+is not lawful upon any pretence whatever to take up arms against the
+king_, ... and that _I will not_, at any time to come, _endeavor the
+alteration of the government_, either in Church or State."[76]
+
+[Footnote 76: Carroll's Counter Revolution (Lond. 1846), 99, _et
+seq._]
+
+An oath yet more stringent was enforced in Scotland with the edge of
+the sword, namely, to defend all the prerogatives of the crown, "_never
+without the king's permission to take part in any deliberations upon
+ecclesiastical or civil affairs; and never to seek any reform in
+Church or State_."
+
+Notwithstanding all that the Charleses had done to break down the
+liberty of Englishmen, still the great corporate towns held out,
+intrenched behind their charters, and from that bulwark both annoyed
+the despot and defended the civil rights of the citizen. They also
+must be destroyed. So summons of _quo warranto_ were served upon them,
+which frightened the smaller corporations and brought down their
+charters. Jeffreys was serviceable in this wicked work, and on his
+return from his Northern Circuit, rich with these infamous spoils, as
+a reward for destroying the liberties of his countrymen, the king
+publicly presented him with a ring, in token of "acceptance of his
+most eminent services." This fact was duly blazoned in the Gazette,
+and Jeffreys was "esteemed a mighty favorite," which, "together with
+his lofty airs, made all the charters, like the walls of Jericho, fall
+down before him, and he returned, laden with surrenders, the spoil of
+towns."[77]
+
+[Footnote 77: 8 St. Tr. 1038, and the quotations from North (Examen.)
+Sprat, and Roger Coke, in note on p. 1041, _et seq._ See, too, Fox,
+James II. p. 48, 54, and Appendix, Barillon's Letter of Dec. 7th,
+1684.]
+
+London still remained the strong-hold of commerce, of the Protestant
+Religion, and of liberal Ideas in domestic Government; for though
+subsequently corrupted by lust of gain, which sought a monopoly, the
+great commercial estates and families of England were not then on the
+side of Despotism, as now strangely happens in America.
+
+When the king sought to ruin Shaftesbury,--a corrupt man doubtless,
+but then on the side of liberty, the enemy of encroaching
+despotism,--a London Grand-Jury refused to find a bill, and was warmly
+applauded by the city. Their verdict of IGNORAMUS was a "personal
+liberty bill" for that time, and therefore was the king's wrath
+exceeding hot, for "Ignoramus was mounted in Cathedra," and there was
+a stop put to such wickedness. So London must be brought down. She
+refused to surrender her Charter. In 1682 the king proceeded to wrest
+it from her by the purchased hand of the courts of law. But even they
+were not quite adequate to the work. So Chief Justice Pemberton was
+displaced, and Saunders,--a man as offensive in his personal habit of
+body as he was corrupt in conduct and character--was put in his
+office. Dolbin, too just for the crime demanded of him, was turned
+out, and Withins made to succeed him. For "so great a weight was there
+at stake as could not be trusted to men of doubtful principles," says
+North. Saunders, who had plotted this whole matter, was struck with an
+apoplexy when sentence was to be given, but sent his opinion in
+writing. Thus on the judgment given by only two judges, who assigned
+no reasons for their decision, it was declared that the Charter of
+London was forfeit, and the liberties and franchises of the city
+should "be seized into the king's hands."[78]
+
+[Footnote 78: 2 Hallam, 333; Burnet, Own Times (London, 1838), 350; 8
+St. Tr. 1039, 1081 note, 1267, _et seq._; 2 Campbell, Justices, 63;
+North's Examen. 626; Fox, 54.]
+
+Thus fell the charter of London! Gentlemen of the Jury, the same sword
+was soon to strike at the neck of New England; the charter of
+Massachusetts could not be safe in such a time.
+
+In 1686 James II. wished to destroy Protestantism,--not that he loved
+the Roman form of religion, but that tyranny which it would help him
+get and keep. So he claimed the right by his royal prerogative to
+dispense with any laws of the land. Of the twelve Judges of England
+eight were found on his side, and the four unexpectedly proven
+faithful were at once dismissed from office and their places filled
+with courtiers of the king, and the court was unanimous that the king
+had a constitutional right to destroy the constitution. Then he had
+not only command of the purses of his subjects and their bodies, but
+also of their mind and conscience, and could dictate the actual
+Religion of the People as well as the official "religion" of the
+priests.[79]
+
+[Footnote 79: 11 St. Tr. 1165; 12 Ibid. 358.]
+
+One State-secret lay at the bottom of the Stuarts' plans,--to appoint
+base men for judges, and if by accident a just man came upon the
+bench, to keep him in obscurity or to hustle him from his post. What
+names they offer us--Kelyng, Finch, Saunders, Wright, Jeffreys,
+Scroggs![80] infamous creatures, but admirable instruments to destroy
+generous men withal and devise means for the annihilation of the
+liberties of the people. Historians commonly dwell on the fields of
+battle, recording the victories of humanity, whereof the pike and gun
+were instruments; but pass idly over the more important warfare which
+goes on in the court house, only a few looking on, where lawyers are
+the champions of mankind, and the battle turns on a sentence; nay, on
+a word which determines the welfare of a nation for ages to come. On
+such little hinges of law do the great gates hang, and open or shut to
+let in the happiness or the ruin of millions of men! Naseby and
+Worcester are important places truly, venerable for great deeds.
+Cromwell and Blake are names not likely to perish while men can
+appreciate the heroism which sheds blood. But Westminster Hall has
+rung with more important thunder than cannon ever spoke, and Pym and
+Selden, St. John and Hampden--nay, Penn, Bunyan, Fox, Lilburne--have
+done great service for mankind. Gentlemen of the Jury, it is a matter
+of great magnitude which hinges on the small question of fact and law
+to-day. You are to open or shut for Humanity. If the People make
+themselves sheep there will be wolves enough to eat you up.
+
+[Footnote 80: This last name is thought to be extinct in Great
+Britain, but I find one Thomas Scruggs _in Massachusetts_ in 1635 _et
+post_, 1 Mass. Records (1628-1641), index.]
+
+It is difficult to calculate the amount of evil wrought by such
+corrupt judges as I have spoken of; they poison the fountains of
+society. I need not speak of monsters like Scroggs and Jeffreys, whose
+names rot in perpetual infamy, but creatures less ignoble, like
+Wright, Saunders, Finch, Kelyng, Thurlow, Loughborough, and their
+coadjutors, must be regarded as far more dangerous than thieves,
+murderers, or pirates. A cruel, insolent Judge selecting the worst
+customs, the most oppressive statutes, and decisions which outrage
+human nature--what an amount of evil he can inflict on groaning
+humanity!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, in this long sad history of judicial tyranny in
+England there is one thing particularly plain: such judges hate
+freedom of speech, they would restrict the Press, the Tongue, yes, the
+Thought of mankind. Especially do they hate any man who examines the
+actions of the government and its servile courts, and their violation
+of justice and the laws. They wish to take exemplary and malignant
+vengeance on all such. Let me freshen your knowledge of some examples.
+
+1. In 1410 the government made a decree "that whatsoever they were
+that should rede the Scriptures in the mother tongue, they should
+forfeit land, catel, body, lif, and godes from their heyres forever,
+and so be condempned for heretykes to God, enemies to the crowne, and
+most errant traiters to the land." The next year, in _one day
+thirty-nine persons were first hanged and then burned for this
+"crime."_[81]
+
+[Footnote 81: 1 St. Tr. 252.]
+
+2. In 1590, Mr. Udall, a Puritan minister, published a book,
+"Demonstrations of Discipline," not agreeable to the authorities. He
+was brought to a trial for a Felony,--not merely a "misdemeanor." The
+jury were ordered by the judge to find him guilty of that crime if
+they were satisfied that he published the book,--for the court were to
+judge whether the deed amounted to that crime! He was found "guilty,"
+and died in jail after nearly three years of cruel confinement.[82]
+
+[Footnote 82: 1 St. Tr. 1271; 1 Neal's Puritans (N.Y. 1844), 190. See
+16 Parl. Hist. 1276, where Mr. Dunning says this is the first example
+of such a charge to a jury.]
+
+3. In 1619 one Williams of Essex wrote a book explaining a passage in
+the book of Daniel as foretelling the death of James I. in 1621. He
+inclosed the manuscript in a box, sealed it, and secretly conveyed it
+to the king. For this he was tried for high treason, and of course
+executed. "_Punitur Affectus, licet non sequatur Effectus_," said the
+court, for "_Scribere est agere_," "Punish the wish though the object
+be not reached," for "writing is doing!"[83]
+
+[Footnote 83: 2 St. Tr. 1085.]
+
+4. In 1664 Mr. Keach, a Baptist, published a "Childs' Instructer, or a
+New and Easy Primmer," in which he taught the doctrines of his sect,
+"that children ought not to be baptized" but only adults; "that laymen
+may preach the gospel." He was brought before Lord Chief Justice Hyde,
+who after insulting the prisoner, thus charged the grand-jury:--"He is
+a base and dangerous fellow; and if this be suffered, children by
+learning of it will become such as he is, and therefore I hope you
+will do your duty." Of course such a jury indicted him. The "trial"
+took place before Judge Scroggs; the Jury were at first divided in
+opinion. "But," said the Judge, "you must agree!" So they found him
+guilty. He was fined "£20, twice set in the pillory, and bound to make
+public submission."[84]
+
+[Footnote 84: 7 St. Tr. 687.]
+
+5. In 1679 George Wakeman and others were tried for high treason
+before Scroggs, whose conduct was atrocious, and several pamphlets
+were published commenting on the ridiculous and absurd conduct of this
+functionary, "Lord Chief Justice Scroggs." One Richard Radley in a
+bantering talk had bid another man "Go to Weal Hall, to my Lord
+Scroggs, _for he has received money enough of Dr. Wakeman_!" Radley
+was indicted for "speaking scandalous words of Chief Justice Scroggs."
+Whereupon at the opening of the court that eminent officer, who did
+not disdain to wreak public and judicial vengeance on heads that
+wrought his private and personal grief, made a speech setting forth
+his magisterial opinions on the liberty of the press. Doubtless this
+court knows original authority for the opinions they follow; but for
+your instruction, Gentlemen of the Jury, I will give you the chief
+things in the judicial speech of Scroggs, Lord Chief Justice of the
+Supreme Court of England in 1679.[85]
+
+[Footnote 85: 6 St. Tr. 701; see Dunning in 16 Parl. Hist. 1276, _et
+seq._]
+
+     "For these hireling scribblers who traduce it [the fairness
+     and equality of the trial in which he had been notoriously
+     unfair and unequal], who write to eat, and lie for bread, I
+     intend to meet with them another way; for they are only safe
+     while they can be secret; but so are vermin, so long as they
+     can hide themselves.... They shall know that the law wants
+     not the power to punish a libellous and licentious press,
+     nor I a resolution to exact it. And this is all the answer
+     is fit to be given (besides a whip) to these hackney
+     writers." "However, in the mean time, the _extravagant
+     boldness of men's pens and tongues is not to be endured, but
+     shall be severely punished_; for if once causes come to be
+     tried with complacency to particular opinions, and shall be
+     innocently censured if they go otherwise, public causes
+     shall all receive the doom as the multitude happen to be
+     possessed; and at length any cause shall become public ...
+     at every session the Judges shall be arraigned, the Jury
+     condemned, and the verdicts overawed to comply with popular
+     wish and indecent shouts."
+
+     "There are a set of men ... that too much approve and
+     countenance such vulgar ways, ... that embrace all sorts of
+     informations, true or false, likely or impossible, nay
+     though never so silly and ridiculous, they refuse none; so
+     shall all addresses be made to them, and they be looked on
+     as the only patrons of religion and government!"
+
+His associates chimed in with accordant howl. Puny Judge Jones
+declared,--
+
+     "We have a particular case here before us, as a matter of
+     scandal against a great Judge, the _greatest Judge in the
+     kingdom_, in criminal causes [the Lord Chancellor Nottingham
+     was greater in _civil_ causes]; and it is a great and an
+     high charge upon him. And certainly there was never any age,
+     I think, more licentious than this in aspersing governors,
+     scattering of libels and _scandalous speeches against those
+     that are in authority_: and without all doubt _it doth
+     become the court to show their zeal in suppressing it_." [It
+     was 'resisting an officer.'] "That trial [of Dr. Wakeman]
+     was managed with _exact justice and perfect integrity_. And
+     therefore I do think it very fit that this person be
+     proceeded against by an information, that he may be made _a
+     public example_ to all such as shall presume to scandalize
+     the government, and the governors, with any false aspersions
+     and accusations."
+
+Accordingly Mr. Radley, for that act, was convicted of speaking
+"scandalous words against the Lord Chief Justice Scroggs" and fined
+£200.[86]
+
+[Footnote 86: 7 St. Tr. 701.]
+
+Mr. Hudson says of the Star-Chamber, "So tender the court is of
+upholding the honor of the sentence, as they will punish them who
+speak against it with great severity."[87]
+
+[Footnote 87: In 2 Collectanea Juridica, 228.]
+
+6. In 1680 Benjamin Harris, a bookseller, sold a work called "An
+Appeal from the country to the city for the Preservation of his
+Majesty's Person, Liberty, Property, and the Protestant Religion." He
+was brought to trial for a libel, before Recorder Jeffreys and Chief
+Justice Scroggs who instructed the jury they were only to inquire _if
+Harris sold the book_, and if so, find him "guilty." It was for the
+court to determine what was a libel. He was fined five hundred pounds
+and placed in the pillory; the Chief Justice wished that he might be
+also whipped.[88]
+
+[Footnote 88: 7 St. Tr. 925.]
+
+7. The same year Henry Carr was brought to trial. He published a
+periodical--"the Weekly Packet of advice from Rome, or the History of
+Popery"--hostile to Romanism. Before the case came to court, Scroggs
+prohibited the publication on his own authority. Mr. Carr was
+prosecuted for a libel before the same authority, and of course found
+guilty. The character of that court also was judgment against natural
+right. Jane Curtis and other women were in like manner punished for
+speaking or publishing words against the same "great judge."[89] And
+it was held to be a "misdemeanor" to publish a book reflecting on the
+justice of the nation--the truer the book the worse the libel! It was
+"obstructing an officer," and of course it was a greater offence to
+"obstruct" him with Justice and Truth than with wrong and lies. The
+greater the justice of the act the more dangerous the "crime!" If the
+language did not hit any one person it was "malice against all
+mankind."
+
+[Footnote 89: 7 St. Tr. 1111, 959; 4 Parl. Hist. 1274.]
+
+8. In 1684 Sir Samuel Barnardiston was brought to trial charged with a
+"High Misdemeanor." He had written three private letters to be
+sent--it was alleged--by post to his friend, also a private man. The
+letters do not appear designed for any further publication or use;
+they related to matters of news, the events of the day and comments
+thereon, and spoke in praise of Algernon Sidney and Lord Russell who
+were so wickedly beheaded about the time the letters were written. It
+would require a microscopic eye to detect any evil lurking there.
+Jeffreys presided at the trial, and told the jury:--
+
+     "The letters are _factious, seditious, and malicious
+     letters, and as base as the worst of mankind could ever have
+     invented_." "And if he be guilty of it--the greater the man
+     is the greater the crime, and the more understanding he has,
+     the more malicious he seems to be; for your little ordinary
+     sort of people, that are of common mean understanding, they
+     may be wheedled and drawn in, and surprised into such
+     things; but men of a public figure and of some value in the
+     world that have been taken to be men of the greatest
+     interest and reputation in a party, it cannot be thought a
+     hidden surprise upon them; no, it is a work of time and
+     thought, it is a thing fixed in his very nature, and it
+     _shows so much venom as would make one think the whole mass
+     of his blood were corrupt_." "Here is the matter he is now
+     accused of, and here is in it malice against the king,
+     malice against the government, malice against both Church
+     and State, malice against any man that bears any share in
+     the government, indeed malice against all mankind that are
+     not of the same persuasion with these bloody miscreants."
+     "Here is ... the sainting of two horrid conspirators! Here
+     is the Lord Russell sainted, that blessed martyr; Lord
+     Russell, that good man, that excellent Protestant, he is
+     lamented! And here is Mr. Sidney sainted, what an
+     extraordinary man he was! Yes, surely he was a very good
+     man--and it is a shame to think that such bloody miscreants
+     should be sainted and lamented who had any hand in that
+     horrid murder [the execution of Charles I.] and treason ...
+     who could confidently bless God for their being engaged in
+     that good cause (as they call it) which was the rebellion
+     which brought that blessed martyr to his death. It is high
+     time for all mankind that have any Christianity, or fear of
+     Heaven or Hell, to bestir themselves, to rid the nation of
+     such caterpillars, such monsters of villany as those are!"
+
+Of course the packed jury found him guilty; he was fined £10,000.[90]
+
+[Footnote 90: 7 St. Tr. 1333.]
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, such judges, with such kings and cabinets, have
+repeatedly brought the dearest rights of mankind into imminent peril.
+Sad indeed is the condition of a nation where Thought is not free,
+where the lips are sewed together, and the press is chained! Yet the
+evil which has ruined Spain and made an Asia Minor of Papal Italy,
+once threatened England. Nay, Gentlemen of the Jury, it required the
+greatest efforts of her noblest sons to vindicate for you and me the
+right to print, to speak, to think. Milton's "Speech for the Liberty
+of unlicensed Printing" is one monument of the warfare which lasted
+from Wicliffe to Thomas Carlyle. But other monuments are the fines and
+imprisonment, the exile and the beheading of men and women! Words are
+"sedition," "rebellion," "treason;" nay, even now at least in New
+England, a true word is a "Misdemeanor," it is "obstructing an
+officer." At how great cost has our modern liberty of speech been
+purchased! Answer John Lilburne, answer William Prynn, and Selden, and
+Eliot, and Hampden, and the other noble men who
+
+     ----"in the public breach devoted stood,
+     And for their country's cause were prodigal of blood."
+
+Answer Fox and Bunyan, and Penn and all the host of Baptists,
+Puritans, Quakers, martyrs, and confessors--it is by your stripes that
+we are healed! Healed! are we healed? Ask the court if it be not a
+"misdemeanor" to say so!
+
+A despotic government hates implacably the freedom of the press. In
+1680 the Lord Chief Justice of England declared the opinion of the
+twelve judges "indeed all subscribe that to _print or publish any
+news-books, or pamphlets of news whatsoever, is illegal; that it is a
+manifest intent to the breach of the peace_, and they may be proceeded
+against by law for an illegal thing." "And that is for a public notice
+to all people, and especially printers and booksellers, that _they
+ought to print no book or pamphlet of news whatsoever without
+authority;" "they shall be punished if they do it without authority_,
+though there is nothing reflecting on the government."[91] Judge
+Scroggs was right--it was "resisting an officer," at least
+"obstructing" him in his wickedness. In England, says Lord Campbell,
+the name and family of Scroggs are both extinct. So much the worse for
+you and me, Gentlemen. The Scroggses came over to America; they
+settled in Massachusetts, they thrive famously in Boston; only the
+name is changed.
+
+[Footnote 91: 7 St. Tr. 1127.]
+
+In 1731 Sir Philip Yorke, attorney-general, solemnly declared that an
+editor is "_not to publish any thing reflecting on the character and
+reputation and administration of his Majesty or his Ministers_;" "if
+he breaks that law, or exceeds that liberty of the press he is to _be
+punished for it_." Where did he get his law--in the third year of
+Edward I., in A.D. 1275! But that statute of the Dark Ages was held
+good law in 1731; and it seems to be thought good law in 1855! And the
+attorney who affirmed the atrocious principle, soon became Chief
+Justice, a "consummate judge," a Peer, Lord Hardwicke, and Lord
+Chancellor![92] Lord Mansfield had not a much higher opinion of the
+liberty of the press; indeed, in all libel cases, he assumed it was
+exclusively the function of the judges to determine whether the words
+published contained malicious or seditious matter, the jury were only
+to find the fact of publication.[93] Thus the party in power with
+their Loughboroughs, their Thurlows, their Jeffreys, their
+Scroggs--shall I add also American names--are the exclusive judges as
+to what shall be published relating to the party in power--their
+Loughboroughs, their Thurlows, their Jeffreys and their Scroggs, or
+their analogous American names! It was the free press of
+England--Elizabeth invoked it--which drove back the "invincible
+Armada;" this which stayed the tide of Papal despotism; this which
+dyked the tyranny of Louis XIV. out from Holland. Aye, it was this
+which the Stuarts, with their host of attendants, sought to break down
+and annihilate for ever;[94] which Thurlow and Mansfield so formidably
+attacked, and which now in America--but the American aspect of the
+matter must not now be looked in the face.
+
+[Footnote 92: 17 St. Tr. 674; 5 Campbell, 57; Hildreth's Despotism,
+199.]
+
+[Footnote 93: 20 St. Tr. 900. But see 28 St. Tr. 595, and 16 Parl.
+Hist. 1211.]
+
+[Footnote 94: For the frequency of trials for words spoken in Charles
+II.'s reign of terror, see the extracts from Narcissus Luttrel's Brief
+Historical Relation, 10 St. Tr. 125.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But spite of all these impediments in the way of liberty, the voice of
+humanity could not be forever silenced. Now and then a virtuous and
+high-minded judge appeared in office--like Hale or Holt, Camden or
+Erskine. Even in the worst times there were noble men who lifted up
+their voices. Let me select two examples from men not famous, but
+whose names, borne by other persons, are still familiar to this court.
+
+In 1627 Sir Robert Phillips, member for Somersetshire, in his place in
+Parliament, thus spoke against the advance of despotism:[95]--
+
+[Footnote 95: 1 Rushworth, 502.]
+
+     "I read of a custom among the old Romans, that once every
+     year they had a solemn feast for their slaves; at which they
+     had liberty, without exception, to speak what they would,
+     thereby to ease their afflicted minds; which being finished,
+     they severally returned to their former servitude. This may,
+     with some resemblance and distinction, well set forth our
+     present state; where now, after the revolution of some time,
+     and grievous sufferance of many violent oppressions, we
+     have, as those slaves had, a day of liberty of speech; but
+     shall not, I trust, be hereafter slaves, for we are free:
+     yet what new illegal proceedings our estates and persons
+     have suffered under, my heart yearns to think, my tongue
+     falters to utter. They have been well represented by divers
+     worthy gentlemen before me; yet one grievance, and the main
+     one, as I conceive, hath not been touched, which is our
+     Religion: religion, Mr. Speaker, made vendible by
+     commission, and men, for pecuniary annual rates, dispensed
+     withal; Judgments of law against our liberty there have been
+     three; each latter stepping forwarder than the former, upon
+     the Rights of the Subject; aiming, in the end, to tread and
+     trample underfoot our law, and that even in the form of
+     law."
+
+     "The first was the Judgment of the Postnati, (the Scots,)
+     ... The second was the Judgment upon Impositions, in the
+     Exchequer Court by the barons; which hath been the source
+     and fountain of many bitter waters of affliction unto our
+     merchants." "The third was that fatal late Judgment against
+     the Liberty of the Subject imprisoned by the king, argued
+     and pronounced but by one judge alone." "I can live,
+     although another who has no right be put to live with me;
+     nay, I can live although I pay excises and impositions more
+     than I do; but to have my liberty, which is the soul of my
+     life, taken from me by power; and to have my body pent up in
+     a gaol, without remedy by law, and to be so adjudged: O
+     improvident ancestors! O unwise forefathers! To be so
+     curious in providing for the quiet possession of our lands,
+     and the liberties of Parliament; and to neglect our persons
+     and bodies, and to let them lie in prison, and that _durante
+     bene placito_, remediless! If this be law, why do we talk of
+     liberties? Why do we trouble ourselves with a dispute about
+     law, franchises, property of goods, and the like? What may
+     any man call his own, if not the Liberty of his Person? I am
+     weary of treading these ways."[96]
+
+[Footnote 96: 2 Parl. Hist. 232. See also 441, 471. He had been thrown
+into the Tower by James in 1624. Cabbala (3d Ed.), 311.]
+
+In 1641 Sir Philip Parker, Knight of the Shire for Suffolk, in his
+place in Parliament, thus spoke:--
+
+     "The cries of the people have come up to me; the voice of
+     the whole nation tingles in my ears." "'Tis true, I confess,
+     we have tormented ourselves with daily troubles and
+     vexations, and have been very solicitous for the welfare of
+     the Commonwealth; but what have we performed, what have we
+     perfected? Mr. Speaker, excuse my zeal in this case; for my
+     mouth cannot imprison what my mind intends to let out;
+     neither can my tongue conceal what my heart desires to
+     promulge. Behold the Archbishop [Laud], that great
+     incendiary of this kingdom, lies now like a firebrand raked
+     up in the embers; but if ever he chance to blaze again I am
+     afraid that what heretofore he had but in a spark, he will
+     burn down to the ground in a full flame. Wherefore let us
+     begin, for the kingdom is pregnant with expectation on this
+     point. I confess there are many more delinquents, for the
+     judges and other knights walk _in querpo_; but they are only
+     thunderbolts forged in Canterbury's fire."[97]
+
+[Footnote 97: Parl. Hist. 867.]
+
+Six of the wicked judges were soon brought to trial.[98]
+
+[Footnote 98: 1 Rushworth, 502.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This same threefold experiment of despotism which was attempted in
+England, was tried also in America by the same tyrannical hand. Here,
+also, the encroaching power put creatures of its arbitrary will in
+judicial offices; they then by perverting the laws, punished the
+patriots, and next proceeded to destroy the best institutions of the
+land itself. Here I shall take but a few examples, selected from the
+colonial history of our own New England.
+
+After capturing the great fortress of freedom at home, by taking away
+the charter of London, Charles proceeded to destroy the freedom of the
+colonies; the Charter of Massachusetts was wrested from us on a _quo
+warranto_ in 1683,[99] and the colony lay at the feet of the monarch.
+In privy council it had already been determined that our rights should
+be swept into the hands of some greedy official from the court.[100]
+In 1686 James II. sent Sir Edmund Andros to New England as a
+"Commissioner" to destroy the liberty of the people. He came to Boston
+in the "Kingfisher, a fifty gun ship," and brought two companies of
+British soldiers, the first ever stationed in this town to dragoon the
+people into submission to an unrighteous law. Edward Randolph, the
+most determined enemy of the colony, greedily caressing the despotic
+hands that fed him, was his chief coadjutor and assistant, his
+secretary, in that wicked work. Andros was authorized to appoint his
+own council, and with their consent enact laws, levy taxes, to
+organize and command the militia. He was to enforce the hateful "Acts
+of Trade." He appointed a council to suit the purpose of his royal
+master, to whom no opposition was allowed. Dudley, the new Chief
+Justice, told the people who appealed to Magna Charta, "they must not
+think the privileges of Englishmen would follow them to the end of the
+world." Episcopacy was introduced; no marriages were to "be allowed
+lawful but such as were made by the minister of the Church of
+England." Accordingly, all must come to Boston to be married, for
+there was no Episcopal minister out of its limits. It was proposed
+that the Puritan Churches should pay the Episcopal salary, and the
+Congregational worship be prohibited. He threatened to punish any man
+"who gave two pence" toward the support of a Non-conformist minister.
+All fees to officers of the new government were made exorbitantly
+great. Only one Probate office was allowed in the Province, that was
+in Boston; and one of the creatures of despotic power was,
+prophetically, put in it. Andros altered the old form of oaths, and
+made the process of the courts to suit himself.
+
+[Footnote 99: See the steps of the process in 1 Hutchinson, (Salem,
+1795,) 297; 8 St. Tr. 1068, note.]
+
+[Footnote 100: Barillon to Louis XIV. in Fox's Appendix, p. vii., _et
+seq._ In 1685 Halifax, who had been friendly to the rights of the
+colonies, was dismissed from his office; Sunderland, their enemy, had
+a pension from Louis XIV. of £5,000 or £6,000 a year; p. cxxvii.,
+cxxx. _et seq._, cxliii., cxlviii. Not the last instance of a high
+functionary pensioned by a foreign hand!]
+
+He sought to wrest the charters from the Colonies; that of Rhode
+Island fell into his hands; Connecticut escaped by a "miracle:"
+
+     "The Charter-Oak--it was the tree
+     That saved our sacred Liberty."
+
+The Charter government of Plymouth was suspended. Massachusetts was
+put under arbitrary despotism. Towns were forbidden to meet, except
+for the choice of officers; there must be no deliberation; "discussion
+must be suppressed." He was to levy all the taxes; he assessed a
+penny in the pound in all the towns. Rev. John Wise, one of the
+ministers of Ipswich, advised the people to resist the tax.
+"Democracy," said he, "is Christ's government in Church and State; we
+have a good God and a good king; we shall do well to stand to our
+privileges." One of the Council said, "_You have no privileges left
+you, but not to be sold as slaves._" Even that was not likely to last
+long. The town of Ipswich refused to pay the tax, because invalid; the
+governor having no authority to tax the people: "they will petition
+the King for liberty of an assembly before they make any rates." The
+minister and five others were arrested; they had "obstructed an
+officer." The Rev. Mr. Wise was guiltiest of all; he did it with a
+word, an idea. They were brought to Boston, and thrown into jail, "for
+contempt and high misdemeanors." They claimed the _habeas corpus_;
+Chief Justice Dudley refused it, on the ground that it did not extend
+to America! They were tried before a packed jury, and such a court as
+James II. was delighted to honor. The patriots plead the laws of
+England and Magna Charta. It was all in vain. "I am glad," said the
+judge to his packed jury, "there be so many worthy gentlemen of the
+jury, so capable to do the king service; and we expect a good verdict
+from you, seeing the matter hath been so sufficiently proved against
+the _criminals_." The jury of course found them guilty. They were
+fined from £15 to £50 a piece. The whole cost to the six was over
+£400. "It is not for his majesty's interest that you should thrive,"
+said one of those petty tyrants,--a tide-water of despotism.[101]
+
+[Footnote 101: 1 Hutch. 316; 2 Hildreth, Hist. 108; 2 Bancroft, 425;
+Washburn, Judicial Hist. of Mass. 105; Drake's Boston, ch. L.]
+
+Andros denied the colonial title to lands, claiming that as the
+charter was declared void, all the lands held under its authority
+escheated to the crown,--"The calf died in the cow's belly." A deed of
+purchase from the Indians was "worth no more than the scratch of a
+bear's paw." "The men of Massachusetts did much quote Lord Coke" for
+their titles: but Rev. John Higginson, minister of the first church in
+Salem, the son of the first minister ever ordained in New
+England,--and ancestor of this noble-hearted man [Rev. T.W. Higginson]
+who is now also indicted for a "misdemeanor,"--found other laws for
+their claim, and insisted on the citizens' just and natural right to
+the lands they had reclaimed from the wilderness.[102] Andros said,
+"You are either subjects, or else you are rebels;" and in either case,
+their lands would be forfeit.
+
+[Footnote 102: 1 Felt's Salem, 24; 2 Ib. 542; Felt's Ipswich, 123, _et
+seq._; Gage's Rowley, 157, _et seq._; Sullivan's Land Titles, 54.]
+
+Andros hated freedom of speech and of thought. He was to allow no
+unlicensed printing. Randolph was appointed censor of the press, and
+ordered the printer to publish nothing without his approbation, nor
+"any almanac whatever." There must be but one town meeting in a year,
+and no "deliberation" at that; no "agitation," no discussion of
+grievances. There must be no preaching on the acts of the government.
+Rev. Dr. Increase Mather, one of the ablest men in the Colonies, was
+the special object of his hate. Randolph advised the authorities to
+forbid any non-conformist minister to land in New England without the
+special consent of the governor, and that he should restrain such as
+he saw fit to silence. The advice was not lost on such willing ears.
+John Gold, of Topsfield, was tried for "treasonable words," and fined
+fifty pounds--a great deal more at Topsfield in 1687, than "three
+hundred dollars" is now in Boston. Rev. Increase Mather had opposed
+the surrender of the Charter of Massachusetts, and published his
+reasons; but with such prudence, for he was careful how he "evinced an
+express liking" for justice, that it was difficult to take hold of
+him. So the friends of government forged a letter with his name, to a
+person in Amsterdam. Randolph showed the letter to persons whom he
+wished to prejudice against the alleged writer. When Mr. Mather
+learned the facts, he wrote a letter to a friend, clearing himself,
+and charging the forgery on Randolph or his brother. Randolph brought
+his action for a libel, claiming £500 damages. But it came to
+nothing--then. Now times are changed!
+
+Col. Pynchon, of Springfield, one of the officers in this new state of
+things, was empowered to bind over all persons suspected of riots,
+"outrageous or abusive _reflecting words and speeches against the
+government_." "The spirit of justice was banished from the courts that
+bore the name."[103]
+
+[Footnote 103: Hutch. 327; Washburn, ibid.]
+
+But notwithstanding the attempt to stifle speech, a great tall
+minister at Rowley, called Andros "a wicked man!" For that offence he
+was seized and put in prison! He, also, like Higginson, is represented
+in this court by one of his own name; and the same inextinguishable
+religious fire which burned in the bosom of Robert in Old England, and
+from Samuel in New England flashed into the commissioned face of
+Andros, now lightens at this bench from the eyes of WENDELL PHILLIPS,
+who confers new glory on his much-honored ancestor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, you know how this wickedness was brought to an
+end. If the courts would not decree Justice, there was a rougher way
+of reaching it, and having it done. Civil war, revolution by violence,
+came in place of the simple forms of equity, which the judges had set
+at nought. William of Orange, a most valiant son-in-law, drove the
+foul tyrant of Old England from that Island, where the Stuarts have
+ever since been only "Pretenders;" and on the 19th of April, 1689, the
+people of Massachusetts had the tyrant of New England put solemnly in
+jail! We were rid of that functionary for ever, and all such
+"commissioners" have been held odious in New England ever since the
+days of Andros. Eighty-six years later came another 19th of April,
+also famous. Well said Secretary Randolph, "Andros has to do with a
+perverse people,"--they would not bow to such tyranny in 1689. But he
+afterwards became a quite acceptable governor in Virginia,--where, I
+doubt not, he has descendants in African bondage at this day.
+
+Catholic James II. sought to establish arbitrary power in America, as
+in England, by his prerogative--the Omnipotence of the King; he
+failed; the high-handed despotism of the Stuarts went to the ground.
+The next attempt at the same thing was by the legislature--the
+Omnipotence of Parliament--for a several-headed despotism took the
+place of the old, and ruled at home with milder sway. It tried its
+hand in America; there were no more requisitions from a king hostile
+to the Colonies, but acts of Parliament took their place. After the
+French power in North America had given way, the British government
+sought to tame down and break in the sturdy son, who had grown up in
+the woods so big and rough, as obstinate as his father. Here are three
+measures of subjugation, all flowing from the same fountain of
+Principle--vicarious government by a feudal superior.
+
+1. All the chief colonial officers were to be appointed by the king,
+to hold office during his pleasure, to receive their pay from him.
+Such was the tenure of the executive officers who had a veto on all
+colonial legislation, and of the judicial officers. Thus the power of
+making and administering the laws fell from the people distributed
+everywhere, into the hands of the distant government centralized in
+the King.
+
+2. A standing army of British soldiers must be kept in the Colonies to
+overawe the people, and enforce the laws thus made and administered.
+
+3. A revenue was to be raised from the Colonies themselves--from which
+the King would pay his officers and provide for his army that enforced
+his laws. The eagle is to feather the arrow which shoots him in mid
+heaven.
+
+Thus law was a threefold cord wherewith to bind the strong Puritan.
+But his eyes were not put out--not then. Blindness came at a later
+day--when he had laid his head in the lap of a not attractive
+Delilah. With such judges and governors, backed by a standing army of
+hirelings--how soon would her liberty go down, and the Anglo-American
+States resemble Spanish America!
+
+In 1760 Francis Bernard was made governor of Massachusetts, and thus
+officially put at the head of the Judiciary, a man wholly devoted to
+the Crown, expecting to be made a baronet! He did not wish an annual
+election of councillors, but wanted the sovereign power to enforce its
+decrees by violent measures. Thus Thomas Hutchinson was made Chief
+Justice in 1760, and afterwards Lieutenant-Governor,--continually
+hostile to the constitution of his native land. Thus Andrew
+Oliver--"Governor Oliver," "hungry for office and power," was
+appointed Secretary, Commissioner of Stamps and Lieutenant-Governor;
+and Peter Oliver--"Judge Oliver"--though not bred a lawyer, was made
+Chief Justice, the man who refused to receive his salary from the
+treasury of Massachusetts, preferring the money of the crown which
+owned him. In the revolutionary times of the _five Judges of
+Massachusetts four were Tories_!
+
+Accordingly, when the Stamp Act was passed--22d March, 1765--there
+were Judicial officers in the Colonies ready to declare it
+"constitutional;" executive magistrates ready to carry out any
+measures intrusted to them. "I will cram the stamps down their throat
+with the end of my sword," said an officer at New York. Governor
+Bernard wanted soldiers sent to Boston to enforce submission; so did
+Hutchinson and "Governor Oliver." The Governor of New York thought,
+"if _Judges be sent from England_, with an able attorney-general and
+solicitor-general to _make examples of some very few_, the Colony will
+remain quiet."[104]
+
+[Footnote 104: 5 Bancroft, 358.]
+
+In 1768 John Hancock was arrested at Boston--for a "misdemeanor;" I
+suppose, "obstructing an officer," or some such offence.[105] The
+government long sought to procure indictments against James Otis--who
+was so busy in fencing out despotism--Samuel Adams, and several other
+leading friends of the colony. But I suppose the judge did not succeed
+in getting his brother-in-law put on the grand-jury, and so the scheme
+fell through. No indictment for that "misdemeanor" then. Boston had
+the right men to do any thing for the crown, but they did not contrive
+to get upon the grand-jury.
+
+[Footnote 105: 6 Bancroft, 213.]
+
+The King, it was George III., in his parliament, spoke of the Patriots
+of Boston, as "those turbulent and seditious persons." In the House of
+Commons, Stanley called Boston an "insolent town;" its inhabitants
+"must be treated as aliens;" its "charter and laws must be so changed
+as to give the King the appointment of the Council, and to the
+_sheriffs the sole power of returning jurors_;" then the Stamp Act
+could be carried out, and a revenue raised without the consent of the
+people. The plan was admirably laid; an excellent counsel! Suppose, as
+a pure conjecture, an hypothesis of illustration--that there were in
+Boston a fugitive slave bill court, eager to kidnap men and so gain
+further advancement from the slave power, which alone distributes the
+federal offices; suppose the court should appoint its creatures,
+relatives, nay, its uterine brother--its brother in birth--as fugitive
+slave bill commissioners to hunt men; and then should get its
+matrimonial brother--its brother-in-law--on the grand-jury to indict
+all who resisted the fugitive slave bill! You see, gentlemen, what an
+admirable opportunity there would be to accomplish most manifold and
+atrocious wickedness. This supposed case exactly describes what was
+contemplated by the British authorities in the last century! Only,
+Gentlemen, it was so unlucky as not to succeed; nay, Gentlemen, as to
+fail--then! Such accidents will happen in the best of histories!
+
+It was moved in Parliament to address the king "to bring to condign
+punishment" such men as Otis and Adams and Hancock. Chief Justice
+Hutchinson declared Samuel Adams "_the greatest incendiary in the
+king's dominions_." Hutchinson was right for once. Samuel Adams lit a
+fire which will burn on Boston Common on the Fourth day of next July,
+Gentlemen, and on many other commons besides Boston. Aye, in the heart
+of many million men--and keep on burning long after Hutchinson ceases
+to be remembered with hate, and Adams with love. "The greatest
+incendiary!" so he was. Hutchinson also thought there must be "an
+Abridgment of what are called English Liberties," doubtless the
+liberty of speaking in Faneuil Hall, and other meeting-houses was one
+"of what are called English Liberties" that needed speedy abridgment.
+He wished the law of treason to be extended so that it might catch all
+the patriots of Boston by the neck. He thought it treasonable to deny
+the authority of Parliament.[106] Men suspected of "misdemeanors" were
+to be sent to England for trial! What a "trial" it would have
+been--Hancock and Adams in Westminster Hall with a jury packed by the
+government; Thurlow acting as Attorney-General, and another Thurlow
+growling on the bench and expecting further office as pay for fresh
+injustice! Truly there would have been an "abridgment of English
+Liberties." Gentlemen of the Jury, Mr. Phillips and Mr. Higginson in
+this case are charged with "obstructing an officer." Suppose they were
+sent to South Carolina to be tried by a jury of Slaveholders, or
+still worse, without change of place, to be tried by a court deadly
+hostile to freedom,--wresting law and perverting justice and
+"enlarging testimony," personally inimical to these gentlemen; suppose
+that the Slave-hunter whose "process" was alleged to be resisted, was
+kinsman to the court, and the judge had a near relation put on the
+jury--what opportunity would there be for justice; what expectation of
+it? Gentlemen of the Jury, that is the state of things which the
+despots of England wanted to bring about by sending Hancock and Adams
+over seas for trial! Bernard, Oliver, and Hutchinson were busy in
+getting evidence against the Patriots of New England, especially
+against Adams. Affidavits were sent out to England to prove that he
+was a fit subject to be transported for "trial" there. And an old
+statute was found from the enlightened reign of Henry VIII.
+authorizing that mode of trial in case of such "misdemeanor."
+Commissary Chew wished that two thirds of the lawyers and printers
+were shipped off to Africa "for at least seven years." Edes and Gill,
+patriotic printers in Boston, and "all the authors of numberless
+treasonable and seditious writings," were to go with them.[107] They
+were all guilty, very guilty! Gentlemen of the Jury, they committed
+"misdemeanors," they "obstructed officers," they resisted the process
+of despotism! But alas--
+
+     "The Dog it was that died."
+
+[Footnote 106: 6 Bancroft, 250, 251, 291; Sabine's Loyalists, 207, _et
+al._]
+
+[Footnote 107: 6 Bancroft, 250, 251, 291; Sabine's Loyalists, 207, _et
+al._]
+
+Edes and Gill never saw Africa; the patriotic lawyers and printers
+made no reluctant voyage to England.
+
+     "The Dog it was that died."
+
+Bernard, Hutchinson, Oliver, and their coadjutors went over the seas
+for punishment after being tried at home by a Law older than the
+statute of Henry VIII.; a law not yet repealed, Gentlemen, the Higher
+Law which God wrote ineffaceably in the hearts of mankind; and
+indignant America pronounced sentence--Tories, Traitors! Commissary
+Chew learned a lesson at Saratoga in 1777. And the Franklins, the
+Mayhews, the Hancocks, the Adamses, they also were tried at home, and
+not found wanting; and the verdict! Gentlemen of the Jury, you know
+what verdict America has pronounced on these men and their kinsfolk!
+There is only one spot in the United States where the Hutchinsons, the
+Olivers, the Bernards are honored,--that is where the Adamses, the
+Hancocks, the Mayhews, and the Franklins, with the principles of
+justice they gave their lives to, are held in contempt! Where is the
+one spot, that speck of foreign dirt in the clean American garden? It
+is where the Democratic Herod and the Whig Pilate are made friends
+that they may crucify the Son of Man, the Desire of all nations, the
+Spirit of Humanity--it is the court of the Fugitive Slave Bill judges,
+the Gabbatha of the Kidnappers. Look there!
+
+In 1765 it was too late to conquer America. What Andros and Randolph
+could accomplish in 1686 with their sixty soldiers, could not be done
+in 1768 with all the red coats Britain could send out: nor in 1778
+with all the Hessians she could purchase. The 19th of April, 1689,
+foretold another 19th of April--as that many to-morrows after to-day!
+In the House of Lords Camden and Pitt thought Parliament not
+omnipotent.[108] Samuel Adams declared "Acts of Parliament against
+natural equity are void;" prayed that "Boston might become a Christian
+Sparta," and looked to the Law of an Omnipotence somewhat higher than
+a king or a court. He not only had Justice, but also the People on his
+side. What came of that last attempt of the last king of New England
+to establish a despotism here? The same, Gentlemen, which will
+ultimately come of all such attempts.
+
+[Footnote 108: 16 Parl. Hist. 168, 195, 658.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, there is one great obstacle which despotism has
+found in Anglo-Saxon lands, steadily opposing its steady attempts to
+destroy the liberties of the People. It is easy for the controlling
+power, which represents the Centripetal Tendency of the Nation, to
+place its corrupt and servile creatures in judicial offices, vested
+with power to fine, to imprison, and to kill; it is then easy for them
+to determine on the destruction of all such friends of Justice and
+Humanity as represent the Centrifugal Tendency of the Nation; and with
+such judicial instruments it is not difficult to wrest and pervert law
+in order to crush the Patriots, and construct a word into "Treason,"
+or "evincing express approbation" into a "Misdemeanor," "resisting an
+officer." And if the final decision rested with such a court, it would
+be exceeding easy to make way with any man whom the judge's private
+malignity or the public vengeance of his master, wished to smite and
+kill. But in the Anglo-Saxon people there is one institution, old,
+venerable, and well-beloved, which has stood for two thousand years,
+the great Fortress of Freedom. Thank God, Gentlemen, it still stands.
+Neither British Kings nor American Slave-drivers have yet brought it
+to the ground. Of this I must now say a word.
+
+
+III. OF THE GREAT SAFEGUARD WHICH HAS BEEN FOUND SERVICEABLE IN
+PROTECTING DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS AND THE RIGHTS OF MAN THEY ARE
+DESIGNED TO DEFEND.--OF THE TRIAL BY JURY.
+
+This is an invaluable protection against two classes of foes to the
+welfare of mankind.
+
+1. Against such as would commit offences upon the property or persons
+of men, without law and contrary to the form of law,--against common
+criminals of all denominations. Against such it is a sword--to resist
+and punish.
+
+2. Against such as would commit offences upon the property or persons
+of men, with the form of law and by means of its machinery,--against
+unjust legislators, corrupt Judges, and wicked magistrates; against
+such it is a shield defending the public head.
+
+In all the States of Anglo-Saxon origin there are two great popular
+institutions--Democratic Legislation and Democratic Administration of
+Law.
+
+In the process of its historical development the first has come to the
+representative form of democratic legislation,--popular law-making by
+a body of sworn delegates met in an Assembly, local or federal,
+subject to a constitution, written or only traditional, which is the
+People's Power of Attorney, authorizing them to do certain matters and
+things pertinent to law-making. These are a Jury of general
+Law-makers.
+
+In its process of historical development, the second has also come to
+a representative form, that of democratic application of law, popular
+law-applying, by a body of sworn delegates, that is a Court, subject
+to a constitution and laws, written or only traditional, which are the
+People's Power of Attorney authorizing them to do certain matters and
+things pertinent to law-applying. These are a Jury of special
+Law-appliers.
+
+Neither of them as yet has reached its perfect and ultimate form; both
+are still in a state of transition. These two are the most valuable
+institutional safeguards against unorganized selfishness in the
+community,--against thieves, robbers, murderers, traitors, and the
+like; against the organized selfishness which gets into places of
+delegated power, and would misuse the Form of law so as to prevent the
+People from attaining the Purpose of law.
+
+There is also a body of men intermediate between the two,--the
+Law-Explainers, the Judges. Speaking theoretically they are not
+ultimately either Law-makers or Law-appliers, yet practically, in
+their legitimate function, they certainly have much to do with both
+the making and applying of laws. For it is their business, not only
+to preside at all trials, and determine many subordinate questions of
+mere form to expedite the process, but also from the whole mass of
+laws, oral or written, statutes and customs, to select such particular
+laws as they think require special attention,--this is like the work
+of law-makers; and also, in their charges to the grand and petty
+Juries, to suggest the execution thereof in such cases as the times
+may bring,--this like the work of the law-appliers.
+
+The good judge continually modifies the laws of his country to the
+advantage of mankind. He leaves bad statutes, which aim at or would
+promote injustice, to sleep till themselves become obsolete, or
+parries their insidious thrusts at humanity; he selects good statutes
+which enact natural Justice into positive law; and mixes his own fresh
+instincts of humanity with the traditional institutions of the age.
+All this his official function requires of him--for his oath to keep
+and administer the laws binds him to look to the Purpose of Law--which
+is the Eternal Justice of God,--as well as to each special statute.
+Besides, after the Jury declares a man guilty, the Judge has the power
+to fix the quantity and sometimes the quality of his punishment. And
+the discretion of a great noble man will advance humanity.
+
+In this way a good Judge may do a great service to mankind, and
+correct the mistakes, or repel the injustice of the ultimate makers
+and appliers of law, and supply their defects. Thus in England those
+eminent Judges, Hale, Somers, Hobart, Holt, Camden, Mansfield, and
+Brougham, have done large service to mankind. Each had his personal
+and official faults, some of them great and glaring faults of both
+kinds, but each in his way helped enact natural Justice into positive
+law, and so to promote the only legitimate Purpose of human
+legislation, securing Natural Rights to all men. To such Judges
+mankind owes a quite considerable debt.
+
+But in America the Judge has an additional function; he is to
+determine the Constitutionality of a law. For while the British King
+and Parliament claim to be legislatively omnipotent, supreme, the
+Ultimate human source of law, the Living Constitution of the realm,
+and therefore themselves the only Norm of law,--howsoever ill-founded
+the claim may be,--in America it is the People, not their elected
+servants, who are the Ultimate human source of law, the Supreme
+Legislative power. Accordingly the People have prepared a written
+Constitution, a Power of Attorney authorizing their servants to do
+certain matters and things relating to the government of the nation.
+This constitution is the human Norm of law for all the servants of the
+people. So in administering law the Judge is to ask, Is the statute
+constitutional? does it square with the Norm of law which the People
+have laid down; or have the legislative servants exceeded their Power
+of Attorney, and done matters and things which they were not empowered
+to do? In deciding this question, the Judge is to consider not merely
+the Provisional Means which the Constitution designates, but also the
+Ultimate Purpose thereof, the Justice and Liberty which, as its
+preamble declares, it expressly aims at, and which are also the ideal
+End of all sound legislation.
+
+There is no country in the world where a great man has so noble a
+place and opportunity to serve mankind as in America.
+
+But a wicked Judge, Gentlemen, may do great harm to mankind, as I have
+already most abundantly shown. For we have inherited a great mass of
+laws,--customary or statutory; the legislature repeals, modifies, or
+adds to them; the Judge is to expound them, and suggest their
+application to each special case. The Jury is to apply or refuse to
+apply the Judge's "law." In all old countries, some of these laws have
+come from a barbarous, perhaps even from a savage period; some are the
+work of tyrants who wrought cruelly for their own advantage, not
+justly, or for the good of mankind; some have been made in haste and
+heat, the legislature intending to do an unjust thing. Now an unjust
+Judge has great power to select wicked statutes, customs, or
+decisions; and in no country has he more power for evil than in the
+federal courts of the United States. For as in England, when the
+King-power makes a wicked law, the Judge, who is himself made by that
+same power, may declare it just, and execute the heinous thing; so in
+America, when the Slave power enacts a wicked statute, contrary to the
+purpose of the constitution and to the natural justice of God, the
+Judge, who is the creature of that same power, may declare it
+constitutional and binding on all the People who made the constitution
+as their Power of Attorney. Thus all the value of the constitution to
+check despotism is destroyed, and the Fortress of Freedom is betrayed
+into the hands of the enemies of liberty!
+
+But barbarous laws must not be applied in a civilized age; nor unjust
+laws enforced by righteous men. While left unrepealed, a fair and
+conscientious Jury will never do injustice, though a particular
+statute or custom demand it, and a wicked Judge insist upon the wrong;
+for they feel the moral instinct of human nature, and look not merely
+to the letter of a particular enactment, but also to the spirit and
+general purpose of law itself, which is justice between man and man.
+The wicked Judge, looking only to the power which raised him to his
+place, and may lift him higher still,--not to that other Hand which is
+over all,--or consulting his own meanness of nature, selects the
+wicked laws, and makes a wicked application thereof. Thus in America,
+under plea of serving the people, he can work most hideous wrong.
+
+Besides, the Judges are lawyers, with the technical training of
+lawyers, with the disposition of character which comes from their
+special training and profession, and which marks the manners, the
+language and looks of a lawyer. They have the excellence of the
+lawyer, and also his defects. Commonly they are learned in their
+profession, acute and sharp, circumspect, cautious, skilful in making
+nice technical distinctions, and strongly disposed to adhere to
+historical precedents on the side of arbitrary power, rather than to
+obey the instinctive promptings of the moral sense in their own
+consciousness. Nay, it seems sometimes as if the moral sense became
+extinct, and the legal letter took the place of the spirit of Justice
+which gives life to the People. So they look to the special statute,
+its technical expositions and applications, but not to Justice, the
+ultimate Purpose of human law; they preserve the means and miss the
+end, put up the bars in the nicest fashion, and let the cattle perish
+in their pen. Like the nurse in the fable, they pour out the baby, and
+carefully cherish the wooden bath-tub! The Letter of the statute is
+the Idol of the Judicial Den, whereunto the worshipper offers
+sacrifices of human blood. The late Chief Justice Parker, one of the
+most humane and estimable men, told the Jury they _had nothing to do
+with the harshness of the statute_! but must execute a law, however
+cruel and unjust, because somebody had made it a law! How often Juries
+refuse to obey the statute and by its means to do a manifest
+injustice; but how rarely does a Judge turn off from the wickedness of
+the statute to do Justice, the great Purpose of human law and human
+life! Gentlemen, I once knew a democratic judge--a man with a noble
+mind, and a woman's nicer sense of right--who told the Jury, "Such is
+the law, such the decisions; such would be its application to this
+particular case. But it is unjust;--it would do a manifest and
+outrageous wrong if thus applied. You as Jurors are to do Justice by
+the law, not injustice. _You will bring in a verdict according to your
+conscience._" They did so. Gentlemen, I should not dare tell you that
+Judge's name. It would greatly injure his reputation. God knows
+it--for there is a Higher Law.
+
+When the New York Convention assembled in 1846 to revise the
+constitution of that State, some powerful men therein felt the evil of
+having the Court of last Appeal consist wholly of lawyers. Mr. Ruggles
+thought the judges who reëxamine the decisions and pronounce the final
+judgment in disputed cases, and determine the constitutionality of
+laws, should be men who are "brought into direct contact with the
+people and their business." He wished that of the eight judges of this
+appellate Court, four should be Justices of the Supreme Court, and
+four more should be elected by the people on a general ballot, thus
+securing a popular element in that highest Court. By this popular
+element, representing the instinctive Justice of Humanity, he hoped to
+correct that evil tendency of professional men which leads them away
+"from the just conclusions of natural reason into the track of
+technical rules inapplicable to the circumstances of the case, and at
+variance with the nature and principles of our social and political
+institutions."[109] "Such judges," said another lawyer, "would retain
+more of the great general principles of moral justice, ... the
+impulses of natural equity, such as ... would knock off the rough
+corners of the common law and loosen the fetters of artificial and
+technical equity."[110]
+
+[Footnote 109: Debates in New York Convention, 371, _et al._]
+
+[Footnote 110: Jordan's Speech, _ibid._, 447, _et al._ See also Mr.
+Stow's Remarks, 473, and Mr. Stephens', 474, _et al._ Yet all these
+four speakers were lawyers.]
+
+Commonly in America, as in England, for judges the Federal Government
+appoints lawyers who have done some party service, or are willing to
+execute the designs of the great ruling Power, the Slaveholders,
+regardless alike of the interests of the People and the protestations
+of the Conscience of Mankind.[111] You know how Hardwicke and Thurlow
+got their office in England, how they filled it, and what additional
+recompense followed each added wickedness. Need I mention the name of
+Americans with a similar history? Gentlemen, I pass it by for the
+present.
+
+[Footnote 111: Hildreth's Despotism in America (1854), 263, _et al._]
+
+Still further, these judges thus appointed become familiar with fraud,
+violence, cruelty, selfishness,--refined or brutal,--which comes
+before them; they study the technicalities of the statutes, balance
+the scruples of advocates; they lose their fresh intuitions of
+justice, becoming more and more legal, less and less human, less
+natural and more technical; their eye is microscopic in its niceness
+of discrimination, microscopic also in its narrowness of range. They
+forget the universality of justice,--the End which laws should aim at;
+they direct their lynx-eyed attention to the speciality of the
+statutes which is only the Means, of no value save as conducing to
+that end. Their understanding is sharp as a mole's eye for the minute
+distinctions of the technicalities of their craft; but, as
+short-sighted as the mole, they cannot look at justice. So they come
+to acknowledge no obligation but the legal, and know no law except
+what is written in Black Letter on parchment, printed in
+statute-books, reported in decisions; the Law written by God on the
+soul of man they know not, only the statute and decision bound in pale
+sheepskin. In the logic of legal deduction--technical inference--they
+forget the intuition of conscience: not What is right? but What is
+law? is the question, and they pay the same deference to a wicked
+statute as a just one. So the true Mussulman values the absurdities
+of the Koran as much as its noblest wisdom and tenderest humanity.
+
+Such a man so appointed, so disciplined, will administer the law
+fairly enough in civil cases between party and party, where he has no
+special interest to give him a bias--for he cares not whether John Doe
+or Richard Roe gain the parcel of ground in litigation before him. But
+in criminal cases he leans to severity, not mercy; he suspects the
+People; he reverences the government. In political trials he never
+forgets the hand that feeds him,--Charles Stuart, George Guelph, or
+the Slave Power of America.
+
+These things being so, in such trials you see the exceeding value of
+the jury, who are not Office-holders, under obligation to the hand
+that feeds them; not Office-seekers, willing to prostitute their
+faculties to the service of some overmastering lust; not lawyers
+wonted to nice technicalities; not members of a class, with its
+special discipline and peculiar prejudices; but men with their moral
+instincts normally active, and unsophisticated humanity in their
+hearts. Hence the great value of the jury in criminal trials.
+
+Gentlemen, you are the jurors in this case, to decide between me and
+the government. Between the government and ME! no, Gentlemen, between
+the Fugitive Slave Bill and Humanity. You know the Function of the
+court--the manner of the Judges' appointment--the services they are
+expected to render in cases like this, the services they have already
+rendered.
+
+Let me speak of the Function of the Jury. To do that, I must say a few
+words of its Historical Development. I must make it very brief and
+sketchy. Here I shall point out six several steps in the successive
+development of popular Law-making and Law-applying.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+1. In the barbarous periods of the Teutonic Family,[112] it seems the
+"whole People" came together at certain regular seasons to transact
+the business of the nation. There was also a meeting of the
+inhabitants of each district or neighborhood at stated times,--a
+"regular meeting;" and sometimes a special meeting to provide for some
+emergency--a "called meeting." If one man had wronged another the
+matter was inquired into at those popular meetings. One man
+presided--chosen for the occasion. In the early age it appears he was
+a priest, afterwards a noble, or some distinguished man, selected on
+the spot. The whole people investigated the matter, made the
+law--often an _ex post facto_ law,--applied it to the special case,
+and on the spot administered the punishment--if corporeal, or decreed
+the recompense--if pecuniary. The majority carried the day. Thus at
+first the Body of People present on the occasion were the law-makers,
+the law-appliers, and law-executors. Each law was special--designed
+for the particular case in hand, retrospective for vengeance more than
+prospective for future welfare.
+
+[Footnote 112: By this term I mean all the nations with language akin
+to the German.]
+
+2. Then in process of time, there came to be a body of laws--fixed and
+understood by the People. Partly, these came from the customs of the
+People, and represented past life already lived; but partly, also,
+from the decrees of the recognized authorities--theocratic, monarchic,
+aristocratic, democratic--representing the desire for a better life, a
+rule of conduct for the future. Then at their meetings, to punish an
+offender the people did not always make a new law, they simply used
+what they found already made. They inquired into the fact, the deed
+done, the law, and applied the general law to the special fact, made
+their decree and executed it. Thus extemporaneous Making of law for
+the particular case, gradually passed away, and was succeeded by the
+extemporaneous Declaration of the law previously made, and its
+Application to the matter in hand.
+
+3. By and by it was found inconvenient for a multitude to assemble and
+make the laws, so a body of select men took a more special charge of
+that function. Sometimes a chief, or king, usurped this for himself;
+or men were chosen by the people, and took an oath for the faithful
+discharge of their trust. Thus came popular law-making by sworn
+delegates, representatives of the people, who had a certain special
+power of attorney, authorizing them to make laws. These might be
+Priests--as at the beginning; or Nobles of priestly stock, as at the
+next stage; or Military Chiefs--as in all times of violence; or
+powerful Private men,--summoned from the nation, of their own accord
+undertaking the task, or chosen by the various neighborhoods,--the
+whole process seems to have been irregular and uncertain, as indeed it
+must be amongst rude people.
+
+So at that time there were two sources of law-making.
+
+(1.) The unorganized People--the primary source, whose unconscious
+life flows in certain channels and establishes certain customs, rules
+of conduct, obeyed before they are decreed, without any formal
+enactment. These were laws _de facto_.
+
+(2.) The organized Delegates--priestly, kingly, nobilitary, or
+warlike--the secondary source. These made statute laws. As this was a
+self-conscious and organized body, having an object distinctly set
+before its mind and devising means for its purposes, it easily
+appropriated to itself the chief part of the business of law-making.
+Statute laws became more and more numerous and important; they were
+the principal--the customs were only subsidiary, laws _de Jure_,
+enacted before they are obeyed by the People. Still new customs
+continued to flow from the primitive source of legislation, the
+People, and of course took new forms to suit the conditions of
+national life.
+
+4. Still the people came together to apply the laws--customary or
+enacted,--to the special cases which occurred. There were fixed
+periods when they assembled without notice given,--"regular law-days;"
+and if an emergency occurred, they were summoned on "extraordinary
+law-days." Here wrongs between party and party, and offences against
+the public, were set right by the "Country," the "Body of the county,"
+that is, by the bulk of the population. The majority carried the day.
+
+5. At length it was found inconvenient for so large a body to
+investigate each particular case, or to determine what cases should be
+presented for investigation.
+
+(1.) So this preliminary examination was delegated to a smaller body
+of men, sworn to discharge the trust faithfully, who made inquiry as
+to offences committed, and reported the criminals for trial to the
+full meeting, the actual "Body of the country." Here, then, is the
+first organized and sworn "Jury;" "the grand inquest;"--here is
+popular Indictment by delegates.
+
+(2.) Then it was found inconvenient for a large body--the whole
+country--to investigate the cases presented. Men were busy with their
+own work, and did not wish to appear and consume their time. So a
+smaller body of men was summoned to attend to any special case which
+was presented by the Grand Inquest. These also were sworn to do their
+duty. They were to try the men indicted. Here is Trial by sworn
+delegates, who represent the Body of the People. They were still
+called the "Country," as any spot of the Atlantic is the "Ocean." Here
+is the "Trial by Jury." They must be taken from the neighborhood of
+the parties concerned--for at this stage the jurors were also the
+witnesses, and other sworn witnesses were not then known. All the
+Jurors must concur in the vote of condemnation before the magistrate
+could hurt a hair of the accused's head.
+
+Still after the people had delegated their law-making to one body of
+sworn representatives, and the twofold function of law-applying, by
+Indictment and Trial, to other sworn representatives, there was yet a
+great concourse of people attending the court on the "law-days;"
+especially when important matters came up for adjudication; then the
+crowd of people took sides with Plaintiff or Defendant; with the
+authorities which accused, or with the man on trial, as the case might
+be. Sometimes, when the Jury acquitted, the people tore the suspected
+man to pieces; sometimes when the Jury condemned, they showed their
+indignation--nay, rescued the prisoner. For the old tradition of
+actual trial by the "Body of the Country" still prevailed.
+
+6. At length the Jurors are no longer the witnesses in the case.
+Others testify before them, and on the evidence which is offered, the
+Grand-Jury indict or not, and the Trial Jury acquit or condemn. Then
+the Jurors are no longer taken from the immediate neighborhood of the
+party on trial, only from his district or county. But sworn witnesses
+from the neighborhood, depose to the facts. There is no longer a great
+concourse of people in the open air, but the trial is carried on in a
+small court house, yet with open doors, in the face of the people,
+_coram populo_--public opinion still influences the Jury.
+
+As most of the Jurors were unlearned men, not accustomed to intricate
+questions, it became necessary for the presiding judge, a man of nicer
+culture, to prepare rules of evidence which should prevent the matter
+from becoming too complicated for the rustic judgment. Thence came the
+curious and strange "rules of evidence" which prevail in all countries
+where trial by Jury is established, but are unknown in lands where the
+trial is conducted solely by experts, educated men. But as the mass of
+the people, as in America, become well informed, the old rules appear
+ridiculous, and will perish.
+
+The number of sworn judges varies in different tribes of the Teutonic
+family, but as twelve has long been a sacred number with the
+Anglo-Saxons, that was gradually fixed for the Jury. Twelve consenting
+voices are indispensable for the indictment or the condemnation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Such is the form of the Jury as we find it at this day. The other
+officers have also undergone a change. So, Gentlemen, let me give you
+a brief sketch of the Historical Formation of the Function of the
+Judge in nations of the same ethnological origin. Here I shall mention
+four steps.
+
+1. At the meetings of the people to make, apply, and execute the law,
+some one must preside to keep order, put the question, and declare the
+vote. He was the Moderator of the meeting. At first it would seem that
+some important man, a priest, or a noble, or some other wise,
+distinguished, or popular man, performed that function. The business
+over, he dropped into his private place again. A new one was chosen at
+each meeting.
+
+2. If the former moderator had shown skill and aptness, he was chosen
+the next time; again and again; at length it was a matter of course
+that he should preside. He studied the matter, and became "expert in
+all the manners and customs of his nation." This happens in most of
+the New England towns, where the same man is Moderator at the
+town-meetings for many years in succession. Men love to walk in the
+path they have once trodden, even if not the shortest way to their
+end.
+
+3. When the nation is organized more artificially and the laws chiefly
+proceed from the secondary source, the government,--elective or
+usurpatory--a judge is appointed by the central authority to visit
+the districts (counties) and assist at the administration of justice.
+As the law is now made by the distant delegates, the judge they send
+down declares and explains it to the people, for they have not made it
+as before directly, nor found it ready-made, an old inherited custom,
+but only receive it as the authorities send it down from the Capitol.
+The law is _written_--the officer can read while they have no copy of
+the law, or could not read it had they the book. Hence the necessity
+of a judge learned in the law. Still the people are to apply the
+written law or apply it not.
+
+Besides, the old customs remain, the unwritten laws of the people,
+which the judge does not understand so well as they. He represents the
+written law, the assembly the unwritten custom or tradition. The judge
+is appointed that he may please the central power; the people are only
+to satisfy such moral convictions as they have. There is often a
+conflict between the statute and the custom, a conflict of laws; and
+still more between the judge and the jury--a conflict in respect to
+the application of the law.
+
+4. Then comes the critical period of the Trial by Jury. For the
+deputed judge seeks to enlarge his jurisdiction, to enforce his law,
+often against the customs and the consciences of the People, the jury,
+who only seek to enlarge Justice. He looks technically at the statute,
+the provisional Means of law, not at Justice the ultimate Purpose of
+law. To the "Country," the "Body of the People," or to the jury of
+inquest and of trial, he assumes not to suggest the law and its
+application, but absolutely to _dictate_ it to them. He claims the
+exclusive right to decide on the Law and its Application; the jury is
+only to determine the Fact--whether the accused did the deed charged
+or not.
+
+If the judge succeeds in this battle, then tyranny advances step by
+step; the jury is weakened; its original function is curtailed;
+certain classes of cases are taken from its jurisdiction; it becomes
+only the tool of the government, and finally is thrown aside. Popular
+law-making is gone; popular law-applying is also gone; local
+self-government disappears and one homogeneous centralized tyranny
+takes the place of the manifold Freedom of the people. So the trial by
+jury faded out of all the South-Teutonic people, and even from many
+regions of the German and Scandinavian North. But the Anglo-Saxon,
+mixing his blood with Danes and Normans, his fierce kinsfolk of the
+same family, has kept and improved this ancient institution. When King
+or Parliament made wicked laws, or appointed corrupt and cruel men for
+judges, the People have held this old ancestral shield between the
+tyrant and his victim. Often cloven through or thrust aside, the Saxon
+Briton never abandons this. The Puritan swam the Atlantic with this on
+his arm--and now all the Anglo-Saxon tribe reverences this defence as
+the Romans their twelve AONCILIA [Transcriber's Note: for 'AONCILIA'
+read 'ANCILIA'; see Errata], the mythic shield which "fell from
+Heaven."[113]
+
+[Footnote 113: In this brief sketch I do not refer to the authorities,
+but see, who will, the classic passages and proof-texts in the
+well-known works of Grimm, Rogge, Biener, Michelsen, Möser, Phillips,
+Eichhorn, Maurer, and others.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After so much historic matter, Gentlemen, it is now easy to see what
+is--
+
+THE FUNCTION OF THE JURY AT THIS TIME. Here I make three points.
+
+I. They are to decide the QUESTION OF FACT, the matter charged, and
+determine whether the accused did the deed alleged to be done. That is
+the first step--to determine the Fact.
+
+II. They are to decide the QUESTION OF LAW, the statute or custom
+supposed to apply to the Deed done, and determine whether there is
+such a statute or custom, and whether it denounces such a Deed as a
+Crime assigning thereto a punishment. That is the second step--to
+determine the Law.
+
+III. They are to decide the QUESTION OF THE APPLICATION OF THE LAW TO
+THE FACT, and to determine whether that special statute shall be
+applied to the particular person who did the deed charged against him.
+That is the third step--to determine the Application of the Law.
+
+Gentlemen, I shall speak a few words on each of these points, treating
+the matter in the most general way. By and by I shall apply these
+general doctrines to this special case.
+
+I. The jury is to DECIDE THE QUESTION OF FACT; to answer, Did the
+accused do the deed alleged, at the time and place alleged, with the
+alleged purpose and producing the alleged result? The answer will be
+controlled by the Evidence of sworn witnesses, who depose under a
+special oath to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
+truth." Their Evidence is the Testimony as to the Fact,--the sole
+testimony; the jury is the ultimate arbiter to decide on the
+credibility of the evidence, part by part, and its value as a whole.
+
+Sometimes it is an easy matter to answer this Question of Fact;
+sometimes exceedingly difficult. If there be doubts they must weigh
+for the accused, who is held innocent until proven guilty.
+
+With us the theory that the jury is the exclusive judge of the
+Question of Fact is admitted on all sides. But in England it has often
+happened that the judge instructs the jury to "_find the facts_" so
+and so; that is--he undertakes to decide the Question of Fact. In
+libel cases it is very common for New England judges to undertake to
+determine what constitutes a libel, and to decide on the intentions of
+the accused; that is to decide the most important part of the complex
+and manifold Question of Fact. For it is as much a question of fact to
+determine what constitutes a libel, as what constitutes theft, the
+_animus libellandi_ as much as the _animus furandi_. Sometimes juries
+have been found so lost to all sense of manhood, or so ignorant of
+their duties, as to submit to this judicial insolence and usurpation.
+
+If the Jury decide the Question of Fact in favor of the accused, their
+inquiry ceases at that step, they return their verdict, "NOT GUILTY;"
+and the affair is ended. But if they find he did the deed as charged,
+then comes the next function of the Jury.
+
+II. The Jury are to DECIDE THE QUESTION OF LAW. Is there a statute or
+custom denouncing a penalty on that special deed? is the statute
+constitutional? To determine this matter, there are three sources of
+evidence external to their own knowledge.
+
+1. _The Testimony of the Government's Attorney._ The Government itself
+is his client, and he gives such a statement of the law as suits the
+special purposes of the rulers and his own private and particular
+interest, selects such statutes, customs, and decisions, as will serve
+this purpose, and declares, Such is the law. Nay, he makes inferences
+from the law, and thereby infers new customs, and constructs new
+statutes, invents new crimes. He treats the law as freely as he treats
+the facts--making the most that is possible against the party accused.
+You have seen already what tricks Government attorneys have played,
+how they pervert and twist the law--making it assume shapes never
+designed by its original makers. He gives his opinion as to the law,
+as he gave an opinion as to the fact. This is not necessarily his
+personal and actual, but only his official and assumed opinion--what
+he wishes the Jury to think is law in this particular case.
+
+2. _The Testimony of the Defendant's Attorney._ The accused is his
+client. He is to do all he can to represent the law as favorable as
+possible to the man on trial. He gives an opinion of the law, not his
+personal and actual, but his official and assumed opinion--what he
+wishes the Jury to think is law in this particular case.
+
+3. _The Testimony of the Judge on the Bench._ But in the English
+courts, and the Federal courts of the United States, he is commonly no
+more than a government attorney in disguise; I speak only of the
+general rule, not the exceptions to it. He has received his office as
+the reward for party services--was made a judge because he was
+one-sided as a lawyer. In all criminal cases he is expected to twist
+the law to the advantage of the hand that feeds him. Especially is
+this so in all Political trials--that is, prosecutions for opposition
+to the party which the judge represents. The judge may be impartial,
+or partial, just or unjust, ignorant or learned. He gives an opinion
+of the law,--not his personal and actual, but his official and assumed
+opinion--what he wishes the jury to think is law in this particular
+case. For the court also is a stage, and the judges, as well as the
+attorneys, may be players,
+
+     "And one man in his time play many parts."
+
+Of these three classes of witnesses, no one gives evidence under
+special oath to tell the law, the whole law, and nothing but the
+law--or if it be so understood, then all these men are sometimes most
+grossly and notoriously perjured; but each allows himself large
+latitude in declaring the law. The examples I have already cited, show
+that the judge often takes quite as wide a range as the
+attorney-general, or the prisoner's counsel.
+
+As the jury hears the manifold evidence as to the facts, and then
+makes up its mind thereon and decides the Question of Fact, often
+rejecting the opinion of various witnesses, as ignorant, partial,
+prejudiced, or plainly false and forsworn; so will the jury hear the
+manifold and often discrepant evidence as to the law, and then make up
+their mind thereon and decide the Question of Law, often rejecting the
+opinion of various witnesses thereupon ignorant, partial, prejudiced,
+or plainly false and forsworn.
+
+In regard to the Fact, the jury is limited to the evidence adduced in
+court. What any special juror knows from any other source is not
+relevant there to procure conviction. But in regard to the Law there
+is no such restriction; for if the jury know the law better than these
+three classes of witnesses for it in court, then the jury are to
+follow their better knowledge. At any rate, the jury are to make up
+their minds on this question of Law, and for themselves determine what
+the special Law is.
+
+Every man is to be held innocent until proved guilty--until the
+special Deed charged is proved against him, and until that special
+deed is proved a Crime. The jury is not to take the government
+attorney's opinion of the Fact, nor the prisoner's counsel's opinion
+of the Fact, nor yet the judge's opinion thereon; but to form their
+own opinion, from the evidence offered to make up their own judgment
+as to the Fact. So likewise they are not to take the government
+attorney's opinion of the Law, or the prisoner's counsel's opinion of
+the Law, nor yet the judge's opinion thereon; but from all the
+evidence offered, not [Transcriber's Note: for 'not' read 'or'; see
+Errata] otherwise known to them, to make up their own judgment as to
+the Law. After they have done so--if they decide the Law in favor of
+the accused, the process stops there. The man goes free; for it does
+not appear that his deed is unlawful. But if the jury find the Law
+against the deed, they then proceed to their third function.
+
+III. The jury is to decide the QUESTION OF THE APPLICATION OF THE LAW
+TO THE FACT. Here is the question: "Ought the men who have done this
+deed against the form of Law to be punished thereby?" The government
+attorney and the judge are of the opinion that the law should be thus
+applied to this case, but they cannot lay their finger on him until
+the jury, specially sworn "well and truly to try and true deliverance
+make," have unanimously come to that opinion, and say, "Take him and
+apply the law to him."
+
+The Deed may be clear and the Statute clear, while the Application
+thereof to the man who did the deed does not follow, and ought not to
+follow. For
+
+1. It is not designed that the full rigor of every statute shall be
+applied to each deed done against the letter thereof. The statute is a
+great sleeping Lion, not to be roused up when everybody passes that
+way. This you see from daily practice of the courts. It remains in the
+Discretion of the Attorney to determine what offences he will present
+to the Grand-Jury,--he passes by many, and selects such as he thinks
+ought to be presented. It remains in the Discretion of the Grand-Jury
+to determine whom they will indict, for sometimes when the Fact and
+Law are clear enough to them, they yet find "no bill" or _ignore_ the
+matter. And after the man is indicted, it still remains in the
+Discretion of the Attorney to determine whether he will prosecute the
+accused, or pass him by. Indeed I am told that the very Grand-Jury who
+found the bills which have brought you and me face to face, hesitated
+to indict a certain person on account of some circumstances which
+rendered his unlawful act less deserving of the legal punishment: the
+Attorney told them he thought they had better find a bill, and he
+would enter a _nolle prosequi_ in court,--plainly admitting that while
+the Law and the Fact were both clear, that the Grand-Jury were to
+determine in their Discretion whether they would apply the law to that
+man, whether they would indict or not; and the Attorney whether he
+would prosecute or forbear. It remains equally in the Discretion of
+the Trial Jury to determine whether the man who did the unlawful deed
+shall be punished--whether the spirit of that statute and the Purpose
+of Law requires the punishment which it allows.
+
+2. Besides, in deciding this question--the jurors are not only to
+consider the one particular statute brought against the prisoner, but
+the whole Complex of Customs, Statutes, and Decisions, making up the
+Body of Law, and see if that requires the application of this special
+statute to this particular deed. Here are two things to be
+considered.
+
+(1.) The general Purpose of the whole Body of Laws, the Object aimed
+at; and
+
+(2.) The Means for attaining the end. Now the Purpose of Law being the
+main thing, and the statute only subsidiary to that purpose, the
+question comes--"Shall we best achieve that Purpose by thus applying
+the statute, or by not applying it?" This rests with the Jury in their
+Discretion to determine.
+
+3. Still more, the Jury have consciences of their own, which they must
+be faithful to, which no official position can ever morally oblige
+them to violate. So they are to inquire, "Is it right in the sight of
+God, in the light of our consciences, to apply this special statute to
+this particular case and thus punish this man for that unlawful deed?"
+Then they are to ask, also, "Was the deed _naturally wrong_; done from
+a wrong motive, for a wrong purpose?" If not, then be the statute and
+the whole complex of laws what they may, it can never be right for a
+jury to punish a man for doing a right deed, however unlawful that
+deed may be. No oath can ever make it right for a man to do what is
+wrong, or what he thinks wrong--to punish a man for a just deed!
+
+But if the twelve men think that the Law ought not to be applied in
+this case--they find "not guilty," and he goes free; if otherwise,
+"guilty," and he is delivered over to the judges for sentence and its
+consequences, and the judge passes such sentence as the Law and his
+Discretion point out.
+
+The judge commonly, and especially in political trials, undertakes to
+decide the two last Questions himself, determining the Law and the
+Application thereof, and that by his Discretion. He wishes to leave
+nothing to the Discretion of the jury, who thus have only the single
+function of deciding the Question of Fact, which is not a Matter of
+Discretion--that is, of moral judgment,--but only a logical deduction
+from evidence, as the testimony compels. He would have no moral
+element enter into their verdict. The judge asks the jury to give him
+a deed of the ground on which he will erect such a building as suits
+his purpose, and then calls the whole thing the work of the jury, who
+only granted the land!
+
+But this assumption of the judges ultimately and exclusively to decide
+the question of Law and its Application, is a tyrannous usurpation.
+
+(1.) It is contrary to the fundamental Idea of the Institution of
+Trial by jury.
+
+(2.) It leads to monstrous tyranny by putting the Property, Liberty,
+and Life of every man at the mercy of the government officers, who
+determine the Law and its Application, leaving for the jury only the
+bare question of Fact, which the judge can so manage in many cases as
+to ruin most virtuous and deserving men.
+
+(3.) Not only in ancient times did the jury decide the three questions
+of Fact, of Law, and of its special Application, but in cases of great
+magnitude they continue to do so now, in both America and England, and
+sometimes in direct contradiction to the commands of the judges.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, if you perform this threefold function, then
+you see the exceeding value of this mode of trial,
+
+1. For the punishment of wrong deeds done against the law, done by the
+unorganized selfishness of thieves, housebreakers, murderers, and
+other workers of unrighteousness;
+
+2. And also for the prevention of wrong deeds attempted in the name of
+law, by the organized selfishness of the makers and officers thereof.
+
+For in each special case brought to trial, the jury are judges of the
+Law and of its Application. They cannot make a law--statute or
+custom--nor repeal one; but in each particular case they must demand
+or forbid its execution. These Tribunes of the Saxon People have no
+general veto on law-making, and can efface no letter from the
+statute-book, but have a special and imperative veto on each case for
+the Application of the law.
+
+Justice, the point common to the interests of all men, yes, the point
+common to God and our Conscience, is the Aim and Purpose of Law in
+general; if it be not that the law is so far unnatural, immoral, and
+of no obligation on the conscience of any man. The special Statute,
+Custom, or Decision, is a provisional Means to that end; if just, a
+moral means and adequate in kind; if unjust, an immoral means,
+inadequate in kind, and fit only to defeat the attainment of that
+Justice which is the Purpose of all Law. Accordingly, if by an
+accident, a special statute is so made that its application in a
+particular case would do injustice and so defeat the Design and
+Purpose of Law itself, then the function of the jury under their oath
+requires them to preserve the End of law by refusing to apply the
+provisional statute to an unjust use. And if by design a statute is
+made in order to do injustice to any man--as it has very often
+happened in England as well as America,--then the jury will accomplish
+their function by refusing to apply that statute to any particular
+case. So will they fulfil their official oath, and conserve the great
+ultimate Purpose of Law itself.
+
+Gentlemen, you will ask me where shall the jury find the Rule of
+Right, and how know what is just, what not? In your own Conscience,
+Gentlemen; not in the conscience of the Attorney for the
+Plaintiff-Government, or the accused Defendant; not in the conscience
+of the community; still less in the technical "opinion" of the
+lawyers, or the ambition, the venality, the personal or purchased rage
+of the court. Of course you will get such help as you can find from
+judges, attorneys, and the public itself, but then decide as you must
+decide--each man in the light of his own conscience, under the
+terrible and beautiful eyes of God. How does the juror judge of the
+Credibility of Evidence? By the "opinion" of the lawyers on either
+side? by the judge's "opinion," or that of the community? No one would
+dare determine thus. He decides personally by his own common sense,
+not vicariously by another's opinion. And as you decide the Matter of
+Fact by your own Discretion of Intellect, so will you decide the
+Matter of Right by your own Discretion of Conscience.
+
+Gentlemen, when the jury do their official duty it becomes impossible
+to execute a statute, or custom, or to enforce a decision which the
+jury--"the country"--think unjust and not fit to be applied.
+
+But if the judge usurps these two functions of the jury, and himself
+decides the Question of Law and its Application, you see what
+follows--consequences the most ghastly, injustice in the name of Law,
+and with the means of Law! Yes, tyranny spins and weaves with the
+machinery of Freedom, and a Nessus-shirt of bondage is fixed on the
+tortured body of the People. The power of the judge will be especially
+dangerous in times of political excitement, and in political trials.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gentlemen, this matter is so important, and the danger now so imminent
+that you will pardon me a few words while I set forth the mode by
+which this wickedness goes to work, and what results it brings to
+pass. Follow me in some details.
+
+I. As to the judges dealing with the Grand-Jury.
+
+Here let me take the examples from the circuit court of the United
+States in a supposed case where a man is to be tried for violating the
+fugitive slave bill. You will see this is a case which may actually
+happen.
+
+1. The judge challenges the whole body summoned as grand-jurors and
+catechizes them after this fashion.
+
+(1.) "Have you formed an opinion that the law of the United States,
+known as the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, is Unconstitutional, so that
+you cannot indict a person under it for that reason, although the
+court holds the statute to be Constitutional?"
+
+This is riddling No. 1. Such as think the fugitive slave bill
+unconstitutional are at once set aside. The judge proceeds to ask such
+as have no doubt that it is constitutional,
+
+(2.) "Do you hold any opinions on the subject of Slavery in general,
+or of the Fugitive Slave Law in special, which would induce you to
+refuse to indict a man presented to you for helping his brother to
+freedom?"
+
+This is riddling No. 2; other "good men and true" are rejected, but
+some are found "faithful" to the purposes of the court; and the judge
+puts his next question,
+
+(3.) "Will you accept for Law whatever the court declares such?"
+
+This is riddling No. 3. Still the judge finds three-and-twenty men
+small enough to pass through all these sieves. They are to be "the
+jury." All the men who deny the constitutionality of the wicked
+statute; all who have such reverence for the unalienable Rights of man
+and for the Natural Law of God that they would not prevent a Christian
+from aiding his brother to escape from bondage; all who have such
+respect for their own manhood that they will not swear to take a
+judge's word for law before they hear it--are shut out from the "grand
+inquest;" they are no part of the "Country," or the "Body of the
+county," are not "good men and true."
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, consider the absurdity of swearing to take for
+law what another man will declare to be law, and before you hear it!
+Suppose the judge should be drunk and declare the fugitive slave bill
+in perfect harmony with the Sermon on the Mount, those noble words
+"Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto
+them,"--are jurors to believe him? What if the judge should be sober,
+and declare it a "misdemeanor" to call the fugitive slave bill a
+wicked and hateful statute, and all who thus offended should be put in
+jail for twelve months! Are honest men to take such talk for American
+law?
+
+The jurors then take this oath which the clerk reads them:--
+
+"You, as a member of this Inquest for the District of Massachusetts,
+shall diligently inquire and true presentment make of all such matters
+and things as shall be given you in charge; the counsel of the United
+States, your fellows', and your own you shall keep secret; you shall
+present no man for envy, hatred, or revenge; neither shall you leave
+any man unpresented--for love, fear, favor, affection, or hope of
+reward; but you shall present things truly as they come to your
+knowledge, according to the best of your understanding. So help you
+God!"[114]
+
+[Footnote 114: See other forms of Oath in 8 St. Tr. 759, 772.]
+
+Then the judge appoints the most pliant member of the jury as
+"foreman"--selecting, if possible to find him, some postmaster or
+other official of the government, or some man marked for his injustice
+or venality, who may have the desirable influence with his fellows.
+
+2. The next thing is to moisten this material thus trebly sifted, and
+mould it into such vessels of tyranny as he can fill with his private
+or judicial wrath and then empty on the heads of his personal foes or
+such as thwart his ambitious despotism or the purposes of his
+government. So he delivers his CHARGE TO THE GRAND-JURY.
+
+By way of introduction, he tells them--
+
+(1.) That they are not the Makers of Law. Legislation is the function
+of Congress and the President; even the COURT, the "SUPREME COURT OF
+THE UNITED STATES" itself cannot make a law, or repeal one!
+
+(2.) That they are not the Declarers, or Judges of Law. To know and
+set forth the Law is the function of the COURT. It is true every man
+in his personal capacity, as private citizen, is supposed to know the
+law, and if he violates it, of his own presumption, or by the
+persuasion of some others who falsely tell him about the law, he must
+be punished; for "_ignorantia nemini excusat_," ignorance excuseth
+none; the private advice of the full bench of judges would be held no
+excuse. But in their official capacity of jurors they are supposed to
+know nothing of the Law whatsoever.
+
+It seems taken for granted that though one of the Jurors may be an old
+judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, and have sat on the
+bench for twenty years; nay, though he may be also an old legislator
+of twenty years' standing, and as legislator have made the very
+statute in question, and also as judge subsequently have explained and
+declared it, yet the moment he takes the oath as Grand-Juror, all this
+knowledge is "gone from him" as completely Nebuchadnezzar's dream. The
+court is the assembly of magicians, astrologers, sorcerers, and
+Chaldeans to restore it. Congress might pass a law compelling
+ex-judges, ex-senators, and ex-representatives--who are so numerous
+nowadays, and continually increasing and likely to multiply yet
+more,--to serve as grand-jurors; soon as they take their oath, they
+are in law held and accounted to be utterly ignorant of law, and bound
+to accept as law whatsoever the court declares such. The acting judge
+may be young, blind, ignorant, ambitious, drunk with brandy or rage,
+he may have a personal interest in promoting [Transcriber's Note: for
+'promoting' read 'perverting'; see Errata] the law, and may
+notoriously twist it so as to gratify his peculiar or familistic
+spleen, still the jury to accept the court's opinion for the nation's
+law. Any political ignoramus, if hoisted to the "bench," has judicial
+authority to declare the law,--it is absolute. If he errs, "he is
+responsible to the proper authorities--he may be removed by
+impeachment;" but the jury must not question the infallibility of his
+opinion. For though the grand-jury is "the country," the judge is not
+only all that, and more so; but is "the rest of mankind" besides.
+
+Then the judge goes further--talks _solemnly_, yet familiar; to
+wheedle jurors the better, he mixes himself with them, his "WE"
+embracing both judge and jury. I shall now quote actual language used
+in this very court, by the late Hon. Judge Woodbury:--
+
+     "One of the peculiar dangers ... to which jurors, as well as
+     judges, are exposed, is the _unpopularity, or obnoxiousness_
+     ... of any particular law, which has been violated, leading
+     _us_ ... to be timid or unfaithful in enforcing it ... the
+     subject-matter being a delicate or offensive one." "While we
+     ... are holding the scales as well as the sword of Justice,
+     in _humble imitation of the Divine Judge_ on high," it is
+     our duty to "_let law, as law_, [that is, whether it is just
+     or unjust] _reign supreme_, reign equally over all, and as
+     to _all things_, no less than persons; and till it is
+     changed by the proper authorities, _not to interpose our
+     individual caprices or fancies or speculations_ [that is,
+     our _convictions of justice_] _to defeat its due course and
+     triumph_." We must _not_ "_disregard laws_, when disliked,
+     _because we can_, under the universal suffrage enjoyed here,
+     _otherwise help_ legally _to change or annul them_ by our
+     votes." "As jurors _you have sworn to obey them till so
+     changed_, and ought to stand by them faithfully, to the last
+     moment of their existence." "We are safest in our capacity
+     of public officers ... to execute the laws as they are
+     [right or wrong], _while others_ who may make or retain bad
+     laws in the statute-book, _are answerable for their own
+     wrong_. If they preserve laws on the statute-book, which are
+     darkness rather than light and life to the people, theirs is
+     the fault, [that is, if a blacksmith make a dagger, and tell
+     us to stab an innocent man with it, we must obey, and the
+     blame will rest on the blacksmith who made the dagger, not
+     on the assassin who murdered with it!] In some cases, also,
+     when we think the _existing laws and punishments are wrong_,
+     and hence venture to encourage others in disobedience by
+     neglecting to indict and punish offenders, it should make us
+     pause and halt when it is remembered, it may turn out that
+     _we_ ourselves _may not be exactly Solons or Solomons_ in
+     these respects, nor quite so much wiser than the laws
+     themselves, as sometimes we are hastily induced to suppose."
+     "Miserable must be the fate of that community where the
+     ministers of the law are themselves disposed to disregard
+     it;" "government will become a curse;" "and this whether
+     such a _betrayal of public trust_ springs from the
+     _delusions of false philanthropy or fanatical prejudices, no
+     less than when it comes from unbridled licentiousness_."
+
+     "We must not lay the flattering unction to our souls, that
+     because by some _possibility there may not be guilt_, we can
+     rightfully discharge as if there were no guilt." "It is
+     sometimes urged against agreeing to indict, convict, or
+     punish, that we have _conscientious scruples on the
+     subject_;" "if sincere tenderness of conscience presses on
+     the heart and mind against executing some of the laws, _it
+     should lead us to decline office or resign_; not to neglect
+     or disobey, while in office, what we have promised and sworn
+     to perform;" [as if the juror swore to do injustice!] "or if
+     a majority prove unaccommodating or inflexible against us,
+     then it behooves those differing from them ... _to withdraw
+     entirely from such a government, and emigrate_." [So the
+     juror must not try to do justice at home, but seek it in
+     exile.] "But in all such cases we must take special care not
+     to indulge ourselves in considering an act as a sin which
+     _is only disagreeable_, or the result of only some
+     _prejudice or caprice_." "_The presumptions are that all
+     laws_, sanctioned by such intelligent, numerous, and
+     respectable members of society as compose our legislative
+     bodies, _are constitutional_, and until pronounced otherwise
+     by the proper tribunal, the judiciary, _it is perilous for
+     jurors to disobey them_," [that is, to refuse to execute
+     them] "and it is trifling with their solemn obligations to
+     _disregard them in any way and on any occasion, from
+     constitutional doubts_, unless of the clearest and strongest
+     character."[115]
+
+[Footnote 115: The above extracts are from Judge Woodbury's charge to
+the Grand-Jury, in Circuit Court of United States, at Boston, taken
+from the _Evening Traveller_, copying the reprint of Boston Daily
+Advertiser, of October 25, 1850.]
+
+He then tells them that _no feeling of Humanity_ must be allowed to
+prevent them from executing any law which the court declares to them,
+"whether the statute is a harsh one, is not for us to determine."[116]
+_A cruel law is to be enforced as vigorously as a humane one_; an
+_unjust law_ as a _just one_; a statute which aims to defeat the
+purpose of Law itself, just as readily as one which aims to secure the
+dearest rights of humanity. If the statute is notoriously wicked, as
+in the case supposed, then the Judge says: "It is to be observed that
+this statute [the fugitive slave bill] subjects no person to arrest
+who was not before liable to be seized and carried out of the State;"
+"Congress has enacted this law. _It is imperative, and it will be
+enforced._ Let no man mistake the mildness and forbearance with which
+the criminal code is habitually administered, [as in cases of engaging
+in the slave-trade] for weakness or timidity. _Resistance [to the
+fugitive slave bill] must make it sternly inflexible._" "As great
+efforts have been made to convince the public that the recent law [the
+fugitive slave bill] cannot be enforced with a good conscience, but
+may be conscientiously resisted ... I deem it proper to advert,
+briefly, to _the moral aspects_ of the subject." "The States without
+the constitution would be to each other foreign nations." "Those,
+therefore, who have the strongest convictions of the _immorality of
+the institution of slavery_, are not thereby authorized to conclude
+that the _provision for delivering up fugitive slaves is morally
+wrong_, [that is, if it be wrong to hold man in bondage, it is also
+not wrong,] or that our Fathers ... did not act wisely, justly, and
+humanely in acceding to the compacts of the Constitution." "Even those
+who go to the extreme of condemning the Constitution and the laws made
+under it, as _unjust and immoral_, cannot ... justify resistance. In
+their view, such laws are inconsistent with the justice and
+benevolence and against the will of the Supreme Lawgiver, and they
+emphatically ask, '_Which shall we obey, the law of man, or the Will
+of God?_' I answer, 'OBEY BOTH!' The _incompatibility_ which the
+question assumes [between _Right and Wrong, or Good and Evil, or God
+and the Devil_] _does not exist_! Unjust and oppressive laws _may
+indeed be passed_ by human governments. But if _Infinite and
+Inscrutable Wisdom permits political society_, having the power of
+human legislation, _to establish such laws, may not the same Infinite
+and Inscrutable Wisdom permit and require an individual_, who has no
+such power, _to obey them_?" [So "if Infinite and Inscrutable Wisdom
+permits" a Blacksmith "having the power" to forge steel and temper
+it, to make daggers, "may not the same Infinite and Inscrutable Wisdom
+permit and require the individual" carpenter or tailor, who has no
+such power, to use the dagger for the purpose intended!] "Conscience,
+indeed, is to be reverenced, and obeyed; but still we must remember
+that it is _fallible_, especially when the rights of others are
+concerned, [that is, the right to kidnap men] _and may lead us to do
+great injustice_, [by refusing to punish a man who helps his brother
+enjoy his self-evident, natural, and unalienable right to life,
+liberty, and the pursuit of happiness]. The annals of the world abound
+with enormities committed by a narrow and darkened conscience." A
+_statute_ "is the moral judgment, the _embodied conscience of the
+political community_, [the fugitive slave bill the 'embodied
+conscience' of New England]. To this not only is each individual bound
+to submit, [right or wrong,] but it is a new and _controlling element
+in forming his own moral judgment_;" [that is, he must _think_ the
+statute is just]. "Obedience is a _moral duty_, [no matter how immoral
+the law may be]. _This is as certain as that the Creator made man a
+social being_;" "to _obey the laws of the land_ [no matter what laws,
+or how wicked soever] _is, then, to obey the Will of God_!"
+
+[Footnote 116: Words of Chief Justice Parker, in _Commonwealth_ vs.
+_Griffith_, 2 Pickering's Reports, 19, cited with approbation by Chief
+Justice Shaw, in the Sims case, 7 Cushing's Reports, 705, and also
+cited from him and acted on by fugitive slave bill Commissioner
+Loring, in the Burns case.]
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, you think I have imagined and made up this
+language out of my own fancy. No, Gentlemen, I could not do it. I have
+not the genius for such sophistry. I only quote the words of the Hon.
+Judge Peleg Sprague delivered to the grand-jury of this Circuit Court
+of United States at Boston, March 18, 1851.[117] Gentlemen, I showed
+you what Thurlow could say at Horne Tooke's trial on the 4th of July,
+1777. Nay, I quoted the words of Powis and Allybone, and Scroggs and
+Jeffreys.[118] But, Gentlemen, the judge of New England transcends the
+judges of Old England.
+
+[Footnote 117: See _Boston Daily Advertiser_ of March 19, 1851.]
+
+[Footnote 118: See above, p. 33, 37, _et al._]
+
+3. Having made this general preparation for his work and shaped his
+vessel to the proper form, he proceeds to fill it with the requisite
+matter.
+
+(1.) He practically makes the Law just as he likes, so as to suit the
+general purpose of the government, or the special purpose of his
+private vengeance or ambition. Thus,
+
+a. Out of the whole complex of law--statutes, decisions, customs,
+charges, opinions of judicial men, since the Norman conquest or before
+it,--he selects that special weapon which will serve his present turn.
+And tells the jury, "that is the law which you are sworn to enforce. I
+have not made it--it is the _Lex terræ_, the Law of the Land." Or if
+in such an arsenal, so copious, he finds no weapon ready made, then
+
+b. Out of that pile of ancient instruments he selects something which
+he forges over anew, and thus constructs a new form of law when he
+could not find one ready for his hand. If a straight statute will not
+catch the intended victims he perverts it to a hook and therewith lays
+hold. He thus settles the law.
+
+(2.) He next practically determines what Deed constitutes the
+"offence" forbidden by the law he has just made. So he selects some
+act which it is notorious was done by the man he strikes at, and
+declares it is the "offence," the "crime." Here too he is aided by
+ancient precedent; whereof if our brief Republican annals do not
+furnish examples, he hies to the exhaustless treasury of Despotism in
+the English common law. He opens the "Reports," the "Statutes of the
+Realm," or goes back to the "Year-books." Antiquity is rich in
+examples of tyranny. "He readily finds a stick who would beat a dog."
+"Such are the opinions," quoth he, "of the venerable Chief Justice
+Jones," or "my Lord Chancellor Finch," or "Baron Twysden," or "my Lord
+Chief Justice Kelyng."
+
+Thus the Judge constructs the Jury--out of such men as he wishes for
+his purpose; constructs the Law, constructs the Offence, the Crime:
+nay, he points out the particular Deed so plain that he constructs the
+Indictment. All that is left for the "Grand Inquest" is the mechanical
+work of listening to the "evidence" and signing the Bill--"_Billa
+Vera_," a true bill. That they may accomplish this work he delivers
+them over to the District Attorney; he may be also an agent of the
+government, appointed for his party services, looking for his reward,
+expecting future pay for present work, extra pay for uncommon zeal and
+"discretion." Gentlemen of the Jury, this _may_ be the case--humanity
+is fallible, and it sometimes may happen even in the Circuit Court of
+the United States that such a man should hold the office of District
+Attorney. For it is not to be expected, nay, it is what we should not
+even ask--that this place should always be filled by such conspicuous
+talent, such consummate learning, and such unblemished integrity as
+that of the present attorney (Hon. Mr. Hallett). No, Gentlemen of the
+Jury, as I look round these walls I am proud of my country! Such a
+District Attorney, so bearing "his great commission in his look;" his
+political course as free from turning and winding as the river
+Missouri; high-minded, the very Cæsar's wife of democratic
+virtue,--spotless and unsuspected; never seeking office, yet alike
+faithful to his principles and his party; and with indignant foot
+spurning the Administration's bootless bribe,--the fact outtravels
+fancy. Nay, Gentlemen, it is something to be an American--I feel it
+as I look about me. For the honorable Attorney is perfectly suited to
+this Honorable Court;--yea, to the Administration which gives them
+both their dignity and their work and its pay. Happy country with such
+an Attorney, fortunate with such a Court, but thrice and four times
+fortunate when such several stars of justice unite in such a
+constellation of juridic fire!
+
+But, Gentlemen, it is too much to ask of human nature that it should
+be always so. In my supposed case, the judge delivers the persons
+accused to the officers, restless, bellowing, and expecting some
+fodder to be pitched down to them from the national mow, already
+licking their mouths which drool with hungry anticipation. They will
+swear as the court desires. Then the Attorney talks with the most
+pliant jurors, coaxes them, wheedles them, stimulates them to do what
+he wants done. Some he threatens with the "displeasure of the
+government;" he swears at some. After all, if the jury refuse to find
+a bill,--a case, Gentlemen, which has happened,--they are discharged;
+and a new jury is summoned; some creature of the government is put on
+it, nay, perhaps some kinsman of the anxious judge, at least a
+Brother-in-Law, and at last twenty-three men are found of whom twelve
+consent to a "True Bill." Then great is the joy in the judge's
+heart,--it is corrupt judges I am speaking of, Gentlemen of the Jury,
+not of upright and noble men, may it please your Honors! There is
+great joy in the judge's heart, and great rejoicing _amongst his
+kinsfolk and intimate friends_ who whinney and neigh over it in the
+public journals, and leer at the indicted man in the street, lolling
+out their tongues greedy for his [Transcriber's Note: omit 'his'; see
+Errata] vengeance!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+II. Now, Gentlemen, look next at the judge's dealing with the
+Trial-Jury. He proceeds as before.
+
+1. He sifts the material returned to him, through those three sieves
+of questioning, and gets a Jury with no hard individual lumps of solid
+personal independence. They take the oath which you have just taken,
+Gentlemen: "You shall well and truly try the issue between the United
+States and the Defendant at the Bar, according to the law, and the
+evidence given you, so help you God!"
+
+The facts are then presented, and the case argued on both sides.
+
+2. The Judge sums up, and charges the Jury. He explains their oath; to
+try the issue _according to the law_ does not mean (a) according to
+the whole complex which is called "_Law_," or "_The Law_," but
+according only to that particular statute which forbids the deed
+charged,--for otherwise the Jury must judge of the Purpose of Law,
+which is Justice, and inquire into the rightfulness of the deed and of
+the statute which forbids it. Nor does it mean (b) by the Jurors'
+notion of that statute, but only by the Judge's opinion thereof. He
+tells them--if they proceed to inquire into the natural Justice of the
+deed, or into the law which forbids it, then they transcend their
+office, and are guilty of "Perjury," and reads them the statute for
+the punishment of that offence, and refers to examples--from the times
+of the Stuarts, though he does not mention that--when Jurors were
+fined and otherwise severely dealt with for daring to resist a judge.
+
+Then out of the facts testified to by the government witnesses, he
+selects some one which is best supported, of which there is no doubt.
+He then declares that the question of "Guilty or not guilty" turns on
+that point. If the accused did that deed--then he is Guilty. So the
+moral question, "Has the man done a wrong thing?" is taken from their
+consideration; the intellectual question, "Has he done a deed which
+amounts to the crime forbidden?" is not before them; only the
+mechanical question, "Did he do that particular act?" They are not to
+inquire as to the Justice of the law, its Constitutionality, or its
+Legality; nor the Justice or the Criminality of the deed--only of its
+Actuality, Did he do this deed? Nay, sometimes the Judge treats them
+as cattle, and orders them to _find the facts for the government_. If
+they refuse, he threatens them with punishment.
+
+Thus he constructs the Trial-Jury, the Law, the Evidence, the Crime,
+and the Fact.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now, Gentlemen, when this is done and done thoroughly, the Judge has
+kept all the Forms, Presentment by the Grand-Jury, and Trial by a
+Petty Jury; but the substance is all gone; the Jury is only a stalking
+horse, and behind it creeps the Judicial servant of Tyranny, armed
+with the blunderbuss of law,--made and loaded by himself,--and
+delivers his shot in the name of law, but against Justice, that
+purpose of all law. Thus can tyranny be established--while all the
+forms of law are kept.[119]
+
+[Footnote 119: See 1 Jardine, Criminal Trials, 110. 2 Parker's
+Sermons, 266 and note.]
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, let me make this more clear by a special case
+wholly fictitious.--Thomas Nason, a "Non-Resistant" and a Quaker, is a
+colored citizen of Boston, the son and once the slave of Hon. James
+Nason of Virginia, but now legally become a free man by self-purchase;
+he has the bill of sale of himself in his pocket, and so carries about
+him a title deed which would perhaps satisfy your Honors of his right
+to liberty. But his mother Lizzie (Randolph) Nason, a descendant of
+both Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison,--for Virginia, I am told, can
+boast of many children descended from two Presidents, perhaps from
+three, who
+
+     "Boast the pure blood of an illustrious race,
+     In quiet flow from Lucrece to Lucrece"--
+
+from Saxon master to African slave,--is still the bondwoman of the
+Hon. James, the father of her son Thomas. From the "Plantation
+manners" of her master, the concubine, "foolishly dissatisfied with
+slavery," flies to Boston, and takes refuge with her Quaker son, who
+conceals his mother, and shelters her for a time. But let me suppose
+that his Honor Judge Curtis, while at Washington, fired with that
+patriotism which is not only habitual but natural and indigenous to
+his Honor, informs Mr. Nason of the hiding-place of his female slave,
+thus betraying a "mistress" to her master, no longer, alas, her
+"keeper." It is no injurious imputation--it is an imaginary honor I
+attribute to the learned and honorable Judge. Mr. Nason sends the
+proper agent to Boston to save the Union of States by restoring the
+union of master and slave. Mr. George Ticknor Curtis, fugitive slave
+bill commissioner, and brother to the Hon. Judge, issues his warrant
+for kidnapping the mother; his coadjutor and friend, Mr. Butman,
+attempts to seize her in her son's house. Thomas, unarmed, resists the
+intruder, and with a child's pop-gun drives that valiant officer out
+of the house, and puts the mother in a place of safety,--beneath the
+flag of England, or the Pope, or the Czar. Commissioner Curtis
+telegraphs the news to Washington,--announcing a "NEW CASE OF
+TREASON--more 'levying war!'" The Secretaries of State and of War
+write dreadful letters, breathing fire and slaughter, and President
+Pierce, a man of most heroic courage, alike mindful of his former
+actual military exploits at Chapultepec, of his delegated triumph at
+Greytown, and of the immortal glory of Mr. Fillmore, issues his
+Proclamation, calling on all good citizens, and especially on the
+politicians of his party, to "Save the Union" from the treason of this
+terrible Thomas Nason, who will blow up the Constitution with a
+pop-gun!
+
+At the next session of the Honorable Circuit Court of the United
+States in and for the first District, his Honor the Hon. Benjamin
+Robbins Curtis, Judge, constructs and charges the Grand-Jury in the
+manner already set forth. He instructs them that if any man, by force
+and arms, namely, with a pop-gun, does resist a body of United States
+officers, attempting to kidnap a woman, his own mother, that he
+thereby levies war against the United States, and accordingly commits
+the crime of "Treason" which consists in levying war against the
+United States--the "_amount_ of force is not material." And it is
+their duty to indict all persons in that form offending. The Attorney,
+the Hon. Benjamin Franklin Hallett, offers to "bet ten dollars that I
+will get" Nason "indicted," and urges the matter. But no bill is
+found, the Jury is discharged, a new Jury is summoned, and Mr. William
+W. Greenough, the Brother-in-law of the Judge is put on it, "drawn as
+Juror"--and then a "true bill" is found, Mr. Hallett actually making
+an indictment that cannot be quashed!
+
+On the day before Thanksgiving Thomas Nason is arraigned; and is
+brought to trial for this new Boston Massacre on the anniversary of
+the old one--on the Fifth of March. The judge constructs a Trial-Jury
+as before. Mr. Hallett, assisted by Mr. Thomas, Mr. George T. Curtis,
+and Commissioner Loring, manage the case for the government, bringing
+out the whole strength of the kidnapping party, and directing this
+Macedonian phalanx of Humanity and Law and Piety against a poor
+friendless negro. Mr. Hale, Mr. Ellis, and Mr. Dana defend him.
+Officer Butman and his coadjutors--members of the "Marshal's
+guard"--testify that Mr. Nason attacked them with the felonious weapon
+above named, putting them in mortal bodily fear greater than that
+which in Mexico once overthrew the (future) President of all this
+land! Mr. Herrman, the dealer in toys, testifies that he sold the
+murderous weapon for twenty-five cents to Mr. Nason who declared that
+he "could frighten Butman with it;" that it is of German manufacture,
+and is called a Knallbüchse!
+
+Judge Curtis sums up the matter. He tells the jury, (1.) That they are
+not to judge of the Law punishing treason, but to take it from the
+Court. (2.) Not to judge what Act constitutes the Crime of Treason,
+but take that also from the Court, and if the Court decides that
+offering a pop-gun at a rowdy's breast constitutes the crime of
+treason, they are to accept the decision as constitutional law. (3.)
+They are not to ask if it be just to hang a man for thus resisting a
+body of men who sought to kidnap his mother, for even if it be unjust
+and cruel it is none of their concern, for they must execute a cruel
+and unjust law with even more promptitude than a just and humane one,
+and in the language of the "Defender of the Constitution," "conquer
+their prejudices," and "do a disagreeable duty." (4.) If they think
+the Law commands one thing and the Will of God exactly the opposite,
+in the well-known words of Judge Sprague, they must "obey both" by
+keeping the law of man when it contradicts the law of God, for they
+can never be good Christians so long as they scruple to hang a Quaker
+for driving off a kidnapper; and obedience to the law is a moral duty,
+no matter how immoral the law may be, and "to obey the law of the land
+is to obey the will of God." (5.) But they have a simple question of
+fact to determine; namely, Did the Defendant resist officer Butman in
+the manner set forth? If satisfied of that, they must find him guilty.
+No mistaken notions of Justice must induce them to refuse their
+verdict--for they are not to make the law, but only help execute it;
+and their conscience is so "fallible, especially when the rights of
+others are concerned, and may lead them to do great injustice," for
+"the annals of the world abound with enormities committed by a narrow
+and darkened conscience." They must not ask if it be "religious" to do
+so--for to use the words of the most religious of all Americans, a man
+of most unspotted life in public and private, "Religion has nothing to
+do with politics," and this is a political trial. If there be any
+injustice in the law and its execution the blame lies with the makers
+thereof not with the jurors, and they may wash their hands as clean as
+Pilate's from the blood of Christ. Besides, if there be injustice the
+President can pardon the offender, and from his well-known religious
+character--which rests on the unbiased testimony of his _own minister_
+and the statement of several partisan newspapers published in the very
+heat of the election, when men, and especially politicians looking for
+office, never exaggerate,--he doubtless "will listen to petitions for
+a commutation of punishment!"
+
+But there is no injustice in it--for slavery is part of the _lex
+terræ_, the law of the land, protected by the Constitution itself,
+which is the _Lex Suprema_--the Supreme Law of the Land, and nearly
+eighty years old! Besides, "Slavery is not immoral," not contrary to
+the public policy of Massachusetts; and, moreover, the "mother" whom
+the criminal actually rescued, was a "foreigner" and "whatever rights
+she had, she had no right _here_."[120]
+
+[Footnote 120: See Hon. Judge Curtis's Speech at the Union Meeting in
+Faneuil Hall, November 26, 1850.]
+
+But it is not a cruel or an unchristian thing to require a negro
+layman to allow his mother to be kidnapped in his own house--especially
+if she were a born slave, and so by the very law "a chattel personal
+to all uses, intents, and purposes whatever," and of course wholly
+divested of all natural rights, even if a colored person ever had
+any--for an eminent American minister, of one of the most enlightened
+sects in Christendom, has publicly offered to send his own freeborn
+mother into bondage for ever!
+
+Moreover, if the jurors do not find a verdict of guilty, then they
+themselves are guilty of PERJURY!
+
+So the jury, without leaving their seats, find him guilty; the judge
+sentences; the President signs the Death-warrant, and Marshal Freeman
+hangs the man--to the great joy of the Commissioner's and the
+Marshal's guard who vacate the brothels once more and attend on that
+occasion and triumph over the murdered Quaker.
+
+But the mischief does not stop there; the Boston slave-hunters are not
+yet satisfied with blood; the judge constructs another grand-jury as
+before, only getting more of his kinsfolk thereon, and taking his law
+from the impeached Judges Kelyng and Chase, charges that all persons
+who _advise_ to an act of levying war, or evince an "_express liking_"
+for it, or "_approbation_" of it, are also guilty of treason; and "in
+treason all are Principals." Accordingly the jury must indict all who
+have evinced an "express liking" of the rescue, though they did not
+evince approval of the rescue by such means. It appears that Rev. Mr.
+Grimes in the meeting-house the Sunday before the treason was
+consummated, had actually prayed that God would "break the arm of the
+oppressor and let the oppressed go free;" that he read from a book
+called the Old Testament, "Bewray not him that wandereth," "Hide the
+outcast," and other paragraphs and sentences of like seditious nature.
+Nay, that from the New Testament he had actually read the Sermon on
+the Mount, especially the Golden Rule and the summing of the Law and
+the Prophets in one word, Love,--and had applied this to the case of
+fugitive slaves; moreover, that he had read the xxvth chapter of
+Matthew from the 31st to the 46th verse, with dreadful emphasis.
+
+Nay, anti-slavery men--in lectures--and in speeches in the Music Hall,
+which was built by pious people--and in Faneuil Hall, which was the
+old Cradle of Liberty, had actually spoken against man-stealing,--and
+even against some of the family of kidnappers in Boston!
+
+Still further, he adds, with great solemnity, a woman--a negro
+woman,--the actual wife of the criminal Nason--had brought
+intelligence--to her husband--that Mr. George T. Curtis,--the brother
+of the judge,--had issued his warrant--and Mr. Butman--"with a
+monstrous watch"--was coming to execute it--she told her
+husband,--and--incited him to his dreadful crime! If you find these
+facts you must convict the prisoners.
+
+So thirty or forty more are hanged for treason.
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, these fictitious cases doubtless seem
+extravagant to you. I am glad they do. In peaceful times, in the
+majority of cases there is no disagreement between the law, the judge,
+and the jurors; the law is just, or at least is an attempt at justice,
+the judge wishes to do justice by means thereof, and the jurors aim at
+the same thing. In such cases there is no motive for doing wrong to
+any person: so the judge fairly interprets the righteous and wholesome
+law, the jurors willingly receive the interpretation and apply it to
+the special case, and substantial justice is done. This happens not
+only in civil suits between party and party, but also in most of the
+criminal cases between the Public and the Defendant. But in times of
+great political excitement, in a period of crisis and transition, when
+one party seeks to establish a despotism and deprive some other class
+of men of their natural rights, cases like those I have imagined
+actually happen. Then there is a disagreement between the judge and
+the jury; nay, often between the jury and the special statute
+wherewith the government seeks to work its iniquity. It is on such
+occasions that the great value of this institution appears,--then the
+jury hold a shield over the head of their brother and defend him from
+the malignity of the government and the Goliath of injustice,
+appointed its champion to defy the Law of the living God, is smote in
+the forehead by the smooth stone taken from a country brook, and lies
+there slain by a simple rustic hand; for in such cases the jury fall
+back on their original rights, judge of the Fact, the Law, and the
+Application of the Law to the Fact, and do justice in spite of the
+court, at least prevent injustice.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now, Gentlemen of the Jury, I will mention some examples of this kind,
+partly to show the process by which attempts have been made to
+establish despotism, that by the English past you may be warned for
+the American present and future; and partly that your function in this
+and all cases may become clear to you and the Nation. The facts of
+history will show that my fancies are not extravagant.
+
+1. In April, 1554, just three hundred and one years ago this very
+month, in England, Sir Nicolas Throckmorton, a gentleman of
+distinguished family, was brought to trial for high treason. He had
+held a high military office under Henry VIII. and Edward VI., but
+"made himself obnoxious to the Papists, by his adherence to some of
+the persecuted Reformers." With his two brothers he attended Anne
+Askew to her martyrdom when she was burnt for heresy, where they were
+told to "take heed to your lives for you are marked men." He was
+brought to trial April 17th, 1554, the first year of Bloody Mary. Of
+course he was allowed no counsel; the court was insolent, and demanded
+his condemnation. But the jury acquitted him; whereupon the _court
+shut the twelve jurors in prison_! Four of them made their peace with
+the judges, and were delivered: but eight were kept in jail till the
+next December, and then fined,--three of them £60 apiece, and five
+£225 apiece.
+
+This is one of the earliest cases that I find, where an English jury
+in a political trial refused to return such a verdict as the tyrant
+demanded.[121]
+
+[Footnote 121: See the case in 1 St. Tr. 869, and 1 Jardine, 40, also
+115. The great juridical attacks upon English Liberty were directed
+against the Person of the Subject, and appear in the trials for
+Treason, but as in such trials the defendant had no counsel, the great
+legal battle for English Liberty was fought over the less important
+cases where only property was directly concerned. Hence the chief
+questions seem only to relate to money.]
+
+2. In September, 1670, William Penn, afterwards so famous, and William
+Mead, were brought to trial before the Lord Mayor of London, a
+creature of the king, charged with "a tumultuous assembly." For the
+Quaker meeting-house in Grace Church Street, had been forcibly shut by
+the government, and Mr. Penn had preached to an audience of Dissenters
+in the street itself. The court was exceedingly insolent and
+overbearing, interrupting and insulting the defendants continually.
+The jury found a special verdict--"guilty of speaking in Grace Church
+Street." The judge sent them out to return a verdict more suitable to
+the desire of the government. Again they substantially found the same
+verdict. "This both Mayor and Recorder resented at so high a rate that
+they exceeded the bounds of all reason and civility." The Recorder
+said, "You shall not be dismissed till we have a verdict that the
+court will accept; you shall be locked up without meat, drink, fire,
+and tobacco; you shall not think thus to abuse the court; we will have
+a verdict by the help of God, or you shall starve for it!" When Penn
+attempted to speak, the Recorder roared out, "Stop that prating
+fellow's mouth or put him out of court." The jury were sent out a
+third time, and kept all night, with no food, or drink, or bed. At
+last they returned a verdict of "not guilty," to the great wrath of
+the court. _The judge fined the jurors forty marks apiece_, about
+$140, _and put them in jail_ until they should pay that sum. The
+foreman, Edward Bushel, refused to pay his fine and was kept in jail
+until he was discharged on _Habeas Corpus_ in November. Here the
+attempt of a wicked government and a cruel judge was defeated by the
+noble conduct of the jurors, who dared be faithful to their duty.[122]
+
+[Footnote 122: 6 St. Tr. 951; Dixon's Life of Penn; 22 St. Tr. 925.]
+
+3. In 1681 an attempt was made to procure an indictment against the
+Earl of Shaftesbury, for High Treason. The Bill was presented to the
+Grand-Jury at London; Chief Justice Pemberton gave them the charge, at
+the king's desire--it was Charles II. They were commanded to _examine
+the evidence in public_ in the presence of the court, in order that
+they might thus be overawed and forced to find a bill, in which case
+the court had matters so arranged that they were sure of a conviction.
+The court took part in examining the witnesses, attempting to make out
+a case against the Earl. But the jury returned the bill with IGNORAMUS
+on it, and so found no indictment. The spectators rent the air with
+their shouts. The court was in great wrath, and soon after the king
+seized the Charter of London, as I have already shown you, seeking to
+destroy that strong-hold of Liberty. Shaftesbury escaped--the jury was
+discharged. Why did not the court summon another jury, and the chief
+justice put his brother-in-law on it? Roger Coke says, "But as the
+knights of Malta could make knights of their order for eight pence a
+piece, yet could not make a soldier or seaman; so these kings [the
+Stuarts] though _they could make what judges they pleased_ to do their
+business, _yet could not make a grand-jury_." For the grand-juries
+were returned by the Sheriffs, and the sheriffs were chosen by the
+Livery, the corporation of London. This fact made the king desire to
+seize the charter, _then he could make a grand-jury to suit himself_,
+out of the kinsfolk of the judge.[123]
+
+[Footnote 123: 8 St. Tr. 759, see the valuable matter in the notes,
+also 2 Hallam, 330 and notes.]
+
+4. Next comes the remarkable case of the Seven Bishops, which I have
+spoken of already.[124] You remember the facts, Gentlemen. The king,
+James II., in 1688, wishing to overturn Protestantism--the better to
+establish his tyranny--issued his notorious proclamation, setting
+aside the laws of the land and subverting the English Church. He
+commanded all Bishops and other ministers of religion to read the
+illegal proclamation on a day fixed. Seven Bishops presented to him a
+petition in most decorous language, remonstrating against the
+Proclamation, and asking to be excused from reading it to their
+congregations. The king consulted with Father Petre,--a Jesuit, his
+confessor--on the matter, and had the bishops brought to trial for a
+misdemeanor, for publishing "a seditious libel in writing against his
+majesty and his government." It was "obstructing an officer."
+
+[Footnote 124: See above, p. 32.]
+
+Then the question before the trial-jury was, Did the seven bishops, by
+presenting a petition to the king--asking that they might not be
+forced to do an act against the laws of England and their own
+consciences--commit the offence of publishing a seditious libel; and,
+Shall they be punished for that act? All the judges but two, Holloway
+and Powell, said "Yes," and the jury were so charged. But the jury
+said, "Not guilty." The consequence was this last of the Stuarts was
+foiled in his attempt to restore papal tyranny to England and
+establish such a despotism as already prevailed in France and Spain.
+Here the jury stood between the tyrant and the Liberties of the
+People.
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, let me show you how that noble verdict was
+received. Soon as the verdict was given, says Bishop Burnet, "There
+were immediately very loud acclamations throughout Westminster Hall,
+and the words 'Not guilty,' 'Not guilty,' went round with shouts and
+huzzas; thereat the King's Solicitor moved very earnestly that such as
+had shouted in the court might be committed. But the shouts were
+carried on through the cities of Westminster and London and flew
+presently to Hounslow Heath, where the soldiers in the camp echoed
+them so loud that it startled the king."[125] "Every man seemed
+transported with joy. Bonfires were made all about the streets, and
+the news going over the nation, produced the like rejoicings all
+England over. The king's presence kept the army in some order. But he
+was no sooner gone out of the camp, than he was followed with an
+universal shouting, as if it had been a victory obtained."[126] "When
+the Bishops withdrew from the court, they were surrounded by countless
+thousands who eagerly knelt down to receive their blessing." Of course
+the two judges who stood out for the liberties of the citizens, were
+removed from office!
+
+[Footnote 125: 12 St. Tr. 430.]
+
+[Footnote 126: Burnet's Own Times, 470. See also 2 Campbell, Justices,
+89, _et seq._]
+
+5. Here is another remarkable case, that of William Owen, in 1752.
+These are the facts. In 1750 there was a contested election of a
+member of Parliament for Westminster. Hon. Alexander Murray, an
+anti-ministerial member of the Commons, was denounced to the House for
+his conduct during the election, and it was ordered that he should be
+confined a close prisoner in Newgate, and that he receive his sentence
+on his knees. He refused to kneel, and was punished with great cruelty
+by the bigoted and intolerant House. Mr. Owen, who was a bookseller,
+published a pamphlet, entitled "The Case of Alexander Murray, Esq.,"
+detailing the facts and commenting thereon. For this an information
+was laid against him, charging him with publishing a "wicked, false,
+scandalous, seditious, and malicious libel."
+
+On the trial, the Attorney-General, Ryder, thus delivered himself:--
+
+     "What!--shall a person appeal from that Court, who are the
+     only judges of things belonging to them, the House of
+     Commons I mean. An appeal! To whom? To a mob? Must Justice
+     be appealed from? To whom? To injustice? Appeal to 'the good
+     people of England,' 'particularly the inhabitants of
+     Westminster'! The House of Commons are the good people of
+     England, being the representatives of the people. The rest
+     are--what? Nothing--unless it be a mob. But the clear
+     meaning of this libel was an _appeal to violence_, in fact,
+     and to stigmatize the House." "Then he charges the House
+     with sinking material evidence; which in fact is accusing
+     the House of injustice. This is a charge the most shocking;
+     the most severe, and the most unjust and virulent, against
+     the good, the tender House of Commons; that safeguard of our
+     liberty, and guardian of our welfare."
+
+     "This libel ... will be found the most powerful invective
+     that the skill of man could invent. I will not say the
+     skill, but the wit, art, and false contrivance of man,
+     instigated by Satan;" "to say that this is not a libel, is
+     to say that there is no justice, equity, or right in the
+     world."
+
+The Solicitor-General told the Jury that they were only to inquire _if
+Mr. Owen published the pamphlet_, "_the rest follows of course_;" "you
+are upon your oaths; you judge of the facts ... and _only them_."
+Chief Justice Lee summed up the evidence "and delivered it as his
+opinion, that the _Jury ought to find the defendant guilty;_ for he
+thought the _fact of publication was fully proved; and if so they
+could not avoid bringing in the defendant guilty_."
+
+The jury returned, "Not guilty;" but Ryder, the Attorney-General, put
+this question, Do you think the evidence is not sufficient to convince
+you that _Owen did sell the book_? The foreman stuck to his general
+verdict, "Not guilty," "Not guilty;" and several of the jurymen said,
+"that is our verdict, my lord, and we abide by it." "Upon which the
+court broke up, and there was a prodigious shout in the hall." Then
+"the Jury judged as to facts, law, and justice of the whole, and
+therefore did not answer the leading question which was so artfully
+put to them."[127] Of course the insolent Attorney-General was soon
+made "Lord Chief Justice," and _rode_ the bench after the antiquated
+routine.
+
+[Footnote 127: 18 St. Tr. 1203; 14 Parl. Hist. 888, 1063; 3 Hallam,
+200; 2 Campbell, Justices, 198.]
+
+This was the third great case in which the Jury had vindicated the
+right of speech.
+
+6. Here is another case very famous in its day, and of great value as
+helping to establish the rights of juries, and so to protect the
+natural right of the citizens--the Trial of John Miller for reprinting
+Junius's Letter to the King, in 1770.
+
+Here are the facts. Mr. Miller was the publisher of a newspaper called
+the _London Evening Post_, and therein, on December 19, 1769, he
+reprinted Junius's celebrated Letter to the King. For this act, an
+information _ex officio_ was laid against him, wherein he was charged
+with publishing a false, wicked, seditious, and malicious libel. A
+suit had already been brought against Woodfall, the publisher of the
+_Public Advertiser_, in which the letter originally appeared, but the
+prosecution had not turned out to the satisfaction of the government,
+nor had the great question been definitely settled. So this action was
+brought against Mr. Miller, who reprinted the original letter the day
+of its first appearance.[128]
+
+[Footnote 128: 20 St. Tr. 803, 895, 869; Woodfall's Junius (Bohn,
+1850), Preface, p. 94, Appendix, p. 471; 2 Campbell, Justices, 363; 5
+Mahon.]
+
+Solicitor-General Thurlow,--whom you have met before,
+Gentlemen,--opened the case for the Crown, and said:--
+
+     "I have not of myself been able to imagine ... that there is
+     a serious man of the profession in the kingdom who has the
+     smallest doubt whether this ought to be deemed a libel or
+     not;" "for I neither do, nor ever will, attempt to lay
+     before a jury, a cause, in which I was under the necessity
+     of stating a single principle that went to intrench, in the
+     smallest degree, upon the avowed and acknowledged liberty of
+     the subjects of this country, even with regard to the press.
+     The complaint I have to lay before you is that that liberty
+     has been so abused, so turned to licentiousness, ... that
+     under the notion of arrogating liberty to one man, that is
+     the writer, printer, and publisher of this paper, they do
+     ... annihilate and destroy the liberty of all men, more or
+     less. Undoubtedly the man that has indulged the _liberty of
+     robbing upon the highway_, has a very considerable portion
+     of it allotted to him." The defendant "has published a
+     paper, in which, concerning the King, concerning the House
+     of Commons, and concerning the great officers of State,
+     concerning the public affairs of the realm, there are
+     uttered things of such tendency and application as ought to
+     be punished." "When we are come to that situation, when it
+     shall be lawful for any men in this country to speak of the
+     sovereign [George III.] in terms attempting to fix upon him
+     such contempt, abhorrence, and hatred, there is an end of
+     all government whatsoever, and then liberty is indeed to
+     shift for itself." He quotes from the paper: "'He [the king]
+     has taken a decisive personal part against the subjects of
+     America, and those subjects know how to distinguish the
+     sovereign and a venal Parliament, upon one side, from the
+     real sentiments of the English nation upon the other.' For
+     God's sake is that no libel? To _talk of the king as taking
+     a part of an hostile sort against one branch of his
+     subjects_, and at the same time to _connect him ... with the
+     parliament which he calls a venal parliament_; is that no
+     libel?"
+
+Lord Mansfield,--the bitterest enemy of the citizens' right of speech
+and of the trial by jury,--charged upon the jury, "The question for
+you to try ... is, whether the _defendant did print_, or publish, or
+both, a _paper of the tenor_, and of the meaning, so _charged by the
+information_." "If it is of the tenor and meaning set out in the
+information, the next consideration is, whether he _did print and
+publish it_." "If you ... find the defendant not guilty, the fact
+established by that verdict is, _he did not publish a paper of that
+meaning_;" "the fact finally established by your verdict, if you find
+him guilty, is, that _he printed_ and published a _paper, of the
+tenor_ and of the meaning set _forth in the information_;" "but you do
+_not give an opinion ... whether it is or not lawful to print a paper_
+... of the tenor and meaning in the information;" "if in point of fact
+it is innocent, it would be an innocent thing."
+
+Thus practically the judge left the jury only one thing to determine,
+Did Mr. Miller print Junius's letter to the king? That was a fact as
+notorious as it now is in Boston that the _Daily Advertiser_ supported
+the fugitive slave bill, and helped its execution, for the letter to
+the king was there in Mr. Miller's journal as plainly as those
+defences of the fugitive slave bill were in the _Advertiser_. If the
+jury said "guilty," the court had the defendant in their claws,--and
+all the wrath of the most malignant tories would fall on him and rend
+him in pieces. But the jury fell back on their legitimate function to
+determine the Fact, the Law, and the Application of the law to the
+fact, and returned a verdict, Not Guilty, which a great multitude
+repeated with loud acclaim!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+7. Next, Gentlemen, I will relate a few cases in which the government
+set all justice at defiance and clove down the right of speech,
+commonly packing submissive juries. In 1790 and following years, while
+the French Revolution was in progress, the thoughtful eyes of England
+fell on the evils of her own country. America was already a Republic,
+just recovering from the shock of violent separation from her
+mother,--young, poor, but not unprosperous, and full of future promise
+too obvious to escape the sagacious politicians who there saw a
+cause--
+
+         "----with fear of change,
+     Perplexing Kings."
+
+The people of France, by a few spasmodic efforts, broke the threefold
+chain of Priest, King, and Noble, and began to lift up their head. But
+Saxon England is sober, and so went to work more solemnly than her
+mercurial neighbor. And besides, the British people had already a
+firm, broad basis of personal freedom to stand on. Much was thought,
+written, and spoken about reform in England, then most desperately
+needing it. The American Revolution had English admirers whom no
+courts could silence. Nay, at first the French Revolution delighted
+some of the ablest and best men in Britain, who therein beheld the
+carrying out of the great Principles which Aristotle and Machiavelli
+had laid down as the law of the historical development and social
+evolution of mankind. They wished some improvement in England itself.
+But of course there was a strong opposition made to all change.
+Parliament refused to relieve the evils which were made obvious. The
+upper House of Nobles was composed of the Elder Sons of the families
+which had a social and pecuniary interest in oppressing the people,
+and the lower House "consisted mainly of the Younger Sons of the same
+families, or still worse the purchased dependents" of their families.
+Societies were organized for Reform, such as the "London Corresponding
+Society," "the Friends of the People," etc., etc. The last mentioned
+contained many literary, scientific, and political men, and about
+thirty members of Parliament. Great complaints were made in public at
+the inequality of Representation in Parliament. Stormy debates took
+place in Parliament itself--such as we have not yet heard in America,
+but which wicked and abandoned men are fast bringing upon us. Pitt and
+Fox were on opposite sides.
+
+           "----and such a frown
+     Each cast at the other, as when two black clouds,
+     With Heaven's artillery fraught, come rattling on
+     Over the Caspian, then stand front to front,
+     Hovering a space, till winds the signal blow
+     To join their dark encounter in mid air."
+
+At that time the House of Commons was mainly filled with creatures of
+a few powerful men; thus 91 commoners elected 139 members of the
+commons, and 71 peers also elected 163; so 302 British members of
+Parliament, besides 45 more from Scotland,--347 in all,--were returned
+by 162 persons. This was called "Representation of the People." From
+the party who feared to lose their power of tyranny, there went out
+the decree, "Discussion on the subject of national grievances must be
+suppressed, in Parliament and out of Parliament." Violent attempts
+were made to suppress discussion. In short, the same efforts were made
+in England which were attempted in New York and Boston in 1850 and the
+two following years, till they were ended by a little sprinkling of
+dust. But in Britain the public mind is harsher than ever in America,
+and the weapons which broke in the hand of Old England were much more
+formidable than that which here so suddenly snapped, and with such
+damage to the assassinating hand.
+
+(1.) In 1792, John Lambert and two others published an advertisement
+in the London Morning Chronicle, with which they were connected as
+printers or proprietors, addressed "to the friends of free inquiry and
+the general good," inviting them in a peaceful, calm, and unbiased
+manner to endeavor to improve the public morals in respect to law,
+taxation, representation, and political administration. They were
+prosecuted, on _ex officio_ information, for a "false, wicked,
+scandalous, and seditious libel." The government made every effort to
+secure their conviction. But it failed.[129]
+
+[Footnote 129: 22 St. Tr. 923.]
+
+(2.) The same year, Duffin and Lloyd, two debtors in the Fleet Prison,
+one an American citizen, wrote on the door of the prison chapel "this
+house to let; peaceable possession will be given by the present
+tenants on or before the first day of January, 1793, being the
+commencement of liberty in Great Britain. The republic of France
+having rooted out despotism, their glorious example and success
+against tyrants renders infamous Bastiles no longer necessary in
+Europe." They also were indicted for a "wicked, infamous, and
+seditious libel," and found guilty. Lloyd was put in the pillory![130]
+
+[Footnote 130: 2 St. Tr. 1793.]
+
+(3.) In 1793, Rev. William Frend, of the University of Cambridge,
+published a harmless pamphlet entitled "Peace and Union recommended to
+the associated bodies of Republicans and anti-Republicans." He was
+brought to trial, represented as a "heretic, deist, infidel, and
+atheist," and by sentence of the court banished from the
+university.[131]
+
+[Footnote 131: 22 St. Tr. 523.--So late as 1820, the chief justice
+punished an editor with a fine of £500, for publishing an account of a
+trial for high treason. See 33 St. Tr. 1564, also 22 St. Tr. 298; 2
+Campbell, Justices, 363, 371 _et al._]
+
+(4.) The same year, John Frost, Esq., "a gentleman" and attorney, when
+slightly intoxicated after dinner, and provoked by others, said, "I am
+for equality. I see no reason why any man should not be upon a footing
+with another; it is every man's birthright." And when asked if he
+would have no king, he answered, "Yes, no king; the constitution of
+this country is a bad one." This took place in a random talk at a
+tavern in London. He was indicted as a person of a "depraved, impious,
+and disquiet mind, and of a seditious disposition, and contriving,
+practising, and maliciously, turbulently, and seditiously intending
+the peace and common tranquillity of our lord the king and his laws to
+disturb," "to the evil example of all others in like case offending."
+He was sentenced to six months in Newgate, and one hour in the
+pillory! He must find sureties for good behavior for five years,
+himself in £500, two others in £100 each, be imprisoned until the
+sureties were found, and be struck from the list of attornies![132]
+
+[Footnote 132: 22 St. Tr. 471.]
+
+(5.) Rev. William Winterbotham, the same year, in two sermons, exposed
+some of the evils in the constitution and administration of England,
+and for that was fined £200, and sentenced to jail for four years,--a
+good deal more than $300 and twelve months' imprisonment.[133]
+
+[Footnote 133: Ibid. 823.]
+
+(6.) The same year, Thomas Briellat, a London pump-maker, in a private
+conversation said, "A reformation cannot be effected without a
+revolution; we have no occasion for kings; there never will be any
+good time until all kings are abolished from the face of the earth; it
+is my wish that there were no kings at all." "I wish the French would
+land 500,000 men to fight the government party." He was tried, found
+guilty, and sentenced to a fine of £100, and sent to jail for a
+year.[134]
+
+[Footnote 134: Ib. 909.]
+
+(7.) Richard Phillips, afterwards Sheriff of London, was sent to jail
+for eighteen months for selling Paine's Rights of Man; for the same
+offence two other booksellers were fined and sent to Newgate _for four
+years_! A surgeon and a physician were sent to Newgate for two years
+for having "_seditious libels in their possession_." Thirteen persons
+were indicted at once.[135]
+
+[Footnote 135: Ibid. 471. Wade, Brit. Hist. (1847), 582, _et seq._]
+
+(8.) In 1793 a charge was brought against the Rev. Thomas Fyshe
+Palmer, formerly a Senior Fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge, and
+then a Unitarian minister at Dundee. Mr. Palmer wrote an Address which
+was adopted at a meeting of the Friends of Liberty and published by
+them, which, in moderate language, called on the People "to join us in
+our exertions for the preservation of our perishing liberty, and the
+recovery of our long lost rights." He distributed copies of this
+address. He was prosecuted for "Leasing-making," for publishing a
+"seditious and inflammatory writing." The (Scotch) jury found him
+guilty, and the judges sentenced him to _transportation for seven
+years_. The sentence was executed with rigorous harshness.[136]
+
+[Footnote 136: 23 St. Tr. 237; Belsham's History of George III.]
+
+(9.) The same year Thomas Muir, Esq., was brought to trial for
+Leasing-making or public Libel at Edinburgh. He was a promising young
+lawyer, with liberal tendencies in politics, desiring the education of
+the great mass of the people and a reform in Parliament. He was a
+member of various Reform societies, and sometimes spoke at their
+meetings in a moderate tone recommending only legal efforts--by
+discussion and petition--to remedy the public grievances. His Honor
+(Mr. Curtis) who belongs to a family so notoriously "democratic" in
+the beginning of this century, and so eager in its denunciations of
+the Federalists of that period, knows that the law even of
+England--which they so much hated--allows all that. It appeared that
+Mr. Muir also lent a copy of Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man" to a
+mechanic who asked the loan as a favor. For these offences he was
+indicted for sedition, charged with instituting "a Society for
+Reform," and with an endeavor "to represent the government of this
+country as oppressive and tyrannical, and the legislative body as
+venal and corrupt." It was alleged in the indictment that he
+complained of the government of England as "costly," the monarchy as
+"useless, cumbersome, and expensive," that he advised persons to read
+Paine's Rights of Man, and circulated copies of a periodical called
+"the _Patriot_," which complained of the grievances of the people. On
+trial he was treated with great insolence and harshness, reprimanded,
+interrupted, and insulted by the agents of the government--the court.
+An association of men had offered a reward of five guineas for the
+discovery of any person who circulated the writings of Thomas Paine.
+Five of the fifteen jurors were members of that association,--and in
+Scotland a bare majority of the jurors convicts. Mr. Muir defended
+himself, and that ably. Lord Justice Clark charged his packed jury:--
+
+     "There are two things which you should attend to, which
+     require no proof. The first is that the British Constitution
+     is the _best in the world_!" "Is not every man _secure in
+     his life, liberty, and property? Is not happiness in the
+     power of every man?_ 'Does not every man sit safely under
+     his own vine and fig-tree' and none shall make him afraid?"
+     "The other circumstance ... is the state of the country
+     during last winter. _There was a spirit of sedition and
+     revolt going abroad._" "I leave it for you to judge whether
+     it was perfectly innocent or not in Mr. Muir ... to go about
+     ... among _the lower classes of the people ... inducing them
+     to believe that a reform was absolutely necessary, to
+     preserve their safety and their liberty_, which, had it not
+     been for him, they never would have suspected to have been
+     in danger." "He ran a parallel between the French and
+     English Constitutions, and _talked of their respective
+     taxes_ ... and gave a preference to the French." "He has
+     brought many witnesses to prove his general good behavior,
+     and his recommending peaceable measures, and petitioning to
+     Parliament." "Mr. Muir might have known that _no attention
+     could be paid to such a rabble, what right had they to
+     representation_? He could have told them the _Parliament
+     would never listen to their petition_! How could they think
+     of it? A government in any country should be just like a
+     corporation; and in this country it is _made up of the
+     landed interest, which alone has a right to be
+     represented_."
+
+Gentlemen, you might think this speech was made by the "Castle Garden
+Committee," or at the Boston "Union Meeting" in 1850, but it comes
+from the year 1793.
+
+Of course the jury found him guilty: the judges sentenced him to
+_transportation for fourteen years_! Lord Swinton quoted from the
+Roman law, that the punishment for sedition was _crucifixion_, or
+exposure _to be torn to pieces by wild beasts_, or transportation. "We
+have chosen the _mildest of these punishments_." This sentence was
+executed with great cruelty. But Mr. Pitt, then in the high places of
+power, declared these punishments were dictated by a "sound
+discretion."[137]
+
+[Footnote 137: 23 St. Tr. 117; 30 Parl. Hist. 1486, for Adams' Speech
+in Commons.]
+
+For like offences several others underwent the same or similar
+punishment. But these enormities were perpetrated by the government in
+Scotland--where the Roman Law had early been introduced and had
+accustomed the Semi-Saxons to forms of injustice foreign to the
+ethnologic instinct and historic customs of the parent tribe. But
+begun is half done. Emboldened by their success in punishing the
+friends of Humanity in Scotland, the ministry proceeded to attempt the
+same thing in England itself. Then began that British Reign of Terror,
+which lasted longer than the French, and brought the liberties of the
+People into such peril as they had not known since William of Orange
+hurled the last of the Stuarts from his throne. Dreadful laws were
+passed, atrocious almost as our own fugitive slave bill. First came
+"the Traitorous correspondence Bill;" next the "Habeas Corpus
+Suspension Act;" and then the "Seditious Practices Act," with the
+"Treasonable Attempts Bill" by legislative exposition establishing
+constructive treason! All these iniquitous measures were brought
+forward in Parliament by Sir John Scott--then Attorney-General, one of
+those North Britons who find the pleasantest prospect in Scotland is
+the road to London. He also was vehemently active in defending the
+tyranny of the Scotch judges just referred to, as indeed all judicial
+insolence and legal wrong.[138] He opposed all attempts to reform the
+law which punished with death a theft of five shillings. In two years
+there were more prosecutions for seditious libel than in twenty
+before. But Scott had his reward, and was made Lord Chancellor in
+1801, and elevated to the peerage as Lord Eldon.[139]
+
+[Footnote 138: 30 Parl. Hist. 581; 31 Parl. Hist. 520, 929, 1153, _et
+al._; 32 Parl. Hist. 370.]
+
+[Footnote 139: 7 Campbell, 119; 1 Townsend's Judges; Life of Vic.
+Gibbs.]
+
+8. Then came that series of trials for high treason which disgraced
+the British nation and glutted the sanguinary vengeance of the court.
+The government suborned spies to feign themselves "radicals," join the
+various Reform Societies, worm themselves into the confidence of
+patriotic and philanthropic or rash men, possess themselves of their
+secrets, catch at their words, and then repeat in court what they were
+paid for fabricating in their secret haunts. A ridiculous fable was
+got up that there was a plot to assassinate the King! Many were
+arrested, charged with treason--"constructive treason." On the
+evidence of spies of the government, hired informers--such men,
+Gentlemen of Jury, as Commissioner Loring and Marshal Freeman jointly
+made use of last year to kidnap Mr. Burns--estimable men were seized
+and locked up in the most loathsome dungeons of the kingdom, with
+intentional malignity confined amongst the vilest of notorious
+criminals. The judges wrested the law, constructing libels, seditions,
+"misdemeanors," treasons--any crime which it served their purpose to
+forge out of acts innocent, or only rash or indiscreet. Juries were
+packed by bribed sheriffs, and purchased spies were brought in
+evidence to swear away the liberty or the life of noble men. One of
+the government witnesses was subsequently convicted of ten perjuries!
+No man was safe who dared utter a serious word against George III. or
+Mr. Pitt.
+
+Here, Gentlemen, I shall mention two cases of great importance in
+which the jury did their duty and turned the stream of ministerial and
+judicial tyranny.
+
+(1.) In 1794 in a bill suspending the Habeas Corpus, Parliament
+declared "that a treacherous and detestable conspiracy had been formed
+for subverting the existing laws and constitution, and for introducing
+the system of anarchy and violence which had lately prevailed in
+France." Soon after the grand-jury for Middlesex indicted twelve men
+for high treason; they were members of some of the Societies mentioned
+just now. "The overt act charged against them was, that they had
+engaged _in a conspiracy to call a convention_, the object of which
+was to bring about a revolution in the country," but it was not
+alleged that there was any plot against the King's life, or any
+preparation for force.[140] Thomas Hardy, a shoemaker, was first
+brought to trial. The trial began October 28, 1794, just sixty years
+before Mr. Curtis's grand-jury found a bill against me. Sir John
+Scott, the attorney-general, in opening the Prosecution, made a
+_speech nine hours' long_, attempting to construct treason out of
+belonging to a society. All who belonged to it were to be considered
+guilty of "compassing the death of our Lord the King." Chief Justice
+Eyre, in addressing the grand-jury, referred to the act of Parliament
+as _proof of a conspiracy_.[141] Mr. Erskine defended Hardy in a
+speech which "will live forever." Seldom had English Liberty been in
+such peril; never did English lawyers more manfully defend it. The
+jury, a London jury, returned "NOT GUILTY."[142] Gentlemen, the report
+of the trial occupies more than twelve hundred pages in this
+volume,[143] and it shook the nation. The British juries for a long
+time had slept on their post, and allowed the enemy to enter the camp
+and murder its inmates. But the trial of Hardy woke up those heedless
+sentinels, and Liberty was safe--in England, I mean.
+
+[Footnote 140: 6 Campbell, 366.]
+
+[Footnote 141: 34 George III. c. 54.]
+
+[Footnote 142: 24 St. Tr. 199; Annual Register, 1794, p. 274; 31 Parl.
+Hist. 1062, _et al._]
+
+[Footnote 143: 24 St. Tr.]
+
+(2.) Still the infatuated government went on, not conscious of the
+spirit of Anglo-Saxon liberty it had at last roused from long, heavy
+and deathlike sleep, and eleven days after brought Mr. John Horne
+Tooke to trial. You remember, Gentlemen, that on the first anniversary
+of the Declaration of Independence, he was tried for publishing a
+notice of a meeting which raised £100 for the widows and orphan
+children of our citizens who fell at Lexington on the 19th of April,
+1775, and for that offence was punished with fine and imprisonment.[144]
+After the acquittal of Hardy, the government brought Mr. Tooke to
+trial, relying on the same evidence to convict him which had so
+signally failed a fortnight before. The overt act relied on to convict
+him of "levying war" and "compassing the death of our Lord the King,"
+was membership of a Reform society! Mr. Erskine defended him: "I
+_will_ assert the freedom of an Englishman; I will maintain the
+dignity of man, I will vindicate and glory in the principles which
+raised this country to her preëminence among the nations of the earth;
+and as she shone the bright star of the morning to shed the light of
+liberty upon nations which now enjoy it, so may she continue in her
+radiant sphere to revive the ancient privileges of the world which
+have been lost, and still to bring them forward to tongues and people
+who have never known them yet, in the mysterious progression of
+things."[145]
+
+[Footnote 144: See above, p. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 145: 25 St. Tr. 1.]
+
+Gentlemen, Horne Tooke was acquitted--the government routed and
+overwhelmed with disgrace, gave up the other prosecutions, and the
+treason trials ended. Even George III. had wit enough left to see the
+blunder which his ministers--the Slave Power of England in 1794--had
+committed, and stammered forth, "You have got us into the wrong box my
+Lord [Loughborough]; you have got us into the wrong box. Constructive
+treason won't do my Lord; constructive treason won't do." By and by,
+Gentlemen, other men, wiser than poor feeble-minded George III., will
+find out that "constructive _misdemeanors_ won't do."
+
+Of these trials, Mr. Campbell, himself a Judge, declares, "This [the
+conduct of the government] was more exceptionable in principle than
+any thing done during the reign of Charles II.; for then the
+fabricators of the Popish Plot did not think of corroborating the
+testimony of Oates and Bedloe by a public statute; and then, if the
+facts alleged had been true, they would have amounted to a plain case
+of actual treason; whereas here, admitting the truth of all the facts
+alleged, there was no pretence for saying that any treason
+contemplated by the legislature had been committed. If this scheme had
+succeeded, not only would there have been a sacrifice of life contrary
+to law, but all political 'agitation' must have been extinguished in
+England, as there would have been a precedent for holding that the
+effort to carry a measure by influencing public opinion through the
+means openly resorted to in our days, is a 'compassing the death of
+the sovereign.' The only chance of escaping such servitude would have
+been civil war. It is frightful to think of the perils to which the
+nation was exposed.... But Erskine and the crisis were framed for each
+other.... His contemporaries, who without him might have seen the
+extinction of freedom among us, saw it, by his peculiar genius, placed
+on an imperishable basis."[146] But Erskine without a Jury, Gentlemen,
+what could he have done? He could only wail, O Jerusalem,
+Jerusalem--when she would not!
+
+[Footnote 146: 5 Campbell, 367.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now, Gentlemen, let us come over to this side of the water. I shall
+mention some cases in which the Jury have manfully done their duty,
+some others in which they have allowed themselves to be browbeaten and
+bullied by a judge, and so have done the greatest wrong.
+
+1. First look at the famous case of John Peter Zenger.[147] Here are
+the facts. In 1733, Mr. Zenger established a newspaper in New
+York--there was only one there before--called the "New York Weekly
+Journal," "containing the freshest Advices foreign and domestic." In
+some numbers of this he complained, modestly enough, of various
+grievances in the administration of the Province, then ruled by
+Governor Cosby. He said, "as matters now stand their [the People's]
+liberties and properties are precarious, and that Slavery is likely
+to be entailed on them and their posterity, if some past things be not
+amended." He published the remarks of some one who said he "should be
+glad to hear that the Assembly would exert themselves, as became them,
+by showing that they have the interest of their country more at heart
+than the gratification of any private view of any of their members, or
+being at all affected by the smiles or frowns of a Governor, both
+which ought equally to be despised when the interest of the country is
+at stake." "We see men's deeds destroyed, judges arbitrarily
+displaced, new courts erected without consent of the legislature, by
+which, it seems to me, trials by juries are taken away when a Governor
+pleases." "Who, then, in that province can call any thing his own, or
+enjoy any liberty longer than those in the administration will
+condescend to let him do it?"
+
+[Footnote 147: 3 Doc. Hist. N.Y. p. 340, 341.]
+
+In October, 1734, Chief Justice de Lancey gave a charge to the
+Grand-Jury, urging them to indict Mr. Zenger for a libel. He says, "It
+is a very high aggravation of a libel that it tends to scandalize the
+government by _reflecting on those who are intrusted with the
+administration of public affairs_, which ... has a direct tendency to
+breed in the public a dislike of their Governors." "If he who hath
+either read a libel himself, or hath heard it read by another, _do
+afterwards_ maliciously _read or report any part of it in the presence
+of others_, or _lend or show it to another, he is guilty of an
+unlawful publication of it._"
+
+But the Judge had not packed the Grand-Jury with sufficient care, and
+so no bill was found. Thereupon the Governor's Council sent a message
+to the General Assembly of New York, complaining of Mr. Zenger's
+Journal as tending "to alienate the affections of the people of this
+province from his majesty's government," and asking them to inquire
+into the said papers and the authors thereof; the Council required
+that the obnoxious numbers might "be _burned by the hands of the
+common hangman or whipper, near the pillory_." The Assembly let them
+lie on the table. The Court of Quarter-sessions was applied to to burn
+the papers; but as that body refused, the sheriff "delivered them unto
+the hands of _his own negro_, and ordered him to put them into the
+fire, which he did."
+
+Mr. Zenger was imprisoned by a warrant from the Governor, a _lettre de
+cachet_, and "for several days denied the use of pen, ink, and paper,
+and the liberty of speech with any person." An _ex officio_
+information was brought against him, charging him with "malicious and
+seditious libel." His counsel, Messrs. Alexander and Smith, took
+exceptions to the proceedings. The Chief Justice would neither hear
+nor allow the exceptions, "for" said he, "you thought to have gained a
+great deal of applause and popularity by opposing this court ... but
+you have brought it to that point, that either we must go from the
+bench or you from the bar, therefore we exclude you." So "for contempt
+of court" their names were struck from the list of attorneys. The case
+came on for trial. The clerk of the Court sought to pack his jury, and
+instead of producing the "Freeholders' book" to select the Jury from,
+presented a list of forty-eight persons which he said he had taken
+from that book. This Honorable Court knows how easy it is to violate
+the law in summoning jurors; none knew it better a hundred and twenty
+years ago. Of the 48 some were not freeholders at all; others held
+commissions and offices at the Governor's pleasure; others were of the
+late displaced magistrates who had a grudge against Mr. Zenger for
+exposing their official conduct; besides, there were the governor's
+baker, tailor, shoemaker, candle-maker, and joiner. But it does not
+appear that this Judge had any Brother-in-law on the list; corruption
+had not yet reached that height. But that wicked list was set aside
+after much ado, and a Jury summoned in the legal manner. It may
+astonish the Court but it was really done--and a Jury summoned
+according to law. The trial went on. Andrew Hamilton of Philadelphia
+defended Mr. Zenger with law, wit, learning, and eloquence. He
+admitted the fact of printing and publishing the documents, and rested
+the defence on the truth of their assertions. The Attorney-General,
+Mr. Bradley, said, "supposing they were true, the law says that they
+are not the less libellous for that: nay, indeed, the law says, _their
+being true is an aggravation of the crime_." He "did not know what
+could be said in defence of a man that had so notoriously scandalized
+the governor and principal magistrates ... by _charging them with
+depriving the people of their rights and liberties, and taking away
+trials by juries, and in short putting an end to the law itself_. If
+this was not a libel, he did not know what was one. Such persons as
+did take these liberties ... ought to suffer for stirring up sedition
+and discontent among the people."
+
+The Chief Justice declared, "It is far from being a justification of a
+libel that the contents thereof are true ... since the _greater
+appearance there is of truth, so much the more provoking is it_!" "The
+jury may find that Mr. Zenger printed and published these papers, and
+_leave it to the court to judge whether they are libellous_!"
+
+That would be to put the dove's neck in the mouth of the fox, and
+allow him to decide whether he would bite it off. Mr. Hamilton
+replied:--
+
+     "This of leaving it to the judgment of the court whether the
+     words are libellous or not, in effect renders Juries useless
+     (to say no worse), in many cases." "If the faults, mistakes,
+     nay even the vices of such a person be private and personal,
+     and don't affect the peace of the public, or the liberty or
+     property of our neighbor, it is unmanly and unmannerly to
+     expose them, either by word or writing. But, when a ruler of
+     the people brings his personal failings, but much more his
+     vices, into his administration, and the people find
+     themselves affected by them, either in their liberties or
+     properties, that will alter the case mightily; and all the
+     high things that are said in favor of rulers and of
+     deputies, and upon the side of power, will not be able to
+     stop people's mouths when they feel themselves oppressed, I
+     mean in a free government. It is true _in times past it was
+     a crime to speak truth_; and in that terrible court of
+     Star-Chamber many worthy and brave men suffered for so
+     doing; and yet even in that court, and in those bad times, a
+     great and good man durst say, what I hope will not be taken
+     amiss of me to say in this place, namely, 'The practice of
+     informations for libels is a sword in the hands of a wicked
+     king, and an arrant coward, to cut down and destroy the
+     innocent; the one cannot because of his high station, and
+     the other dares not, because of his want of courage, redress
+     himself in another manner.'
+
+     "It is a right which all persons claim and are entitled to,
+     to complain when they are hurt; they have a right publicly
+     to remonstrate against the abuses of power, in the strongest
+     terms; to put their neighbors upon their guard against the
+     craft or open violence of men in authority; and to assert
+     with courage the sense they have of the blessings of
+     liberty, the value they put upon it, and their resolution at
+     all hazards to preserve it as one of the greatest blessings
+     Heaven can bestow." "It is a duty which all good men owe to
+     their country, to guard against the unhappy influence of ill
+     men when intrusted with power, and especially against their
+     creatures and dependants, who as they are generally more
+     necessitous, are surely more covetous and cruel."
+
+According to the Judge the Jury had only one question before them,
+"Did Zenger publish the words charged in the information?" That fact
+was clear; nay, he did not himself deny it. He confessed it in court.
+But the jury fell back on their rights and duties to decide the
+Question of Fact, of Law, and of the Application of the Law to the
+Fact, and returned "NOT GUILTY," "upon which there were three huzzas
+in the Hall." Had this Honorable Court been then in existence I
+suppose it would have talked of indicting the jurors for "perjury,"
+and would doubtless have had its labor for its pains. For the Common
+Council of New York presented Mr. Hamilton with a costly gold box and
+the freedom of the city. Gentlemen, this took place one hundred and
+twenty years ago. Forty years before the Revolution, Andrew Hamilton
+helped lay the "brilliant foundation of liberty," whereon another
+Hamilton was also to raise up noble walls of freedom. Gentlemen of the
+Jury, by Wisdom is a house builded, but the foolish plucketh it down
+with her own hands. Will you allow that to be done? What if the jury
+in 1735 had been faithless? The axe which smote down Zenger in New
+York, bloody and cruel, would have shorn off the heads of Otis and
+Quincy, and Adams and Hancock at Boston; the family of Scroggs alone
+would be held in honor in New England.[148]
+
+[Footnote 148: 17 St. Tr. 675.]
+
+Gentlemen, it once happened in New York that Governor Nicholson was
+offended with one of the clergymen of the Province. He met him on the
+road one day, and "as it was usual with him (under the protection of
+his commission) used the poor minister with the worst of language,
+threatened to cut off his ears, slit his nose, and at last to shoot
+him through the head." The minister, "being a reverend man, continued
+all this time uncovered in the heat of the sun, until he found an
+opportunity to fly for it, and coming to a neighbor's house fell ill
+of a fever and wrote for a doctor," relating the facts and concluding
+that the governor was crazy, for no man in his right mind would behave
+so ill. The doctor showed the letter; the governor brought a
+prosecution against the minister for publishing a "scandalous, wicked,
+and seditious libel." No doubt he could have found a judge even then
+who would twist the law so as to make the letter "sedition" and
+"libel;" nay, perhaps he could construct a jury so as to secure a
+conviction, but before it reached trial the prosecution was stopped by
+the order of Queen Anne.
+
+2. In 1816, in Massachusetts, there occurred the celebrated case of
+Commonwealth _vs._ Bowen, to which I shall again refer in a subsequent
+part of this defence. These are the facts. In September, 1815,
+Jonathan Jewett was convicted of murder in Hampshire county,
+Massachusetts, and sentenced to be hanged on the 9th of the following
+November. He was confined at Northampton, and hung himself in his cell
+on the night preceding the morning appointed for his public execution.
+George Bowen was confined in the same jail, in an apartment adjacent
+to Jewett's, and in such a situation that they could freely converse
+together. Bowen repeatedly and frequently advised and urged Jewett to
+destroy himself and thus disappoint the sheriff and the expectant
+people. He did so, and the coroner's jury returned that he committed
+suicide. But nevertheless, Bowen was indicted for the wilful murder of
+Jewett. It was charged that he "feloniously, wilfully, and of his
+malice aforethought, did counsel, hire, persuade, and procure the said
+Jewett the said felony and murder of himself to do and commit;" or
+that he himself murdered the said Jewett by hanging him.
+
+At the trial Attorney-General Perez Morton contended that Bowen "was
+guilty of _murder as principal_;" and he cited and relied chiefly on
+the following authority from the Reports of our old friend Kelyng.
+
+     "Memorandum, that my brother _Twisden_ showed me a report
+     which he had of a charge given by Justice _Jones_ to the
+     grand-jury, at the King's Bench barre, _Michaelmas Term_, 9
+     _Car._ 1, in which he said, that poisoning another was
+     murder at common law. And the statute of 1 _Ed._ 6, was but
+     declaratory of the common law, and an affirmation of it. If
+     one drinks poison by the provocation of another, and dieth
+     of it, this is murder in the person that persuaded it. And
+     he took this difference. If A. give poison to J.S. to give
+     to J.D., and J.S. knowing it to be poison, give it to J.D.
+     who taketh it in the absence of J.S., and dieth of it; in
+     this case J.S., who gave it to J.D., is principal; and A.
+     who gave the poison to J.S., and was absent when it was
+     taken, is but accessory before the fact. But if A. buyeth
+     poison for J.S., and J.S., in the absence of A., taketh it
+     and dieth of it, in this case A., though he be absent, yet
+     he is principal. So it is if A. giveth poison to B. to give
+     unto C.; and B., not knowing it to be poison, but believing
+     it to be a good medicine, giveth it to C., who dieth of it;
+     in this case A., who is absent, is principal, or else a man
+     should be murdered, and there should be no principal. For
+     B., who knoweth nothing of the poison, is in no fault,
+     though he gave it to C. So if A. puts a sword into the hands
+     of a madman, and bids him kill B. with it, and then A. goeth
+     away, and the madman kills B. with the sword, as A.
+     commanded him, this is murder in A., though absent, and he
+     is principal; for it is no crime in the madman, who did the
+     fact by reason of his madness."[149]
+
+[Footnote 149: See the case in Kelyng's Reports (London, 1708), p. 52.
+The opinion of Justice _Jones_ was only the charge of an inferior
+judge given to the grand-jury in 1634.]
+
+Mr. Morton also laid down this as law, "_the adviser of one who
+commits a felony of himself is a murderer_." He might have added, "the
+adviser of one who breaks into his own house is a burglar."
+
+Chief Justice Parker--who once declared that the jury had nothing to
+do with the harshness of a law--charged the jury that the important
+question for them was, Did Bowen's advice induce Jewett to kill
+himself? if so, they were to find him guilty of wilful murder! "The
+community has an interest _in the public execution_ of criminals [the
+crowd having an _interest in the spectacle_] and to take such an one
+out of the reach of the law [by advising him to self-destruction] is
+no trivial offence." "_You are not to consider the atrocity of this
+offence in the least degree diminished by the consideration that
+justice was thirsting for its sacrifice_; and that but a small portion
+of Jewett's earthly existence could, in any event, remain to
+him."[150]
+
+[Footnote 150: 13 Mass. Rep. 356.]
+
+There was no doubt that Bowen advised Jewett to commit suicide; but
+the jury, in defiance of the judge's charge and Mr. Kelyng's law,
+nevertheless returned "NOT GUILTY."
+
+Here, Gentlemen, is a remarkable instance of a judge, in private a
+benevolent man, perverting his official power, and constructing the
+crime of murder out of advice given to a man to anticipate a public
+execution by privately hanging himself! The law relied on was the
+Memorandum of the charge to a grand-jury made by a judge who
+notoriously broke the fundamental laws of England, by declaring that
+the king had a constitutional right to imprison, at will and as long
+as he liked, any of his subjects without trial, even members of
+Parliament for words uttered in public debate; and also the right to
+levy ship-money contrary to the Acts of Parliament. This charge was
+made in the tyrannical reign of Charles I. in 1634, by a tyrannical
+judge. There was no report, only _a memorandum_ of it, and that not
+printed till seventy-four years after! It had not the force of law
+even then: it was only the memorandum of the "opinion" of a single
+judge, not even the "opinion" of the full court. The memorandum is
+contained in Kelyng's Book, which Lord Campbell calls "a folio volume
+of decisions in criminal cases, which are of no value whatever, except
+to make us laugh at some of the silly egotisms with which they
+abound."[151] On such authority in 1816 would even a Massachusetts
+court, with a judge who was a kindly man in private, dash away the
+life of a fellow-creature,--with such mockery of law! But, Gentlemen,
+the jury at that time did not slumber; they set the matter right, and
+did justice spite of Judge Kelyng and his "law." They made nothing of
+the judge's charge!
+
+[Footnote 151: 2 Campbell, Judges, 406.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, I will now mention some cases of gross
+injustice perpetrated by the Federal Courts of the United States.
+
+The tenth article of amendments to the Constitution provides that
+"powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
+prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States
+respectively, or to the People." The Constitution itself confers no
+Common Law Jurisdiction on the Government. Neither the People nor
+their Representatives had ever decreed the Common Law of England to be
+a part of the law of the United States. Yet, spite of the absence of
+positive enactment and the express words of the above amendment to the
+Constitution, the Supreme Court at once assumed this jurisdiction. In
+1799, Chief Justice Ellsworth said, "the Common Law of this country
+remains the same as it was before the Revolution;"[152] and proceeded
+on that supposition to exercise the powers of English Judges of Common
+Law, undertaking to punish men for offences which no Act of Congress
+forbid. You see at once what monstrous tyranny would follow from that
+usurpation. Had the English Common Law power of punishing for
+"seditious libel," for example, been allowed to the Federal court,
+Gentlemen, you know too well what would follow. But this monstrous
+assumption was presently brought to an ignominious end; and strange as
+it may appear, by one of the judges of the court itself. Samuel Chase
+of Maryland, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence,
+had been an Anti-Federalist and a strong State-Right's man, as such
+insisting on a strict construction of the Constitution. Singular as it
+may appear he was made a Judge in 1796, and what is yet more
+surprising, in 1798, declared "the United States as a Federal
+government, had no Common Law," and thus ended this claim.[153] But
+tyranny did not end; nay, he himself, a man of uncommon powers and
+legal attainments, became a most atrocious example of Judicial
+despotism.
+
+[Footnote 152: Wharton, State Trials, 653. See too Virginia
+Resolutions (Richmond, 1850), Preface, xiii. _et seq._; Virginia
+Resolutions by Madison, and his Report thereon; Kentucky Resolutions
+by Jefferson, in 4 Eliot's Debates (1836).]
+
+[Footnote 153: Wharton, 197; 3 Dallas, 384; see 5 Hildreth, 230.]
+
+1. In 1791 a direct tax was levied by Act of Congress on all lands and
+houses; excise officers were to ascertain their value. The "Alien and
+Sedition Laws" were also passed the same year. The execution of the
+law relative to the direct tax was resisted in Northampton county,
+Penn., and some prisoners rescued from an officer of the United
+States. The President, Mr. Adams, issued his proclamation. In 1799
+John Fries was arrested on the charge of treason. The overt act
+alleged was resistance to that one special law of Congress. Judge
+Iredell charged the Grand-Jury, "You have heard the government as
+grossly abused as if it had been guilty of the vilest tyranny." Had he
+read the private correspondence of the Cabinet, he might have found
+other specimens of "abuse." He defended both the Alien and Sedition
+Laws.--They were "constitutional" and "proper."[154]
+
+[Footnote 154: See a defence of them in 2 Gibbs's Administration, 74,
+78; also 162.]
+
+Mr. Fries was indicted for treason. The Judiciary Act of Congress of
+1789 provides that "in cases punishable with death the trial shall be
+had in the county where the offence was committed; or when that cannot
+be done without great inconvenience, twelve petit jurors at least
+shall be summoned from thence." The offence was committed in
+Northampton county, and he was indicted and brought to trial in
+Philadelphia county, nor could the court be induced to comply with the
+statute!
+
+The government laid down the law and constructed treason with the
+usual ingenuity of officials working by the job. Judge Kelyng's loose
+opinion that an attack on a brothel was high treason, was cited by Mr.
+Rawle, the District Attorney, as good law.[155] What "in England is
+called constructive levying of war, in this country must be called
+direct levying of war." Judge Peters charged that though force was
+necessary to constitute the crime of treason, yet "the quantum of
+force is immaterial," of course it may be wielding a wheat straw, or a
+word, I suppose. "The doctrine of constructive treason has produced
+much real mischief in another country" [England]. "The _greater part
+of the objections to it are irrelevant here_."
+
+[Footnote 155: Wharton, 539; Kelyng, R. 70, 75.]
+
+Fries was found guilty. His counsel moved for a new trial, on the
+ground that before the trial one of the jurors had declared, "Fries
+ought to be hung;" "I myself shall be in danger unless we hang them
+all;" that the jurors were irregularly drawn, and the trial was not
+held in the county where the offence was committed. Judge Iredell
+ruled that it was "_a high contempt_ at this time _to call for a
+renewal of an argument whereon a solemn, decisive opinion was
+delivered_." Judge Peters declared the juror had "said no more than
+all friends to the laws and the government were warranted in thinking
+and saying." Yet a new trial was granted.
+
+The new trial was held before Judge Chase, who had, as Mr. Wharton
+says, a "singular instinct for tumults which scents it at a distance
+... and irresistibly impels a participation in it," "moving
+perpetually with a mob at his heels." Yet "apart from his criminal
+jurisdiction he was reckoned a wise and impartial judge, a master of
+the Common Law, and a thorough and indefatigable administrator of
+public functions." "It was this despotic ardor of temperament ...
+which made him, when a young man, employ with resolute audacity the
+engine of popular revolt, and which led him when older, and when in
+possession of that power against which he had so steadily warred, to
+wield with the same vigor the sword of constituted authority."[156]
+Gentlemen, he was like many that this Honorable Court perhaps have
+known, who were privateering Democrats in 1812, and Kidnapping Whigs
+in 1850. To him we are indebted for the invaluable decision that the
+United States courts have no Common Law jurisdiction.
+
+[Footnote 156: 4 Hildreth, 571; 1 Gibbs, 300; 2 Gibbs, 419.]
+
+At this new trial he treated the defendants' counsel in such a manner
+that they abandoned the case, and left the Prisoner without defence.
+The District Attorney, taking his law from Kelyng and similar servants
+of British despots, laid it down that treason "may consist in
+_assembling together in numbers_, and by actual force, or by terror,
+_opposing any particular law_;" "_Force need not be used_ to manifest
+this spirit of rebellion." "Even _if the matter made a grievance of
+was illegal, the demolition of it_ in this way _was_, nevertheless,
+_treason_," "a rising with intent by force to prevent the execution of
+a law ... preventing the marshal executing his warrants, and
+preventing the other officers ... amounted to levying war." "In short
+an opposition to the acts of Congress in whole or in part [that is to
+_any one law_] ... either by collecting numbers, or by a display of
+force ... which should operate ... either throughout the United
+States, or in _any part thereof to procure a repeal or a suspension_
+of the law ... this offence be considered to be _strictly_ treason."
+
+Judge Chase laid it down as law not to be questioned in his court,
+"that any ... rising of any body of the people ... to attain by force
+... any object of a great public nature ... is a levying of war:"
+"any such ... rising to resist ... the execution of any statutes of
+United States ... or for any other object of a general nature or
+national concern, under any pretence as that the statute was unjust
+... or unconstitutional is a levying war;" "_any force ... will
+constitute the crime_ of levying war."
+
+If that be law, then an old negro woman who, with a dishcloth,
+frightens officer Butman away from kidnapping her granddaughter in
+Southac street, does thereby levy war against the United States and
+commits the crime of treason.
+
+The jury, overborne by the assumptions of the judge, or ignorant of
+their duties and their rights, allowed this tyrannical court to have
+its way, surrendered the necks of the people, and brought in a verdict
+of guilty. Judge Chase made an insolent address to the prisoner and
+sentenced him to death. But Mr. Adams, with a remarkable degree of
+justice, gave him a full pardon, and drew down upon himself thereby
+the wrath of his cabinet.[157]
+
+[Footnote 157: Wheaton, 458; 9 Adams's Works, 57; 2 Gibbs, 360; 5
+Hildreth, 366; Chase's Trial, 18.]
+
+2. In 1788 Mathew Lyon, a native of Ireland, a Revolutionary soldier,
+a member of congress, and editor of a newspaper in Vermont, was
+brought to trial under the Sedition Law, for a false, malicious, and
+seditious libel. He had published in his newspaper a somewhat severe
+attack on the Federalists then in power. The article, alleged to be
+"seditious," was a letter written and mailed at the seat of government
+seven days before, and published nine days after, the passage of the
+Sedition Law itself. It was as much a political trial, Gentlemen, as
+this--purely political. Judge Patterson--United States Circuit Judge
+of Vermont--charged that the jury had nothing whatever to do with the
+constitutionality of the Sedition Law. "Congress has said that the
+author and publisher of seditious libels is to be punished." "The only
+question you are to determine is ... Did Mr. Lyon publish the
+writing?... Did he do so seditiously, with the intent of making odious
+or contemptible the President and government, and bringing them both
+into disrepute?"
+
+Mr. Lyon was found guilty, and punished by a fine of $1,000 and
+imprisonment for four months. The "Seditious Libel" would now be
+thought a quite moderate Editorial or "Letter from our Correspondent."
+His imprisonment was enforced with such rigor that his constituents
+threatened to tear down the jail, which he prevented.[158]
+
+[Footnote 158: Wharton, 333; 4 Jefferson's Works (1853), 262.]
+
+3. In 1799 Thomas Cooper, a native of England, residing at
+Northumberland, Pennsylvania, published a handbill reflecting severely
+on the conduct of President Adams. He was prosecuted by an
+Information _ex officio_, in the Circuit Court for Pennsylvania, and
+brought to trial before Judge Chase, already referred to, charged with
+a "false, scandalous, and malicious attack" on the President. Mr.
+Chase charged the jury, "A Republican government can only be destroyed
+in two ways: the introduction of luxury, or the licentiousness of the
+press. This latter is the more slow, but most sure and certain means
+of bringing about the destruction of the government." He made a fierce
+and violent harangue, arguing the case against the defendant with the
+spirit which has since become so notorious in the United States courts
+in that State. The pliant jury found Mr. Cooper guilty, and he was
+fined $400 and sent to jail for six months. He subsequently became a
+judge in Pennsylvania, as conspicuous for judicial tyranny as Mr.
+Chase himself, and was removed by Address of the Legislature from his
+seat, but afterwards went to South Carolina where he became Professor
+at her college, and a famous nullifier in 1830.[159]
+
+[Footnote 159: Wharton, 659.]
+
+4. In 1799, or 1800, Mr. Callender, a native of England, then residing
+at Richmond, in Virginia--a base and mean fellow, as his whole history
+proved, depraved in morals and malignant in temper--published a
+pamphlet called "The Prospect before us," full of the common abuse of
+Mr. Adams and his administration. He was indicted for a false,
+malicious, and seditious libel, and brought to trial before Judge
+Chase who pressed the Sedition Law with inquisitorial energy and
+executed it with intolerant rigor.[160] As he started for Richmond to
+hold the trial, he declared "he would teach the lawyers in Virginia
+the difference between the liberty and the licentiousness of the
+press." He told the marshal "not to put any of those creatures called
+Democrats on the jury,"--it does not appear that he had his own
+Brother-in-Law on it however;--"he likened himself to a schoolmaster
+who was to turn the unruly boys of the Virginia courts over his knee
+and give them a little wholesome chastisement."
+
+[Footnote 160: Wharton, 45, 688; Chase's Trial, 33; 4 Jefferson, 445,
+447.]
+
+Some of the ablest lawyers in Virginia were engaged for the defence.
+But they could not secure any decent regard to the common forms of
+law, or to the claims of justice. He would not grant the delay always
+usual in such cases, and indispensable to the defence. He refused to
+allow the defendants' counsel to examine their most important witness,
+and allowed them to put none but written questions approved of by him!
+The defendant was not allowed to prove the truth of any statements,
+alleged to be libellous, by establishing the truth of one part through
+one witness and of another through a different one. He would not allow
+him to argue to the jury that the law was unconstitutional. "We all
+know that juries have the right to decide the law as well as the fact,
+and the Constitution is the Supreme law of the land." "Then," said
+Mr. Wirt, "since the jury have a right to consider the law, and since
+the Constitution is law, it is certainly syllogistic that the jury
+have a right to consider the Constitution;" and the judge exclaimed,
+"a _non sequitur_, Sir!" "Sit down, Sir!" Mr. Wirt sat down. The judge
+declared "a right is given to the jury to determine what the law is in
+the case before them, and not to decide whether a statute is a law or
+not, or whether it is void, under an opinion that it is
+unconstitutional." "It appears to me the right now claimed has a
+direct tendency to dissolve the Union." "No citizen of knowledge and
+information ... will believe, without very strong and indubitable
+proof, that Congress will, intentionally, make any law in violation of
+the Federal Constitution." "If such a case should happen, the mode of
+redress is pointed out in the Constitution." It was obvious that
+Congress had made laws in violation of the Constitution, and he
+insisted that the jury should enforce those laws against their own
+conscience. After all his violent injustice he of course declared "the
+decisions of courts of justice will not be influenced by political and
+_local_ principles and prejudices." The packed jury found the prisoner
+guilty. He was fined $200 and sent to jail for nine months.
+
+But Virginia was too high-spirited to bear this. Nay, Gentlemen of the
+Jury, the whole Nation then was too fond of justice and liberty to
+allow such wickedness to proceed in the name of law. "Virginia was in
+a flame;" the lawyers "throughout the country were stung to the
+quick." They had not been so long under the slave-power then as now.
+At this day, Gentlemen, such conduct, such insolence, yet more
+oppressive, rouses no general indignation in the lawyers. But then the
+Alien and Sedition Laws ruined the Administration, and sent Mr.
+Adams--who yet never favored them--from his seat; his successor, Mr.
+Jefferson, says, "_I discharged every person under punishment_, or
+prosecution, _under the Sedition Law, because I considered and now
+consider, that law to be a nullity as absolute and as palpable as if
+Congress had ordered us to fall down and worship a golden
+image_."[161] Judge Chase was impeached by the House of
+Representatives, tried by the Senate, and only escaped condemnation by
+the prejudice of the political partisans. As it was, a majority were
+in favor of his condemnation. But the Constitution, properly, requires
+two thirds. Judge Chase escaped by this provision. But his influence
+was gone.
+
+[Footnote 161: 4 Jefferson, Correspondence in Wharton, 721.]
+
+The Alien and Sedition Laws, which sought to gag the People, and make
+a Speech a "misdemeanor," soon went to their own place; and on the 4th
+of July, 1840, Congress passed a law to pay Mr. Lyon and others the
+full amount of the fine and costs levied upon them, with interest to
+the date of payment: a Committee of the House had made a report on
+Lyon's case, stating that "the law was unconstitutional, null, and
+void, passed under a mistaken exercise of undelegated power, and that
+the mistake ought to be remedied by returning the fine so obtained,
+with interest thereon."[162] Just now, Gentlemen, Judge Chase and the
+principles of the Sedition Law appear to be in high favor with the
+Federal Courts: but one day the fugitive slave bill will follow the
+Alien and Sedition Bill, and Congress will refund all the money it has
+wrenched unjustly from victims of the Court. There is a To-morrow
+after to-day, and a Higher Law which crushes all fugitive slave bills
+into their kindred dust.
+
+[Footnote 162: 2 Sess. 26th, Cong. Doc. 86, Ho. Rep.; Wharton, 344,
+679. See also Virginia Resolutions (1850), and the remarks in the
+Debates. Then Virginia was faithful to State Rights, and did a service
+to the cause of Liberty which no subsequent misconduct should make us
+forget.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gentlemen, allow me to vary this narrative of British and American
+despotism by an example from a different nation. I will refresh you
+with a case more nearly resembling that before you; it is an instance
+of German tyranny. In 1853, Dr. Gervinus, Professor of History in the
+University of Heidelberg in Germany, published this little volume of
+about 200 pages,[163] "An Introduction to the History of the 19th
+Century." Mr. Gervinus is one of the most enlightened men in the
+world, a man of great genius for the philosophical investigation of
+human history, and enriched with such culture and learning as is not
+common even in that home of learned men. His book, designed only for
+scholars, and hardly intelligible to the majority of readers even in
+America, sets forth this great fact,--The democratic tendency of
+mankind shown in all history.
+
+[Footnote 163: 2 Einleitung in die Geschichte des neunzehnten
+Jahrhunderts; Leipzig, 1853. 8vo. pp. 181.]
+
+Gervinus was seized and brought to trial on the 24th of February,
+1853, at Mannheim, charged with publishing a work against
+constitutional monarchy, intending thereby to depose the lawful head
+of the State, the Grand Duke Charles Leopold, and with changing and
+endangering the constitution, "disturbing the public tranquillity and
+order, and incurring the guilt of High Treason." In short he was
+charged with "obstructing an officer" and attempting to "dissolve the
+Union," with "levying war." For his trial the judge purposely selected
+a small room, though four times larger than what now circumscribes the
+dignity of this Honorable Court; he did not wish the people to hear
+Gervinus's defence. But I will read you some extracts from the preface
+to the English translation of his book:--
+
+     "I offer nothing purely theoretical or speculative, and as
+     few opinions and conclusions as can possibly be given in a
+     historical narrative. The work finally reaches a period
+     when the Present and the Future become its subject, and when
+     therefore it can no longer relate any events of history
+     which have been completed; and is confined to the simple
+     statement of _the Fact_ that opposite opinions exist, and
+     may yet be advanced, concerning the problem of the Future.
+     These opinions are themselves weighed against one another,
+     but their value is not determined by dogmas, or phrases, or
+     declamations, but simply by facts. If the balance incline
+     towards a more liberal form of government, towards
+     democratic institutions, and therefore towards
+     self-government, and the participation of the many rather
+     than of the few in the affairs of the State, I am not to
+     blame, nor is it my ordinance, but that of History and of
+     Providence. My work is only (what all historical narrative
+     should be) a vindication of the decrees of Providence; and
+     to revolt against them appears to me neither pious in a
+     moral point of view, nor wise in a political. That which is
+     proved by the most remarkable facts of History, will not be
+     altered in the smallest degree by the suppression of my
+     work, or by my condemnation. The charge on this head is an
+     absurdity, since no rational end can be attained by it. It
+     aims at the suppression of a truth which, should _I_ not
+     tell it, will be ever louder and louder proclaimed by the
+     _Facts of History_.
+
+     "To believe such a thing possible is a proof how limited an
+     idea exists of the eager inquiry going on after
+     knowledge--and truth, the source and origin of all
+     knowledge. There will always be so eager a demand for a
+     history of the Present time, that, even should _I_ be
+     prevented, ten others would arise, only to proclaim the
+     louder, and to repeat the oftener, the truth which is here
+     suppressed. To believe that the philosophy of History can be
+     silenced by persecution, argues an entire ignorance even of
+     the external mechanism of philosophy. A political pamphlet,
+     intended to serve a particular purpose at a particular
+     period, may be suppressed. The author of such a pamphlet,
+     bent on agitation, can easily console himself for its
+     suppression. It has cost him little time and trouble; it is
+     only a means to an end, one means out of many means, any of
+     which, when this is lost, will serve the author as well. But
+     it is not thus with philosophical works, it is not thus with
+     the work before me. This book is deeply rooted in the
+     vocation of my whole life, and is the end of my
+     philosophical research; I have prepared myself for it by the
+     labor of years, and the labor of years will be necessary for
+     its completion. I have reached a time of life when I can
+     neither change my vocation, nor even cease to labor in this
+     vocation. I am also so imbued with my philosophy, that even
+     if I could change I would not. I may be hindered in the
+     prosecution of this work for four months, but in the fifth I
+     shall return to it. For a judicial sentence cannot arrest
+     (like a mere pamphlet) the philosophical scheme interwoven
+     into a whole existence."
+
+     "If it is possible that this 'Introduction' can be condemned
+     in Germany, that it can be prohibited, that by these means
+     the work should be strangled in its birth, then the
+     philosophy of history has no longer a place in Germany. The
+     tribunal of Baden will have given the first blow, in
+     pronouncing judgment on a matter which is purely
+     philosophical, and Germany, whose freedom of philosophical
+     research has been her pride and her boast, of which even the
+     various administrations of the nation have never been
+     jealous, will receive a shock such as she never before
+     sustained."
+
+     "My book is on so strictly a philosophical plan, and treats
+     of such comprehensive historical questions, that, properly,
+     no judgment of any value could be pronounced upon it but by
+     the professed historian, of whom there are not two dozen in
+     all Germany. Among them there has not, to this hour, been
+     found one competent to give an opinion in a few weeks on a
+     book which is the fruit of half a life. On the other hand,
+     there was soon a whole set of fanatical partisans and
+     obstreperous bunglers in a neighboring press, who in eight
+     days had condemned this work, in some instances, by calling
+     it an historical commonplace, and in others, a political
+     pamphlet with '_destructive tendencies_.' At the same time,
+     and in a manner easily accounted for, under the influence
+     of such an expression of public opinion, and almost before
+     any other could make itself heard, accusations were made
+     against the book, and it was confiscated. Let no one take it
+     amiss if, in the urgency of my defence, _I_ for a moment lay
+     aside modesty, as far as such modesty might prove injurious
+     to my cause. My work demonstrates a law of historical
+     development, which I do not claim as my property, or as
+     originating in me, but which has been demonstrated more than
+     two thousand years ago by the greatest thinker of all ages,
+     derived from observations on the history of the Grecian
+     State. To repeat a law which has been already demonstrated,
+     ought to appear but a trifling circumstance, and indeed
+     might merit the term of an historical commonplace; we could
+     even suppose that it might be mentioned in a popular as well
+     as in a philosophical book. Nevertheless this law has
+     scarcely been twice repeated in the course of two thousand
+     years, and then only by two imitators, who scarcely
+     understood its whole purport, though they were the most
+     thinking heads of the most thinking nations--Machiavelli in
+     Italy, and Hegel in Germany. I solemnly ask of the whole
+     philosophical world if my words can be gainsaid, and to name
+     for me the third, by whom the Aristotelian law, of which I
+     speak, has been repeated and understood. I have ventured to
+     consider the thought of Aristotle, and to apply it to the
+     history of modern European States, and I found it confirmed
+     by a series of developments which have occupied two thousand
+     years. I also found that the whole series of events
+     confirmatory of this law (itself deduced from experience)
+     are not yet entirely fulfilled. Like the astronomer, who,
+     from a known fraction of the path of a newly discovered
+     planet, calculates its whole course, I ventured to divine
+     that which is still wanting, and which may yet take
+     centuries to complete. I turned silently to those whose
+     profession was the study of history, to prove the justice of
+     my calculations; I handed my book over to coming generations
+     and coming centuries, with the silent demand, when the
+     required series of events shall be fulfilled, then to
+     pronounce the final sentence, whether this law, and its
+     purport as now explained, be just or not. This is the
+     philosophical character, and these the contents of my
+     book--no more than was indispensably necessary to make this
+     calculation. And now comes the charge, and pronounces that
+     in the character of a pamphleteer, I have endeavored to
+     excite a revolution in the Grand Duchy of Baden, or in the
+     German Confederation."
+
+On the 8th of March--it should have been the _fifth_--the thing came
+to a close. On account of "his hostility to constitutional monarchy,
+and his declaration of its weakness, his denial of its good-will
+[towards the people], and his representing that the American Democracy
+was a universal necessity and a desirable fact," sentence was
+pronounced against him, condemning him to an imprisonment of four
+months, and ordering his book to be destroyed. There was no Jury of
+the People to try him! Here our own Court has an admirable precedent
+for punishing me for a word.[164]
+
+[Footnote 164: See Preface to English Translation of Gervinus (London,
+1853); and Allg. Lit. Zeitung für 1853, pp. 867, 883, 931, 946, 994,
+1131.]
+
+But even in Massachusetts, within twenty years, an attempt was made to
+punish a man for his opinions on a matter of history which had no
+connection with politics, or even with American Slavery. In July,
+1834, Rev. George R. Noyes, a Unitarian Minister at Petersham, a
+retired scholar, a blameless man of fine abilities and very large
+attainments in theological learning, wrote an elaborate article in the
+Christian Examiner, the organ of the "Liberal Christians" in America,
+in which he maintained that Jesus of Nazareth is not the Messiah
+predicted in the Old Testament. "It is difficult," said this
+accomplished Theologian, "to point out any predictions which have been
+properly fulfilled in Jesus." Peter and Paul found the death and
+resurrection of Jesus in the 16th Psalm, but they "were in an error,"
+which should not surprise us, for "the Evangelists and Apostles never
+claimed to be _inspired reasoners and interpreters_;" "they partook of
+the errors and prejudices of their age in things in which Christ had
+not instructed them." "The commonly received doctrine of the
+inspiration of all the writings included in the Bible, is a millstone
+hung round its neck [the neck of Christianity], sufficient to sink
+it."
+
+The article was written with remarkable candor and moderation, and
+indicated a devout and holy purpose in the author. The doctrines were
+by no means new. But Hon. James T. Austin, was then Attorney-General
+of the State; his attention being called to it by an anonymous writer
+in a newspaper, he attacked Mr. Noyes's article, thus giving vent to
+his opinion thereon: "He considers its learning very ill bestowed, its
+researches worse than useless, and that its tendency is to strike down
+one of the pillars on which the fabric of Christianity is supported."
+"Its tendency is to shock the pious,--confound the unlearned,--overwhelm
+those who are but moderately versed in the recondite investigations of
+theology, and above all to open an arsenal whence all the small wits
+of the infidel army may supply themselves with arms. Its greater evil
+is to disarm the power of public opinion." "It certainly disarms to a
+great degree the power of the law."[165]
+
+[Footnote 165: 16 Examiner, 321; 17 ibid. 127; Boston Atlas, July 8th
+and 9th, 1834.]
+
+Gentlemen, suppose it had not been necessary to submit the matter to a
+Jury, what would the right of freedom of conscience be worth in the
+hands of such a man, "dressed in a little brief authority?" It was
+said at the time that the author was actually presented to the
+Grand-Jury, and an attempt made to procure an indictment for
+Blasphemy, or Misdemeanor. I know not how true the rumor was. The
+threat of prosecution came to nought, and Dr. Noyes, one of the most
+scholarly men in America, is now Professor of Theology in the Divinity
+School at Cambridge, and an honor to the liberal sect which maintains
+him there.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gentlemen, when laws are unjustly severe, denouncing a punishment
+highly excessive, the juries refuse to convict. Examples of this are
+very common in trials for capital offences, now that the conscience of
+moral men has become so justly hostile to the judicial shedding of
+blood. There is no doubt with the Jurors as to the Fact, none as to
+the Law; but they say it is unjust to apply such a law to such a fact
+and hang a man. The Jury exercising their moral discretion, spite of
+the judge, and spite of the special statute or custom, are yet
+faithful to their official obligation and manly duty, and serve
+Justice, the ultimate End and Purpose of Law, whereto the statutes and
+customs are only provisional means. Foolish judges accuse such juries
+of "Perjury;" but it is clear enough, Gentlemen, where the falseness
+is.
+
+"Do you take notice of that juryman dressed in blue?" said one of the
+judges at the old Bailey to Judge Nares. "Yes." "Well, then, take my
+word for it, there will not be a single conviction to-day for any
+capital offence." So it turned out. The "gentleman in blue" thought it
+unjust and wicked, contrary to the ultimate Purpose of law, to hang
+men, and he was faithful to his juror's oath in refusing to convict.
+Of course he did not doubt of the Fact, or the Law, only of the
+Justice of its Application. One day there will be a good many
+"gentlemen in blue."
+
+To prevent this moral independence of the jury from defeating the
+immoral aim of the government, or of the judges, or the
+legislature--the court questions the jurors beforehand, and drives off
+from the panel all who think the statute unfit for such application.
+Gentlemen, that is a piece of wicked tyranny. It would be as unfair to
+exclude such men from the legislature, or from the polls, as from the
+jury box. In such cases the defendant is not tried by his "country,"
+but by a jury packed for the purpose of convicting him, spite of the
+moral feelings of the people.
+
+Sometimes the statute is so framed that the jurors must by their
+verdict tell an apparent falsehood, or commit a great injustice. When
+it was a capital offence in England to steal forty shillings, and
+evidence made it plain that the accused had actually stolen eight or
+ten times that value, you all know how often the jurors brought in a
+verdict of "_stealing thirty-nine shillings_."[166] They preferred to
+tell what seemed to be a lie, rather than kill a man for stealing
+fifteen or twenty dollars. The verdict of NOT GUILTY would have been
+perfectly just in form as in substance, and conformable to their
+official oath.
+
+[Footnote 166: See several cases of this kind in Sullivan on Abolition
+of Punishment of Death, (N.Y. 1841), 73. Rantoul's Works, 459.]
+
+Gentlemen, tyrannical rulers, and their servants, despotic and corrupt
+judges, have sought to frighten the juries from the exercise of all
+discretion--either moral or intellectual. To that end they threaten
+them before the verdict, and punish them when they decide contrary to
+the wish of the tyrant. To make the jurors agree in a unanimous
+verdict, they were kept without "fire or water or food or bed" until
+they came to a conclusion; if eleven were of one mind and the twelfth
+not convinced, the refractory juror was fined or put in jail.[167] If
+the verdict, when unanimously given, did not satisfy the judge or his
+master, the jurors were often punished.[168] I have already shown you
+how the juries were treated--with fine and imprisonment--who acquitted
+Throckmorton and Penn.[169] When John Lilburne was tried for his life
+in 1653, he censured the authorities which prosecuted him and appealed
+to the "honorable Jury, the Keepers of the Liberties of England:" they
+found him Not Guilty, and were themselves brought before the council
+of State for punishment. "Thomas Greene of Snow-hill, tallow chandler,
+Foreman of the Jury, being asked what the grounds and reasons were
+that moved him to find ... Lilburne not guilty, ... saith '_that he
+did discharge his conscience in what he then did, and that he will
+give no further answer to any questions which shall be asked him upon
+that matter_.'"[170] This was in the time of Cromwell; but as the
+People were indignant at his tyrannical conduct in that matter, and
+his insolent attempt to punish the jurors, they escaped without fine
+or imprisonment. Indeed more than a hundred and twenty-five years
+before, Thomas Smith had declared "such doings to be very violent,
+tyrannical, and contrary to the liberty and customs of the realm of
+England." Sir Matthew Hale said at a later day, "It would be a most
+unhappy case for the judge himself, if the prisoner's fate depended
+upon his directions; unhappy also for the prisoner; for if the judge's
+opinion must rule the verdict, the trial by jury would be
+useless."[171] Judge Kelyng was particularly hostile to the jury,
+throwing aside "all regard to moderation and decency." He compelled
+the grand-jury of Somersetshire to find an indictment against their
+consciences, reproaching Sir Hugh Wyndham, the foreman, as the "Head
+of a Faction." He told the jury, "You are all my servants, and I will
+make the best in England stoop!" He said it was a "misdemeanor" for
+them to discriminate between murder and manslaughter; that was for the
+court to determine. But, Gentlemen, it does not appear that he had his
+brother-in-law on that grand-jury. Several persons were indicted for
+"attending a conventicle;" the jury acquitted them contrary to his
+wish, and he fined them $334 apiece, and put them in jail till it was
+paid. On another occasion, this servile creature of Charles II. fined
+and imprisoned all the jurors because they convicted of _manslaughter_
+a man whom he wanted to hang. But for this conduct he was accused in
+the House of Commons, and brought to answer for it at their bar.[172]
+
+[Footnote 167: Forsyth, 241, 243.]
+
+[Footnote 168: Thomas Smith, Commonwealth, (London, 1589,) b. iii. c.
+1. Hargrave, in 6 St. Tr. 1019.]
+
+[Footnote 169: See above, p. 95. 1 St. Tr. 901; 6 St. Tr. 967, 969,
+999; 21 St. Tr. 925.]
+
+[Footnote 170: 1 St. Tr. 445.]
+
+[Footnote 171: 6 St. Tr. 967, note; Bushell's Case, Ibid. 999, and
+Hargrave's note, 1013.]
+
+[Footnote 172: 2 Campbell, Justices, 405; 6 St. Tr. 910; Kelyng, 50; 3
+Hallam, 6, note; Commons Journals, 16 Oct. 1667.]
+
+In 1680 Chief Justice Scroggs was brought up before the House of
+Commons for discharging "a refractory grand-jury"--such an one as was
+discharged in Boston last July: Sir Francis Winnington said, "If the
+judges instead of acting by law shall be acted by their own ambition,
+and endeavor to get promotion rather by worshipping the rising sun
+than doing justice, this nation will soon be reduced to a miserable
+condition." "As faults committed by judges are of more dangerous
+consequence than others to the public, so there do not want precedents
+of severer chastisements for them than for others."[173]
+
+[Footnote 173: 4 Parl. Hist. 1224.]
+
+But spite of the continual attempt to destroy the value of the trial
+by jury, and take from the People their ancient, sevenfold shield, the
+progress of liberty is perpetual. Now and then there arose lawyers and
+judges like Sir Matthew Hale, Holt, Vaughan, Somers, Camden, and
+Erskine, who reached out a helping hand. Nay, politicians came up to
+its defence. But the great power which has sustained and developed it
+is the sturdy and unconquerable Love of individual Liberty which is
+one of the most marked characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon, whether
+Briton or American. The Common People of England sent Juries, as well
+as regiments of Ironsides, to do battle for the Right. Gentlemen, let
+us devoutly thank God for this Safeguard of Freedom, and take heed
+that it suffers no detriment in our day, but serves always the Higher
+Law of the Infinite God.
+
+Now, Gentlemen of the Jury, I come to the end.
+
+
+IV. OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THIS SPECIAL CASE, UNITED STATES VERSUS
+THEODORE PARKER.
+
+Here, Gentlemen, I shall speak of three things.
+
+(I.) Of the Fugitive Slave Bill.
+
+At the close of the Revolution there was a contradiction in the
+national consciousness: the People were divided between the Idea of
+Freedom and the Idea of Slavery. There consequently ensued a struggle
+between the two elements. This has continued ever since the Treaty of
+Peace in 1783.
+
+Twice the Idea of Freedom has won an important victory: in 1787
+Slavery was prohibited in the North-West Territory; in 1808 the
+African Slave Trade was abolished. Gentlemen, this is all that has
+been done for seventy-two years; the last triumph of American Freedom
+over American Slavery was forty-seven years ago!
+
+But the victories of Slavery have been manifold: in 1787 Slavery came
+into the Constitution,--it was left in the individual States as a part
+of their "Republican form of government;" the slaves were counted
+fractions of men, without the personal rights of integral humanity,
+and so to be represented by their masters; and the rendition of
+fugitive slaves was provided for. In 1792 out of old territory a new
+Slave State was made and Kentucky came into the Union. Tennessee
+followed in 1796, Mississippi in 1817, Alabama in 1819, and thus four
+Slave States were newly made out of soil which the Declaration of
+Independence covered with ideal freedom. In 1793 the Federal
+government took Slavery under its special patronage and passed the
+first fugitive slave bill for the capture of such as should escape
+from bondage in one State, and flee to another. In 1803 Louisiana was
+purchased and Slavery left in that vast territory; thus the first
+expansion of our borders was an extension of bondage,--out of that
+soil three great States, Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, have since
+been made, all despotic, with more than half a million of Americans
+fettered there to-day. Florida was purchased as slave soil, and in
+1845 made a State with perpetual Slavery written in its Constitution.
+In 1845 Texas was annexed and Slavery extended over nearly four
+hundred thousand square miles of once free soil; in 1848 Slavery was
+spread over California, Utah, and New Mexico. Here were seven great
+victories of Slavery over Freedom.
+
+At first it seemed doubtful which was master in the federal councils;
+but in 1820, in a great battle--the Missouri Compromise--Slavery
+triumphed, and has ever since been master. In 1845 Texas was annexed,
+and Slavery became the open, acknowledged, and most insolent master.
+The rich, intelligent, and submissive North only registers the decrees
+of the poor, the ignorant, but the controlling South; accepts for
+Officers such as the master appoints, for laws what the Slave-driver
+commands. The Slave-Power became predominant in American politics,
+business, literature, and "Religion."
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, do you doubt what I say? Look at this Honorable
+Court,--at its Judges, its Attorney, at its Marshal, and its Marshal's
+Guard: they all hold their offices by petty serjeantry of menial
+service rendered to the Slave-Power. It would be an insult to any one
+of this august fraternity to hint that he had the faintest respect
+for the great Principles of American Liberty, or any love of justice
+for all men. I shall not be guilty of that "contempt of court."
+Gentlemen, I had expected that this Court would be solemnly opened
+with prayer. I knew whom the Slave-Power would select as its priest to
+"intercede with Heaven." I expected to hear the Rev. Nehemiah Adams,
+D.D., ask the God he worships and serves to take "a South-side view of
+American Slavery" in general, and in special of this prosecution of a
+minister of the Christian Religion for attempting to keep the Golden
+Rule. Should the Court hereafter indulge its public proclivity to
+prayer, that eminent divine will doubtless be its advocate--fit
+mediator for a Court which knows no Higher Law.
+
+Well, Gentlemen, that sevenfold triumph was not enough. Slavery will
+never be contented so long as there is an inch of free soil in the
+United States! New victories must be attempted. Mr. Toombs has
+declared to this noble Advocate of Justice and Defender of Humanity,
+[John P. Hale] who renews the virtuous glories of his illustrious
+namesake, Sir Matthew Hale, that, "Before long the master will sit
+down with his slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill Monument." But one
+thing disturbed our masters at the South--the concubine runs away from
+her lusty lord, the mulatto slave child from her white father; I have
+had the "best blood of Virginia," fugitive children of her "first
+families" in my own house, and have given many a dollar to help the
+sons and daughters of "Southern Democrats" enjoy a taste of Northern
+Democracy. The slaves would run away. The law of 1793 was not adequate
+to keep or catch these African Christians who heeded not the Southern
+command, "Slaves, obey your masters." The Decision of the Supreme
+Court in the Prigg case,[174] showed the disposition of the Federal
+Government, and took out of the hands of the individual States the
+defence of their own citizens. Still the slaves would run away. In
+1849 there were more than five hundred fugitives from Southern
+Democracy in Boston--and their masters could not catch them. What a
+misfortune! Boston retained $200,000 of human Property of the
+Christian and chivalric South! Surely the Union was "in danger."
+
+[Footnote 174: 16 Peters, 616.]
+
+In 1850 came the fugitive slave bill. When first concocted, its
+author,--a restless politician, a man of small mind and mean
+character, with "Plantation manners,"--thought it was "too bad to
+pass." He designed it not for an actual law, but an insult to the
+North so aggravating that she must resist the outrage, and then there
+would be an opportunity for some excitement and agitation at the
+South--and perhaps some "nullification" in South Carolina and
+Virginia; and in that general fermentation who knows what scum would
+be thrown up! Even Mr. Clay "never expected the law would be
+enforced." "No Northern _gentleman_," said he, "will ever help return
+a fugitive slave." It seemed impossible for the bill to pass.
+
+But at that time Massachusetts had in the Senate of the nation a
+disappointed politician, a man of great understanding, of most mighty
+powers of speech,--
+
+     "Created hugest that swim the ocean stream,"--
+
+and what more than all else contributed to his success in life, the
+most magnificent and commanding personal appearance. At that time--his
+ambition nothing abated by the many years which make men
+venerable,--he was a bankrupt in money, a bankrupt in reputation, and
+a bankrupt in morals--I speak only of his public morals, not his
+private,--a bankrupt in political character, pensioned by the Money
+Power of the North. Thrice disappointed, he was at that time gaming
+for the Presidency. When the South laid down the fugitive slave bill,
+on the national Faro-table, Mr. Webster bet his all upon that card. He
+staked his mind--and it was one of vast compass; his eloquence, which
+could shake the continent; his position, the senatorial influence of
+Massachusetts; his wide reputation, which rung with many a noble word
+for justice and the Rights of man; he staked his conscience and his
+life. Gentlemen, you know the rest,--the card won, the South took the
+_trick_, and Webster lost all he could lose,--his conscience, his
+position, his reputation; not his wide-compassing mind, not his
+earth-shaking eloquence. Finally he lost his--life. Peace to his
+mighty shade. God be merciful to him that showed no mercy. The warning
+of his fall is worth more than the guidance of his success. Let us
+forgive; it were wicked to forget. For fifty years no American has had
+such opportunity to serve his country in an hour of need. Never has an
+American so signally betrayed the trust--not once since Benedict
+Arnold turned a less ignoble traitor!
+
+Gentlemen, you know the speech of the 7th of March. You know it too
+well. He proposed to support the fugitive slave bill "with all its
+provisions, to the fullest extent." At that time this bill of
+abominations was worse than even now; for then it left the liberty of
+a man to the discretion not only of any judge or commissioner of any
+Federal court, but to any clerk or marshal thereof, nay, to any
+collector of the customs and every one of the seventeen thousand
+postmasters in the United States! It provided that an affidavit made
+before any officer empowered, by the United States or any State, to
+administer oaths, should be taken as conclusive evidence to prove a
+man a slave! So John Smith of some unknown town in Texas, might make
+affidavit before John Jones, a justice of peace in the same place,
+that Lewis Hayden, or Wendell Phillips, or his Honor Judge Curtis, was
+his (Smith's) slave, and had escaped to Boston: might bring hither
+John Brown, a Postmaster from Texas, or find some collector of the
+customs or minion of the court in Massachusetts, seize his victim, and
+swear away his liberty; and any man might be at once consigned to
+eternal bondage! All that the bill provided for,--and authorized the
+kidnapper to employ as many persons as he might think proper to
+accomplish his purpose by force, at the expense of the United States!
+All this Mr. Webster volunteered to support "to the fullest extent."
+
+The bill was amended, here bettered, there worsened, and came to the
+final vote. Gentlemen, the Money Power of the North joined the Slave
+Power of the South to kidnap men in America after 1850, as it had
+kidnapped them in Africa before 1808. Out of fifty Senators only
+twelve said, No; while in the House 109 voted Yea. The Hon. Samuel A.
+Eliot gave the vote of Beacon and State Streets for kidnapping men on
+the soil of Boston. The one Massachusetts vote for man-stealing must
+come from the town which once bore a Franklin and an Adams in her
+bosom; yes, from under the eaves of John Hancock's house! That one
+vote was not disgrace enough; his successor [Hon. William Appleton]
+must take a needless delight in reaffirming the infamy. When the bill
+passed, Gentlemen, you remember how Mr. Webster rejoiced:--
+
+     "Now is the winter of our discontent
+     Made glorious summer,"
+
+was his public outcry on the housetop! And Boston fired a hundred guns
+of joy! Do you know _who_ fired them? Ask Mr. Attorney Hallett; ask
+Mr. Justice Curtis. They can "instruct the jury."
+
+Gentlemen, you know the operation of the fugitive slave bill. It
+subverts the Purposes of the Constitution, it destroys Justice,
+disturbs domestic Tranquillity, hinders the common Defence and the
+general Welfare, and annihilates the Blessings of Liberty. It defies
+the first Principles of the Declaration of Independence,--think of the
+fugitive slave bill as an appendix to that document! It violates the
+Idea of Democracy. It contradicts the very substance of the Christian
+Religion--the two great commandments of Love to God, and Love to man,
+whereon "hang all the Law and the Prophets." It makes natural humanity
+a crime; it subjects all the Christian virtues to fine and
+imprisonment. It is a _lettre de cachet_ against Philanthropy.
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, you know the fugitive slave bill is
+unconstitutional. I need not argue the matter; it is too plain to need
+proof. See how it opposes Justice, the ultimate purpose of human law;
+nay, the declared objects of the Constitution itself! But yet its
+unconstitutionality has been most abundantly shown by our own
+fellow-citizens. I need not go out of Massachusetts for defenders of
+Justice and Law. You remember the Speeches of Mr. Phillips, Mr.
+Sewall, Mr. Rantoul, Mr. Sumner, Mr. Mann, the arguments of Mr.
+Hildreth. The judges before you by nature are able-minded men, both of
+them; both also learned as lawyers and otherwise well educated,--I
+love to honor their natural powers, and their acquired learning; would
+I could offer higher praise. Now, I will not insult their manly
+understanding with the supposition that either of them ever thought
+the fugitive slave bill constitutional. No, Gentlemen, it is not
+possible that in the _personal_ opinion of Mr. Sprague, or even Mr.
+Curtis, this bill can be held for a constitutional law. But the Court
+has its official dress: part of it is of silk--or supposed to be,--the
+gown which decorates the outward figure of the man who wears its ample
+folds; it is made after a prescribed pattern. But part of it also is
+made of _opinion_ which hides the ability and learning of the
+honorable Court. The constitutionality of the fugitive slave bill is a
+part of the judge's official dress: accordingly, as no federal judge
+sits without his "silk gown," so none appears without his "opinion"
+that the fugitive slave bill is constitutional. But if the court
+should solemnly declare that such was its _personal opinion_--Gentlemen
+of the Jury, I,--I--should not believe it--any more than if they
+declared the gown of silk was the natural judicial covering, the
+actual "true skin" of the judges. No, Gentlemen, these judges are not
+monsters, not naturally idiotic in their Conscience. This opinion is
+their official robe, a supplementary cuticle, an artificial epidermis,
+woven from without, to be thrown off one day, when it shall serve
+their turn, by political desquamation. Let them wear it; "they have
+their reward." But you and I, Gentlemen, let us thank God we are not
+officially barked about with such a leprous elephantiasis as that. You
+are to judge of its constitutionality for yourselves, not to take the
+_purchased, official opinion_ of the judge as veil for your
+Conscience; let it hide the judges' if they like.
+
+Gentlemen, I lack words to describe the fugitive slave bill; its sins
+outrun my power of speech. But you know the consequences which follow
+if it be accepted by the People, submitted to, and enforced: the State
+of Massachusetts is nothing; her courts nothing; her juries nothing;
+her laws nothing; her Constitution nothing--the Rights of the State
+are whistled away by the "opinion" of a fugitive slave bill judge, the
+rights of the citizen--all gone; his right to life, liberty, and the
+pursuit of happiness lies at the mercy of the meanest man whom this
+Court shall ever make a Commissioner to kidnap men. Yes, Gentlemen of
+the Jury, you hold your liberty at the mercy of George T. Curtis and
+Seth J. Thomas! You are the People, "the Country" to determine whether
+it shall come to this.
+
+You know the motive which led the South to desire this bill,--it was
+partly pecuniary, the desire to get the work of men and not pay for
+it; partly political, the desire to establish Slavery at the North.
+Mr. Toombs is not the only man who wishes the master to sit down with
+his slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill Monument! You know the motive of
+the Northern men who supported the bill;--words are idle here!
+
+Gentlemen, I said that Boston fired a hundred jubilant cannon when the
+fugitive slave bill became a law. It was only a _part of Boston_ that
+fired them. The bill was odious here to all just and honorable men.
+Massachusetts hated the bill, and was in no haste to "conquer her
+prejudices" in favor of Justice, Humanity, and the Christian Religion;
+she did not like the "disagreeable duty" of making a public profession
+of practical Atheism. At first the yellow fever of the slave-hunters
+did not extend much beyond the pavements of Boston and Salem; so pains
+must be taken to spread the malady. The greatest efforts were made to
+induce the People to renounce their Christianity, to accept and
+enforce the wicked measure. The cry was raised, "The Union is in
+danger:" nobody believed it; they least of all who raised the cry.
+Some clergymen in the Churches of Commerce were coaxed, wheedled, or
+bought over, and they declared kidnapping would be imputed unto men
+for "righteousness." The actual man-stealer in Boston was likened to
+"faithful Abraham" in the Hebrew mythic tale,--"the rendition of a
+slave was like the sacrifice of Isaac." One Trinitarian minister, a
+son of Massachusetts, laid Conscience down before the Juggernaut of
+the fugitive slave bill, another would send his own mother into
+Slavery; both had their reward. Editors were brought over to the true
+faith of kidnapping. Alas, there were some in Boston who needed no
+conversion; who were always on the side of inhumanity. There were
+"Union meetings" called to save the Nation; and the meanest men in the
+great towns came to serve as Redeemers in this Salvation unto
+kidnapping. Mr. Webster outdid himself in giant efforts--and though
+old and sick, he wrought with mighty strength. So in the great poem
+the fallen angel, his Paradise of Virtue lost,--
+
+             ----"with bold words
+     Breaking the horrid silence thus began.
+     'To do aught good never will be our task,
+     But ever to do ill our sole delight,
+     As being the contrary to His high will
+     Whom we resist....
+     Let us not slip the occasion....
+     But reassembling our afflicted powers
+     Consult how we may henceforth most offend
+     Our enemy; our own loss how repair,
+     How overcome this dire calamity;
+     What reinforcement we may gain from hope,
+     If not what resolution from despair.'"
+
+One class of men needed no change, no stimulation. They were ready to
+execute this unjust, this unconstitutional Act; their lamps were
+trimmed and burning, their loins girt about, their feet swift to shed
+blood. Who were they? Ask Philadelphia, ask New York, ask Boston. Look
+at this bench. The Federal Courts were as ready to betray justice in
+1850 as Kelyng and Jeffreys and Scroggs and the other pliant judges of
+Charles II. or James II. to support his iniquities. I must speak of
+this.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+(II.) Of the conduct of the Federal Courts.
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, that you may understand the enormity of the
+conduct of the federal courts and the peril they bring upon their
+victims, I must refresh your memory with a few facts.
+
+1. I shall begin with the cases in Pennsylvania. In that State four
+officials of government have acquired great distinction by their zeal
+in enslaving men, McAllister, Ingraham, Grier, and Kane; the two first
+are "Commissioners," the latter two "Judges." In one year they had the
+glory of kidnapping twenty-six Americans and delivering them over to
+Slavery. Look at a few cases.
+
+(1.) On the 10th of March, 1851, Hannah Dellam was brought before
+Judge Kane charged with being a fugitive slave. She was far advanced
+in pregnancy, hourly expecting to give birth to a child. If a
+convicted murderess is in that condition, the law delays the execution
+of its ghastly sentence till the baby is born, whom the gallows
+orphans soon. The poor negro woman's counsel begged for delay that the
+child might be born in Pennsylvania and so be free,--a poor boon, but
+too great for a fugitive slave bill judge to grant. The judge who
+inherits the name of the first murderer, disgraced the family of Cain;
+he prolonged his court late into night, that he might send the child
+into Slavery while in the bowels of its mother! Judge Kane held his
+"court" and gave his decision in the very building where the
+Declaration of Independence was signed and published to the world. The
+memorable bell which summons his court, has for motto on its brazen
+lips, "Proclaim Liberty throughout the Land, to all the inhabitants
+thereof."
+
+(2.) The same year Rachel Parker, a free colored girl, was seized in
+the house of Joseph C. Miller of West-Nottingham, Chester County, by
+Thomas McCreary of Elkton, Maryland. Mr. Miller pursued the kidnapper
+and found the girl at Baltimore, and brought a charge of kidnapping
+against McCreary. But before the matter was decided Mr. Miller was
+decoyed away and murdered! The man-hunter was set free and the girl
+kept as a slave, but after long confinement in jail was at last
+pronounced free--not by the Pennsylvania "judge" but by a Baltimore
+Jury![175]
+
+[Footnote 175: 20 Anti-Slavery Report, 28 and 21; Ibid. 34.]
+
+(3.) The same year occurred the Christiana Tragedy. Here are the
+facts.
+
+In Virginia a general law confers a reward of $100 on any man who
+shall bring back to Virginia a slave that has escaped into another
+State, and gives him also ten cents for each mile of travel in the
+chase after a man. Accordingly, beside the officers of the fugitive
+slave bill courts commissioned for that purpose, there is a body of
+professional Slave-hunters, who prowl about the borders of
+Pennsylvania and entrap their prey. In September, 1850, "a colored
+man, known in the neighborhood around Christiana to be free, was
+seized and carried away by professional kidnappers, and never
+afterwards seen by his family." In March, 1851, in the same
+neighborhood, under the roof of his employer, during the night,
+another colored man was tied, gagged, and carried away, "marking the
+road along which he was dragged by his own blood." He was never
+afterwards heard from. "These and many other acts of a similar kind
+had so alarmed the neighborhood, that the very name of Kidnapper was
+sufficient to create a panic."[176]
+
+[Footnote 176: History of the Trial of Castner Hanway and others for
+Treason (Philadelphia, 1852), 35.]
+
+     "On the 11th of September, Edward Gorsuch, of Maryland, his
+     son, Dickerson Gorsuch, with a party of friends, and a
+     United States officer named Kline, who bore the warrant of
+     Commissioner Ingraham, made their appearance in a
+     neighborhood near Christiana, Lancaster County,
+     Pennsylvania, in pursuit of a Slave. They lay in wait for
+     their prey near the house of William Parker, a colored man.
+     When discovered and challenged, they approached the house,
+     and Gorsuch demanded his Slave. It was denied that he was
+     there. High words ensued, and two shots were fired by the
+     assailants at the house. The alarm was then given by blowing
+     a horn, and the neighborhood roused. A party of colored men,
+     from thirty to fifty strong, most of them armed in some way,
+     were before long on the ground. Castner Hanway and Elijah
+     Lewis, both white men and Friends, rode up before the
+     engagement began and endeavored to prevent bloodshed by
+     persuading both parties to disperse peaceably. Kline, the
+     Deputy Marshal, ordered them to join the _posse_, which
+     they, of course, refused to do, but urged upon him the
+     necessity of withdrawing his men for their own safety. This
+     he finally did, as far as he personally was concerned, when
+     satisfied that there was actual danger of bloody resistance.
+     Gorsuch, however, and his party persisted in their attempt,
+     and he and two of his party fired on the colored men, who
+     returned the fire with deadly effect. Gorsuch was killed on
+     the spot, his son severely, though not mortally, wounded,
+     and the rest of the party put to flight. The dead and
+     wounded were cared for by the neighbors, mostly Friends and
+     Abolitionists. The Slave, for the capture of whom this
+     enterprise was undertaken, made his escape and reached a
+     land of safety.
+
+     "Judge Grier denounced the act from the Bench as one of
+     Treason. A party of marines were ordered to the ground to
+     keep the peace after the battle had been fought and won.
+     United States Marshal Roberts, Commissioner Ingraham, United
+     States District Attorney Ashmead, with a strong body of
+     police, accompanied them, and kept the seat of war under a
+     kind of martial law for several days. The country was
+     scoured, houses ransacked, and about thirty arrests made.
+     Among those arrested were Castner Hanway and Elijah Lewis,
+     whose only crime had been endeavoring to prevent the
+     effusion of blood. The prisoners were brought to
+     Philadelphia, examined before a Commissioner, and committed
+     on a charge of High Treason. At the next term of the
+     District Court, under a charge from Judge Kane, the
+     Grand-Jury found indictments against all of them for this
+     crime."[177]
+
+[Footnote 177: 20 Anti-Slavery Report, pp. 30, 31.]
+
+Mr. Hanway was brought to trial--for his life, charged with "treason."
+It appears that this was his overt act.--He was a Quaker, an
+anti-slavery Quaker, and a "non-resistant;" when he heard of the
+attack on the colored people, he rode on a sorrel horse to the spot,
+in his shirt-sleeves, with a broad felt hat on; he advised the colored
+men not to fire, "For God's sake don't fire;" but when Deputy Marshal
+Kline ordered him to assist in the kidnapping, he refused and would
+have nothing to do with it. Some of the colored people fired, and with
+such effect on the Kidnappers as I have just now shown. It appeared
+also that Mr. Hanway had said the fugitive slave bill was
+unconstitutional, and that he would never aid in kidnapping a
+man--words which I suppose this Honorable Court will consider as a
+constructive "misdemeanor;" "obstructing an officer."
+
+For this "offence" his case was presented to the grand-jury of the
+Circuit Court the 29th of September, 1851. Judge Kane charged the
+jury--laying down the law of treason. Mr. Hanway was indicted for
+"wickedly devising and intending the peace and tranquillity of the ...
+United States to disturb;" and that he "wickedly and traitorously did
+intend to levy war against the said United States." And also that he
+"with force and arms, maliciously and traitorously did prepare and
+compose and ... and cause and procure to be prepared and composed,
+divers books, pamphlets, letters, and declarations, resolutions,
+addresses, papers, and writings, and did ... maliciously and
+traitorously publish and disperse ... divers other books ...
+containing ... incitement, encouragement, and exhortations, to move,
+induce, and persuade persons held to service in any of the United
+States ... who had escaped ... to resist, oppose, and prevent, by
+violence and intimidation, the execution of the said laws, [that is
+the law for kidnapping their own persons]."
+
+He was brought to trial at Philadelphia, November 24th 1851, before
+Honorable Judges Kane and Grier, then and subsequently so eminent for
+their zeal in perverting law and doing judicial iniquity. Gentlemen of
+the Jury--it is no slander to say this. It is their great glory that
+in the cause of Slavery they have struck at the first principles of
+American Democracy, and set at nought the Christian Religion. It is
+only their panegyric which I pronounce.
+
+On behalf of the government there appeared six persons as prosecuting
+officers. One United States Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Cooper),
+the Attorney-General of Maryland, the District Attorney of
+Pennsylvania, the Recorder of the City of Philadelphia, and two
+members of her bar.[178] For Mr. Webster, then Secretary of State, was
+highly desirous that Maryland should send her Attorney-General, Hon.
+Mr. Brent, to help the government of the United States prosecute a
+Quaker miller, a Non-resistant, for the crime of treason. Hon. James
+Cooper, the Pennsylvania Senator, also appeared on behalf of Maryland,
+seeking to convict one of his own constituents! Gentlemen, such
+conduct carries us back to the time of the Stuarts; but despotism is
+always the same. It was very proper that the United States government
+should thus outrage the common decencies of judicial process.
+
+[Footnote 178: History, 55, 57; Report, 19; 2 Wallace.]
+
+This question amongst others was put to each juror:--
+
+     "Have you formed an opinion that the law of the United
+     States, known as the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, is
+     unconstitutional, so that you cannot for that reason convict
+     a person indicted for a forcible resistance thereto, if the
+     facts alleged in the indictment are proved and the court
+     hold the statute to be constitutional?"
+
+Thus all persons were excluded from the jury who believed this wicked
+bill a violation of the constitution; and one most important means of
+the prisoner's legitimate defence was purposely swept away by the
+court.
+
+Now look at the law as laid down by the government.
+
+Mr. Ashmead, the government's Attorney, said when the Constitution was
+adopted "Men had not then become wiser than the laws [the laws of
+England and colonial laws which they were born under and broke away
+from]; nor had they learned to measure the plain and unambiguous
+letter of the Constitution by an artificial standard of their own
+creation [that is the Self-evident Truth that all men have a natural
+and unalienable Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of
+Happiness]; to obey or disregard it according as it came up to or fell
+beneath it [as the law was just or unjust]."
+
+"_You will receive the law from the court._" "You _are bound by the
+instructions which the court may give_ in respect to it;" "_it is in
+no sense true that you are judges of the law_." "_You must take the
+interpretation which the court puts upon it._ You have a right to
+apply the law to the facts, but you have no right to go further."
+
+"The crime charged against this defendant is ... that of _levying war
+against the United States_. The phrase _levying war_ was long before
+the adoption of the Constitution, a phrase ... _embracing such a
+forcible resistance to the laws as that charged against this
+defendant_ [that is, speaking against the fugitive slave bill and
+refusing to kidnap a man is 'levying war against the United States']!"
+
+It is treason "if the intention is by force to prevent the execution
+of _any one ... of the general laws of the United States_, or _to
+resist_ the exercise of _any legitimate authority of the government_."
+
+"Levying war embraces ... any combination forcibly to prevent or
+oppose the execution ... of a public statute, if accompanied or
+followed by an act of forcible opposition." Of course the court is to
+determine the meaning of _force_; and using the same latitude of
+construction as in interpreting _levying war_, it would mean, a
+_word_, a _look_, a _thought_, a _wish_, a _fancy_ even.
+
+Mr. Ludlow enforced the same opinions, relying in part on the old
+tyrannical decisions of the British courts in the ages of despotism,
+and on the opinion of Judge Chase--who had derived his law of treason
+from that source, and was impeached before the American Senate for his
+oppressive conduct while judge in the very trials whence these
+iniquitous doctrines were derived! But Mr. Ludlow says "if a _spurious
+doctrine have been introduced into the common law ... it would require
+great hardihood in a judge to reject it_." So the jury must accept "a
+spurious doctrine" as genuine law!
+
+"In treason, all the _participes criminis_ are principals; there are
+no accessaries to this crime. Every act which ... would render a man
+an _accessary_ will ... make him a _principal_." "If any man joins and
+acts with an assembly of people, _his intent is always to be
+considered ... the same as theirs; the law ... judgeth of the intent
+by the Fact_." This was Judge Kelyng's "law."
+
+"It may be ... advanced that because Hanway was not armed, he was not
+guilty. It is perfectly well settled that _arms are not necessary_."
+"Military weapons ... are not necessary ... to a levying war." "This
+is the opinion of Judge Chase," and "it may be alleged that Judge
+Chase was impeached, and that [therefore] his opinions are of little
+weight. Whatever may have been the grounds of that impeachment, _it is
+not for us to discuss_."
+
+"If a body of men be assembled for the purpose of effecting a
+treasonable object [that is, 'to oppose the execution of a public
+statute,' no matter what or how] _all those who perform any part,
+however minute, or however remote from the scene of action ... are
+equally traitors_."
+
+Mr. Brent, the Maryland State Attorney, whom Mr. Webster had sent
+there, declared that "_any combination_ like this, of colored and
+white persons, _to prevent the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law, is
+treason_."
+
+Mr. Cooper, the Pennsylvania Senator, adds, "Castner Hanway ... having
+been present ... at the time the overt act was committed, he is a
+principal ... provided he was there aiding and abetting the objects of
+the confederated parties." "_Persons_ procuring, contriving, or
+_consenting_, come within the words aid and abet." So "_if he_
+encourages, _assists, or consents to the act_, it is enough; _he
+becomes at once an aider and abettor, and obnoxious to all the pains
+and penalties denounced against it_." "If persons _do assemble
+themselves_ and act with _some_ force in opposition to _some_ law ...
+and _hope thereby to get it repealed, this is a levying war and high
+treason_." That is, an assembly of men acting against any law, with
+any force of argument, in order to procure its repeal, levies war and
+is guilty of treason!
+
+To connect Mr. Hanway with this constructive treason, the government
+relied on the evidence of Mr. Kline, the Deputy Marshal of the court,
+a man like Mr. Butman and Mr. Patrick Riley, so well known in this
+court, and so conspicuous for courage and general elevation of
+character. Witnesses testified that Kline was so much addicted to
+falsehood that they would not believe him on oath,--but what of that?
+He had "conquered his prejudices." It appeared that Mr. Hanway went to
+the scene of action on a sorrel horse, in his shirt-sleeves, with a
+felt hat on, and did not join the Deputy in attempting to kidnap when
+commanded. Hear how Mr. Ludlow constructs levying war out of the
+disobedience of a non-resistant Quaker in a felt hat and
+shirt-sleeves, mounted on a sorrel horse! Hearken to this voice of the
+government:--
+
+     "Suddenly he sees the assembled band of infuriated men....
+     Does he leave the spot? No, Sir! Does he restrain the
+     negroes? Take the evidence for the defence in its fullest
+     latitude, and you will perceive he raised the feeble cry,
+     'Don't shoot! for God's sake don't shoot!' and there it
+     ended. Is that consistent with innocence?... according to
+     their own evidence the conclusion is irresistible that he
+     was not innocent."
+
+"But he does more than this." When summoned by the Deputy to steal a
+man "he is thrown off his guard, and exclaims, 'I will not assist
+you;' 'he allowed the colored people had a right to defend
+themselves.' 'He did not care for that Act of Congress or any other
+Act of Congress.'"
+
+And so with his unsaddled sorrel nag this non-resistant miller levies
+war upon the United States by crying "Don't fire," and commits treason
+by the force and arms of a broad-brimmed Quaker hat. "The smallest
+amount of force is sufficient," "military weapons are not necessary to
+levy war!"
+
+Mr. Brent thought if Mr. Hanway was not hanged it would appear that a
+"small and miserable and traitorous faction can resist and annul the
+laws of the United States." "Put down these factions [the Free-Soil
+Party, the Liberty Party, the Anti-Slavery Societies], overwhelm them
+with shame, disgrace, and ruin, or you are not good citizens
+fulfilling the bonds that bind you to us of the South."
+
+The government Attorney declared that Mr. Hanway and others
+
+     "Had no right to refuse to assist because it was repugnant
+     to their consciences. Conscience! Conscience ... is the
+     pretended justification for an American citizen to refuse to
+     execute a law of his country." "_Damnable, treasonable
+     doctrine._" "He has become a conspirator, he has connected
+     himself with them, and all their acts are his acts, and all
+     their intentions are his intentions."
+
+     "The whole neighborhood was not only disloyal, but wanting
+     in common humanity:" "the whole region is infected," "in
+     _that horde of traitors_;" "a whole county, a whole
+     township, a whole neighborhood are involved in plotting
+     treason." "When you see these things _can you not infer ...
+     that he went there by pre-arrangement_!" "When you see a man
+     ... not saying one word to save his dear colored friends
+     from the guilt of murder, I say it is passing human
+     credulity to say that you cannot _infer_ in all that _a
+     feeling of hostility to the law, and an intention to resist
+     it_."
+
+     "The consequences [of the verdict] are not with the jury:"
+     the responsibility will not be with you--you are not
+     responsible for those just consequences."
+
+     "When you allege that a master has come into Pennsylvania
+     and illegally seized and possessed himself of his slave
+     without process, you are to inquire, 'Has he done that which
+     he had authority to do in his own State?' You are to look to
+     the _laws of his own State_; for the Supreme Court
+     says,[179] 'He _has the same right to repossess his slave
+     here as in his own State_.'" "He who employs a man said to
+     have come from Maryland without being satisfied of his
+     freedom, is himself guilty of the first wrong."
+
+[Footnote 179: 16 Peters, Prigg _v._ Penn.]
+
+Senator Cooper closed for the government. Law was not enough for him;
+he would have the sanction of "Religion" also. So he read extract from
+a Sermon. Gentlemen of the Jury, you have not had the benefit of Rev.
+Dr. Adams's prayers in this court; it is a pity you should not be
+blessed with the theology of despotism; listen therefore to the
+"Thanksgiving Sermon" of Rev. Dr. Wadsworth, which Hon. Mr. Cooper
+read to the Jury in Independence Hall.
+
+     "For passing by all other causes of irritation as just now
+     secondary and subordinate, look for a moment, at the
+     influence which the Gospel of Christ would have in this
+     great sectional controversy about slavery.
+
+     "First, It would say to the Northern fanatic, who _vapors
+     about man-stealing_ as if there were no other evil under the
+     sun but this one evil of Slavery--it would say to him,
+     Emulate the spirit of your blessed Master and his apostles,
+     _who, against this very evil_ [man-stealing] in their own
+     times, _brought no railing accusation_; but in one instance
+     at least, _sent back a fugitive_ from the household of
+     Philemon.
+
+     "In treating Southern _Christian slaveholders_ with
+     Christian courtesy, and _sending back their fugitives_ when
+     apprehended among you, you neither indorse the system nor
+     partake of its evil; you are only performing in good faith
+     the agreement, and redeeming the pledges of your
+     forefathers, and leaving to each man for himself to answer
+     for his own acts at the judgment-seat of Jesus. It would
+     tear away from the man, as the foulest cloak of hypocrisy,
+     that pretence of a religious principle in this whole matter
+     of political abolitionism.
+
+     "Religious principle! Oh my God! That religious principle,
+     that for the sake of _an abstract right_ whose very exercise
+     were disastrous to the unprepared bondmen who inherit it,
+     would tear this blest confederacy in pieces, and deluge
+     these smiling plains in fraternal blood, and barter the
+     loftiest freedom that the world ever saw, for the armed
+     despotism of a great civil warfare! That religious principle
+     which, in disaster to man's last great experiment, would
+     fling the whole race back into the gloom of an older
+     barbarism--rearing out of the ruin of these free homes, the
+     thrones of a more adamantine despotism--freedom's beacons
+     all extinguished, and the whole race slaves. That religious
+     principle through which, losing sight of God's great purpose
+     of evangelizing the nations, [by American Slavery,] would
+     shatter the mightiest wheel in the mechanism of salvation,
+     and palsy the wing of God's preaching angel in its flight
+     through the skies.
+
+     "Alas--alas! ye that count as little this bond of blessed
+     brotherhood, wrought by our fathers' mighty hands and
+     bleeding hearts--we tell you, sorrowing and in tears, that
+     your pretence is foul hypocrisy. Ye have reversed the first
+     precept of the gospel, for your wisdom is a dove's, and your
+     harmlessness a serpent's. _Ye have not the first principle
+     within you either of religion or philanthropy, or common
+     human benevolence._ Your principle is the principle of Judas
+     Iscariot, and with the doom of the traitor ye shall go to
+     your own place."
+
+"No, Sir--no, Sir," concludes the Senator thirsting for his
+constituent's blood, "'There is no gospel in all this treasonable
+fanaticism--for treason to my country is rebellion to my God.'"
+
+Judge Grier charged the Jury;--but as _he stuck out from the
+phonographer's report_--of which the proof-sheets were sent to
+him--_the most offensive portion_, Gentlemen of the Jury, I shall not
+be able to enlighten you with all the legal words of this "consummate
+judge." So be content with the following Elegant Extracts.
+
+     "With the exception of a few individuals of perverted
+     intellect in some small districts or neighborhoods whose
+     moral atmosphere has been tainted and poisoned by male and
+     female vagrant lecturers and conventions, no party in
+     politics, no sect of religion, or any respectable numbers or
+     character can be found within our borders, who have viewed
+     with approbation or have looked with any other than feelings
+     of abhorrence upon this disgraceful tragedy."
+
+     "It is not in this Hall of Independence that meetings of
+     infuriated fanatics and unprincipled demagogues have been
+     held to counsel a bloody resistance to the laws of the land.
+     It is not in _this_ city that conventions are held
+     denouncing the Constitution, the Laws, and the Bible. It is
+     not _here_ that the pulpit has been desecrated by seditious
+     exhortations, teaching that theft [a man stealing his own
+     limbs and person from his 'lawful owner'] is meritorious,
+     murder [in self-defence killing a man-stealer] excusable,
+     and treason [opposition to the fugitive slave bill] a
+     virtue!"
+
+     "The guilt of this foul murder [the shooting of a kidnapper
+     by the men whom he intended for his victims, and whose
+     premises he invaded without due process of law, and with
+     armed force], rests not alone on the deluded individuals who
+     were its immediate perpetrators, but the blood taints with
+     even deeper dye the skirts of those who promulgated
+     doctrines subversive of all morality and all government,
+     [that is, of Slavery and the fugitive slave bill]."
+
+     "This murderous tragedy is but the necessary development of
+     principles and the natural fruit from seed sown by others
+     whom the arm of the law cannot reach," [such as the Authors
+     of the Declaration of Independence, and still more the
+     Author of the "Sermon on the Mount]."
+
+     "This [the slave clause of the Constitution] is the Supreme
+     law of the land, _binding ... on the conscience_ and conduct
+     of every individual citizen of the United States." "The
+     shout of disapprobation with which this [the fugitive slave
+     bill] has been received by some, has been caused ... because
+     it is an act which can be executed ... the real objection
+     ... is to the Constitution itself, which is supposed to be
+     void in this particular, from the effect of some 'higher
+     law.' It is true that the number of persons whose
+     consciences affect to be governed by such a law [that is the
+     law of Natural Morality and Religion], is very small. But
+     there is a much larger number who take up opinions on
+     trust,--and have concluded this must be a very pernicious
+     and unjust enactment, for no other reason than because the
+     others shout their disapprobation with such violence and
+     vituperation."
+
+     "This law is Constitutional." "The question of its
+     Constitutionality is to be settled by the Courts, [fugitive
+     slave bill courts,] and not by conventions either of laymen
+     or ecclesiastics." "_We are as much bound to support this
+     law as any other._" "The jury should regard the construction
+     of the Constitution as given them by the court as to what is
+     the true meaning of the words _levying war_." "In treason
+     all are principals, and a man may be guilty of aiding and
+     abetting, though not present."
+
+He spoke of those "associations, or conventions, which occasionally or
+annually infest the neighboring village of West-Chester, for the
+purpose of railing at and resisting the Constitution and laws of the
+land [that is the fugitive slave bill and other laws which annihilate
+a man's unalienable right to his liberty], and denouncing those who
+execute them as no better than a Scroggs or a Jeffreys;--who stimulate
+and exhort poor negroes to the perpetration of offences which they
+know must bring them to the penitentiary or the gallows."
+
+But he thought refusing to aid the deputy marshal in kidnapping was
+not an act of levying war, or treason against the United States. "In
+so doing he is not acting the part of an honest, loyal citizen [who
+ought to do any wickedness which a bum-bailiff commands]; he may be
+_liable to be punished for a misdemeanor for his refusal to
+interfere_."
+
+     "But he thought the government was right "in procuring an
+     indictment for Treason." For "meetings had been held in many
+     places in the North, denouncing the law, and advising a
+     traitorous resistance to its execution: conventions of
+     infuriated fanatics had invited to acts of rebellion; and
+     even the pulpit had been defiled with furious denunciations
+     of the law, and exhortations to a rebellious resistance to
+     it.
+
+     "The government was perfectly justified in supposing that
+     this transaction was but the first overt act of a
+     treasonable conspiracy, extending over many of the Northern
+     States, to resist by force of arms the execution of this
+     article of the Constitution and the laws framed in pursuance
+     of it. In making these arrests, and having this
+     investigation, the officers of government have done no more
+     than their strict duty.
+
+     "The activity, zeal, and ability, which have been exhibited
+     by the learned Attorney of the United States, in endeavoring
+     to bring to condign punishment the perpetrators of this
+     gross offence, are deserving of all praise. _It has given
+     great satisfaction to the Court also, that the learned
+     Attorney-General of Maryland, and the very able counsel
+     associated with him_ [Senator Cooper of Pennsylvania] _have
+     taken part in this prosecution_."
+
+In about fifteen minutes the Jury returned a verdict of "NOT
+GUILTY."[180]
+
+[Footnote 180: See Report of Trial of Castner Hanway, Phil. 1852.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+(4.) On the 29th of April, 1852, a man named William Smith was
+arrested by Commissioner McAllister of Columbia, Pennsylvania, on
+complaint of one Ridgeley of Baltimore. While in the custody of the
+officers, Smith endeavored to escape, and Ridgeley drew a pistol and
+shot him dead. The murderer escaped. No serious efforts were made by
+the State authorities to bring that offender to justice. "He has the
+same right to repossess his slave here as in his own State;" the same
+right to kill him if he attempts to escape! Mr. Toombs is modest--but
+we shall soon see the slaveholder not only sit down with his slaves at
+the foot of Bunker Hill Monument, but _shoot them if they attempt to
+run away_! Nay, Gentlemen, we shall see this Court defending the
+slave-hunter's "privilege."
+
+(5.) Here is another case, Gentlemen of the Jury, in which this same
+Judge Grier appears, and with his usual humanity. This is a brief
+account of the case of Daniel Kauffman. In 1852 he allowed a party of
+fugitive slaves to pass the night in his barn, and gave them food in
+the morning. For this he was brought before Judge Grier's court and
+fined $2,800! It was more than his entire property. Gentlemen, there
+are persons in this room who gave money to Mr. Kauffman, to indemnify
+him for his losses; were not they also guilty of treason, at least of
+a "misdemeanor?" They "evinced an express liking" for Freedom and
+Humanity, not Slavery and bloodshed.
+
+(6.) But here is yet one more,--which you shall have in the language
+of another:--
+
+     "In a case of attempted Slave-catching at Wilkesbarre, in
+     Pennsylvania, the Deputy Marshal, Wyncoop and his
+     assistants, had behaved with such atrocious and abominable
+     cruelty, that the citizens felt that justice demanded their
+     punishment for the outrage. They were, accordingly, arrested
+     on a warrant issued by a most respectable magistrate, on the
+     oath of one of the principal inhabitants of the place. A
+     writ of habeas corpus was forthwith sued out, returnable
+     before Judge Grier. When the District Attorney, Ashmead,
+     moved the discharge of the relators, (which, it is needless
+     to say, was ordered,) Judge Grier delivered himself to the
+     following effect. 'If _habeas corpuses_ are to be taken out
+     after that manner, _I will have an indictment sent to the
+     United States Grand-Jury against the person who applies for
+     the writ, or assists in getting it, the lawyer who defends
+     it, and the sheriff who serves the writ_, to see whether the
+     United States officers are to be arrested and harassed
+     whenever they attempt to serve a process of the United
+     States.'"
+
+2. Gentlemen of the Jury, you might suppose that love of liberty had
+altogether vanished from the "Free" States, else how could such men
+ride over the local law as well as natural justice? But I am happy to
+find one case where the wickedness of the fugitive slave bill courts
+was resisted by the people and the local judges--it is a solitary
+case, and occurred in Wisconsin:--
+
+     "About the middle of March, 1854, a man named Joshua Glover,
+     was seized near Racine, in Wisconsin, as a Fugitive Slave.
+     His arrest was marked by the circumstances of cruelty and
+     cowardice which seem to be essential to the execution of
+     this Law above all others. He was brought, chained and
+     bleeding, to Milwaukee, where he was lodged in jail. As soon
+     as the news spread, an indignation, as general as it was
+     righteous, prevailed throughout the city. A public meeting
+     was forthwith called, and held in the open air, at which
+     several of the principal citizens assisted. Stirring
+     speeches were made, and strong resolutions passed, to the
+     effect that the rights of the man should be asserted and
+     defended to the utmost. Counsel learned in the law
+     volunteered, and all necessary process was issued, as well
+     against the claimant for the assault and battery, as in
+     behalf of the man restrained of his liberty. A vigilance
+     committee was appointed to see that Glover was not secretly
+     hurried off, and the bells were ordered to be rung in case
+     any such attempt should be made. But the people were not
+     disposed to trust to the operation of the Slave Law,
+     administered by United States Judges or Commissioners, and
+     they stepped in and settled the question for themselves in a
+     summary manner. A hundred men arrived, in the afternoon,
+     from Racine, the town from which the man had been kidnapped,
+     who marched in order to the jail. They were soon reinforced
+     by multitudes more, and a formal demand was made for the
+     slave. This being denied, an attack was made upon the door,
+     which was soon broken in, the man released, and carried back
+     in triumph to Racine, whence he was afterwards conveyed
+     beyond the jurisdiction of the star-spangled banner. A mass
+     convention of the citizens of Wisconsin was afterwards held
+     to provide for similar cases, should they occur, and a most
+     sound and healthy tone of feeling appears to have pervaded
+     that youthful commonwealth.
+
+     "After the rescue had been effected, the United States
+     Marshal arrested several persons for the offence of
+     resisting an officer in the discharge of his duties. Among
+     these was Mr. Sherman M. Booth, the editor of the Free
+     Democrat. When brought before a Commissioner, in the custody
+     of the Marshal, a writ of habeas corpus was sued out on his
+     behalf, and he was brought before Judge A.D. Smith, of the
+     Supreme Court. After a full hearing, Judge Smith granted him
+     his discharge, on the ground that the fugitive slave law
+     was unconstitutional. The Marshal then had the proceedings
+     removed by a writ of certiorari before a full bench of the
+     Supreme Court, when the decision of Judge Smith was
+     confirmed, and Mr. Booth discharged from custody.
+     Immediately afterwards, Judge Miller, of the United States
+     District Court, issued another warrant for the arrest of Mr.
+     Booth, making no mention of the fugitive slave act, but
+     directing his arrest to answer to a charge for abetting the
+     escape of a prisoner from the custody of the United States
+     Marshal. Another writ of habeas corpus was sued out, but it
+     was denied by the Supreme Court, on the ground that there
+     was nothing on the face of the record to bring it within
+     range of their former decision."
+
+     "In the mean time the United States Judge and Marshal were
+     busy in their vocation. It affirmed that the Grand-Jury was
+     packed in the most unblushing manner, until an inquest was
+     made up that would answer the purpose of the Government.
+     However this may have been, indictments were found in the
+     District Court, against Mr. Booth and several other persons.
+     A petty Jury selected with the same care that had been
+     bestowed on the composition of the Grand-Jury, convicted Mr.
+     Booth and Mr. Ryecraft. All the weight of the government was
+     thrown against the defendants. Special counsel were retained
+     to assist the District Attorney, the instructions of the
+     Court were precise and definite against them; all motions in
+     their behalf resting on the irregularities and injustices of
+     the proceedings were overruled. So were all motions
+     subsequent to the conviction for an arrest of judgment. They
+     were sentenced to fine and imprisonment--Mr. Booth to pay
+     one thousand dollars and costs, and to be imprisoned one
+     month, and Mr. Ryecraft to pay two hundred dollars, and to
+     be imprisoned for ten days. On these sentences they were
+     committed to jail. The public excitement in Milwaukee, and
+     throughout the State, was intense. It was with difficulty
+     that the people could be restrained from forcibly liberating
+     the prisoners. Fortunately there was no occasion for any
+     such extreme measures. They found protection, where it ought
+     to be found, in the constituted authorities of their State.
+     A writ of habeas corpus was issued in their behalf by the
+     Supreme Court, then sitting at Madison, the Capital of the
+     State, returnable before them there. Escorted by two
+     thousand of their fellow-citizens, thither, in charge of the
+     High Sheriff, they had a hearing at once. After full
+     deliberation, the Court unanimously ordered them to be
+     discharged. The majority of the Court made this decision on
+     the ground of the unconstitutionality of the fugitive slave
+     law, one Judge (Crawford) sustaining the law, but concurring
+     in the order on the ground that no offence, under that Act,
+     was charged in the indictment. So the prisoners were
+     discharged, and brought home in triumph."
+
+Gentlemen, that matter will be carried up to the Supreme Court of the
+United States, and you may yet hear the opinion of the Hon. Associate
+Justice Curtis, for which let us wait with becoming reverence.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+3. Here is the case of Mr. Sloane, which happened in the State of
+Ohio.
+
+In October, 1852, several colored persons were about leaving Sandusky
+in a steamer for Detroit, when they were seized and taken before Mr.
+Follet, mayor of the city, and claimed as fugitive slaves. This
+seizure was made by the city marshal and three persons claiming to act
+for the owners of the slaves.
+
+After the colored persons were brought before the mayor, their friends
+engaged Mr. Rush R. Sloane to act as counsel in their defence. He
+demanded of the mayor and the claimants by what authority the
+prisoners were detained. There was no reply. He then asked, whether
+they were in the custody of a United States Marshal or Commissioner.
+Again there was no reply. He next called for any writs, papers, or
+evidences by which they were detained. Still there was no answer. He
+then said to his clients, "_I see no authority to detain your colored
+friends._"
+
+At that time some one near the door cried out, "Hustle them out," and
+soon the crowd and the alleged fugitives were in the street. Then one
+of the claimants said to Mr. Sloane, "I own these slaves; they are my
+property, and I shall hold you individually liable for their escape."
+_These were the first and only words he spoke to Mr. Sloane, and then
+not until the black men were in the street._
+
+In due time Mr. Sloane was arrested for resisting the execution of the
+fugitive slave bill, though he had _only acted as legal counsel for
+the alleged slaves and had offered no resistance to the law, by deed,
+or word, or sign_.
+
+He was brought to trial at Columbus. Before the jurors were sworn they
+were all asked "whether they had any conscientious scruples against
+the fugitive slave law, and would hesitate to convict under it." If
+they said "Yes," they were rejected. Thus a jury was packed for the
+purpose, and the trial went on. Thirteen unimpeached witnesses deposed
+to the facts stated before, while the slave claimant had no evidence
+but the _city marshal_ of Sandusky--the Tukey of that place--and _two
+of the three slave-catchers_--who swore that they had with them
+_powers of attorney for the seizure of twenty-four slaves_.
+
+Gentlemen, such was the action of the court, and such the complexion
+of the packed jury, that Mr. Sloane was found "guilty." The Judge,
+Hon. Mr. Leavitt, refused to sign a bill of exceptions, enabling him
+to bring the matter before the Supreme Court. Mr. Sloane was sentenced
+to pay a fine of $3,000, and $930 _as costs of court_! Such was the
+penalty for a lawyer telling his clients that he saw no authority to
+detain them,--after having three times demanded the authority, and
+none had been shown!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+4. Gentlemen of the Jury, I now come to cases which have happened in
+our own State,--in this city. Some alarm was felt as soon as Mr.
+Mason's fugitive slave bill was proposed in the Senate. But men said,
+"No northern man will support it. There is much smoke and no fire."
+But when on the 7th of March, 1850, Mr. Webster adopted the bill, and
+promised to defend it and the amendments to it, "with all its
+provisions to the fullest extent;" when he declared that Massachusetts
+would execute the infamous measure "with alacrity"--then not only
+alarm but indignation took possession of northern breasts. The friends
+of Slavery at Boston must do all in their power to secure the passage
+of the bill, the prosperity of its adoptive father, and its ultimate
+enforcement--the kidnapping of men in Massachusetts. Here are the
+measures resorted to for attaining this end.
+
+i. A meeting was called at the Revere House, that Mr. Webster might
+defend his scheme for stealing his constituents and putting himself
+into the Presidency.
+
+ii. A public letter was written to him approving of his attempts to
+restore man-stealing, and other accompaniments of slavery, to the free
+States. This letter declared the "deep obligations" of the signers
+"for what this speech has done and is doing;" "we wish to thank you,"
+they say, "for recalling us to our duties under the constitution;"
+"you have pointed out to a whole people the path of duty, have
+convinced the understanding, and touched the conscience of the
+nation;" "we desire, therefore, to express to you our entire
+concurrence in the sentiments of your speech." This letter was dated
+at Boston, March 25th, 1850, and received 987 signatures, it is said.
+
+iii. When the bill became an Act of government, a hundred cannons, as
+I have before stated, were fired on Boston Common in token of joy at
+the restoration of slavery to our New England soil.
+
+iv. Articles were written in the newspapers in defence of kidnapping,
+in justification of the fugitive slave bill. The _Boston Courier_ and
+_Boston Daily Advertiser_ gave what influence they had in support of
+that crime against America.
+
+v. Several ministers of Boston came out and publicly, in sermons in
+their own pulpits, defended the fugitive slave bill, and called on
+their parishioners to enforce the law!
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, need I tell you of the feelings of the
+Philanthropists of Boston,--of the colored citizens who were to be the
+victims of this new abomination! Within twenty-four hours of its
+passage more than thirty citizens of Boston, colored citizens, fled in
+their peril to a man whose delight it is to undo the heavy burthens
+and let the oppressed go free. While others were firing their joyful
+cannon at the prospect of kidnapping their brothers and sisters,
+Francis Jackson helped his fellow Christians into the ark of
+Deliverance which he set afloat on that flood of Sin. Gentlemen, he is
+here to-day--he is one of my bondsmen. There are the others--this
+venerable gentleman [Samuel May], this steadfast friend [John R.
+Manley.]
+
+vi. It was not long before the kidnappers came here for their prey.
+
+(1.) I must dwell a moment on the first attempt. Gentlemen of the
+Jury, you know the story of William and Ellen Craft. They were slaves
+in Georgia; their master was said to be a "very pious man," "an
+excellent Christian." Ellen had a little baby,--it was sick and ready
+to die. But one day her "owner"--for this wife and mother was only a
+piece of property--had a dinner party at his house. Ellen must leave
+her dying child and wait upon the table. She was not permitted to
+catch the last sighing of her only child with her own lips; other and
+ruder hands must attend to the mother's sad privilege. But the groans
+and moanings of the dying child came to her ear and mingled with the
+joy and merriment of the guests whom the mother must wait upon. At
+length the moanings all were still--for Death took a North-side view
+of the little boy, and the born-slave had gone where the servant is
+free from his master and the weary is at rest--for _there_ the wicked
+cease from troubling. Ellen and William resolved to flee to the North.
+They cherished the plan for years; he was a joiner, and hired himself
+of his owner for about two hundred dollars a year. They saved a little
+money, and stealthily, piece by piece, they bought a suit of
+gentleman's clothes to fit the wife; no two garments were obtained of
+the same dealer. Ellen disguised herself as a man, William attending
+as her servant, and so they fled off and came to Boston. No doubt
+these Hon. Judges think it was a very "immoral" thing. Mr. Curtis
+knows no morality here but "legality." Nay, it was a wicked thing--for
+Mr. Everett, a most accomplished scholar, and once a Unitarian
+minister, makes St. Paul command "SLAVES, obey your masters!" Nay,
+Hon. Judge Sprague says it is a "precept" of our "Divine Master!"
+
+Ellen and William lived here in Boston, intelligent, respected, happy.
+The first blow of the fugitive slave bill must fall on them. In
+October, 1850, one Hughes, a jailer from Macon, Georgia, a public
+negro-whipper, who had once beaten Ellen's uncle "almost to death,"
+came here with one Knight, his attendant, to kidnap William and Ellen
+Craft. They applied to Hon. Mr. Hallett for a writ. Perhaps they had
+heard (false) rumors that the Hon. Commissioner was "a little slippery
+in his character;" that he was "not overscrupulous in his conduct;"
+that he "would do any dirty work for political preferment." Gentlemen,
+you know that such rumors will get abroad, and will be whispered of
+the best of men. Of course you would never believe them in this case:
+but a kidnapper from Georgia might; "distance lends" illusion, as well
+as "enchantment, to the view." But be that as it may, Mr. Hallett (in
+1850) appeared to have too much manhood to kidnap a man. He was better
+than his reputation; I mean his reputation with Knight and Hughes, and
+would not (then) steal Mr. and Mrs. Craft. This is small praise; it is
+large in comparison with the conduct of his official brethren. But
+for the salvation of the Union another Commissioner was found who had
+no such scruples. This Honorable Court--Mr. Woodbury was then in the
+chief place, and Mr. Sprague in his present position--issued the writ
+of man-stealing. Two gentlemen of this city were eminently, but
+secretly, active in their attempt to kidnap their victim. I shall
+speak of them by and by. Somebody took care of Ellen Craft. William
+less needed help; he armed himself with pistols and a poignard, and
+walked in the streets in the face of the sun. He was a tall, brave
+man, and was quite as cool then as this Honorable Court is now, while
+I relate their "glorious first essay" in man-stealing. Public opinion
+at length drove the (southern) kidnappers from Boston. Then the Crafts
+also left the town and the country, and found in the Monarchical
+Aristocracy of Old England what the New England Democracy refused to
+allow them--protection of their unalienable right to Life, Liberty,
+and the pursuit of Happiness.
+
+Gentlemen, the Evangelists of slavery could not allow a Southern
+kidnapper to come to Boston and not steal his man: they were in great
+wrath at the defeat of Hughes and Knights. So they procured a meeting
+at Faneuil Hall to make ready for effectual kidnapping and restoring
+Slavery to Boston. "The great Union meeting" was held at Faneuil Hall
+November 26th, 1850,--two days before the annual Thanksgiving; it was
+"a preparatory meeting" to make ready the hearts of the People for
+that dear New England festival when we thank God for the Harvest of
+the Land, and the Harvest of the Sea, and still more for the State
+whose laws are Righteousness, and the Church that offers us "the
+Liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free," "the glorious Liberty of
+the Sons of God." Here are the Resolutions which were passed.
+
+     "Resolved, That the preservation of the Constitution and the
+     Union is the paramount duty of all citizens;--that the
+     blessings which have flowed from them in times past, which
+     the whole country is now enjoying under them, and which we
+     firmly believe posterity will derive from them hereafter,
+     are incalculable; and that they vastly transcend in
+     importance all other political objects and considerations
+     whatever.
+
+     "Resolved, That it would be folly to deny that there has
+     been and still is danger to the existence of the Union,
+     where there is prevalent so much of a spirit of disunion,
+     constantly weakening its strength and alienating the minds
+     of one part of the people of the United States from another;
+     and that if this spirit be not checked and restrained, and
+     do not give way to a spirit of conciliation and of patriotic
+     devotion to the general good of the whole country, we cannot
+     expect a long continuance of the political tie which has
+     hitherto made us one people; but must rather look to see
+     groups of rival neighboring republics, whose existence will
+     be a state of perpetual conflict and open war.
+
+     "Resolved, That all the provisions of the Constitution of
+     the United States--the supreme law of the land--are equally
+     binding upon every citizen, and upon every State in the
+     Union;--that ALL laws passed by Congress, in pursuance of
+     the Constitution, are equally binding on all the citizens,
+     and no man is at liberty to resist or disobey any one
+     constitutional act of Congress any more than another; and
+     that we do not desire or intend to claim the benefit of any
+     one of the powers or advantages of the Constitution, and to
+     refuse, or seem to refuse, to perform any part of its
+     duties, or to submit to any part of its obligations.
+
+     "Resolved, That the adjustment of the measures which
+     disturbed the action of Congress for nearly ten months of
+     its last session, ought to be carried out by the people of
+     the United States in good faith, in all the substantial
+     provisions; _because_, although we may differ with each
+     other about the details of those measures, yet, in our
+     judgment, a renewed popular agitation of any of the main
+     questions then settled, would be fraught with new and
+     extreme dangers to the peace and harmony of the country,
+     which this adjustment has happily restored.
+
+     "Resolved, That every species and form of resistance to the
+     execution of a regularly enacted law, except by peaceable
+     appeal to the regular action of the judicial tribunals upon
+     the question of its constitutionality--an appeal which ought
+     never to be opposed or impeded--is mischievous, and
+     subversive of the first principles of social order, and
+     tends to anarchy and bloodshed.
+
+     "Resolved, That men, who directly or indirectly instigate or
+     encourage those who are or may be the subjects of legal
+     process, to offer violent resistance to the officers of the
+     law, deserve the reprehension of an indignant community, and
+     the severest punishment which its laws have provided for
+     their offence; and that we have entire confidence that any
+     combination or attempt to fix such a blot upon the fair fame
+     of our State or city, will be promptly rebuked and punished,
+     by an independent and impartial judiciary, and by firm and
+     enlightened juries.
+
+     "Resolved, That we will at all times, in all places, and
+     under all circumstances, so far as our acts or influence may
+     extend, sustain the Federal Union, uphold its Constitution,
+     and enforce the duty of obedience to the laws."
+
+A singular preparation for a Thanksgiving day in Boston! But on that
+festival, Gentlemen, three Unitarian ministers thanked God that the
+fugitive slave bill would be kept in all the land!
+
+Several speeches were made at the meeting, some by Whigs, some by
+Democrats, for it was a "Union meeting," where Herod and Pilate were
+made friends. Gentlemen, I must depart a little from the severity of
+this defence and indulge you with some of the remarks of my
+distinguished opponent, Hon. Attorney Hallett: then he was merely a
+lawyer, and fugitive slave bill Commissioner, appointed "to take bail,
+affidavits," and colored men,--he was only an expectant Attorney. His
+speech was a forerunner of the "Indictment" which has brought us
+together. Hearken to the words of Mr. Hallett in his "preparatory
+lecture:"--
+
+     "We can now say that there is no law of the United States
+     which cannot be executed in Massachusetts. If there was any
+     doubt before, _there can be no doubt now_; and if there be
+     any wild enough hereafter to resort to a fancied 'Higher
+     Law' to put down law [that is, the fugitive slave bill],
+     they will find in your determined will a stronger law to
+     sustain _all the laws of the United States_." "The
+     threatened nullification comes from Massachusetts upon a law
+     [the fugitive slave bill] which the whole South insist is
+     _vital to the protection of their property and industry_
+     [much of their "property" and "industry" being addicted to
+     running away]. _And shall Massachusetts nullify that law?_"
+     "The question for us to-day is whether we will in good
+     faith abide by, and carry out these _Peace Measures_ [for
+     the rendition of fugitive slaves, the new establishment of
+     Slavery in Utah and New Mexico, and the restoration of it to
+     all the North] or whether we shall rush into renewed
+     agitation," etc. "Resort is had to a new form of _moral
+     treason_ which assumes by the mysterious power of a '_Higher
+     Law_' to trample down all law [that is, the fugitive slave
+     bill]. Some of our fellow-citizens have avowed that the
+     fugitive slave bill is to be treated like the _Stamp Act_,
+     and never to be enforced in Massachusetts. If that means any
+     thing, it means that which our fathers meant when they
+     resisted the Stamp Act and threw the tea
+     overboard--Revolution.[181] _It_ [opposition to the fugitive
+     slave bill] _is revolution, or it is treason. If it only
+     resists law, and obstructs its officers, it is treason; and
+     he who risks it, must risk hanging for it._"[182]
+
+[Footnote 181: The learned counsel for the fugitive slave bill
+confounds two events. The Stamp Act was passed March 22d, 1765, and
+repealed the 28th of the next March. The tea was destroyed December
+16th, 1773.]
+
+[Footnote 182: Report in Boston Courier of November 27th, 1850.]
+
+Gentlemen, that meeting determined to execute the fugitive slave bill
+"with all its provisions, to the fullest extent." It is dreadful to
+remember the articles in the Daily Advertiser and the Courier at that
+period. Some of the sermons in the Churches of Commerce on the
+following Thursday, Thanksgiving day, were filled with the most odious
+doctrines of practical atheism. The "preparatory meeting" had its
+effect. Soon the seed bore fruit after its kind. But some ministers
+were faithful to their Brother and their Lord.
+
+(2.) February 15th, 1851, a colored man named "Shadrach" was arrested
+under a warrant from that Commissioner who had been so active in the
+attempt to kidnap Mr. and Mrs. Craft. But a "miracle" was wrought:
+"where sin abounded Grace did much more abound," and "the Lord
+delivered him out of their hands." Shadrach went free to Canada, where
+he is now a useful citizen. He was rescued by a small number of
+colored persons at noonday. The kidnapping Commissioner telegraphed to
+Mr. Webster, "It is levying war--it is treason." Another asked, "What
+is to be done?" The answer from Washington was, "Mr. Webster was very
+much mortified."
+
+On the 18th, President Fillmore, at Mr. Webster's instigation, issued
+his proclamation calling on all well disposed citizens, and
+_commanding all officers_, "civil and military, to aid and assist in
+quelling this, and all other such combinations, _and to assist in
+recapturing the above-named person_" Shadrach. General orders came
+down from the Secretaries of War and the Navy, commanding the
+_military and naval officers to yield all practicable assistance_ in
+the event of such another "_insurrection_." The City Government of
+Boston passed Resolutions regretting that a man had been saved from
+the shackles of slavery; cordially approving of the President's
+proclamation, and promising their earnest efforts to carry out his
+recommendations. At that time Hon. Mr. Tukey was Marshal; Hon. John P.
+Bigelow was Mayor; Hon. Henry J. Gardner, a man equally remarkable for
+his temperance, truthfulness, and general integrity, was President of
+the Common Council.
+
+It was not long, Gentlemen, before the City Government had an
+opportunity to keep its word.
+
+(3.) On the night of the 3d of April, 1851, Thomas Sims was kidnapped
+by two police officers of Boston, pretending to arrest him for theft!
+Gentlemen of the Jury, you know the rest. He was on trial nine days.
+He never saw the face of a jury, a judge only once--who refused the
+_Habeas Corpus_, the great "Writ of Right." That judge--I wish his
+successors may better serve mankind--has gone to his own place; where,
+may God Almighty have mercy on his soul! You remember, Gentlemen, the
+chains round the Court House; the Judges of your own Supreme Court
+crawling under the southern chain. You do not forget the "Sims
+Brigade"--citizen soldiers called out and billeted in Faneuil Hall.
+You recollect the Cradle of Liberty shut to a Free Soil Convention,
+but open to those hirelings of the Slave Master. You will never forget
+the Pro-Slavery Sermons that stained so many Boston pulpits on the
+"Fast-day" which intervened during the mock trial!
+
+Mr. Sims had able defenders,--I speak now only of such as appeared on
+his behalf, others not less noble and powerful, aided by their
+unrecorded service--Mr. Sewall, Mr. Rantoul, men always on the side of
+Liberty, and one more from whose subsequent conduct, Gentlemen of the
+Jury, I grieve to say it, you would not expect such magnanimity then,
+Mr. Charles G. Loring. But of what avail was all this before such a
+Commissioner? Thomas Sims was declared "a chattel personal to all
+intents, uses, and purposes whatsoever." After it became plain that he
+would be decreed a slave, the poor victim of Boston kidnappers asked
+one boon of his counsel, "I cannot go back to Slavery," said he, "give
+me a knife, and when the Commissioner declares me a slave I will stab
+myself to the heart, and die before his eyes! I will not be a slave."
+The knife was withheld! At the darkest hour of the night Mayor Bigelow
+and Marshal Tukey, suitable companions, admirably joined by nature as
+by vocation, with two or three hundred police-men armed, some with
+bludgeons, some with drawn swords and horse pistols, took the poor boy
+out of his cell, chained, weeping, and bore him over the spot where,
+on the 5th of March, 1770, the British tyrant first shed New England
+blood; by another spot where your fathers and mine threw to the ocean
+the taxed tea of the oppressor. They put him on board a vessel, the
+"_Acorn_," and carried him off to eternal bondage. "And this is
+Massachusetts liberty!" said he, as he stepped on board. Boston sent
+her Delegates to escort him back, and on the 19th of April, 1851, she
+delivered him up to his tormentors in the jail at Savannah, where he
+was scourged till human nature could bear no more, while his captors
+were feasted at the public cost. Seventy-six years before there was
+another 19th of April, also famous!
+
+(4.) Then came the examination and "trial" of the Shadrach Rescuers in
+February and the following months. Some of these trials took place
+before his Honor Judge Peleg Sprague. Therefore, you will allow me,
+Gentlemen, to refresh your memories with a word or two respecting the
+antecedents of this Judge--his previous history.
+
+In 1835 the abolition of Slavery in the British West Indies and the
+efforts of the friends of Freedom in the Northern States, excited
+great alarm at the South, lest the "peculiar institution" should
+itself be brought into peril. Fear of a "general insurrection of the
+slaves" was talked about and perhaps felt. The mails were opened in
+search of "incendiary publications;" a piano-forte sent from Boston to
+Virginia, was returned because the purchaser found an old copy of the
+"Emancipator" in the case which contained it. Public meetings for the
+promotion of American Slavery were held. There was one at Boston in
+Faneuil Hall, August 21, 1835, at which a remarkable speech was made
+by a lawyer who had graduated at Harvard College in 1812, a man no
+longer young, of large talents and great attainments in the law. He
+spoke against discussion, and in behalf of Slavery and Slaveholders:
+he could see no good, but only unmixed evil "consequent upon agitating
+this subject here." He said:--
+
+     "When did fear ever induce a man to relax his power over the
+     object that excited it? No, he will hold him down with a
+     stronger grasp, he will draw the cords tighter, he will make
+     the chains heavier and sink his victim to a still deeper
+     dungeon."
+
+     "The language and measures of the abolitionists clearly tend
+     to insurrection and violence." "They [the slaves] hear that
+     their masters have no legal or moral authority over them.
+     That every moment's exercise of such dominion is sin, and
+     that the laws that sanction it are morally void: that they
+     are entitled to immediate emancipation, and that their
+     masters are to be regarded as kidnappers and robbers for
+     refusing it." "It is deluding these unfortunate beings to
+     their own destruction, we should not aid them. The
+     Constitution provides for the suppressing of insurrections
+     ... we should respond to its call [if the slaves attempted
+     to recover their liberty]; nay, we should not wait for such
+     a requisition, but on the instant should rush forward with
+     fraternal emotions to defend our brethren from desolation
+     and massacre."
+
+     "The South will not tolerate our interference with their
+     slaves, [by our discussing the matter in the newspapers and
+     elsewhere]." "The Union then, if used to disturb this
+     institution of Slavery, will be then as the 'spider's web; a
+     breath will agitate, a blast will sweep it away forever.'"
+
+     "If, then, these abolitionists shall go on ... the fate of
+     our government is sealed.... And who will attempt to fathom
+     the immeasurable abyss of a dissolution of the Union?"
+
+     "Tell the abolitionists this; present to them in full array
+     the consequences of their attempts at immediate
+     emancipation, and they meet all by a cold abstraction. They
+     answer, '_We must do right regardless of consequences._'"
+     "They assume that such a course [undoing the heavy burthens
+     and letting the oppressed go free, and loving your neighbor
+     as yourself] _is_ right. When that is the very point in
+     controversy, and when inevitable consequences demonstrate
+     that it must be wrong."
+
+     "They [the abolitionists] insist upon immediate,
+     instantaneous emancipation.... No man, say they, can be
+     rightfully restrained of his liberty except for crime."
+     "They come to the conclusion that no laws that sanction or
+     uphold it [Slavery] can have any moral obligation. The
+     Constitution is the Supreme law of the land. It does
+     sanction, it does uphold Slavery; and if this doctrine be
+     true, that sacred compact has always been [so far] morally
+     null and void." "He [Washington] THAT SLAVEHOLDER ... came
+     with other Slaveholders to drive the British myrmidons from
+     this city and this Hall. Our fathers did not refuse to hold
+     communion with him or with them. With Slaveholders they
+     formed the Confederation ... with them they made the
+     Declaration of Independence." "And in the original draft of
+     the Declaration was contained a most _eloquent passage upon
+     this very topic of negro Slavery, which was stricken out in
+     deference to the wishes of members from the South_."
+     "Slavery existed then as now." "Our fathers were not less
+     devoted friends of liberty, not less pure as philanthropists
+     or pious as Christians than any of their children of the
+     present day." [Therefore _we_ must not attempt to emancipate
+     a slave!]
+
+Here is the passage which the speaker thought it so praiseworthy in
+the Revolutionary Congress to strike out from the Declaration of
+Independence:--
+
+     "He [the king] has waged cruel war against human nature
+     itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty
+     in the persons of a distant people who never offended him,
+     captivating and carrying them into slavery in another
+     hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their
+     transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the
+     opprobrium of INFIDEL nations, is the warfare of the
+     CHRISTIAN King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a
+     market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has
+     prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative
+     attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce.
+     And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of
+     distinguished dye, he is now exciting those very people to
+     rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which
+     he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he
+     also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed
+     against the LIBERTIES of one people with crimes which he
+     urges them to commit against the LIVES of another."
+
+Mr. Jefferson says, "It was struck out in _compliance to South
+Carolina and Georgia_, who had never attempted to restrain the
+importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, still wished to
+continue it. Our Northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little
+tender under it, for though their people have very few slaves
+themselves, yet they have been pretty considerable carriers of them to
+others."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But the orator went on protesting against righteousness:--
+
+     "I would beseech them [the Abolitionists] to discard their
+     dangerous abstractions [that men are endowed by their
+     Creator with certain natural, equal, and unalienable
+     Rights--to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness]
+     which they [in common with the Declaration of Independence]
+     adopt as universal rules of human conduct--without regard to
+     time, condition, or circumstances; which _darken the
+     understanding and mislead the judgment_, and urge them
+     forward to consequences from which they will shrink back
+     with horror. I would ask them to reflect that ... the
+     religion they profess is not to be advanced by forgetting
+     the precepts and the example of their Divine Master. Upon
+     that example I would ask them to pause. He found Slavery,
+     Roman Slavery, an institution of the country in which he
+     lived. Did he denounce it? Did he attempt its immediate
+     abolition? Did he do any thing, or say any thing which could
+     in its remotest tendency encourage resistance and violence?
+     No, his precept was, 'Servants (Slaves) obey your
+     Masters.'"[183] "It was because _he would not interfere with
+     the administration of the laws, or abrogate their
+     authority_."
+
+[Footnote 183: The learned counsel for the slaveholders probably
+referred to Eph. vi. 5; or Coloss. iii. 22; or Tit. ii. 9; or 1 Pet.
+ii. 18.]
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, this alleged precept of the "Divine Master"
+does not occur in any one of the four canonical Evangelists of the New
+Testament; nor have I found it in any of those Spurious and Apocryphal
+Records of old time. It appears originally in the Gospel according to
+the Hon. Peleg Sprague. "Slaves, obey your masters," "a comfortable
+Scripture" truly; a beatitude for the stealers of men!
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, that was the language of Mr. Peleg Sprague at
+the time when the State of Georgia offered $5,000 for the head of Mr.
+Garrison; when the Governors of Virginia and other Slave States, sent
+letters to the Governor of Massachusetts asking for "penal statutes"
+to prohibit our discussion in Boston; it was the very year that a mob
+of "Gentlemen of Property and Standing" in Boston broke up a meeting
+of women assembled to endeavor to abolish Slavery. Gentlemen of the
+Jury, Mr. Sprague had his reward--he sits on the bench to try me for a
+"misdemeanor"--"obstructing, resisting, and opposing an officer of the
+United States," "while in the discharge of his duty" to steal a man in
+Boston, that his "owner" might sell him in Richmond. The "chief
+commandment" of the New Testament is, "Slaves, obey your masters;" on
+that commandment he would now hang all the law, and the Abolitionists.
+
+It would take a long time to tell the dark, sad tale of the trial of
+the Shadrach Rescuers; how the Judge constructed and charged the Jury;
+how he constructed his "law." It was the old story of the Stuart
+despotism, wickedness in the name of the law and with its forms.
+Gentlemen, in that trial you saw the value of the jury. The Judges of
+Massachusetts went under the chain which the kidnappers placed about
+the Court House in 1851. The Federal Judges sought to kidnap the
+citizens of Boston and to punish all such as opposed man-stealing. The
+Massachusetts Judges allowed the law, which they had sworn to execute,
+to be struck down to the ground; nay, themselves sought to strike it
+down. The Federal Judges perverted the law to make it an instrument of
+torture against all such as love mankind. But the jury held up the
+Shield of Justice, and the poisoned weapons of the court fell blunted
+to the ground. The government took nothing by that motion--nothing but
+defeat. There was no conviction. One of the jurors said, "You may get
+one Hunker on any panel; it is not easy to get twelve. There was no
+danger of a conviction." But still it is painful to think in what
+peril our lives and our liberties then were.
+
+(5.) At length came the "Burns case." You know it too well. On the
+night of Wednesday, May 26, 1854, in virtue of Commissioner Loring's
+warrant, Anthony Burns was arrested on the charge of burglary, and
+thrust into jail. The next morning he was brought up for condemnation.
+Two noble men, Mr. Dana and my friend Mr. Ellis, defended Mr. Burns.
+There was to be no regular trial before Commissioner Loring.
+
+On the evening of Friday, May 28th, there was a meeting at Faneuil
+Hall, and an attack on the Court House where Mr. Burns was illegally
+held in duress. In the attack a Mr. Batchelder was killed,--a man
+hired to aid in this kidnapping, as he had been in the stealing of Mr.
+Sims. To judge from the evidence offered before the Grand-Jury of the
+Massachusetts Court, and especially from the testimony of Marshal
+Freeman, it appears he was accidentally killed by some of his own
+confederates in that wickedness, and before the door of the Court
+House was broken through. But that is of no consequence: as Mr. Dana
+has said, "He went in for his pay, and has got his _corn_." On Friday,
+June 4th, Mr. Burns was declared a slave by Commissioner Loring and
+delivered up to eternal bondage.
+
+It seems to be in consequence of my connection with this case that I
+am indicted; so you now approach the end of this long defence. I come
+to the last part of it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+(III.) Of the Indictment against Theodore Parker.
+
+I am indicted, gentlemen, for "resisting an officer" who was engaged
+in kidnapping Mr. Burns; and it is charged that I, at Boston, May
+26th, "with force and arms did knowingly and wilfully, obstruct,
+resist, and oppose, ... Watson Freeman, then and there being an
+officer of the United States, to the great damage of the said Watson
+Freeman; to the great hinderance and obstruction of justice, [to wit,
+of the kidnapping of Anthony Burns,] to the evil example of all others
+in like case offending, against the peace and dignity of the said
+United States and contrary to the form of the statute made and
+provided."
+
+It is also charged that "one Theodore Parker of Boston, ... with
+force and arms in and upon the said Watson Freeman, then and there, in
+the peace of the said United States being, an assault did make, he the
+said Freeman also then and there being an officer of the said United
+States, to wit, Marshal of the United States, ... and then and there
+also being in the due and lawful discharge of his duties as such
+officer" [to wit, stealing and kidnapping one Anthony Burns]. These
+and various other pleasant charges, Mr. Hallett, in the jocose manner
+of indictments, alleges against me; wherefrom I must defend myself, as
+best I may.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now, Gentlemen, that you may completely understand the accusation
+brought against me, I must go back a little, and bring up several
+other matters of fact that have straggled away from this long column
+of argument which I have led into the field thus far;--and also rally
+some new forces not before drawn into the line of defence. I must
+speak of the Hon. Justice Curtis; of his conduct in relation to
+Slavery in general, to this particular prosecution, and to this
+special case, _United States_ vs. _Theodore Parker_.
+
+First, Gentlemen, let me speak of some events which preceded Mr.
+Curtis's elevation to his present distinguished post. To make the
+whole case perfectly clear, I must make mention of some others
+intimately connected with him.
+
+There is a family in Boston which may be called the Curtis family. So
+far as it relates to the matter in hand, it may be said to consist of
+six persons, namely, Charles P. Curtis, lawyer, and Thomas B. Curtis,
+merchant, sons of the late Thomas Curtis; Benjamin R. Curtis, by birth
+a kinsman, and by marriage a son-in-law of Charles P. Curtis, late a
+practising lawyer, now this Honorable Judge of the Supreme Court of
+the United States, and his brother, George T. Curtis, lawyer, and
+United States Commissioner for the District of Massachusetts; Edward
+G. Loring, a step-son of the late Thomas Curtis, and accordingly
+step-brother of Charles P. and Thomas B. Curtis, lawyer, Judge of
+Probate for Boston, United States Commissioner, and, until recently,
+Lecturer at the Cambridge Law School; and also William W. Greenough,
+son-in-law of Charles P. Curtis, merchant.
+
+This family, though possessing many good qualities, has had a
+remarkably close and intimate connection with all, or most, of the
+recent cases of kidnapping in Boston. Here are some of the facts, so
+painful for me to relate, but so indispensable to a full understanding
+of this case.
+
+1. In 1836 Charles P. Curtis and Benjamin R. Curtis appeared as
+counsel for the slave-hunters in the famous case of the girl Med,
+originally a slave in the West Indies, and brought to Boston by her
+mistress. Med claimed her freedom on the ground that slavery was not
+recognized by the laws of Massachusetts, and could not exist here
+unless it were in the special case, under the Federal Constitution, of
+fugitives from the slave States of this Union. The Messrs. Curtis
+contended with all their skill--_totis viribus_, as lawyers say--that
+slavery might, by legal comity, exist in Massachusetts--that slaves
+were property by the law of nations; and that an ownership which is
+legal in the West Indies continued in Boston, at least so far as to
+leave the right to seize and carry away.
+
+Mr. Charles P. Curtis had already appeared as counsel for a
+slave-hunter in 1832, and had succeeded in restoring a slave child,
+only twelve or fourteen years of age, to his claimant who took him to
+Cuba with the valuable promise that he should be free in the Spanish
+West Indies.[184]
+
+[Footnote 184: Daily Advertiser, Dec. 7th, 1832. Mr. Sewall, the early
+and indefatigable friend of the slave, asked the Court to appoint a
+guardian _ad litem_ for the child, who was not 14, who should see that
+he was not enslaved. But the slaveholder's counsel objected, and the
+Judge (Shaw) refused; yet to his honor be it said in a similar case in
+1841, when Mr. Sewall was counsel for a slave child under the same
+circumstances, he delivered him to a guardian appointed by the Probate
+Court. 3 Metcalf, 72.]
+
+In the Med case Mr. Benjamin R. Curtis made a long and elaborate
+argument to show that "a citizen of a slaveholding State, who comes to
+Massachusetts for a temporary purpose of business or pleasure and
+brings his slave as a personal attendant, may restrain that slave for
+the purpose of carrying him out of the State and returning him to the
+domicil of his owner." To support this proposition, he made two
+points:--
+
+"1. That this child by the law of Louisiana is _now_ a slave."
+
+"2. That the law of Massachusetts will so far recognize and give
+effect to the law of Louisiana, as to allow the master to exercise
+this restricted power over his slave." That is, the power to keep her
+here as a slave, to remove her to Louisiana, and so make her a slave
+for ever and her children after her.
+
+To prove this last point he says by quotation, "we always _import_,
+together with their persons, _the existing relations of foreigners
+between themselves_." So as we "import" the natural relation of
+husband and wife, or parent and child, in the Irish immigrants, and
+respect the same, we ought equally to import and respect the unnatural
+and forcible relation of master and slave in our visitors from Cuba or
+Louisiana.
+
+     "It will be urged," he said, "that though we claim to
+     exercise only a qualified and limited right over the slave,
+     namely the right to remove him from the State, yet if this
+     is allowed, all the rights of the master must be allowed,
+     ... and thus Slavery will be introduced into the
+     Commonwealth. To this I answer,
+
+     "(1.) There is no practical difficulty in giving this
+     qualified effect to the law of Louisiana, [allowing the
+     master to bring and keep his slaves here and remove them
+     when he will]. The Constitution of the United States has
+     settled this question. That provides for and secures to the
+     master, the exercise of his right to the very extent claimed
+     in this case."
+
+     "(2.) Neither is there any theoretical difficulty."
+
+To do this, he thinks, will "promote harmony and good feeling, where
+it is extremely desirable to promote it, encourage frequent
+intercourse, and soften prejudices by increasing acquaintance, and
+tend to peace and union and good-will." "It will work no injury to the
+State [Massachusetts], by violating any public law of the State. The
+only law in the statute-book applicable to the subject of Slavery is
+the law against kidnapping." "It will work no direct injury to the
+citizens of this State for, ... it respects only strangers." "It is
+consistent with the public policy of Massachusetts, to permit this ...
+right of the master." "_It may be perfectly consistent with our policy
+not only to recognize the validity and propriety of those
+institutions_ [of Slavery] _in the States where they exist_, but _even
+to interfere actively to enable the citizens of those States to enjoy
+those institutions at home._" That is, it may be the duty of
+Massachusetts, "to interfere actively" in Louisiana for the
+establishment and support of Slavery there!
+
+Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, he adds, have
+made laws allowing the slaveholder this right: "The legislatures of
+those States are the legitimate and highest authority in regard to
+their public policy; what they have declared on this subject, must be
+deemed to be true.... We are not at liberty to suppose that it is
+contrary to their public policy, that the master should exercise this
+right within their territory. I respectfully ask what difference there
+is between the policy of Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island, and New
+Jersey, and the policy of Massachusetts, on the subject of Slavery."
+
+"I shall now attempt," he adds, "to prove that _Slavery is not
+immoral_." How do you think he proved that? Did he cite the Bible? No,
+he left that to lower law divines. Did he manufacture Bible? No, the
+Hon. Peleg Sprague had sufficiently done that a year before. He took a
+shorter cut--he denied there was any morality but Legality. "I take it
+to be perfectly clear," said this young man in all the moral
+enthusiasm of his youth, "that the Standard of Morality by which
+Courts of Justice are to be guided is that which the law prescribes.
+Your Honors' Opinion as Men or as Moralists has no bearing on the
+question. Your Honors are to declare what the Law deems moral or
+immoral."
+
+Gentlemen, that needs no comment; this trial is comment enough. But
+according to that rule no law is immoral. It was "not immoral" in 1410
+to hang and burn thirty-nine men in one day for reading the Bible in
+English; the Catholic Inquisition in Spain was "not immoral;" the
+butchery of Martyrs was all right soon as lawful! There is no Higher
+Law!
+
+It was "not immoral" for the servants of King Pharaoh to drown all the
+new-born Hebrew boys; nor for Herod's butchers to murder the Innocents
+at Bethlehem. Nay, all the atrocities of the Saint Bartholomew
+Massacres, Gentlemen, they were "not immoral," for "the Standard of
+Morality" is "that which the law prescribes." So any legislature that
+can frame an act, any tyrant who can issue a decree, any court which
+can deliver an "opinion," can at once nullify the legislation of the
+Universe and "dissolve the union" of Man and God: "Religion has
+nothing to do with politics; there it makes men mad." Is that the
+doctrine of Young Massachusetts? Hearken then to the Old. In 1765 her
+House of Representatives unanimously resolved that "there are certain
+essential Rights ... which are founded on the Law of God and Nature,
+and are the Common Rights of Mankind, and that the inhabitants of this
+Province are unalienably entitled to these essential Rights in common
+with all men, and _that no law of Society ... can divest them of these
+Rights_." No "Standard of Morality" but Law! A thousand years before
+Jesus of Nazareth taught his Beatitudes of Humanity, the old Hebrews
+knew better. Hearken to a Psalm nearly three thousand years old.
+
+     Among the assemblies of the great,
+     A Greater Ruler takes his seat;
+     The God of Heaven, as Judge, surveys
+     Those Gods on earth, and all their ways.
+     Why will ye, then, frame wicked laws?
+     Or why support the unrighteous cause?
+     When will ye once defend the poor,
+     That sinners vex the Saints no more?
+     Arise, oh Lord, and let thy Son
+     Possess his universal Throne,
+     And rule the nations with his rod;
+     He is our Judge, and he our God.
+
+"By the _law of this Commonwealth_," added Mr. Curtis, "_Slavery is
+not immoral._ By the Supreme law of this Commonwealth Slavery is not
+only recognized as a valid institution, but to a certain extent is
+incorporated into our own law. Before you [the court] rise from your
+seats, you may be called upon by the master of a fugitive slave, to
+grant a certificate ... which _will put the whole force of the
+Commonwealth at his disposal, to remove his slave from our
+Territory_."
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, that was conquering his prejudices "with
+alacrity;" it was obeying the fugitive slave bill fourteen years
+before it was heard of.
+
+He adds still further, by quotation, "I have no doubt but the citizen
+of a Slave State has a right to pass, upon business or pleasure,
+through any of the States attended by his slaves--and his right to
+reclaim his slave would be unquestioned. An escape from the attendance
+upon the person of his master, while on a journey through a free
+State, should be considered as an escape from the State where the
+master had a right of citizenship."
+
+Mr. Charles P. Curtis thus sustained his kinsman:--
+
+     "Is that to be considered immoral which the Court is bound
+     to assist in doing? _It is not for us to denounce as_
+     legally _immoral a practice which is permitted_ and
+     sanctioned _by the supreme law of the land_!" "It is said
+     the practice of Slavery is corrupting in its influence on
+     public morals. But the practice of bringing slaves here was
+     much more common thirty years ago than now. If this practice
+     be so corrupting, why is it tolerated in other States?"...
+     "The law of New York allows even foreigners to go there with
+     their slaves; and have the morals of that State suffered in
+     consequence? In Pennsylvania the law is similar, but where
+     is the evidence of its pernicious influence?" "As to the
+     _right to using them_, [the slaves voluntarily brought here
+     by their masters,] _notwithstanding the supposed horror at
+     such an admission_, the legislatures of New York and
+     Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and New Jersey, have actually
+     enacted statutes allowing precisely that privilege."[185]
+
+[Footnote 185: Med. Case, 1836.]
+
+But the Supreme Court of Massachusetts held otherwise. Med was
+declared free. Chief Justice Shaw covered himself with honor by his
+decision. And soon after, (Aug. 29,) the Daily Advertiser, the "organ"
+of the opinions of this family, said:--
+
+     "In some of the States there is ... legislative provision
+     for cases of this sort, [allowing masters to bring and hold
+     slaves therein,] and it would seem that _some such provision
+     is necessary in this State_, unless we would prohibit
+     citizens of the Slave States from travelling in this State
+     with their families, and unless we would permit such of them
+     as wish to emancipate their slaves, to throw them, at their
+     pleasure, upon the people of this State."
+
+Gentlemen, Mr. Curtis in 1836 contended for all which Mr. Toombs
+boasts he shall get--the right of the slaveholder to sit down at the
+foot of Bunker Hill monument with his slaves! Nay, Mr. Curtis granted
+more: it may be the duty of Massachusetts "to interfere actively," and
+establish slavery in Louisiana, or in Kansas. It may be said, this was
+only a lawyer pleading for his client. It was--a lawyer asking the
+Supreme Court of Massachusetts to establish slavery in this
+Commonwealth. Is it innocent in a lawyer to ask the court to do a
+wicked thing, to urge the court to do it? Then is it equally innocent
+to ask the Treasurer of a Railroad to forge stock, or an editor to
+publish lies, or a counterfeiter to make and utter base coin, or an
+assassin to murder men. Surely it is as innocent to urge men to kidnap
+blacks in Africa as in Boston.
+
+Gentlemen, That declaration--that the Statute supersedes natural
+Justice, and that the only "Standard of Morality" by which the courts
+are to be guided is "that which the law prescribes"--deserves your
+careful consideration. "He that squares his conscience by the law is a
+scoundrel"--say the proverbs of many nations. What do you think of a
+man who knows no lawgiver but the General Court of Massachusetts, or
+the American Congress: no Justice but the Statutes? If Mr. Curtis's
+doctrine is correct, then Franklin, Hancock, Adams, Washington, were
+only Rebels and Traitors! They refused that "Standard of Morality."
+Nay, our Puritan Fathers were all "criminals;" the twelve Apostles
+committed not only "misdemeanors" but sins; and Jesus of Nazareth was
+only a malefactor, a wanton disturber of the public peace of the
+world!
+
+The slave child Med, poor, fatherless, and unprotected, comes before
+the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, claiming her natural and
+unalienable Right to Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,--if not
+granted she is a slave for ever. In behalf of her wealthy "owner" Mr.
+Curtis resists the girl's claim; tells the court she "is now a slave;"
+there is "no practical difficulty" in allowing the master to keep her
+in that condition, no "theoretical difficulty;" "slavery is not
+immoral;" it may be the duty of Massachusetts not only to recognize
+slavery at home, but also "even to interfere actively" to support
+slavery abroad; the law is the only "Standard of Morality" for the
+courts; that establishes slavery in Massachusetts! Gentlemen, what do
+mankind say to such sophistry? Hearken to this Hebrew Bible: "Wo unto
+them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness
+which they have prescribed, to turn aside the needy from judgment, and
+to take away the Right from the poor of my people, that widows may be
+their prey, and _that they may rob the fatherless_." Let the stern
+Psalm of the Puritans still further answer from the manly bosom of the
+Bible.
+
+     "Judges who rule the world by laws,
+     Will ye despise the righteous cause,
+       When the injured poor before you stands?
+     Dare ye condemn the righteous poor
+     And let rich sinners 'scape secure,
+       While Gold and Greatness bribe your hands?
+
+     "Have ye forgot, or never knew,
+     That God will judge the judges too?
+       High in the Heavens his Justice reigns;
+     Yet you invade the rights of God,
+     And send your bold decrees abroad,
+       To bind the Conscience in your chains.
+
+     "Break out their teeth, eternal God,
+     Those teeth of lions dy'd in blood;
+       And crush the serpents in the dust;
+     As empty chaff, when whirlwinds rise,
+     Before the sweeping tempest flies,
+       So let their hopes and names be lost.
+
+     "Thus shall the Justice of the Lord
+     Freedom and peace to men afford;
+       And all that hear shall join and say,
+     Sure there's a God that rules on high,
+     A God that hears his children cry,
+       And all their sufferings will repay."
+
+2. After Mr. Webster had made his speech of March 7, 1850, pledging
+himself and his State to the support of the fugitive slave bill, then
+before Congress, "to the fullest extent," Thomas B. Curtis, with the
+help of others, got up a letter to Mr. Webster, dated March 25, 1850,
+signed, it is said, by 987 persons, who say: "We desire to express to
+you our deep obligations for what this speech has done and is doing."
+"You have pointed out to a whole people the path of duty, have
+convinced the understanding and touched the conscience of the nation."
+"We desire, therefore, to express to you our entire concurrence in the
+sentiments of your speech."
+
+3. A little later, Mr. Webster returned to Boston, and was
+"rapturously received" at the Revere House, April 29, 1850, by a
+"great multitude," when Benjamin R. Curtis made a public address, and
+expressed his "abounding gratitude for the ability and fidelity" which
+Mr. Webster had "brought to the defence of the Constitution and of the
+Union," and commended him as "_eminently vigilant, wise, and faithful
+to his country, without a shadow of turning_."
+
+4. Presently, after the passage of the fugitive slave bill, at a
+dinner party, at the house of a distinguished counsellor of Boston,
+Charles P. Curtis declared that he hoped the first fugitive slave who
+should come to Boston would be seized and sent back!
+
+5. Charles P. Curtis and his step-brother Edward G. Loring, and George
+T. Curtis, defended the fugitive slave bill by writing articles in the
+_Boston Daily Advertiser_.
+
+6. In November, 1850, the slave-hunters, thus invited and encouraged,
+came to Boston, seeking to kidnap William and Ellen Craft: but they in
+vain applied to Commissioner Benj. F. Hallett, and to Judges Woodbury
+and Sprague, for a warrant to arrest their prey. Finally, they betook
+themselves to Commissioner George T. Curtis, who at once agreed to
+grant a warrant; but, according to his own statement, in a letter to
+Mr. Webster, Nov. 23, 1850, as he anticipated resistance, and
+considered it very important that the Marshal should have more support
+than it was in his power as a Commissioner to afford, he procured a
+meeting of the Commissioners, four in number, and with their aid
+succeeded in persuading the Circuit Court, then in session, to issue
+the warrant.
+
+Gentlemen, as that letter of Mr. George T. Curtis contains some
+matters which are of great importance, you will thank me for
+refreshing your memory with such pieces of history.
+
+     "An application [for a warrant to arrest Mr. Craft] had
+     already been made to the judges [Messrs. Woodbury and
+     Sprague] privately ... they could not grant a warrant on
+     account of the pendency of an important Patent Cause then on
+     trial before a jury." "To this I replied, that ... the
+     ordinary business of the Court ought to give way for a
+     sufficient length of time, to enable the judges to receive
+     this application and to hear the case." "On a private
+     intimation to the presiding judge of our desire to confer
+     with him [the desire of the kidnapping commissioners, Mr.
+     B.F. Hallett, Mr. Edward G. Loring, Mr. C.L. Woodbury, and
+     Mr. G.T. Curtis] the jury were dismissed at _an earlier hour
+     than usual, ... and every person present except the
+     Marshal's deputies left the room, and the doors were
+     closed_." "The learned Judge said ... that he would attend
+     at half past eight the next morning, to grant the warrant."
+     "A process was placed in the hands of the Marshal ... in the
+     execution of which he might be called upon to _break open
+     dwelling-houses, and perhaps take life_, by quelling
+     resistance, actual or _threatened_." "I devoted at once a
+     good deal of time to the necessary investigations of the
+     subject." "There is a great deal of legislation needed to
+     make the general government independent of State control,"
+     says this "Expounder of the Constitution," "and independent
+     of the power of mobs, whenever and wherever its measures
+     chance to be unpopular." "The office of United States
+     Marshal is by no means organized and fortified by
+     legislation as it should be to encounter popular
+     disturbance."
+
+7. The warrant having been issued for the seizure of Mr. Craft,
+Marshal Devens applied to Benjamin R. Curtis for legal advice as to
+the degree of force he might use in serving it, and whether it ought
+to be regarded as a civil or a criminal process. George T. Curtis was
+employed by his brother to search for authorities on these points.
+They two, together, as appears from the letter of George T. Curtis to
+Mr. Webster, induced Marshal Devens to ask a further question, which
+gave Benjamin R. Curtis an opportunity to come out with an elaborate
+opinion in favor of the constitutionality of the fugitive slave bill,
+dated November 9, 1850. This was published in the newspapers. In order
+to maintain the constitutionality of this act, Benjamin R. Curtis was
+driven to assume, as all its defenders must, that the Commissioner, in
+returning the fugitive, performs none of the duties of a Judge; that
+the hearing before him is not "a case arising under the laws of the
+United States;" that he acts not as a judicial, but merely as an
+executive and "ministerial" officer--not deciding him to be a slave,
+but merely giving him up, to enable that point to be tried
+elsewhere.[186] But, spite of this opinion, public justice and the
+Vigilance Committee forced the (Southern) slave-hunters to flee from
+Boston, after which, Mr. and Mrs. Craft left America to find safety in
+England, the evident rage and fierce threats of the disappointed
+Boston slave-hunters making it unsafe for them to remain.
+
+[Footnote 186: On this see Hildreth's Despotism, 262, 280.
+Commissioner Loring considers that the fugitive slave bill
+commissioners have "_judicial_ duties." Remonstrance to General Court,
+2.]
+
+8. After the failure of this attempt to arrest Mr. Craft, Thomas B.
+Curtis got up a "Union Meeting" at Faneuil Hall, November 26,
+1850.[187] The call was addressed to such as "regard with disfavor all
+further popular agitation" of the subject of Slavery. Thomas B. Curtis
+called the meeting to order: William W. Greenough, from the "Committee
+of Arrangements," presented the resolutions, which you have already
+heard.[188] It was said at the time that they were written, wholly or
+in part, by Mr. Benjamin R. Curtis, who moved their adoption and made
+a long and elaborate speech thereon.
+
+[Footnote 187: See Mr. Curtis's letter in Daily Advertiser of February
+7, 1855.]
+
+[Footnote 188: See above, p. 148, 149.]
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, as I just now gave you some passages from Mr.
+Hallett's speech on that occasion, allow me now to read you some
+extracts from Mr. Curtis's address. The general aim of the speech was
+to reconcile the People to kidnapping; the rhetorical means to this
+end were an attempt to show that kidnapping was expedient; that it was
+indispensable; that it had been long since agreed to; that the Slaves
+were foreigners and had no right in _Massachusetts_. He said:--
+
+     "We have come here not to consider particular measures of
+     government but to assert that we have a government, not to
+     determine whether this or that law be wise or just, but to
+     declare that there is law, and its duties and power."
+
+     "Every sovereign State has and must have the right to judge
+     _what persons from abroad_ shall be admitted."
+
+     "Are not these persons [fugitive slaves] foreigners as to
+     us--and what right have they to come here at all, _against
+     the will of the legislative power of the State_.
+     [Massachusetts had no legislation forbidding them!] And if
+     their coming here or remaining here, is not consistent with
+     the safety of the State and the welfare of the citizens _may
+     we not_ prohibit their coming, or _send them back_ if they
+     come?" "_To deny this_ is to deny the right of
+     self-preservation to a State.... It ... _throws us back at
+     once into a condition below the most degraded savages who
+     have a semblance of government_." "You know that the great
+     duty of justice could not otherwise be performed, [that is
+     without the fugitive-from-labor clause in the Constitution];
+     that our peace at home and our safety from foreign
+     aggression could not otherwise be insured; and that only by
+     this means could we obtain 'the Blessings of Liberty' to the
+     people of Massachusetts and their posterity." "In no other
+     way could we become an example of, and security for, the
+     capacity of man, safely and peacefully and wisely to govern
+     himself under free and popular institutions."
+
+So the fugitive slave bill is an argument against human depravity,
+showing the capacity of man to govern himself "safely and peacefully
+and wisely."
+
+He adds, as early as 1643 the New England colonies found it necessary
+"to insert an article substantially like this one," for the rendition
+of fugitive servants, and in 1789 the Federal government demanded that
+the Spaniards should surrender the fugitive slaves of Georgia.
+Injustice, Gentlemen, has never lacked a precedent since Cain killed
+Abel. Mr. Curtis continues:--
+
+     "When I look abroad over 100,000 happy homes in
+     Massachusetts and see a people, such as the blessed sun has
+     rarely shone upon, so intelligent and educated, moral,
+     religious, progressive, and free to do every thing but
+     wrong--I fear to say that I should not be in the wrong to
+     put all this at risk, because our _passionate will_ impels
+     us to break a promise our wise and good fathers made, not to
+     allow a _class of foreigners_ to come here, or to _send them
+     back if they came_."
+
+So the refusal to kidnap Ellen and William Craft came of the
+"_passionate will_" of the people, and is likely to ruin the happy
+homes of a moral and religious people!
+
+     "_With the rights of these persons_ I firmly believe
+     _Massachusetts has nothing to do_. It is enough for us that
+     they have no right to be _here_. Whatever natural rights
+     they have--and I admit these natural rights to their fullest
+     extent--this is not the _soil_ on which to vindicate them.
+     This is _our_ soil, sacred to _our_ peace, on which we
+     intend to perform _our_ promises, and work out for the
+     benefit of ourselves and our posterity and the world, the
+     destiny which our Creator has assigned to _us_."
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, it is written of that Creator that He is "no
+Respecter of Persons;" and "hath made of one blood all nations of men
+for to dwell on all the face of the earth." The "Our Creator" of Mr.
+Curtis is also the Father of William and Ellen Craft; and that great
+Soul who has ploughed his moral truths deep into the history of
+mankind, represents the final Judge of us all as saying to such as
+scorned his natural Law of Justice and Humanity, "INASMUCH AS YE DID
+IT NOT TO ONE OF THE LEAST OF THESE YE DID IT NOT TO ME."
+
+Massachusetts is "our soil," is it; "sacred to _our_ peace," which is
+to be made sure of by stealing our brother men, and giving to
+Commissioners George T. Curtis and Edward G. Loring ten dollars for
+making a slave, and only five for setting free a man! Peace and the
+fugitive slave bill! No, Gentlemen of the Jury, it is vain to cry
+Peace, Peace--when there is no peace! Ay, there _is_ no peace to the
+wicked; and though the counsel of the ungodly be carried, it is
+carried headlong!
+
+In that speech, Gentlemen, Mr. Curtis made a special attack upon me:--
+
+     "There has been made within these walls," said he, "the
+     declaration that an article of the Constitution [the
+     rendition clause] of the United States 'shall not be
+     executed, _law or no law_.' A gentleman offered a resolve
+     ... that 'constitution or no constitution, law or no law, we
+     will not allow a fugitive slave to be taken from
+     Massachusetts.' The chairman of a public meeting [Hon.
+     Charles Francis Adams, on October 14th] declared here that
+     'the law will be resisted, and if the fugitive resists, and
+     if he slay the slave-hunter, or even the Marshal, and if he
+     therefor be brought before a Jury of Massachusetts men, that
+     Jury will not convict him.' And as if there should be
+     nothing wanting to exhibit the madness which has possessed
+     men's minds, _murder and perjury_ have been enacted into
+     virtues, and in this city preached from the sacred desk. I
+     must not be suspected of exaggerating in the least degree. I
+     read therefore the following passage from a sermon preached
+     and published in this city:--
+
+     "'Let me suppose a case which may happen here and before
+     long. A woman flies from South Carolina to Massachusetts to
+     escape from bondage. Mr. Greatheart aids her in her escape,
+     harbors and conceals her, and is brought to trial for it.
+     The punishment is a fine of one thousand dollars and
+     imprisonment for six months. I am drawn to serve as a juror
+     and pass upon this offence. I may refuse to serve and be
+     punished for that, leaving men with no scruples to take my
+     place, or I may take the juror's oath to give a verdict
+     according to the law and the testimony. The law is plain,
+     let us suppose, and the testimony conclusive. Greatheart
+     himself confesses that he did the deed alleged, saving one
+     ready to perish. The judge charges that if the jurors are
+     satisfied of that fact then they must return that he is
+     guilty. This is a nice matter. Here are two questions. The
+     one put to me in my official capacity as juror, is this:
+     "Did Greatheart aid the woman?" The other, put to me in my
+     natural character as man, is this: "Will you help punish
+     Greatheart with fine and imprisonment for helping a woman
+     obtain her unalienable rights?" If I have extinguished my
+     manhood by my juror's oath, then I shall do my official
+     business and find Greatheart guilty, and I shall seem to be
+     a true man; but if I value my manhood I shall answer after
+     my natural duty to love man and not hate him, to do him
+     justice, not injustice, to allow him the natural rights he
+     has not alienated, and shall say, "Not guilty." Then men
+     will call me forsworn and a liar, but I think human nature
+     will justify the verdict.'"
+
+"I should like to ask," he continued, "the reverend gentleman in what
+capacity he expects to be punished for his _perjury_?" Gentlemen of
+the Jury, I rose and said, "Do you want an answer to your question,
+sir?" He had charged me with preaching murder and perjury; had asked,
+How I expected to be punished for my own "PERJURY?" When I offered to
+answer his question he refused me the opportunity to reply! Thus,
+Gentlemen, he charged me with recommending men to commit perjury! Did
+he think I advised men to take an oath and break it? On the other side
+of the page which he read there stood printed:--
+
+     "Suppose a man has sworn to keep the Constitution of the
+     United States, and the Constitution is found to be wrong in
+     certain particulars; then his oath is not morally binding,
+     for before his oath, by his very existence, he is morally
+     bound to keep the law of God as fast as he learns it. No
+     oath can absolve him from his natural allegiance to God. Yet
+     I see not how a man can knowingly, and with a good
+     Conscience, swear to keep what he deems it wrong to keep,
+     and will not keep, and does not intend to keep."
+
+Gentlemen, when that speech came to be printed--there was no charge of
+"perjury" at all, but a quite different sentence![189]
+
+[Footnote 189: See the speech in Boston Courier of November 27th, with
+the editorial comment, and in Daily Advertiser of 28th, _Thanksgiving
+Day_. See also the Atlas of November 27th. The Sermon is in 2 Parker's
+Speeches, 241.]
+
+9. In February, 1851, George T. Curtis issued the warrant for the
+seizure of Shadrach, who was "hauled" in to the court house before
+that Commissioner; but "the Lord delivered him out of their hands,"
+and he also escaped out of the United States of America.
+
+10. After the escape or rescue of Shadrach, George T. Curtis
+telegraphed the news to Mr. Webster, at Washington, declaring "it is
+levying war;" thus constructing high treason out of the rescue of a
+prisoner by unarmed men, from the hands of a sub-deputy officer of the
+United States.
+
+11. George T. Curtis also officiated as Commissioner in the kidnapping
+of Thomas Sims, in April, 1851; and under the pretence of
+"extradition," sent him to be scourged in the jail of Savannah, and
+then to suffer eternal bondage. It was rumored at the time that
+Charles P. Curtis and Benjamin R. Curtis, his law-partner and
+son-in-law, were the secret legal advisers and chamber-counsel of the
+Southern slave-hunters in this case. I know not how true the rumor
+was, nor whether it was based on new observation of facts, or was
+merely an inference from their general conduct and character.
+
+12. When Mr. Sims was brought before Judge Woodbury, on _habeas
+corpus_, Benjamin R. Curtis appeared as counsel for the Marshal, and
+also assisted Judge Woodbury in strengthening his opinion against
+Sims, by a written note transmitted by an officer of the Court to the
+Judge, while he was engaged in delivering his opinion.
+
+13. Gentlemen of the Jury, I have shown you how, in Britain, the
+Government, seeking to oppress the people and to crush down freedom of
+speech, put into judicial offices such men as were ready to go all
+lengths in support of profitable wickedness. You do not forget the men
+whom the Stuarts made judges: surely you remember Twysden, and Kelyng,
+and Finch, and Saunders, and Scroggs. You will not forget Edmund
+Thurlow and John Scott. Well, Gentlemen, in 1851, Judge Woodbury died,
+and on the recommendation of Mr. Webster, Mr. Benjamin R. Curtis was
+raised to the dignity he now holds. Of course, Gentlemen, the country
+will judge of the cause and motive of the selection. No lawyer in New
+England had laid down such southern "Principles" for foundation of
+law; he outwent Mr. Sprague. None had rendered such service to the
+Slave Power. In 1836, he had sought to restore slavery to
+Massachusetts, and to accomplish that had denied the existence of any
+Higher Law,--the written statute was the only standard of judicial
+morals. In 1850, he had most zealously defended the fugitive slave
+bill,--coming to the rescue of despotism when it seemed doubtful which
+way the money of Boston would turn, and showing most exemplary
+diligence in his attempts to kidnap William and Ellen Craft.
+Gentlemen, if such services were left unpaid, surely "the Union would
+be in danger!" But I must go on with my sad chronicle.
+
+14. As Circuit Judge of the United States, Benjamin R. Curtis, as well
+in the construction of juries, as in the construction of the law,
+exerted all his abilities against the parties indicted for the rescue
+of Shadrach, though Mr. Hale says his conduct was far better than
+Judge Sprague's. He did this especially in the case of Elizur Wright,
+who appeared without counsel, and thus afforded a better opportunity
+to procure a conviction. But it was in vain--all escaped out of his
+hands.
+
+15. In 1851, George T. Curtis brought an action for libel against
+Benjamin B. Mussey, bookseller, who had just published a volume of
+speeches by the Hon. Horace Mann, one of which was against the
+business of kidnapping in Boston, wherein George T. Curtis found, as
+he alleged, matter libellous of himself. That suit remains yet
+undisposed of; but in it he will doubtless recover the full value of
+his reputation, on which kidnapping has affixed no stain.
+
+16. In May, 1854, Edward G. Loring issued a warrant for the seizure of
+Mr. Burns; decided the case before he heard it, having advised the
+counsel not to oppose his rendition, for he would probably be sent
+back; held him ironed in his "court," and finally delivered him over
+to eternal bondage. But in that case, it is said, Mr. Loring, who has
+no Curtis blood in his veins, did not wish to steal a man; and
+proposed to throw up his commission rather than do such a deed; but he
+consulted his step-brother, Charles P. Curtis, who persuaded him it
+would be dishonorable to decline the office of kidnapping imposed upon
+him as a United States Commissioner by the fugitive slave bill.
+Benjamin R. Curtis, it is said, I know not how truly--himself can
+answer, aided Mr. Loring in forming the "opinion" by which he
+attempted to justify the "extradition" of Mr. Burns; that is to say,
+the giving him up as a slave without any trial of his right to
+liberty, merely on a presumptive case established by his claimant.
+
+17. After Commissioner Loring had seized Mr. Burns, Mr. George T.
+Curtis, by a communication published in the newspapers, informed the
+public that he still continued the business of man-hunting at the old
+stand, where all orders for kidnapping would be promptly attended to.
+For, he says, there was a statement "that I had declined, or was
+unwilling or afraid to act. I did not choose that any one whatever
+should have an excuse for believing that Judge Loring was willing to
+sit in a case that I had declined." "I thought proper to place myself
+as it were by his side." "But I never took a fee [for kidnapping], and
+I never shall take one."[190] Did he remember the fate of the Hebrew
+Judas, who "betrayed the Innocent Blood," and then cast down the
+thirty pieces?
+
+[Footnote 190: See Boston Journal of May 29, and Boston Courier of
+June 7, 1854.]
+
+Hitherto the kidnapping commissioners, though both members of the same
+family, had pursued their game separately, each on his own account.
+After this it appears these two are to hunt in couples: Commissioner
+Loring and Commissioner Curtis "as it were by his side:"--
+
+     "Swift in pursuit, but matched in mouth like bells,
+     _Each under each_."
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, it is a very painful thing for me to deliver
+this very sad chronicle of such wicked deeds. But do not judge these
+men wholly by those acts. I am by no means stingy of commendation, and
+would rather praise than blame. The two elder Messrs. Curtis have many
+estimable and honorable qualities,--in private relations it is
+said--and I believe it--they are uncommonly tender and delicate and
+refined in the elegant courtesies of common life. I know that they
+have often been open-handed and generous in many a charity. In the
+ordinary intercourse of society, where no great moral principle is
+concerned, they appear as decorous and worthy men. Hon. Benj. R.
+Curtis,--he will allow me to mention his good qualities before his
+face,--though apparently destitute of any high moral instincts, is yet
+a man of superior powers of understanding, and uncommon industry; as a
+lawyer he was above many of the petty tricks so common in his
+profession. Strange as it may seem, I have twice seen Mr. George T.
+Curtis's name among others who contributed to purchase a slave; Mr.
+Loring's good qualities I have often mentioned, and always with
+delight.
+
+But this family has had its hand in all the kidnapping which has
+recently brought such misery to the colored people and their friends;
+such ineffaceable disgrace upon Boston, and such peril to the natural
+Rights of man. These men have laid down and advocated the principles
+of despotism; they have recommended, enforced, and practised
+kidnapping in Boston, and under circumstances most terribly atrocious.
+Without their efforts we should have had no man-stealing here. They
+cunningly, but perhaps unconsciously, represented the low Selfishness
+of the Money Power at the North, and the Slave Power at the South, and
+persuaded the controlling men of Boston to steal Mr. Sims and Mr.
+Burns. In 1836 they sought to enslave a poor little orphan girl, and
+restore bondage to Massachusetts; in 1851 they succeeded in
+enthralling a man. Now, Gentlemen, they are seeking to sew up the
+mouth of New England; there is a sad consistency in their public
+behavior.
+
+Gentlemen, they are not ashamed of this conduct; when "A Citizen of
+Boston," last January, related in the New York Tribune some of the
+facts I have just set forth, "One of the name" published his card in
+that paper and thanked the "Citizen" for collecting abundant evidence
+that the "Curtis Family" "have worked hard to keep the _law_ superior
+to fanaticism, disloyalty, and the _mob_," and declared that "they
+feel encouraged to continue in the same course and _their children
+after them_."[191] Mr. Thomas B. Curtis considers some of the acts I
+have just mentioned "among the most meritorious acts" of his
+life.[192] Mr. Loring, in his "Remonstrance," justifies Kidnapping!
+
+[Footnote 191: New York Tribune, January 15, 1855.]
+
+[Footnote 192: Daily Advertiser, February 7, 1855.]
+
+They may, indeed, speak well of the bridge which carries them safe
+over. Three of the family are fugitive slave bill commissioners; one
+of them intellectually the ablest, perhaps morally the blindest, who
+so charged me with "Perjury," is the Honorable Judge who is to try me
+for a "Misdemeanor." Of course he is perfectly impartial, and has no
+animosity which seeks revenge,--the history of courts forbids the
+supposition!
+
+Such, Gentlemen, are the antecedents of the Hon. Judge Curtis, such
+his surroundings. You will presently see what effect they have had in
+procuring this indictment. It a sad tale that I have presented. He
+told it, not I; he did the deeds, and they have now found words.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, I shall next speak of Judge Curtis's charge to
+the grand-jury, delivered in Boston, June 7, 1854--only five days
+after his kinsman had sent Mr. Burns into Slavery. Here is that part
+of the charge which relates to our case.
+
+     "There is another criminal law of the United States to which
+     I must call your attention, and give you in charge. It was
+     enacted on the 13th of April, 1790, and is in the following
+     words:--
+
+     "'If any person shall knowingly or wilfully obstruct,
+     resist, or oppose any officer of the United States, in
+     serving, or attempting to serve, or execute any mesne
+     process, or warrant, or any rule or order of any of the
+     courts of the United States, or any other legal writ or
+     process whatever, or shall assault, beat, or wound any
+     officer, or other person duly authorized, in serving or
+     executing any writ, rule, order, process, or warrant,
+     aforesaid, such person shall, on conviction, be imprisoned
+     not exceeding twelve months, and fined not exceeding three
+     hundred dollars.'
+
+     "You will observe, Gentlemen, that this law makes no
+     provision for a case where an officer, or other person duly
+     authorized, is killed by those unlawfully resisting him.
+     That is a case of murder, and is left to be tried and
+     punished under the laws of the State, within whose
+     jurisdiction the offence is committed. Over that offence
+     against the laws of the State of Massachusetts we have here
+     no jurisdiction. It is to be presumed that the duly
+     constituted authorities of the State will, in any such case,
+     do their duty; and if the crime of murder has been
+     committed, will prosecute and punish all who are guilty.
+
+     "Our duty is limited to administering the laws of the United
+     States; and by one of those laws which I have read to you,
+     to obstruct, resist, or oppose, or beat, or wound any
+     officer of the United States, or other person duly
+     authorized, in serving or executing any legal process
+     whatsoever, is an offence against the laws of the United
+     States, and is one of the subjects concerning which you are
+     bound to inquire.
+
+     "It is not material that the same act is an offence both
+     against the laws of the United States and of a particular
+     State. Under our system of government the United States and
+     the several States are distinct sovereignties, each having
+     its own system of criminal law, which it administers in its
+     own tribunals; and the criminal laws of a State can in no
+     way affect those of the United States. The offence,
+     therefore, of obstructing legal process of the United States
+     is to be inquired of and treated by you as a misdemeanor,
+     under the Act of Congress which I have quoted, without any
+     regard to the criminal laws of the State, or the nature of
+     the crime under these laws.
+
+     "This Act of Congress is carefully worded, and its meaning
+     is plain. Nevertheless, there are some terms in it, and some
+     rules of law connected with it, which should be explained
+     for your guidance. And first, as to the process, the
+     execution of which is not to be obstructed.
+
+     "The language of the Act is very broad. It embraces every
+     legal process whatsoever, whether issued by a court in
+     session, or by a judge, or magistrate, or commissioner
+     acting in the due administration of any law of the United
+     States. You will probably experience no difficulty in
+     understanding and applying this part of the law.
+
+     "As to what constitutes an obstruction--it was many years
+     ago decided, by Justice Washington, that to support an
+     indictment under this law, it was not necessary to prove the
+     accused used or even threatened active violence. Any
+     obstruction to the free action of the officer, or his lawful
+     assistants, wilfully placed in his or their way, for the
+     purpose of thus obstructing him or them, is sufficient. And
+     it is clear that if a multitude of persons should assemble,
+     even in a public highway, with the design to stand together,
+     and thus prevent the officer from passing freely along the
+     way, in the execution of his precept, and the officer should
+     thus be hindered or obstructed, this would of itself, and
+     without any active violence, be such an obstruction as is
+     contemplated by this law. If to this be added use of any
+     active violence, then the officer is not only obstructed,
+     but he is resisted and opposed, and of course the offence is
+     complete, for either of them is sufficient to constitute it.
+
+     "If you should be satisfied that an offence against this law
+     has been perpetrated, you will then inquire by whom; and
+     this renders it necessary for me to instruct you concerning
+     the kind and amount of participation which brings
+     individuals within the compass of this law.
+
+     "And first, all who are present and actually obstruct,
+     resist, or oppose, are of course guilty. So are all who are
+     present leagued in the common design, and so situated as to
+     be able, in case of need, to afford assistance to those
+     actually engaged, though they do not actually obstruct,
+     resist, or oppose. If they are present for the purpose of
+     affording assistance in obstructing, resisting, or opposing
+     the officers, and are so situated as to be able in any event
+     which may occur, actually to aid in the common design,
+     though no overt act is done by them, they are still guilty
+     under this law. The offence defined by this act is a
+     misdemeanor; and it is rule of law that whatever
+     participation, in case of felony, would render a person
+     guilty, either as a principal in the second degree, or as an
+     accessory before the fact, does, in a case of misdemeanor,
+     render him guilty as a principal; in misdemeanors all are
+     principals. And, therefore, in pursuance of the same rule,
+     not only those who are present, but those who, though absent
+     when the offence was committed, did procure, counsel,
+     command, or abet others to commit the offence, are
+     indictable as principal.
+
+     "Such is the law, and it would seem that no just mind could
+     doubt its propriety. If persons having influence over others
+     use that influence to induce the commission of crime, while
+     they themselves remain at a safe distance, that must be
+     deemed a very imperfect system of law which allows them to
+     escape with impunity. Such is not our law. It treats such
+     advice as criminal, and subjects the giver of it to
+     punishment according to the nature of the offence to which
+     his pernicious counsel has led. If it be a case of felony,
+     he is by the common law an accessory before the fact, and by
+     the laws of the United States and of this State, is
+     punishable to the same extent as the principal felon. If it
+     be a case of misdemeanor, the adviser is himself a principal
+     offender, and is to be indicted and punished as if he
+     himself had done the criminal act. It may be important for
+     you to know what, in point of law, amounts to such an
+     advising or counselling another as will be sufficient to
+     constitute this legal element in the offence. It is laid
+     down by high authority, that though a mere tacit
+     acquiescence, or words, which amount to a bare permission,
+     will not be sufficient, yet such a procurement may be,
+     either by direct means, as by hire, counsel, or command, or
+     indirect, by evincing an express liking, approbation, or
+     assent to another's criminal design. From the nature of the
+     case, the law can prescribe only general rules on this
+     subject. My instruction to you is, that language addressed
+     to persons who immediately afterwards commit an offence,
+     actually intended by the speaker to incite those addressed
+     to commit it, and adapted thus to incite them, is such a
+     counselling or advising to the crime as the law
+     contemplates, and the person so inciting others is liable to
+     be indicted as a principal.
+
+     "In the case of the _Commonwealth_ v. _Bowen_ (13 Mass. R.
+     359), which was an indictment for counselling another to
+     commit suicide, tried in 1816, Chief Justice Parker
+     instructing the jury, and speaking for the Supreme Court of
+     Massachusetts, said:--
+
+     "'The government is not bound to prove that Jewett would not
+     have hung himself, had Bowen's counsel never reached his
+     ear. The very act of advising to the commission of a crime
+     is of itself unlawful. The presumption of law is that advice
+     has the influence and effect intended by the adviser, unless
+     it is shown to have been otherwise; as that the counsel was
+     received with scoff, or was manifestly rejected and
+     ridiculed at the time it was given. It was said in the
+     argument that Jewett's abandoned and depraved character
+     furnishes ground to believe that he would have committed the
+     act without such advice from Bowen. Without doubt he was a
+     hardened and depraved wretch; but it is in man's nature to
+     revolt at self-destruction. When a person is predetermined
+     upon the commission of this crime, the seasonable
+     admonitions of a discreet and respected friend would
+     probably tend to overthrow his determination. On the other
+     hand, the counsel of an unprincipled wretch, stating the
+     heroism and courage the self-murderer displays, might
+     induce, encourage, and fix the intention, and ultimately
+     procure the perpetration of the dreadful deed; and if other
+     men would be influenced by such advice, the presumption is
+     that Jewett was so influenced. He might have been influenced
+     by many powerful motives to destroy himself. Still the
+     inducements might have been insufficient to procure the
+     actual commission of the act, and one word of additional
+     advice might have turned the scale.'
+
+     "When applied--as this ruling seems to have been here
+     applied--to a case in which the advice was nearly connected,
+     in point of time, with the criminal act, it is, in my
+     opinion, correct. If the advice was intended by the giver to
+     stir or incite to a crime--if it was of such a nature as to
+     be adapted to have this effect, and the persons incited
+     immediately afterwards committed that crime--it is a just
+     presumption that they were influenced by the advice or
+     incitement to commit it. The circumstances, or direct proof,
+     may or may not be sufficient to control this presumption;
+     and whether they are so, can duly be determined in each
+     case, upon all its evidence.
+
+     "One other rule of law on this subject is necessary to be
+     borne in mind--the substantive offence to which the advice
+     or incitement applied must have been committed; and it is
+     for that alone the adviser or procurer is legally
+     accountable. Thus if one should counsel another to rescue
+     one prisoner, and he should rescue another, unless by
+     mistake; or if the incitement was to rescue a prisoner, and
+     he commit a larceny, the inciter is not responsible. But it
+     need not appear _that the precise time, or place, or means
+     advised_, were used. Thus if one incite A. to murder B., but
+     advise him to wait until B. shall be at a certain place at
+     noon, and A. murders B. at a different place in the morning,
+     the adviser is guilty. So if the incitement be to poison,
+     and the murderer shoots, or stabs. So if the counsel be to
+     beat another, and he is beaten to death, the adviser is a
+     murderer; for having incited another to commit an unlawful
+     act, he is responsible for all that ensues upon its
+     execution.
+
+     "These illustrations are drawn from cases of felonies,
+     because they are the most common in the books and the most
+     striking in themselves; but the principles on which they
+     depend are equally applicable to cases of misdemeanor. In
+     all such cases the real question is, whether the accused did
+     procure, counsel, command, or abet the substantive offence
+     committed. If he did, it is of no importance that his advice
+     or directions were departed from in respect to the time, or
+     place, or precise mode or means of committing it.
+
+     "Gentlemen: The events which have recently occurred in this
+     city, have rendered it my duty to call your attention to
+     these rules of law, and to direct you to inquire whether in
+     point of fact the offence of obstructing process of the
+     United States has been committed; if it has, you will
+     present for trial all such persons as have so participated
+     therein as to be guilty of that offence. And you will allow
+     me to say to you that if you or I were to begin to make
+     discriminations between one law and another, and say this we
+     will enforce and that we will not enforce, we should not
+     only violate our oaths, but so far as in us lies, we should
+     destroy the liberties of our country, which rest for their
+     basis upon the great principle that our country is governed
+     by laws, constitutionally enacted, and not by men.
+
+     "In one part of our country the extradition of fugitives
+     from labor is odious; in another, if we may judge from some
+     transactions, the law concerning the extradition of
+     fugitives from justice has been deemed not binding; in
+     another still, the tariff laws of the United States were
+     considered oppressive, and not fit to be enforced.
+
+     "Who can fail to see that the government would cease to be a
+     government if it were to yield obedience to those local
+     opinions? While it stands, all its laws must be faithfully
+     executed, or it becomes the mere tool of the strongest
+     faction of the place and the hour. If forcible resistance to
+     one law be permitted practically to repeal it, the power of
+     the mob would inevitably become one of the constituted
+     authorities of the State, to be used against any law or any
+     man obnoxious to the interests and passions of the worst or
+     most excited part of the community; and the peaceful and the
+     weak would be at the mercy of the violent.
+
+     "It is the imperative duty of all of us concerned in the
+     administration of the laws to see to it that they are
+     firmly, impartially, and certainly applied to every offence,
+     whether a particular law be by us individually approved or
+     disapproved. And it becomes all to remember, that forcible
+     and concerted resistance to any law is civil war, which can
+     make no progress but through bloodshed, and can have no
+     termination but the destruction of the government of our
+     country, or the ruin of those engaged in such resistance. It
+     is not my province to comment on events which have recently
+     happened. They are matters of fact which, so far as they are
+     connected with the criminal laws of the United States, are
+     for your consideration. I feel no doubt that, as good
+     citizens and lovers of our country, and as conscientious
+     men, you will well and truly observe and keep the oath you
+     have taken, diligently to inquire and true presentment make
+     of all crimes and offences against the laws of the United
+     States given you in charge."[193]
+
+[Footnote 193: Law Reporter, August, 1854.]
+
+Now gentlemen look at some particulars of this charge.
+
+1. "If a multitude of persons shall assemble _even in a public
+highway_, with the design to _stand together, and thus prevent the
+officer from passing freely along that way_, in the execution of his
+precept, and the officer should thus be _hindered and obstructed_,
+this would, of itself, and without any active violence, be such an
+obstruction as is contemplated by this law." Of course, all persons
+thus assembled in the public highway were guilty of that offence, and
+liable to be punished with imprisonment for twelve months and a fine
+of three hundred dollars: "_All who are present_, and obstruct,
+resist, or oppose, _are of course guilty_." Their "design" is to be
+inferred from "the fact" that the officer was obstructed.
+
+That is not all, this offence in technical language the Judge calls a
+"misdemeanor," and in "misdemeanors," he says, "all are principals."
+So, accordingly, not only are all guilty who _actually obstruct_ but
+likewise all who are "leagued in the common design, and _so situated
+as to be able_ in case of need _to afford assistance to those actually
+engaged_, though they do not actually obstruct, resist, or oppose."
+These are obstructors by construction No. 1; they must have been
+several thousands in number.
+
+But even that is not all; the judicial logic of deduction goes further
+still, and he adds, "Not only those who are present, but _those who_
+though _absent_ when the offence was committed, _did procure, counsel,
+command, or abet_ others to commit the offence are indictable as
+principals." These are obstructors by construction No. 2.
+
+2. Next he determines what it is which "amounts to _such advising or
+counselling_ another as will be sufficient to constitute this legal
+element in the offence." First he constructs the physical act which is
+the misdemeanor, namely, standing in the high road and thereby
+hindering a kidnapper from "passing freely along that way; or being so
+situated as to be able to afford assistance to others thus standing;
+or advising another thus to stand, or be situated:" next he constructs
+the _advice_, the metaphysical act, which is equally a "misdemeanor."
+This is the square root of construction No. 2. Look at this absurd
+quantity.
+
+"_Such a procurement may be_, either by direct means, as by hire,
+counsel, or command, or indirect, _by evincing an express liking,
+approbation, or assent_." Thus the mere casual expression, "I wish
+Burns would escape, or I wish somebody would let him out," is a
+"Misdemeanor;" it is "evincing an express liking." Nodding to any
+other man's similar wish is a misdemeanor. It is "approbation." Even
+smiling at the nod is a crime--it is "assent." Such is the threefold
+shadow of this constructive shade. But even that is not all. A man is
+held responsible for what he evinced no _express_ or implied _liking_
+for: "_it need not appear that the precise time, or place, or means
+advised, were used_." Accordingly, he that "evinces an express
+liking," "_is responsible for all that ensues upon its execution_." He
+evinces his assent to the End and is legally responsible for any Means
+which any hearer thereof shall, at any time, or in any place, make use
+of to attain that end!
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, this charge is a _quo warranto_ against all
+Freedom of Speech. But suppose it were good law, and suppose the
+Grand-Jury obedient to it, see how it would apply.
+
+All who evinced an express liking, approbation, or assent to the
+rescue of Mr. Burns are guilty of a misdemeanor; if they "evinced an
+express liking" that he should be rescued by a miracle wrought by
+Almighty God,--and some did express "approbation" of that
+"means,"--they are indictable, guilty of a "misdemeanor;" "it need not
+appear that the precise time, or place, or means advised, were used!"
+If any colored woman during the wicked week--which was ten days
+long--prayed that God would deliver Anthony, as it is said his angel
+delivered Peter, or said "Amen" to such a prayer, she was "guilty of a
+misdemeanor;" to be indicted as a "principal."
+
+So every man in Boston who, on that bad Friday, stood in the streets
+of Boston between Court Square and T Wharf, was "guilty of a
+misdemeanor," liable to a fine of three hundred dollars, and to
+jailing for twelve months. All who at Faneuil Hall stirred up the
+minds of the people in opposition to the fugitive slave bill; all who
+shouted, who clapped their hands at the words or the countenance of
+their favorites, or who expressed "approbation" by a whisper of
+"assent," are "guilty of a misdemeanor." The very women who stood for
+four days at the street corners, and hissed the infamous Slave-hunters
+and their coadjutors; they, too, ought to be punished by fine of three
+hundred dollars and imprisonment for a year! Well, there were fifteen
+thousand persons "assembled" "in the highway" of the city of Boston
+that day opposed to kidnapping; half the newspapers in the country
+towns of Massachusetts "evinced an express liking" for freedom, and
+opposed the kidnapping; they are all "guilty of a misdemeanor;" they
+are "Principals." Nay, the ministers all over the State, who preached
+that kidnapping was a sin; those who read brave words out of the Old
+Testament or the New; those who prayed that the victim might escape;
+they, likewise, were "guilty of a misdemeanor," liable to be fined
+three hundred dollars and jailed for twelve months.[194]
+
+[Footnote 194: 2 Parker's Additional, 280.]
+
+But where did Judge Curtis find his right to levy Ship-money, Tonnage,
+and Poundage on the tongues of men; where did he find his "law?"
+Surely not in the statute. When the bill was pending in 1790, suppose
+his construction of the statute had been declared to Congress--who
+would have voted for a law so monstrous? The statute lay in the
+Law-book for nearly seventy years, and nobody ever applied it to a
+case like this.
+
+Gentlemen, I have shown you already how British judges in the time of
+the Jameses and Charleses perverted the law to the basest of purposes.
+I mentioned, amongst others, the work of Twysden and Kelyng and Jones.
+This is a case like those. Just now I spoke of the action of Chief
+Justice Parker who said it was not for the jury to judge whether a law
+_were harsh or not_; I showed how he charged the jury in the case of
+Bowen, and how the jury returned a verdict of "not guilty," thus
+setting his inhuman charge at nought.[195] But Judge Curtis, for his
+law, relies upon Judge Parker's charge. It is not a Statute made by
+the legislature that Judge Curtis relies on for his law; it is not a
+Custom of the Common law; it is not an Opinion of the Court solemnly
+pronounced after mature deliberation; it is only the charge of a
+single judge to a jury in a special case, and one which the jury
+disregarded even then!
+
+[Footnote 195: See above, p. 112.]
+
+But where did Judge Parker, an estimable man, find his law? Mr. Perez
+Morton, the Attorney-General, found it in Kelyng's Reports. In the
+case of Bowen only one authority is referred to for that odious
+principle on which the judge sought to hang him; that authority is
+taken from "9 Charles I.;" from the year 1634--the worst age of the
+Stuart tyranny! But even that authority was not a Statute law, not a
+Custom of the People, not the Opinion of a Court solemnly pronounced.
+It was the charge of a single judge--a charge to a jury, made by an
+inferior judge, of an inferior court, in a barbarous age, under a
+despotic king! Hearken to this,--from the volume of Kelyng's
+Reports.[196] "_Memorandum_, That my Brother Twysden shewed me a
+Report which he had of the Charge given by Justice Jones to the
+grand-jury at the King's Bench Barr, in Michaelmas Term, 9 Carl. I."
+Gentlemen of the Jury, that charge no more settled the law even in
+1634, than Judge Sprague's charge telling the _grand-jury to "obey
+both"_ the law of God and the law of man which is exactly opposite
+thereto, settled the law of the United States and the morality of the
+People. But yet that is all the law the government had to hang Bowen
+with. The jury made nothing of it.[197]
+
+[Footnote 196: Page 52. See above, p. 112.]
+
+[Footnote 197: Jones's "opinion" relates to a case of _murder_ by the
+advice of an absent person, not at all to _suicide by the advice of
+another_, so it could not apply to the case of Bowen.]
+
+But Kelyng's Reports are of no value as authority. Here is what Lord
+Campbell, now Chief Justice of the King's Bench, says of them and
+their author. I read it to you long ago. "I ought to mention that
+among his other vanities he had the ambition to be an author; and he
+compiled a folio volume of decisions in criminal laws, _which are of
+no value whatever except to make us laugh at some of the silly
+egotisms with which they abound_."[198] Twysden, who showed him the
+Report of the charge, is of little value, and of no authority. I
+mentioned his character before.
+
+[Footnote 198: 2 Campbell's Justices, 406.]
+
+Justice Jones, who made the charge, would hardly be an authority in
+the English courts in a nice question of construction. He allowed the
+king to levy ship-money, as I have shown before,[199] and dared not
+perform the duties of his office and so protect the Liberty of the
+Subject when the king smote thereat. He was brought before the House
+of Commons to answer for his conduct, in 1628. "His memory," says
+Echard, "suffers upon the account of his open judgment for the
+ship-money, the unhappy consequence of which he did not live to
+see."[200]
+
+[Footnote 199: Above, p. 23.]
+
+[Footnote 200: Parl. Hist. 290; 3 St. Tr. 844, 1181, 162; 2 Echard,
+186.]
+
+Judge Kelyng, the great authority in this case, was notorious for
+violating alike Justice and the law. Out of a riot committed by some
+apprentices he constructed the crime of High Treason, and sentenced
+thirteen men to death. He fined and imprisoned jurors because they
+refused to return the wicked, illegal verdict he demanded. With
+language too obscene to utter in this century, he mocked at the Great
+Charter of English Liberty. But at last the scandal was too great even
+for the reign of Charles II., and in 1667 the "Grand Committee of
+Justice" in the House of Commons, after examining witnesses and
+hearing him on his own behalf, reported:--
+
+     1. "That the proceedings of the Lord Chief Justice in the
+     cases referred to us are innovations in the trial of men for
+     their lives and liberties, and that he hath used an
+     arbitrary and illegal power which is of dangerous
+     consequence to the lives and liberties of the people of
+     England."
+
+     2. "That in place of Judicature, the Lord Chief Justice hath
+     undervalued, vilified, and condemned MAGNA CHARTA, the great
+     preserver of our lives, freedom, and property."
+
+     3. "That the Lord Chief Justice be brought to trial, in
+     order to condign punishment, in such manner as the House
+     shall judge most fit and requisite."[201]
+
+[Footnote 201: See above, p. 23, 39, 113, 125; 1 Campbell, _Ibid._
+406; 6 St. Tr. 76, 229, 171, 532, 769, 879, 992; Pepys' Diary, 17
+Oct., 1667; Commons Journal, 16th Oct., 1667.]
+
+Some of the lawyers whom he had browbeaten, generously interceded for
+him. He made an abject submission "with great humility and reverence,"
+and the House desisted from prosecution. "He was abundantly tame for
+the rest of his days," says Lord Campbell, "fell into utter contempt,"
+"and _died to the great relief of all who had any regard for the due
+administration of justice_."
+
+Gentlemen, I am no lawyer, and may easily be mistaken in this matter,
+but as I studied Judge Curtis's charge and cast about for the sources
+of its doctrines and phraseology, I thought I traced them all back to
+Kelyng's opinions in that famous case, where he made treason out of a
+common riot among apprentices; and to Judge Chase's "opinions" and
+"rulings" in the trial of Mr. Fries,--opinions and rulings which
+shocked the public at the time, and brought legislative judgment on
+his head. Let any one compare the documents, I think he will find the
+whole of Curtis in those two impeached Judges, in Kelyng and in
+Chase.[202]
+
+[Footnote 202: 1 Wharton, 636; Kelyng, 1-24, 70-77; 6 St. Tr. 879.]
+
+Here then is the law,--derived from the memorandum of the charge to a
+grand-jury made in 1634, by a judge so corrupt that he did not
+hesitate to violate Magna Charta itself; not published till more than
+seventy years after the charge was given; cited as law by a single
+authority, and that authority impeached for unrighteously and
+corruptly violating the laws he was set and sworn to defend, impeached
+even in that age--of Charles II.;--that is the law! Once before an
+attempt was made to apply it in Massachusetts, and inflict capital
+punishment on a man for advising a condemned murderer to anticipate
+the hangman and die by his own hand in private--and the jury refused.
+But to such shifts is this Honorable Court reduced! Gentlemen of the
+Jury, the fugitive slave bill cannot be executed in Massachusetts, not
+in America, without reviving the worst despotism of the worst of the
+Stuarts; not without bringing Twysden and Jones and Kelyng on the
+Bench; no, not without Saunders and Finch, and Jeffreys and Scroggs!
+
+Gentlemen, such was Judge Curtis's charge. I have been told it was
+what might have been expected from the general character and previous
+conduct of the man; but I confess it did surprise me: it was foolish
+as it was wicked and tyrannical. But it all came to nought.
+
+For, alas! there was a grand-jury, and the Salmonean thunder of the
+fugitive slave bill judge fell harmless--quenched, conquered,
+disgraced, and brutal,--to the ground. Poor fugitive slave bill Court!
+It can only gnash its teeth against freedom of speech in Faneuil Hall;
+only bark and yelp against the unalienable rights of man, and howl
+against the Higher Law of God! it cannot bite! Poor, imbecile,
+malignant Court! What a pity that the fugitive slave bill judge was
+not himself the grand-jury, to order the indictment! what a shame that
+the attorney was not a petty jury to convict! Then New England, like
+Old, might have had her "bloody assizes," and Boston streets might
+have streamed with the heart's gore of noble men and women; and human
+heads might have decked the pinnacles all round the town; and Judge
+Curtis and Attorney Hallett might have had their place with Judge
+Jeffreys and John Boilman of old. What a pity that we have a
+grand-jury and a traverse jury to stand between the malignant arm of
+the Slave-hunter and the heart of you and me![203]
+
+[Footnote 203: 2 Parker's Additional, p. 281.]
+
+The grand-jury found no bill and were discharged. In a Fourth of July
+Sermon "Of the Dangers which Threaten the Rights of Man in America," I
+said:--
+
+     "Perhaps the Court will try again, and find a more pliant
+     Grand-Jury, easier to intimidate. Let me suggest to the
+     Court that the next time it should pack its Jury from the
+     Marshal's 'Guard.' Then there will be Unity of Idea; of
+     action too,--the Court a figure of equilibrium."
+
+The audacious Grand-Jury was discharged. A new one was summoned; this
+time it was constructed out of the right material. Before that,
+Gentlemen, we had had the Judge or his kinsmen writing for the
+fugitive slave bill in the newspapers; getting up public meetings in
+behalf of man-stealing in Boston; writing letters in support of the
+same; procuring opinions in favor of the constitutionality of the
+fugitive slave bill; nay, kidnapping men and sending them into eternal
+bondage, and in the newspapers defending the act; but we had none of
+them in the Jury box. On the new Grand-Jury appeared Mr. William W.
+Greenough, the brother-in-law of Hon. Judge Curtis--each married a
+daughter of Mr. Charles P. Curtis. Mr. Greenough "was very active in
+his endeavors to procure an indictment" against me; and a bill was
+found.
+
+How came the Brother-in-law of the Judge on the Grand-Jury summoned to
+punish men who spoke against kidnapping? Gentlemen of the Jury, I do
+not know. Of course it was done honestly; nobody suspects the Mayor of
+Boston of double-dealing, of intrigue, or of any indirection! Of
+course there was no improper influence used by the Marshal, or Mr.
+Curtis, or Mr. Hallett, who had all so much at stake; of course Mr.
+Greenough "did not wish to be on the Jury;" of course Judge Curtis
+"was very sorry he was there," and of course "all the family was
+sorry!" Of course "he went and asked Judge Sprague to excuse him, and
+the Judge wouldn't let him off!" Well, Gentlemen, I suppose it was a
+"miracle;" such a miracle as delivered the old or the new Shadrach; a
+"singular coincidence;" a "very remarkable fact." You will agree with
+me, Gentlemen, that it was a _very remarkable_ FACT. In all the
+judicial tyranny I have related, we have not found a case before in
+which the judge had his brother on the Grand-Jury. Even Kelyng affords
+no precedent for that.
+
+Last summer I met Mr. Greenough in a Bookstore and saluted him as
+usual; he made no return to my salutation, but doubled up his face and
+went out of the shop! That was the impartial Grand-Juror, who took the
+oath to "present no man for envy, hatred, or malice."
+
+"After the impanelling of the new Grand-Jury,"--I am reading from a
+newspaper,[204] "Judge Curtis charged them in reference to their
+duties at considerable length. In regard to the Burns case he read the
+law of 1790 respecting opposition to the United States Marshals and
+their deputies while in discharge of their duty, enforcing the laws of
+the United States, and referred for further information as to the law
+upon the point to his charge delivered at a previous term of the
+Court, and now in the possession _of the District Attorney_." Thus he
+delegated the duty of expounding the law to a man who is not a
+judicial officer of the United States.
+
+[Footnote 204: Evening Traveller, Oct. 16.]
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, look at the facts. I am indicted by a
+Grand-Jury summoned for that purpose after one Grand-Jury--which had
+been drawn before the kidnapping of Mr. Burns--had refused to find a
+bill; a member of the family which has been so distinguished for
+kidnapping ever since 1832, the Brother-in-law of the Judge, is made
+one of that Grand-Jury; he is so hostile and malignant as to refuse my
+friendly salutation when offered as usual; and on the jury is "most
+active of all in his efforts to procure an indictment," so that "but
+for his efforts," as one of the Grand-Jury informed me, "no bill would
+have been found that time;" and "it was obvious that an outside
+influence affected him." Out of court Mr. Hallett, it is said,
+jocosely offers to bet ten dollars that he "will get Mr. Parker
+indicted." I am to be tried before two judges deeply committed to the
+Slave Power, now fiercely invading our once free soil; they owe their
+appointment to their hostility against Freedom. Twenty years ago, in
+the Old Cradle of Liberty, Mr. Sprague could find for Washington no
+epithet so endearing as "THAT SLAVEHOLDER;" he defended Slavery with
+all his legal learning, all his personal might. Yes, when other
+weapons failed him he extemporized a new gospel, and into the mouth of
+Jesus of Nazareth,--who said, "Thou shalt love thy Neighbor as
+thyself," and pointed out the man who had "fallen among thieves" as
+neighbor to the Samaritan--he put this most unchristian precept,
+"SLAVES, OBEY YOUR MASTERS!" Nay, only four years ago, in this very
+Court, he charged the jury that if they thought there was a
+contradiction between the Law of God and the Statutes of men they must
+"obey both."
+
+Gentlemen, the other judge, Mr. Curtis, began his career by asking the
+Supreme Court of Massachusetts to restore Slavery to Lexington and
+Bunker Hill; he demanded that our own Supreme Court should grant all
+that wickedness which Toombs and Hangman Foote, and Atchison and
+Stringfellow, and Grier and Kane have since sought to perpetuate! He
+denied the existence of any Law of God to control the Court, there is
+nothing but the Statutes of men; and declared "Slavery is not
+immoral;" Massachusetts may interfere actively to establish it abroad
+as well as at home. In Faneuil Hall, in a meeting which he and his
+kinsmen had gathered and controlled, a meeting to determine upon
+kidnapping the citizens of Boston, he charged me with perjury, asked a
+question, and did not dare listen to my reply! Gentlemen, it is a very
+proper Court to try me. A fugitive slave bill Court--with a fugitive
+slave bill Attorney, a fugitive slave bill Grand-Jury, two fugitive
+slave bill Judges--which scoffs at the natural law of the Infinite
+God, is a very suitable tribunal to try a Minister of the Christian
+religion for defending his own parishioners from being kidnapped,
+defending them with a word in Faneuil Hall!
+
+"No tyranny so secure,--none so intolerable,--none so dangerous,--none
+so remediless, as that of Executive Courts." "This is a truth all
+nations bear witness to--all history confirms." These were the words
+of Josiah Quincy, Jr., in 1772.--Gentlemen, in 1855 you see how true
+they are! "So sensible are all tyrants of the importance of such
+courts--that to advance and establish their system of oppression,
+_they never rest until they have completely corrupted or bought the
+judges of the land_. I could easily show that the most deep laid and
+daring attacks upon the rights of a people might, in some measure, be
+defeated, or evaded by upright judicatories; bad laws with good judges
+make little progress."[205]
+
+[Footnote 205: Quincy's Quincy, 68.]
+
+But Gentlemen,--when the fugitive slave bill is "_law_," when the
+judges are selected for their love of Slavery and their hatred of
+freedom--men who invent Scripture to justify bondage, or who as
+Lawyers beseech the courts to establish Slavery in Massachusetts; who
+declare it is not immoral, that it may be the duty of Massachusetts to
+interfere actively and establish slavery abroad, nay, that there is no
+morality but only legality, the statute the only standard of right
+and wrong--what are you to expect? What you see in Philadelphia, New
+York; aye, in Boston at this hour. I will add with Mr. Quincy, "Is it
+possible this should not rouse us and drive us not to desperation but
+to our duty! The blind may see; the callous must feel; the spirited
+will act."[206]
+
+[Footnote 206: Gazette, Feb. 10, 1772.]
+
+It would be just as easy for the Judge to make out divers other crimes
+from my words, as to construct a misdemeanor therefrom. To charge me
+with "treason," he has only to vary a few words and phrases; to cite
+Chase, and not Judge Parker, and to refer to other passages of
+Kelyng's Reports. James II.'s judges declared it was treason in the
+seven Bishops to offer their petition to the King. Mr. Webster said,
+it is only the "clemency of the Government which indicted the Syracuse
+rescuers for misdemeanors and not for a capital crime!" How easy for a
+fugitive slave bill judge to hang men for a word against his brother
+kidnapper--if there were no jury; if, like the New York sheriff in
+1735, he could order "his own negro" to do it! Here is a remarkable
+case of constructive crime, worthy of this Honorable Court. It is the
+famous case of _Dux_ v. _Conrade et Boracio_. Honorable Judge Dogberry
+thus delivered his charge to the Grand Inquest, "Masters, I charge you
+accuse these men,"--one policeman testified that Conrade said "that
+Don John, the prince's Brother, was a _villain_." Judge Dogberry
+ruled, "This is flat perjury to call a prince's Brother, _villain_."
+The next member of the Marshal's guard deposed that Boracio had said,
+"That he had received a thousand ducats of Don John for accusing the
+Lady Hero wrongfully." Chief Justice Dogberry decided, "Flat Burglary
+as ever was committed." Sentence accordingly.[207]
+
+[Footnote 207: 2 Singer's Shakspeare, 192.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gentlemen, the indictment is so roomy and vague, that before I came
+into court, I did not know what special acts of mine would be brought
+up against me--for to follow out the Judge's charge, all my life is a
+series of constructive misdemeanors. Nay, I think my mother--the
+violet has bloomed over that venerable and well-beloved head for more
+than thirty summers now--I think my mother might be indicted for
+constructive treason, only for bearing me, her youngest son.
+Certainly, it was "obstructing an officer," and in "misdemeanors all
+are principals." I have committed a great many misdemeanors; all my
+teachings evince an express liking for Piety, for Justice, for
+Liberty; all my life is obstructing, opposing, and resisting the
+fugitive slave bill Court, its Commissioners, its Judges, its Marshals
+and its Marshal's guard. Gentlemen of the jury, you are to judge me.
+Look at some of my actions and some of my words.
+
+In 1850, on the 25th of March, a fortnight after Mr. Webster made his
+speech against Humanity, there was a meeting of the citizens of
+Boston, at Faneuil Hall; Gentlemen, I helped procure the meeting.
+First, I tried to induce the leading Whigs to assemble the people. No,
+that could not be done; "the Bill would not pass, there was no
+danger!" Then I tried the leading Free Soilers; "No, it was not quite
+time, and we are not strong enough." At last the old abolitionists
+came together. Mr. Phillips made a magnificent speech. Here are some
+things which I also said.
+
+     "There were three fugitives at my house the other night.
+     Ellen Craft was one of them. You all know Ellen Craft is a
+     slave; she, with her husband, fled from Georgia to
+     Philadelphia, and is here before us now. She is not so dark
+     as Mr. Webster himself, if any of you think freedom is to be
+     dealt out in proportion to the whiteness of the skin. If
+     Mason's bill passes, I might have some miserable postmaster
+     from Texas or the District of Columbia, some purchased agent
+     of Messrs. Bruin & Hill, the great slave-dealers of the
+     Capital, have him here in Boston, take Ellen Craft before
+     the caitiff, and on his decision hurry her off to bondage as
+     cheerless, as hopeless, and as irremediable as the grave!
+
+     "Let me interest you in a scene which might happen. Suppose
+     a poor fugitive, wrongfully held as a slave--let it be Ellen
+     Craft--has escaped from Savannah in some northern ship. No
+     one knows of her presence on board; she has lain with the
+     cargo in the hold of the vessel. Harder things have
+     happened. Men have journeyed hundreds of miles bent double
+     in a box half the size of a coffin, journeying towards
+     freedom. Suppose the ship comes up to Long Wharf, at the
+     foot of State Street. Bulk is broken to remove the cargo;
+     the woman escapes, emaciated with hunger, feeble from long
+     confinement in a ship's hold, sick with the tossing of the
+     heedless sea, and still further etiolated and blanched with
+     the mingling emotions of hope and fear. She escapes to land.
+     But her pursuer, more remorseless than the sea, has been
+     here beforehand; laid his case before the official he has
+     brought with him, or purchased here, and claims his slave.
+     She runs for her life, fear adding wings. Imagine the
+     scene--the flight, the hot pursuit through State Street,
+     Merchants' Row--your magistrates in hot pursuit. To make the
+     irony of nature still more complete, let us suppose this
+     shall take place on some of the memorable days in the
+     history of America--on the 19th of April, when our fathers
+     first laid down their lives 'in the sacred cause of God and
+     their country;' on the 17th of June, the 22d of December, or
+     on any of the sacramental days in the long sad history of
+     our struggle for our own freedom! Suppose the weary fugitive
+     takes refuge in Faneuil Hall, and here, in the old Cradle of
+     Liberty, in the midst of its associations, under the eye of
+     Samuel Adams, the bloodhounds seize their prey! Imagine Mr.
+     Webster and Mr. Winthrop looking on, cheering the
+     slave-hunter, intercepting the fugitive fleeing for her
+     life. Would not that be a pretty spectacle?
+
+     "Propose to support that bill to the fullest extent, with
+     all its provisions! Ridiculous talk! Does Mr. Webster
+     suppose that such a law could be executed in Boston? that
+     the people of Massachusetts will ever return a single
+     fugitive slave, under such an act as that? Then he knows his
+     constituents very little, and proves that he needs
+     'Instruction.'
+
+     "Perpetuate Slavery, we cannot do it. Nothing will save it.
+     It is girt about by a ring of fire which daily grows
+     narrower, and sends terrible sparkles into the very centre
+     of the shameful thing. 'Joint resolutions' cannot save it;
+     annexations cannot save it--not if we reannex all the West
+     Indies; delinquent representatives cannot save it;
+     uninstructed senators, refusing instructions, cannot save
+     it, no, not with all their logic, all their eloquence, which
+     smites as an earthquake smites the sea. No, slavery cannot
+     be saved; by no compromise, no non-intervention, no Mason's
+     Bill in the Senate. It cannot be saved in this age of the
+     world until you nullify every ordinance of nature, until you
+     repeal the will of God, and dissolve the union He has made
+     between righteousness and the welfare of a people. Then,
+     when you displace God from the throne of the world, and
+     instead of His eternal justice, reënact the will of the
+     Devil, then you may keep Slavery; keep it for ever, keep it
+     in peace. Not till then.
+
+     "The question is, not if slavery is to cease, and soon to
+     cease, but shall it end as it ended in Massachusetts, in New
+     Hampshire, in Pennsylvania, in New York; or shall it end as
+     in St. Domingo? Follow the counsel of Mr. Webster--it will
+     end in fire and blood. God forgive us for our cowardice, if
+     we let it come to this, that three millions or thirty
+     millions of degraded human beings, degraded by us, must wade
+     through slaughter to their unalienable rights."[208]
+
+[Footnote 208: 2 Occasional Speeches, 164, 165, and 172.]
+
+Gentlemen, that speech was a "seditious libel" by construction!
+
+On the 29th of May, I spoke at the New England Anti-Slavery
+Convention, and said:--
+
+     "Let us not be deceived about the real question at issue. It
+     is not merely whether we shall return fugitive slaves
+     without trial by jury. We will not return them with trial by
+     jury! neither 'with alacrity,' nor with the 'solemnity of
+     judicial proceedings!' It is not merely whether slavery
+     shall be extended or not. By and by there will be a
+     political party with a wider basis than the free soil party,
+     who will declare that the nation itself must put an end to
+     slavery in the nation; and if the Constitution of the United
+     States will not allow it, there is another Constitution that
+     will. Then the title, Defender and expounder of the
+     Constitution of the United States, will give way to
+     this,--'Defender and expounder of the Constitution of the
+     Universe,' and we shall reaffirm the ordinance of nature,
+     and reënact the will of God. You may not live to see it, Mr.
+     President, nor I live to see it; but it is written on the
+     iron leaf that it must come; come, too, before long. Then
+     the speech of Mr. Webster, and the defence thereof by Mr.
+     Stuart, the letter of the retainers and the letters of the
+     retained, will be a curiosity; the conduct of the whigs and
+     democrats an amazement, and the peculiar institution a
+     proverb amongst all the nations of the earth. In the turmoil
+     of party politics, and of personal controversy, let us not
+     forget continually to move the previous question, whether
+     Freedom or Slavery is to prevail in America. There is no
+     attribute of God which is not on our side; because, in this
+     matter, we are on the side of God."[209]
+
+[Footnote 209: Ibid., 207, 208.]
+
+After the death of General Taylor on the 14th of July, I lifted up my
+voice in a funeral sermon thus:--
+
+     "If he could speak to us from his present position, methinks
+     he would say: Countrymen and friends! You see how little it
+     availed you to agitate the land and put a little man in a
+     great place. It is not the hurrah of parties that will 'save
+     the Union,' it is not 'great men.' It is only Justice.
+     Remember that Atheism is not the first principle of a
+     Republic; remember there is a law of God, the higher law of
+     the universe, the Everlasting Right: I thought so once, and
+     now I know it. Remember that you are accountable to God for
+     all things; that you owe justice to all men, the black not
+     less than the white; that God will demand it of you, proud,
+     wicked nation, careful only of your gold, forgetful of God's
+     high law! Before long each of you shall also come up before
+     the Eternal. Then and there it will not avail you to have
+     compromised truth, justice, love, but to have kept them.
+     Righteousness only is the salvation of a State; that only of
+     a man."[210]
+
+[Footnote 210: 2 Occasional Sermons, 239, 240.]
+
+All that was before the bill passed, but how easy it would be for
+Judge Jeffreys or Judge Curtis, Judge Sprague or Judge Scroggs, to
+construct it into a "misdemeanor," "resisting an officer!"
+
+After the fugitive slave bill passed, on the 22d of September, 1850,
+not forty-eight hours after the Judge's friends had fired their
+jubilant cannon at the prospect of kidnapping the men who wait upon
+their tables, I preached a "Sermon of the Function and Place of
+Conscience in relation to the Laws of Man, a sermon for the times." I
+said this:--
+
+     "If a man falls into the water and is in danger of drowning,
+     it is the natural duty of the bystanders to aid in pulling
+     him out, even at the risk of wetting their garments. We
+     should think a man a coward who could swim, and would not
+     save a drowning girl for fear of spoiling his coat. He would
+     be indictable at common law. If a troop of wolves or tigers
+     were about to seize a man, and devour him, and you and I
+     could help him, it would be our duty to do so, even to peril
+     our own limbs and life for that purpose. If a man undertakes
+     to murder or steal a man, it is the duty of the bystanders
+     to help their brother, who is in peril, against wrong from
+     the two-legged man, as much as against the four-legged
+     beast. But suppose the invader who seizes the man is an
+     officer of the United States, has a commission in his
+     pocket, a warrant for his deed in his hand, and seizes as a
+     slave a man who has done nothing to alienate his natural
+     rights--does that give him any more natural right to enslave
+     a man than he had before? Can any piece of parchment make
+     right wrong, and wrong right?
+
+     "The fugitive has been a slave before: does the wrong you
+     committed yesterday, give you a natural right to commit
+     wrong afresh and continually? Because you enslaved this
+     man's father, have you a natural right to enslave his child?
+     The same right you would have to murder a man because you
+     butchered his father first. The right to murder is as much
+     transmissible by inheritance as the right to enslave! It is
+     plain to me that it is the natural duty of citizens to
+     rescue every fugitive slave from the hands of the marshal
+     who essays to return him to bondage; to do it peaceably if
+     they can, forcibly if they must, but by all means to do it.
+     Will you stand by and see your countrymen, your
+     fellow-citizens of Boston, sent off to slavery by some
+     commissioner? Shall I see my own parishioners taken from
+     under my eyes and carried back to bondage, by a man whose
+     constitutional business it is to work wickedness by statute?
+     Shall I never lift an arm to protect him? When I consent to
+     that, you may call me a hireling shepherd, an infidel, a
+     wolf in sheep's clothing, even a defender of slave-catching
+     if you will; and I will confess I was a poor dumb dog,
+     barking always at the moon, but silent as the moon when the
+     murderer comes near.
+
+     "I am not a man who loves violence. I respect the sacredness
+     of human life. But this I say, solemnly, that I will do all
+     in my power to rescue any fugitive slave from the hands of
+     any officer who attempts to return him to bondage. I will
+     resist him as gently as I know how, but with such strength
+     as I can command; I will ring the bells, and alarm the
+     town; I will serve as head, as foot, or as hand to any body
+     of serious and earnest men, who will go with me, with no
+     weapons but their hands, in this work. I will do it as
+     readily as I would lift a man out of the water, or pluck him
+     from the teeth of a wolf, or snatch him from the hands of a
+     murderer. What is a fine of a thousand dollars, and jailing
+     for six months, to the liberty of a man? My money perish
+     with me, if it stand between me and the eternal law of God.
+     I trust there are manly men enough in this house to secure
+     the freedom of every fugitive slave in Boston, without
+     breaking a limb or rending a garment.
+
+     "One thing more I think is very plain, that the fugitive has
+     the same natural right to defend himself against the
+     slave-catcher, or his constitutional tool, that he has
+     against a murderer or a wolf. The man who attacks me to
+     reduce me to slavery, in that moment of attack alienates his
+     right to life, and if I were the fugitive, and could escape
+     in no other way, I would kill him with as little compunction
+     as I would drive a mosquito from my face. It is high time
+     this was said. What grasshoppers we are before the statute
+     of men! what Goliaths against the law of God! What
+     capitalist heeds your statute of usury when he can get
+     illegal interest? How many banks are content with _six per
+     cent._ when money is scarce? Did you never hear of a
+     merchant evading the duties of the custom-house? When a
+     man's liberty is concerned, we must keep the law, must we?
+     betray the wanderer, and expose the outcast?"[211]
+
+[Footnote 211: 2 Occasional Sermons, 256, 257, 258.]
+
+Gentlemen, you know what Mr. Commissioner Hallett said of such
+language, said at the Union Meeting in Faneuil Hall.[212] He was only
+fugitive slave bill commissioner then; in consequence of his denial of
+the Higher Law of God he is now fugitive slave bill Attorney. You know
+what Mr. Curtis said of the Sermon; now, in consequence he is Judge
+Curtis--the fugitive slave bill Judge.
+
+[Footnote 212: See above, p. 149.]
+
+On the 14th of October there was another meeting at Faneuil Hall--the
+Freesoilers came that time. The old flame of Liberty burnt anew in
+Charles Francis Adams, who presided. Perhaps some of you remember the
+prayer of the venerable Dr. Lowell which lifted up our souls to the
+"Father of all men!" I proposed the appointment of a "Committee of
+Vigilance and Safety to take such measures as they shall deem just and
+expedient to protect the colored people of this city in the enjoyment
+of their lives and liberties." I was appointed one of the Committee,
+and subsequently Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Vigilance
+Committee; a very responsible office, Gentlemen. At that meeting I
+told of a fugitive from Boston, who that day had telegraphed to his
+wife here, asking if it was safe for him to come back from Canada. I
+asked the meeting, "Will you let him come back; how many will defend
+him to the worst?" "Here a hand vote was taken," said the newspapers,
+"a forest of hands was held up." Surely that was "evincing an express
+liking" for an obstruction of the kidnappers. But did it violate the
+law of 1790?
+
+All this you might easily have known before. Here is something you did
+not know. That Meeting, its Resolutions, its Speeches, its Action,
+were brought up in the cabinet of the United States and discussed.
+_Mr. Webster_, then Secretary of State, _wished to have Mr. Adams,
+president of the meeting, presented to the grand-jury and indicted for
+treason_! But the majority thought otherwise.
+
+Gentlemen, when the kidnappers came to Boston I did some things of
+which this court has not taken notice, and so I will not speak of them
+now, but only tell your grandchildren of, if I live long enough.
+Others did more and better than I could do, however. In due time they
+will have their reward. One thing let me say now. When the two
+brothers Curtis, with their kinsfolk and coadjutors, were seeking to
+kidnap the Crafts, I took Ellen to my own house, and kept her there so
+long as the (Southern) kidnappers remained in the city. For the first
+time I armed myself, and put my house in a state of defence. For two
+weeks I wrote my sermons with a sword in the open drawer under my
+inkstand, and a pistol in the flap of the desk, loaded, ready, with a
+cap on the nipple. Commissioner Curtis said "a process was in the
+hands of the marshal ..." in the execution of which, he _might be
+called upon to break open dwelling-houses, and perhaps to take life_,
+by quelling resistance actual or "_threatened_." I was ready for him.
+I knew my rights.
+
+I went also and looked after William Craft. I inspected his weapons;
+"his powder had a good kernel, and he kept it dry; his pistols were of
+excellent proof; the barrels true, and clean, the trigger went easy,
+the caps would not hang fire at the snap. I tested his poignard; the
+blade had a good temper, stiff enough and yet springy withal; the
+point was sharp."[213] After the immediate danger was over and Knight
+and Hughes had avoided the city, where they had received such welcome
+from the friends of this Court, such was the tone of the political
+newspapers and the commercial pulpit that William and Ellen must needs
+flee from America. Long made one by the wedlock of mutual and plighted
+faith, their marriage in Georgia was yet "null and void" by the laws
+of that "Christian State." I married them according to the law of
+Massachusetts. As a symbol of the husband's peculiar responsibility
+under such circumstances, I gave William a Sword--it lay on the table
+in the house of another fugitive, where the wedding took place--and
+told him of his manly duty therewith, if need were, to defend the life
+and liberty of Ellen. I gave them both a Bible, which I had bought for
+the purpose, to be a symbol of their spiritual culture and a help for
+their soul, as the sword was for their bodily life. "With this sword I
+thee wed," suited the circumstances of that bridal.
+
+[Footnote 213: 1 Parker's Additional Speeches, 55.]
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Craft were parishioners of mine, and besides I have been
+appointed "minister at large in behalf of all fugitive slaves in
+Boston." I have helped join men and women in wedlock according to the
+customs of various sects and nations. There is one wedlock, a
+sacrament, but many forms. Never before did I marry two lovers with
+the Sword and the Bible--the form of matrimony for fugitive slaves:
+out of that fact perhaps Mr. Attorney can frame an indictment that
+will hold water. "If it only resists law and obstructs its officers,"
+quoth he, "it is treason, and he who risks it must risk hanging for
+it!"
+
+At the great Union meeting, November 26, when Mr. Curtis said "I
+should like to ask the Reverend Gentleman in what capacity he expects
+to be punished for his _perjury_," I said, "Do you want an answer to
+your question, Sir?" No doubt that was obstructing a (prospective)
+"officer," then preparing for process. How easily could Scroggs make a
+"misdemeanor," or "a seditious libel," out of that question! Allybone
+would call it "treason," "levying war."
+
+Thirty-six hours after the Union meeting, on Thanksgiving day, 28th
+November, 1850, in a "Sermon of the State of the Nation," I said:--
+
+     "I have sometimes been amazed at the talk of men who call on
+     us to keep the fugitive slave law, one of the most odious
+     laws in a world of odious laws--a law not fit to be made or
+     kept. I have been amazed that they should dare to tell us
+     the law of God, writ on the heavens and our hearts, never
+     demanded we should disobey the laws of men! Well, suppose it
+     were so. Then it was old Daniel's duty at Darius' command to
+     give up his prayer; but he prayed three times a day, with
+     his windows up. Then it was John's and Peter's duty to
+     forbear to preach of Christianity; but they said, 'Whether
+     it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more
+     than unto God, judge ye.' Then it was the duty of Amram and
+     Jochebed to take up their new-born Moses and cast him into
+     the Nile, for the law of king Pharaoh, commanding it, was
+     'constitutional,' and 'political agitation' was
+     discountenanced as much in Goshen as in Boston. But Daniel
+     did not obey; John and Peter did not fail to preach
+     Christianity; and Amram and Jochebed refused 'passive
+     obedience' to the king's decree! I think it will take a
+     strong man all this winter to reverse the judgment which the
+     world has passed on these three cases. But it is 'innocent'
+     to try.
+
+     "However, there is another ancient case, mentioned in the
+     Bible, in which the laws commanded one thing and conscience
+     just the opposite. Here the record of the law:--'Now both
+     the chief priests and the Pharisees had given a commandment,
+     that if any one knew where he [Jesus] were, he should show
+     it, that they might take him.' Of course, it became the
+     official and legal business of each disciple who knew where
+     Christ was, to make it known to the authorities. No doubt
+     James and John could leave all and follow him, with others
+     of the people who knew not the law of Moses, and were
+     accursed; nay, the women, Martha and Mary, could minister
+     unto him of their substance, could wash his feet with their
+     tears, and wipe them with the hairs of their head. They did
+     it gladly, of their own free will, and took pleasure
+     therein, I make no doubt. There was no merit in that--'Any
+     man can perform an agreeable duty.' But there was found one
+     disciple who could 'perform a disagreeable duty.' He went,
+     perhaps 'with alacrity,' and betrayed his Saviour to the
+     marshal of the district of Jerusalem, who was called a
+     centurion. Had he no affection for Jesus? No doubt; but he
+     could conquer his prejudices, while Mary and John could
+     not.
+
+     "Judas Iscariot has rather a bad name in the Christian
+     world: he is called 'The son of perdition,' in the New
+     Testament, and his conduct is reckoned a 'transgression;'
+     nay, it is said the devil 'entered into him,' to cause this
+     hideous sin. But all this it seems was a mistake; certainly,
+     if we are to believe our 'republican' lawyers and statesmen,
+     Iscariot only fulfilled his 'constitutional obligations.' It
+     was only 'on that point,' of betraying his Saviour, that the
+     constitutional law required him to have any thing to do with
+     Jesus. He took his 'thirty pieces of silver'--about fifteen
+     dollars; a Yankee is to do it for ten, having fewer
+     prejudices to conquer--it was his legal fee, for value
+     received. True, the Christians thought it was 'The wages of
+     iniquity,' and even the Pharisees--who commonly made the
+     commandment of God of none effect by their traditions--dared
+     not defile the temple with this 'price of blood;' but it was
+     honest money. Yes, it was as honest a fee as any American
+     commissioner or deputy will ever get for a similar service.
+     How mistaken we are! Judas Iscariot is not a traitor! he was
+     a great patriot; he conquered his 'prejudices,' performed 'a
+     disagreeable duty,' as an office of 'high morals and high
+     principle;' he kept the 'law' and the 'Constitution,' and
+     did all he could to 'save the Union;' nay, he was a saint,
+     'not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles.' 'The law of
+     God never commands us to disobey the law of man.' _Sancte
+     Iscariote ora pro nobis._
+
+     "Talk of keeping the fugitive slave law! Come, come, we know
+     better. Men in New England know better than this. We know
+     that we ought not to keep a wicked law, and that it must not
+     be kept when the law of God forbids!
+
+     "One of the most awful spectacles I ever saw, was this: A
+     vast multitude attempting, at an orator's suggestion [Hon.
+     Mr. Hallett], to howl down the 'Higher law,' and when he
+     said, Will you have this to rule over you? they answered,
+     'Never!' and treated the 'Higher law' to a laugh and a howl!
+     It was done in Faneuil Hall; under the eyes of the three
+     Adamses, Hancock, and Washington; and the howl rung round
+     the venerable arches of that hall! I could not but ask, 'Why
+     do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?
+     the rulers of the earth set themselves, and kings take
+     counsel against the Lord and say, Let us break his bands
+     asunder, and cast off his yoke from us.' Then I could not
+     but remember that it was written, 'He that sitteth in the
+     heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision.'
+     'He taketh up the isles as a very little thing, and the
+     inhabitants of the earth are as grasshoppers before Him.'
+     Howl down the law of God at a magistrate's command! Do this
+     in Boston! Let us remember this--but with charity."
+
+     "I do not believe there is more than one of the New England
+     men who publicly helped the law into being, but would
+     violate its provisions; conceal a fugitive; share his loaf
+     with a runaway; furnish him golden wings to fly with. Nay, I
+     think it would be difficult to find a magistrate in New
+     England, willing to take the public odium of doing the
+     official duty. I believe it is not possible to find a
+     regular jury, who will punish a man for harboring a slave,
+     for helping his escape, or fine a marshal or commissioner
+     for being a little slow to catch a slave. Men will talk loud
+     in public meetings, but they have some conscience after all,
+     at home. And though they howl down the 'Higher law' in a
+     crowd, yet conscience will make cowards of them all, when
+     they come to lay hands on a Christian man, more innocent
+     than they, and send him into slavery for ever! One of the
+     commissioners of Boston talked loud and long, last Tuesday,
+     in favor of keeping the law. When he read his litany against
+     the law of God, and asked if men would keep the 'Higher
+     law,' and got 'Never' as the welcome, and amen for
+     response--it seemed as if the law might be kept, at least by
+     that commissioner, and such as gave the responses to his
+     creed. But slave-hunting Mr. Hughes, who came here for two
+     of our fellow-worshippers, in his Georgia newspaper, tells a
+     different story. Here it is from the 'Georgia Telegraph,' of
+     last Friday. 'I called at eleven o'clock at night, at his
+     [the commissioner's] residence, and stated to him my
+     business, and asked him for a warrant, saying that if I
+     could get a warrant, I could have the negroes [William and
+     Ellen Craft] arrested. He said the law did not authorize a
+     warrant to be issued: that it was my duty to go and arrest
+     the negro without a warrant, and bring him before him!' This
+     is more than I expected. 'Is Saul among the prophets?' The
+     men who tell us that the law must be kept, God willing, or
+     against His will--there are Puritan fathers behind them
+     also; Bibles in their houses; a Christ crucified, whom they
+     think of; and a God even in their world, who slumbers not,
+     neither is weary, and is as little a respecter of parchments
+     as of persons! They know there is a people, as well as
+     politicians, a posterity not yet assembled, and they would
+     not like to have certain words writ on their tomb-stone.
+     'Traitor to the rights of mankind,' is no pleasant epitaph.
+     They, too, remember there is a day after to-day; aye, a
+     forever; and 'Inasmuch as ye have not done it unto one of
+     the least of these my brethren, ye have not done it unto
+     me,' is a sentence they would not like to hear at the day of
+     judgment."[214]
+
+[Footnote 214: 2 Parker's Occasional Sermons, pp. 298-300, 301, 302,
+304, 305.]
+
+Gentlemen, you see by the faces of this Honorable Court, and you know
+by what these honorable functionaries and their coadjutors have done
+out of its limit, how much I was mistaken in the notion that no Boston
+Commissioner would ever kidnap a man! Perhaps you will pardon me for
+the mistake. I will soon explain it by a quotation.
+
+After the rescue of Shadrach, in my Sunday prayer I publicly gave God
+the thanks of the congregation for the noble deed. Perhaps that was a
+crime. I think Judge Saunders could make it appear that I was an
+"accessory after the fact," and then Judge Curtis could call the
+offence not a felony but a "misdemeanor," and "in misdemeanors all are
+principals." Nay, it might be "levying war" "with force and arms."
+
+After the Hon. Judge Sprague had made himself glorious by charging the
+jury "to obey both" the will of God and the laws of men, which forbid
+that will; and after Commissioner Curtis had kidnapped Mr. Sims, while
+he still had him in his unlawful jail, on Fast-day, April 10, 1851, I
+preached a sermon "of the Chief Sins of the People," and said,--
+
+     "He [Judge Sprague] supposes a case: that the people ask
+     him, 'Which shall we obey, the law of man or the will of
+     God?' He says, 'I answer, obey both. The incompatibility
+     which the question assumes does not exist.'
+
+     "So, then, here is a great general rule, that between the
+     'law of man' and the 'will of God' there is no
+     incompatibility, and we must 'obey both.' Now let us see how
+     this rule will work.
+
+     "If I am rightly informed, King Ahab made a law that all the
+     Hebrews should serve Baal, and it was the will of God that
+     they should serve the Lord. According to this rule of the
+     judge, they must 'obey both.' But if they served Baal, they
+     could not serve the Lord. In such a case, 'what is to be
+     done?' We are told that Elijah gathered the prophets
+     together: 'and he came unto all the people, and said, How
+     long halt ye? If the Lord be God, follow him; but if Baal,
+     then follow him.' Our modern prophet says, 'Obey both. The
+     incompatibility which the question assumes does not exist.'
+     Such is the difference between Judge Elijah and Judge Peleg.
+
+     "Let us see how this rule will work in other cases; how you
+     can make a compromise between two opposite doctrines. The
+     king of Egypt commanded the Hebrew nurses, 'When you do the
+     office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, if it be a son ye
+     shall kill him.' I suppose it is plain to the Judge of the
+     Circuit Court that this kind of murder, killing the new-born
+     infants, is against 'the will of God;' but it is a matter of
+     record that it was according to 'the law of man.' Suppose
+     the Hebrew nurses had come to ask Judge Sprague for his
+     advice. He must have said, 'Obey both!' His rule is a
+     universal one.
+
+     "Another decree was once made, as it is said in the Old
+     Testament, that no man should ask any petition of any God
+     for thirty days, save of the king, on penalty of being cast
+     into the den of lions. Suppose Daniel--I mean the old
+     Daniel, the prophet--should have asked him, What is to be
+     done? Should he pray to Darius or pray to God? 'Obey both!'
+     would be the answer. But he cannot, for he is forbid to pray
+     to God. We know what Daniel did do.
+
+     "The elders and scribes of Jerusalem commanded the
+     Christians not to speak or to teach at all in the name of
+     Jesus; but Peter and John asked those functionaries,
+     'Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you
+     more than unto God, judge ye.' Our judge must have said,
+     There is no 'incompatibility;' 'obey both!' What 'a
+     comfortable Scripture' this would have been to poor John
+     Bunyan! What a great ethical doctrine to St. Paul! He did
+     not know such Christianity as that. Before his time a
+     certain man had said, 'No man can serve two masters.' But
+     there was one person who made the attempt, and he also is
+     eminent in history. Here was 'the will of God,' to do to
+     others as you would have others do to you: 'Love thy
+     neighbor as thyself.' Here is the record of 'the law of
+     man:' 'Now both the chief priests and the Pharisees had
+     given a commandment, that, if any man knew where he [Jesus]
+     were, he should show it that they might take him.' Judas, it
+     seems, determined to 'obey both,'--'the law of man' and 'the
+     will of God.' So he sat with Jesus at the Last Supper,
+     dipped his hand in the same dish, and took a morsel from the
+     hand of Christ, given him in token of love. All this he did
+     to obey 'the will of God.' Then he went and informed the
+     Commissioner or Marshal where Jesus was. This he did to obey
+     'the law of man.' Then he came back, and found Christ,--the
+     agony all over, the bloody sweat wiped off from his brow
+     presently to bleed again,--the Angel of Strength there with
+     him to comfort him. He was arousing his sleeping disciples
+     for the last time, and was telling them, 'Pray, lest ye
+     enter into temptation.' Judas came and gave him a kiss. To
+     the eleven it seemed the friendly kiss, obeying 'the will of
+     God.' To the Marshal it also seemed a friendly
+     kiss,--obeying 'the law of man.' So, in the same act, he
+     obeys 'the law of God' and 'the will of man,' and there is
+     no 'incompatibility!'
+
+     "Of old it was said, 'Thou canst not serve God and mammon.'
+     He that said it, has been thought to know something of
+     morals,--something of religion.
+
+     "Till the fugitive slave law was passed, we did not know
+     what a great saint Iscariot was. I think there ought to be a
+     chapel for him, and a day set apart in the calendar. Let him
+     have his chapel in the navy yard at Washington. He has got a
+     priest there already. And for a day in the calendar--set
+     apart for all time the seventh of March!"
+
+     "Last Thanksgiving day, I said it would be difficult to find
+     a magistrate in Boston to take the odium of sending a
+     fugitive back to slavery. I believed, after all, men had
+     some conscience, although they talked about its being a duty
+     to deliver up a man to bondage. Pardon me, my country, that
+     I rated you too high! Pardon me, town of Boston, that I
+     thought your citizens all men! Pardon me, lawyers, that I
+     thought you had been all born of mothers! Pardon me,
+     ruffians, who kill for hire! I thought you had some animal
+     mercy left, even in your bosom! Pardon me, United States'
+     commissioners, marshals, and the like, I thought you all had
+     some shame! Pardon me, my hearers, for such mistakes. One
+     commissioner was found to furnish the warrant [Mr. George T.
+     Curtis]! Pardon me, I did not know he was a commissioner; if
+     I had, I never would have said it!
+
+     "Spirits of tyrants, I look down to you! Shade of Cain, you
+     great first murderer, forgive me that I forgot your power,
+     and did not remember that you were parent of so long a line!
+     And you, my brethren, if hereafter I tell you that there is
+     any limit of meanness or wickedness which a Yankee will not
+     jump over, distrust me, and remind me of this day, and I
+     will take it back!
+
+     "Let us look at the public conduct of any commissioner who
+     will send an innocent man from Boston into slavery. I would
+     speak of all men charitably; for I know how easy it is to
+     err, yea, to sin. I can look charitably on thieves, prowling
+     about in darkness; on rum-sellers, whom poverty compels to
+     crime; on harlots, who do the deed of shame that holy
+     woman's soul abhors and revolts at; I can pity the pirate,
+     who scours the seas doing his fiendish crimes--he is
+     tempted, made desperate by a gradual training in wickedness.
+     The man, born at the South, owning slaves, who goes to
+     Africa and sells adulterated rum in exchange for men to
+     retail at Cuba,--I cannot understand the consciousness of
+     such a man; yet I can admit that by birth and by breeding he
+     has become so imbruted he knows no better. Nay, even that he
+     may perhaps justify his conduct to himself. I say I think
+     his sin is not so dreadful as that of a commissioner in
+     Boston who sends a man into slavery. A man commits a murder,
+     inflamed by jealousy, goaded by desire of great gain,
+     excited by fear, stung by malice, or poisoned by revenge,
+     and it is a horrid thing. But to send a man into slavery is
+     worse than to murder him. I should rather be slain than
+     enslaved. To do this, inflamed by no jealousy, goaded by no
+     desire of great gain,--only ten dollars!--excited by no
+     fear, stung by no special malice, poisoned by no revenge,--I
+     cannot comprehend that in any man, not even in a hyena.
+     Beasts that raven for blood do not kill for killing's sake,
+     but to feed their flesh. Forgive me, O ye wolves and hyenas!
+     that I bring you into such company. I can only understand it
+     in a devil!
+
+     "When a man bred in Massachusetts, whose Constitution
+     declares that 'All men are born free and equal;' within
+     sight of Faneuil Hall, with all its sacred memories; within
+     two hours of Plymouth Rock; within a single hour of Concord
+     and Lexington; in sight of Bunker Hill,--when he will do
+     such a deed, it seems to me that there is no life of crime
+     long enough to prepare a man for such a pitch of depravity;
+     I should think he must have been begotten in sin, and
+     conceived in iniquity, and been born 'with a dog's head on
+     his shoulders;' that the concentration of the villany of
+     whole generations of scoundrels would hardly be enough to
+     fit a man for a deed like this!"
+
+     "Last Thursday night,--when odious beasts of prey, that dare
+     not face the light of heaven, prowl through the
+     woods,--those ruffians of the law seized on their brother
+     man. They lie to the bystanders, and seize him on a false
+     pretence. There is their victim--they hold him fast. His
+     faithless knife breaks in his hand; his coat is rent to
+     pieces. He is the slave of Boston. Can you understand his
+     feelings? Let us pass by that. His 'trial!' Shall I speak of
+     that? He has been five days on trial for more than life, and
+     has not seen a judge! A jury? No,--only a commissioner! O
+     justice! O republican America! Is this the liberty of
+     Massachusetts?
+
+     "Where shall I find a parallel with men who will do such a
+     deed,--do it in Boston? I will open the tombs, and bring up
+     most hideous tyrants from the dead. Come, brood of monsters,
+     let me bring you up from the deep damnation of the graves
+     wherein your hated memories continue for all time their
+     never-ending rot. Come, birds of evil omen! come, ravens,
+     vultures, carrion-crows, and see the spectacle! come, see
+     the meeting of congenial souls! I will disturb, disquiet,
+     and bring up the greatest monsters of the human race!
+     Tremble not, women; tremble not, children; tremble not, men!
+     They are all dead! They cannot harm you now! Fear the
+     living, not the dead!
+
+     "Come hither, Herod the wicked! Thou that didst seek after
+     that young child's life, and destroyed the Innocents! Let me
+     look on thy face! No; go! Thou wert a heathen! Go, lie with
+     the Innocents thou hast massacred. Thou art too good for
+     this company!
+
+     "Come, Nero! Thou awful Roman Emperor! Come up! No; thou
+     wast drunk with power! schooled in Roman depravity. Thou
+     hadst, besides, the example of thy fancied gods! Go, wait
+     another day. I will seek a worser man.
+
+     "Come hither, St. Dominic! come, Torquemada!--Fathers of the
+     Inquisition! Merciless monsters, seek your equal here! No;
+     pass by! You are no companions for such men as these! You
+     were the servants of atheistic popes, of cruel kings. Go to,
+     and get you gone. Another time I may have work for you,--not
+     now; lie there and persevere to rot. You are not yet quite
+     wicked and corrupt enough for this comparison. Go, get ye
+     gone, lest the sun turn back at sight of ye!
+
+     "Come up, thou heap of wickedness, George Jeffreys!--thy
+     hands deep purple with the blood of thy murdered fellow men!
+     Ah, I know thee! awful and accursed shade! Two hundred years
+     after thy death, men hate thee still, not without cause! Let
+     me look upon thee! I know thy history. Pause and be still,
+     while I tell it to these men.
+
+     "Brothers, George Jeffreys 'began in the sedition line.'
+     'There was no act, however bad, that he would not resort to
+     to get on.' 'He was of a bold aspect, and cared not for the
+     countenance of any man.' 'He became the avowed, unblushing
+     slave of the court, and the bitter persecutor and
+     unappeasable enemy of the principles he had before
+     supported.' 'He was universally insolent and overbearing.'
+     'As a judge, he did not consider the decencies of his post,
+     nor did he so much as affect to be impartial, as became a
+     judge.' His face and voice were always unamiable. 'All
+     tenderness for the feelings of others, all self-respect were
+     obliterated from his mind.' He had 'a delight in misery,
+     merely as misery,' and 'that temper which tyrants require in
+     their worst instruments.' 'He made haste to sell his
+     forehead of brass and his tongue of venom to the court.' He
+     had 'more impudence than ten carted street-walkers;' and was
+     appropriately set to a work 'which could be trusted to no
+     man who reverenced law, or who was sensible of shame.' He
+     was a 'Commissioner' in 1685. You know of the 'Bloody
+     assizes' which he held, and how he sent to execution three
+     hundred and twenty persons in a single circuit. 'The whole
+     country was strewed with the heads and limbs of his
+     victims.' Yet a man wrote that 'A little more hemp might
+     have been usefully employed.' He was the worst of the
+     English judges. 'There was no measure, however illegal, to
+     the execution of which he did not devotedly and recklessly
+     abandon himself.' 'During the Stuart reigns, England was
+     cursed by a succession of ruffians in ermine, who, for the
+     sake of court favor, wrested the principles of law, the
+     precepts of religion, and the duties of humanity; but they
+     were all greatly outstripped by Jeffreys.' Such is his
+     history.
+
+     "Come, shade of a judicial butcher! Two hundred years thy
+     name has been pilloried in face of the world, and thy memory
+     gibbeted before mankind. Let us see how thou wilt compare
+     with those who kidnap men in Boston! Go seek companionship
+     with them! Go claim thy kindred, if such they be! Go tell
+     them that the memory of the wicked shall rot,--that there is
+     a God; an Eternity; ay! and a Judgment too! where the slave
+     may appeal against him that made him a slave, to Him that
+     made him a man.
+
+     "What! Dost thou shudder? Thou turn back! These not thy
+     kindred! Why dost thou turn pale, as when the crowd
+     clutched at thy life in London Street? It is true, George
+     Jeffreys, and these are not thy kin. Forgive me that I
+     should send thee on such an errand, or bid thee seek
+     companionship with such--with Boston hunters of the slave!
+     Thou wert not base enough! It was a great bribe that tempted
+     thee! Again I say, pardon me for sending thee to keep
+     company with such men! Thou only struckst at men accused of
+     crime; not at men accused only of their birth! Thou wouldst
+     not send a man into bondage for two pounds! I will not rank
+     thee with men who, in Boston, for ten dollars, would enslave
+     a negro now! Rest still, Herod! Be quiet, Nero! Sleep, St.
+     Dominic, and sleep, O Torquemada! in your fiery jail! Sleep,
+     Jeffreys, underneath 'the altar of the church' which seeks
+     with Christian charity to hide your hated bones."
+
+     "Well, my brethren, these are only the beginning of sorrows.
+     There will be other victims yet; this will not settle the
+     question. What shall we do? I think I am a calm man and a
+     cool man, and I have a word or two to say as to what we
+     shall do. Never obey the law. Keep the law of God. Next I
+     say, resist not evil with evil; resist not now with
+     violence. Why do I say this? Will you tell me that I am a
+     coward? Perhaps I am; at least I am not afraid to be called
+     one. Why do I say, then, do not now resist with violence?
+     Because it is not time just yet; it would not succeed. If I
+     had the eloquence that I sometimes dream of, which goes into
+     a crowd of men, and gathers them in its mighty arm, and
+     sways them as the pendent boughs of yonder elm shall be
+     shaken by the summer breeze next June, I would not give that
+     counsel. I would call on men, and lift up my voice like a
+     trumpet through the whole land, until I had gathered
+     millions out of the North and the South, and they should
+     crush slavery for ever, as the ox crushes the spider
+     underneath his feet. But such eloquence is given to no man.
+     It was not given to the ancient Greek who 'shook the arsenal
+     and fulmined over Greece.' He that so often held the nobles
+     and the mob of Rome within his hand, had it not. He that
+     spoke as never man spake, and who has since gathered two
+     hundred millions to his name, had it not. No man has it. The
+     ablest must wait for time! It is idle to resist here and
+     now. It is not the hour. If in 1765 they had attempted to
+     carry out the Revolution by force, they would have failed.
+     Had it failed, we had not been here to-day. There would have
+     been no little monument at Lexington 'sacred to liberty and
+     the rights of mankind' honoring the men who 'fell in the
+     cause of God and their country.' No little monument at
+     Concord; nor that tall pile of eloquent stone at Bunker
+     Hill, to proclaim that 'Resistance to tyrants is obedience
+     to God.' Success is due to the discretion, heroism,
+     calmness, and forbearance of our fathers: let us wait our
+     time. It will come--perhaps will need no sacrifice of
+     blood."[215]
+
+[Footnote 215: 2 Parker's Occasional Sermons, p. 334-337, 343-348,
+351, 352.]
+
+Gentlemen, I think Judge Finch could construct a misdemeanor out of
+these words; you will find in them nothing but the plain speech of a
+minister of the Christian religion.
+
+On the 6th of July, 1851, I preached "Of the three chief Safeguards of
+Society," and said:--
+
+     "Nowhere in the world is there a people so orderly, so much
+     attached to law, as the people of these Northern States. But
+     one law is an exception. The people of the North hate the
+     fugitive slave law, as they have never hated any law since
+     the stamp act. I know there are men in the Northern States
+     who like it,--who would have invented slavery, had it not
+     existed long before. But the mass of the Northern people
+     hate this law, because it is hostile to the purpose of all
+     just human law, hostile to the purpose of society, hostile
+     to the purpose of individual life; because it is hostile to
+     the law of God,--bids the wrong, forbids the right. We
+     disobey that, for the same reason that we keep other laws:
+     because we reverence the law of God. Why should we keep that
+     odious law which makes us hated wherever justice is loved?
+     Because we must sometimes do a disagreeable deed to
+     accomplish an agreeable purpose? The purpose of that law is
+     to enable three hundred thousand slaveholders to retake on
+     our soil the men they once stole on other soil! Most of the
+     city churches of the North seem to think that is a good
+     thing. Very well; is it worth while for fifteen million
+     freemen to transgress the plainest of natural laws, the most
+     obvious instincts of the human heart, and the plainest
+     duties of Christianity, for that purpose? The price to pay
+     is the religious integrity of fifteen million men; the thing
+     to buy is a privilege for three hundred thousand
+     slaveholders to use the North as a hunting field whereon to
+     kidnap men at our cost. Judge you of that bargain."
+
+     "I adjure you to reverence a government that is right,
+     statutes that are right, officers that are right; but to
+     disobey every thing that is wrong. I intreat you by your
+     love for your country, by the memory of your fathers, by
+     your reverence for Jesus Christ, yea, by the deep and holy
+     love of God which Jesus taught, and you now feel."[216]
+
+[Footnote 216: 2 Parker's Occasional Sermons, p. 392-394.]
+
+You will say all this is but indispensable duty; but the judge who
+hanged a man for treason because he promised to make his son "heir to
+the Crown"--meaning the "Crown Tavern" that he lived in--would
+doubtless find treason in my words also.
+
+On the 12th of April, 1852, I delivered an address to commemorate the
+first anniversary of the Kidnapping of Thomas Sims, and said:--
+
+     "But when the rulers have inverted their function, and
+     enacted wickedness into a law which treads down the
+     unalienable rights of man to such a degree as this, then I
+     know no ruler but God, no law but natural Justice. I tear
+     the hateful statute of kidnappers to shivers; I trample it
+     underneath my feet. I do it in the name of all law; in the
+     name of Justice and of Man; in the name of the dear God."
+
+     "You remember the decision of the Circuit judge,--himself
+     soon to be summoned by death before the Judge who is no
+     respecter of persons,--not allowing the destined victim his
+     last hope, 'the great writ of right.' The decision left him
+     entirely at the mercy of the other kidnappers. The
+     Court-room was crowded with 'respectable people,' 'gentlemen
+     of property and standing:' they received the decision with
+     'applause and the clapping of hands.' Seize a lamb out of a
+     flock, a wolf from a pack of wolves, the lambs bleat with
+     sympathy, the wolves howl with fellowship and fear; but when
+     a competitor for the Presidency sends back to eternal
+     bondage a poor, friendless negro, asking only his limbs,
+     wealthy gentlemen of Boston applaud the outrage.
+
+          "'O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
+          And men have lost their reason!'"
+
+     "When the Fugitive Slave Bill passed, the six New England
+     States lay fast asleep: Massachusetts slept soundly, her
+     head pillowed on her unsold bales of cotton and of woollen
+     goods, dreaming of 'orders from the South.' Justice came to
+     waken her, and whisper of the peril of nine thousand
+     citizens; and she started in her sleep, and, being frighted,
+     swore a prayer or two, then slept again. But Boston
+     woke,--sleeping, in her shop, with ears open, and her eye on
+     the market, her hand on her purse, dreaming of goods for
+     sale,--Boston woke broadly up, and fired a hundred guns for
+     joy. O Boston, Boston! if thou couldst have known, in that
+     thine hour, the things which belong unto thy peace! But no:
+     they were hidden from her eyes. She had prayed to her god,
+     to Money; he granted her the request, but sent leanness into
+     her soul."
+
+     "Yet one charge has been made against the Government, which
+     seems to me a little harsh and unjust. It has been said the
+     administration preferred low and contemptible men as their
+     tools; judges who blink at law, advocates of infamy, and men
+     cast off from society for perjury, for nameless crimes, and
+     sins not mentionable in English speech; creatures 'not so
+     good as the dogs that licked Lazarus's sores; but, like
+     flies, still buzzing upon any thing that is raw.' There is a
+     semblance of justice in the charge: witness Philadelphia,
+     Buffalo, Boston; witness New York. It is true, for
+     kidnappers the Government did take men that looked 'like a
+     bull-dog just come to man's estate;' men whose face declared
+     them, 'if not the devil, at least his twin-brother.' There
+     are kennels of the courts wherein there settles down all
+     that the law breeds most foul, loathsome, and hideous and
+     abhorrent to the eye of day; there this contaminating puddle
+     gathers its noisome ooze, slowly, stealthily, continually,
+     agglomerating its fetid mass by spontaneous cohesion, and
+     sinking by the irresistible gravity of rottenness into that
+     abhorred deep, the lowest, ghastliest pit in all the
+     subterranean vaults of human sin. It is true the Government
+     has skimmed the top and dredged the bottom of these kennels
+     of the courts, taking for its purpose the scum and sediment
+     thereof, the Squeers, the Fagins, and the Quilps of the law,
+     the monsters of the court. Blame not the Government; it took
+     the best it could get. It was necessity, not will, which
+     made the selection. Such is the stuff that kidnappers must
+     be made of. If you wish to kill a man, it is not bread you
+     buy: it is poison. Some of the instruments of Government
+     were such as one does not often look upon. But, of old time,
+     an inquisitor was always 'a horrid-looking fellow, as
+     beseemed his trade.' It is only justice that a kidnapper
+     should bear 'his great commission in his look.'"
+
+     "I pity the kidnappers, the poor tools of men almost as
+     base. I would not hurt a hair of their heads; but I would
+     take the thunder of the moral world, and dash its bolted
+     lightning on this crime of stealing men, till the name of
+     kidnapping should be like Sodom and Gomorrah. It is piracy
+     to steal a man in Guinea; what is it to do this in Boston?
+
+     "I pity the merchants who, for their trade, were glad to
+     steal their countrymen; I wish them only good. Debate in
+     yonder hall has shown how little of humanity there is in the
+     trade of Boston. She looks on all the horrors which
+     intemperance has wrought, and daily deals in every street;
+     she scrutinizes the jails,--they are filled by rum; she
+     looks into the alms-houses, crowded full by rum; she walks
+     her streets, and sees the perishing classes fall, mowed down
+     by rum; she enters the parlors of wealthy men, looks into
+     the bridal chamber, and meets death: the ghosts of the slain
+     are there,--men slain by rum. She knows it all, yet says,
+     'There is an interest at stake!'--the interest of rum; let
+     man give way! Boston does this to-day. Last year she stole a
+     man; her merchants stole a man! The sacrifice of man to
+     money, when shall it have an end? I pity those merchants who
+     honor money more than man. Their gold is cankered, and their
+     soul is brass,--is rusted brass. They must come up before
+     the posterity which they affect to scorn. What voice can
+     plead for them before their own children? The eye that
+     mocketh at the justice of its son, and scorneth to obey the
+     mercy of its daughter, the ravens of posterity shall pick it
+     out, and the young eagles eat it up!
+
+     "But there is yet another tribunal: 'After the death the
+     judgment!' When he maketh inquisition for the blood of the
+     innocent, what shall the stealers of men reply? Boston
+     merchants, where is your brother, Thomas Sims? Let Cain
+     reply to Christ."[217]
+
+[Footnote 217: 1 Parker's Additional Speeches, p. 50, 70, 88, 89, 92,
+93, 100, 101.]
+
+The Sunday after Mr. Webster's death, Oct. 31, 1852, I spoke of that
+powerful man; listen to this:--
+
+     "Mr. Webster stamped his foot, and broke through into the
+     great hollow of practical atheism, which undergulfs the
+     State and Church. Then what a caving in was there! The
+     firm-set base of northern cities quaked and yawned with
+     gaping rents. 'Penn's sandy foundation' shook again, and
+     black men fled from the city of brotherly love, as doves,
+     with plaintive cry, flee from a farmer's barn when summer
+     lightning stabs the roof. There was a twist in Faneuil Hall,
+     and the doors could not open wide enough for Liberty to
+     regain her ancient Cradle; only soldiers, greedy to steal a
+     man, themselves stole out and in. Ecclesiastic quicksand ran
+     down the hole amain. Metropolitan churches toppled, and
+     pitched, and canted, and cracked, their bowing walls all out
+     of plumb. Colleges, broken from the chain which held them in
+     the stream of time, rushed towards the abysmal rent. Harvard
+     led the way, '_Christo et Ecclesiæ_' in her hand. Down
+     plunged Andover, 'Conscience and the Constitution' clutched
+     in its ancient, failing arm. New Haven began to cave in.
+     Doctors of Divinity, orthodox, heterodox, with only a doxy
+     of doubt, 'no settled opinion,' had great alacrity in
+     sinking, and went down quick, as live as ever, into the pit
+     of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, the bottomless pit of lower
+     law,--one with his mother, cloaked by a surplice, hid
+     beneath his sinister arm, and an acknowledged brother
+     grasped by his remaining limb. Fossils of theology, dead as
+     Ezekiel's bones, took to their feet again, and stood up for
+     most arrant wrong. 'There is no higher law of God,' quoth
+     they, as they went down; 'no golden rule, only the statutes
+     of men.' A man with mythologic ear might fancy that he heard
+     a snickering laugh run round the world below, snorting,
+     whinnying, and neighing, as it echoed from the infernal spot
+     pressed by the fallen monsters of ill-fame, who, thousands
+     of years ago, on the same errand, had plunged down the
+     self-same way. What tidings the echo bore, Dante nor Milton
+     could not tell. Let us leave that to darkness, and to
+     silence, and to death.
+
+     "But spite of all this, in every city, in every town, in
+     every college, and in each capsizing church, there were
+     found Faithful Men, who feared not the monster, heeded not
+     the stamping;--nay, some doctors of divinity were found
+     living. In all their houses there was light, and the
+     destroying angel shook them not. The word of the Lord came
+     in open vision to their eye; they had their lamps trimmed
+     and burning, their loins girt; they stood road-ready.
+     Liberty and Religion turned in thither, and the slave found
+     bread and wings. 'When my father and my mother forsake me,
+     then the Lord will hold me up!'
+
+     "After the 7th of March, Mr. Webster became the ally of the
+     worst of men, the forefront of kidnapping. The orator of
+     Plymouth Rock was the advocate of slavery; the hero of
+     Bunker Hill put chains round Boston Court House; the
+     applauder of Adams and Jefferson was a tool of the
+     slaveholder, and a keeper of slavery's dogs, the associate
+     of the kidnapper, and the mocker of men who loved the right.
+     Two years he lived with that rabble rout for company, his
+     name the boast of every vilest thing.
+
+          "'Oh, how unlike the place from whence he fell!'"
+
+     "Do men mourn for him? See how they mourn! The streets are
+     hung with black. The newspapers are sad colored. The shops
+     are put in mourning. The Mayor and Aldermen wear crape.
+     Wherever his death is made known, the public business stops,
+     and flags drop half-mast down. The courts adjourn. The
+     courts of Massachusetts--at Boston, at Dedham, at Lowell,
+     all adjourn; the courts of New Hampshire, of Maine, of New
+     York; even at Baltimore and Washington, the courts adjourn;
+     for the great lawyer is dead, and Justice must wait another
+     day. Only the United States Court, in Boston, trying a man
+     for helping Shadrach out of the furnace of the
+     kidnappers,--the court which executes the Fugitive Slave
+     Bill,--that does not adjourn; that keeps on; its worm dies
+     not, and the fire of its persecution is not quenched, when
+     death puts out the lamp of life! Injustice is hungry for its
+     prey, and must not be balked. It was very proper! Symbolical
+     court of the Fugitive Slave Bill--it does not respect life,
+     why should it death? and, scorning liberty, why should it
+     heed decorum?"[218]
+
+[Footnote 218: 1 Parker's Additional Speeches, 235-37, 246-47.]
+
+On the 12th of February, 1854, I preached "Some Thoughts on the new
+Assault upon Freedom in America."
+
+     "Who put Slavery in the Constitution; made it Federal? who
+     put it in the new States? who got new soil to plant it in?
+     who carried it across the Mississippi--into Louisiana,
+     Florida, Texas, Utah, New Mexico? who established it in the
+     Capital of the United States? who adopted Slavery and
+     volunteered to catch a runaway, in 1793, and repeated the
+     act in 1850,--in defiance of all law, all precedent, all
+     right? Why, it was the North. 'Spain armed herself with
+     bloodhounds,' said Mr. Pitt, 'to extirpate the wretched
+     natives of America.' In 1850, the Christian Democracy set
+     worse bloodhounds afoot to pursue Ellen Craft; offered them
+     five dollars for the run, if they did not take her; ten if
+     they did! The price of blood was Northern money; the
+     bloodhounds--they were Kidnappers born at the North, bred
+     there, kennelled in her church, fed on her sacraments,
+     blessed by her priests! In 1778, Mr. Pitt had a yet harsher
+     name for the beasts wherewith despotic Spain hunted the red
+     man in the woods--he called them '_Hell Hounds_.' But they
+     only hunted 'savages, heathens, men born in barbarous
+     lands.' What would he say of the pack which in 1851 hunted
+     American Christians, in the 'Athens of America,' and stole a
+     man on the grave of Hancock and Adams--all Boston looking
+     on, and its priests blessing the deed!"
+
+     "See what encourages the South to make new encroachments.
+     She has been eminently successful in her former demands,
+     especially with the last. The authors of the fugitive slave
+     bill did not think that enormity could be got through
+     Congress: it was too atrocious in itself, too insulting to
+     the North. But Northern men sprang forward to defend
+     it--powerful politicians supported it to the fullest extent.
+     The worse it was, the better they liked it. Northern
+     merchants were in favor of it--it 'would conciliate the
+     South.' Northern ministers in all the churches of commerce
+     baptized it, defended it out of the Old Testament, or the
+     New Testament. The Senator of Boston gave it his mighty
+     aid,--he went through the land a huckster of Slavery,
+     peddling Atheism: the Representative of Boston gave it his
+     vote. Their constituents sustained both! All the great
+     cities of the North executed the bill. The leading Journals
+     of Boston advised the merchants to withhold all commercial
+     intercourse from Towns which opposed Kidnapping. There was a
+     'Union Meeting' at Faneuil Hall. You remember the men on the
+     platform: the speeches are not forgotten. The doctrine that
+     there is a Law of God above the passions of the multitude
+     and the ambition of their leaders, was treated with scorn
+     and hooting: a loud guffaw of vulgar ribaldry went up
+     against the Justice of the Infinite God! All the great
+     cities did the same. Atheism was inaugurated as the first
+     principle of Republican government; in politics, religion
+     makes men mad! Mr. Clay declared that 'no Northern gentleman
+     will ever help return a fugitive Slave!' What took place at
+     Philadelphia? New York? Cincinnati?--nay, at Boston? The
+     Northern churches of commerce thought Slavery was a
+     blessing, Kidnapping a 'grace.' The Democrats and Whigs vie
+     with each other in devotion to the fugitive slave bill. The
+     'Compromises' are the golden rule. The North conquered her
+     prejudices. The South sees this, and makes another demand.
+     Why not? I am glad of it. She serves us right."
+
+     "In 1775, what if it had been told the men all red with
+     battle at Lexington and Bunker Hill,--'your sons will gird
+     the Court House with chains to kidnap a man; Boston will
+     vote for a Bill which puts the liberty of any man in the
+     hands of a Commissioner, to be paid twice as much for making
+     a Slave as for declaring a freeman; and Boston will call out
+     its soldiers to hunt a man through its streets!' What if on
+     the 19th of April, 1775, when Samuel Adams said, 'Oh! what a
+     glorious morning is this!' as he heard the tidings of war in
+     the little village where he passed the night,--what if it
+     had been told him,--'On the 19th of April, seventy-six years
+     from this day, will your City of Boston land a poor youth at
+     Savannah, having violated her own laws, and stained her
+     Magistrates' hands, in order to put an innocent man in a
+     Slave-master's jail?' What if it had been told him that
+     Ellen Craft must fly out of Democratic Boston, to Monarchic,
+     Theocratic, Aristocratic England, to find shelter for her
+     limbs, her connubial innocence, and the virtue of her
+     woman's heart? I think Samuel would have cursed the day in
+     which it was said a man-child was born, and America was
+     free! What if it had been told Mayhew and Belknap, that in
+     the pulpits of Boston, to defend kidnapping should be
+     counted to a man as righteousness? They could not have
+     believed it. They did not know what baseness could suck the
+     Northern breast, and still be base."[219]
+
+[Footnote 219: 1 Parker's Additional Speeches, p. 351, 352, 357-359,
+368, 369.]
+
+You will think all this is good morality; but Mr. Curtis in 1836,
+maintained that kidnapping in Massachusetts, would "promote harmony
+and good-will where it is extremely desirable to promote it, encourage
+frequent intercourse, and soften prejudice by increasing acquaintance,
+and tend to peace and good-will." Nay, that it may be "perfectly
+consistent with our policy ... _to interfere actively to enable the
+citizens of those States_ [the slave States] _to enjoy those
+institutions at home_." "Slavery is not immoral;" "By the law of this
+Commonwealth slavery is not immoral."[220]
+
+[Footnote 220: Med Case, p. 9, 11.]
+
+After Commissioner Loring had kidnapped Anthony Burns, I attended the
+meeting at Faneuil Hall, and spoke. Gentlemen, I did not finish the
+speech I had begun, for news came that an attack was made on the Court
+House, and the meeting was thrown into confusion. I did not speak in a
+corner, but in the old Cradle of Liberty. Here is the report of the
+speech which was made by a phonographer, and published in the
+newspapers of the time--I have no other notes of it. You shall see if
+there be a misdemeanor in it. Here is the speech:--
+
+"FELLOW-SUBJECTS OF VIRGINIA--[Loud cries of 'No,' 'no,' and 'you must
+take that back!'] FELLOW-CITIZENS OF BOSTON, then--['Yes,' 'yes,']--I
+come to condole with you at this second disgrace which is heaped on
+the city made illustrious by _some_ of those faces that were once so
+familiar to our eyes. [Alluding to the portraits which _once hung_
+conspicuously in Faneuil Hall, but which had been removed to obscure
+and out-of-the-way locations.] Fellow-citizens--A deed which Virginia
+commands has been done in the city of John Hancock and the 'brace of
+Adamses.' It was done by a Boston hand. It was a Boston man who issued
+the warrant; it was a Boston Marshal who put it in execution; they are
+Boston men who are seeking to kidnap a citizen of Massachusetts, and
+send him into slavery for ever and ever. It is our fault that it is
+so. Eight years ago, a merchant of Boston 'kidnapped a man on the high
+road between Faneuil Hall and Old Quincy,' at 12 o'clock,--at the noon
+of day,--and the next day, mechanics of this city exhibited the
+half-eagles they had received for their share of the spoils in
+enslaving a brother man. You called a meeting in this hall. It was as
+crowded as it is now. I stood side by side with my friend and former
+neighbor, your honorable and noble Chairman to-night [George R.
+Russell, of West Roxbury], [Loud Cheers,] while this man who had
+fought for liberty in Greece, and been imprisoned for that sacred
+cause in the dungeons of Poland, [Dr. Samuel G. Howe,] stood here and
+introduced to the audience that 'old man eloquent,' John Quincy Adams.
+[Loud Cheers.]
+
+"It was the last time he ever stood in Faneuil Hall. He came to defend
+the unalienable rights of a friendless negro slave, kidnapped in
+Boston. There is even no picture of John Quincy Adams to-night.
+
+"A Suffolk Grand-Jury would find no indictment against the Boston
+merchant for kidnapping that man. ['Shame,' 'shame.'] If Boston had
+spoken then, we should not have been here to-night. We should have had
+no fugitive slave bill. When that bill passed, we fired a hundred
+guns.
+
+"Don't you remember the Union meeting held in this very hall? A man
+stood on this platform,--he is a Judge of the Supreme Court now,--and
+he said--When a certain 'Reverend gentleman' is indicted for perjury,
+I should like to ask him how he will answer the charge? And when that
+'Reverend gentleman' rose, and asked, 'Do you want an answer to your
+question?' Faneuil Hall cried out,--'No,' 'no,'--'Throw him over!' Had
+Faneuil Hall spoken then on the side of Truth and Freedom, we should
+not now be the subjects of Virginia.
+
+"Yes, we are the vassals of Virginia. She reaches her arm over the
+graves of our mothers, and kidnaps men in the city of the Puritans;
+over the graves of Samuel Adams and John Hancock. [Cries of 'Shame!']
+'Shame!' so I say; but who is to blame? 'There is no north,' said Mr.
+Webster. There is none. The South goes clear up to the Canada line.
+No, gentlemen, there is no Boston to-day. There _was_ a Boston once.
+Now, there is a North suburb to the city of Alexandria,--that is what
+Boston is. [Laughter.] And you and I, fellow-subjects of the State of
+Virginia--[Cries of 'no,' 'no.' 'Take that back again.']--I will take
+it back when you show me the fact is not so.--Men and brothers,
+(brothers, at any rate,) I am not a young man; I have heard hurrahs
+and cheers for liberty many times; I have not seen a great many deeds
+done for liberty. I ask you, are we to have deeds as well as words?
+['Yes,' 'yes,' and loud cheers.]
+
+"Now, brethren, you are brothers at any rate, whether citizens of
+Massachusetts or subjects of Virginia--I am a minister--and,
+fellow-citizens of Boston, there are two great laws in this country;
+one of them is the LAW OF SLAVERY; that law is declared to be a
+'finality.' Once the Constitution was formed 'to establish justice,
+promote tranquillity, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves
+and our posterity.' _Now_, the Constitution is not to secure liberty;
+it is to extend slavery into Nebraska. And when slavery is established
+there, in order to show what it is, there comes a sheriff from
+Alexandria, to kidnap a man in the city of Boston, and he gets a Judge
+of Probate, in the county of Suffolk, to issue a writ, and another
+Boston man to execute that writ! [Cries of 'shame,' 'shame.']
+
+"Slavery tramples on the Constitution; it treads down State Rights.
+Where are the Rights of Massachusetts? A fugitive slave bill
+Commissioner has got them all in his pocket. Where is the trial by
+jury? Watson Freeman has it under his Marshal's staff. Where is the
+great writ of personal replevin, which our fathers wrested, several
+hundred years ago, from the tyrants who once lorded it over Great
+Britain? Judge Sprague trod it under his feet! Where is the sacred
+right of _habeas corpus_? Deputy Marshal Riley can crush it in his
+hands, and Boston does not say any thing against it. Where are the
+laws of Massachusetts forbidding State edifices to be used as prisons
+for the incarceration of fugitives? They, too, are trampled underfoot.
+'Slavery is a finality.'
+
+"These men come from Virginia, to kidnap a man here. Once, this was
+Boston; now, it is a Northern suburb of Alexandria. At first, when
+they carried a fugitive slave from Boston, they thought it was a
+difficult thing to do it. They had to get a Mayor to help them; they
+had to put chains round the Court House; they had to call out the
+'Sims Brigade'; it took nine days to do it. Now, they are so confident
+that we are subjects of Virginia, that they do not even put chains
+round the Court House; the police have nothing to do with it. I was
+told to-day that one of the officers of the city said to twenty-eight
+police-men, 'If any man in the employment of the city meddles in this
+business, he will be discharged from service, without a hearing.'
+[Great applause.] Well, gentlemen, how do you think they received
+that declaration? They shouted, and hurrahed, and gave three cheers.
+[Renewed applause.] My friend here would not have had the honor of
+presiding over you to-night, if application had been made a little
+sooner to the Mayor. Another gentleman told me that, when that man
+(the Mayor) was asked to preside at this meeting, he said that he
+regretted that all his time to-night was previously engaged. If he had
+known it earlier, he said, he might have been able to make
+arrangements to preside. When the man was arrested, he told the
+Marshal he regretted it, and that his sympathies were wholly with the
+slave. [Loud applause.] Fellow-citizens, remember that word. Hold your
+Mayor to it, and let it be seen that he has got a background and a
+foreground, which will authorize him to repeat that word in public,
+and act it out in Faneuil Hall. I say, so confident are the slave
+agents now, that they can carry off their slave in the daytime, that
+they do not put chains round the Court House; they have got no
+soldiers billeted in Faneuil Hall, as in 1851. They think they can
+carry this man off to-morrow morning in a cab. [Voices--'They can't do
+it.' 'Let's see them try.']
+
+"I say, there are two great laws in this country. One is the slave
+law. That is the law of the President of the United States; it is the
+law of the Commissioner; it is the law of every Marshal, and of every
+meanest ruffian whom the Marshal hires to execute his behests.
+
+"There is another law, which my friend, Mr. Phillips, has described in
+language such as I cannot equal, and therefore shall not try; I only
+state it in its plainest terms. It is the Law of the People when they
+are sure they are right and determined to go ahead. [Cheers and much
+confusion.]
+
+"Now, gentlemen, there was a Boston once, and you and I had
+fathers--brave fathers; and mothers who stirred up those fathers to
+manly deeds. Well, gentlemen, once it came to pass that the British
+Parliament enacted a 'law'--_they_ called it law--issuing stamps here.
+What did your fathers do on that occasion? They said, in the language
+of Algernon Sydney, quoted in your resolutions, 'that which is not
+just is not law, and that which is not law ought not to be
+obeyed.'--[Cheers.] They did not obey the stamp act. They did not call
+it law, and the man that did call it a law, here, eighty years ago,
+would have had a very warm coat of tar and feathers on him. They
+called it an 'act,' and they took the Commissioner who was here to
+execute it, took him solemnly, manfully,--_they didn't hurt a hair of
+his head_; they were non-resistants, of a very potent sort,
+[Cheers,]--and made him take a solemn oath that he would not issue a
+single stamp. He was brother-in-law of the Governor of the State, the
+servant of a royal master, 'exceedingly respectable,' of great
+wealth, and once very popular; but they took him, and made him swear
+not to execute his commission; and he kept his oath, and the stamp act
+went to its own place, and you know what that was. [Cheers.] That was
+an instance of the people going behind a wicked law to enact Absolute
+Justice into their statute, and making it Common Law. You know what
+they did with the tea.
+
+"Well, gentlemen, in the South there is a public opinion, it is a very
+wicked public opinion, which is stronger than law. When a colored
+seaman goes to Charleston from Boston, he is clapped instantly into
+jail, and kept there until the vessel is ready to sail, and the Boston
+merchant or master must pay the bill, and the Boston black man must
+feel the smart. That is a wicked example, set by the State of South
+Carolina. When Mr. Hoar, one of our most honored and respected
+fellow-citizens, was sent to Charleston to test the legality of this
+iniquitous law, the citizens of Charleston ordered him off the
+premises, and he was glad to escape to save himself from further
+outrage. There was no violence, no guns fired. That was an instance of
+the strength of public opinion--of a most unjust and iniquitous public
+opinion."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well, gentlemen, I say there is one law--slave law; it is everywhere.
+There is another law, which also is a finality; and that law, it is in
+your hands and your arms, and you can put it in execution, just when
+you see fit.
+
+"Gentlemen, I am a clergyman and a man of peace; I love peace. But
+there is a means, and there is an end; Liberty is the end, and
+sometimes peace is not the means towards it. [Applause.] Now, I want
+to ask you what you are going to do. [A voice--'shoot, shoot.'] There
+are ways of managing this matter without shooting anybody. Be sure
+that these men who have kidnapped a man in Boston, are cowards, every
+mother's son of them; and if we stand up there resolutely, and declare
+that this man shall not go out of the city of Boston, _without
+shooting a gun_--[cries of 'that's it,' and great applause,]--then he
+won't go back. Now, I am going to propose that when you adjourn, it be
+to meet at _Court Square, to-morrow morning at nine o'clock_. As many
+as are in favor of that motion will raise their hands. [A large number
+of hands were raised, but many voices cried out, 'Let's go to-night,'
+'let's pay a visit to the slave-catchers at the Revere House,' etc.
+'Put that question.'] Do you propose to go to the Revere House
+to-night, then show your hands. [Some hands were held up.] It is not a
+vote. We shall meet at _Court Square, at nine o'clock to-morrow
+morning_."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the following Sunday, May 28, in place of the usual Scripture
+passages, I extemporized the following "Lesson for the Day," which on
+Monday appeared in the newspapers:--
+
+"Since last we came together, there has been a man stolen in the city
+of our fathers. It is not the first; it may not be the last. He is now
+in the great slave-pen in the city of Boston. He is there against the
+law of the Commonwealth, which, if I am rightly informed, in such
+cases prohibits the use of State edifices as United States jails."
+
+"A man has been killed by violence. Some say he was killed by his own
+coadjutors: I can easily believe it; there is evidence enough that
+they were greatly frightened. They were not United States soldiers,
+but volunteers from the streets of Boston, who, for their pay, went
+into the Court House to assist in kidnapping a brother man. They were
+so cowardly that they could not use the simple cutlasses they had in
+their hands, but smote right and left, like ignorant and frightened
+ruffians as they are. They may have slain their brother or not--I
+cannot tell."
+
+"Why is Boston in this confusion to-day? The fugitive slave bill
+Commissioner has just now been sowing the wind, that we may reap the
+whirlwind. The old fugitive slave bill Commissioner stands back; he
+has gone to look after his 'personal popularity.' But when
+Commissioner Curtis does not dare appear in this matter, another man
+comes forward, and for the first time seeks to kidnap his man also in
+the city of Boston."
+
+"But he has sown the wind, and we are reaping the whirlwind. All this
+confusion is his work. He knew he was stealing a Man born with the
+same unalienable right to 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of
+happiness,' as himself. He knew the slaveholders had no more right to
+Anthony Burns than to his own daughter. He knew the consequences of
+stealing a man. He knew that there are men in Boston who have not yet
+conquered their prejudices--men who respect the Higher Law of God. He
+knew there would be a meeting at Faneuil Hall, gatherings in the
+streets. He knew there would be violence."
+
+"Edward Greeley Loring, Judge of Probate for the County of Suffolk, in
+the State of Massachusetts, fugitive slave bill Commissioner of the
+United States, before these citizens of Boston, on Ascension Sunday,
+assembled to worship God, I charge you with the death of that man who
+was killed on last Friday night. He was your fellow-servant in
+kidnapping. He dies at your hand. You fired the shot which makes his
+wife a widow, his child an orphan. I charge you with the peril of
+twelve men, arrested for murder, and on trial for their lives. I
+charge you with filling the Court House with one hundred and
+eighty-four hired ruffians of the United States, and alarming not only
+this city for her liberties that are in peril, but stirring up the
+whole Commonwealth of Massachusetts with indignation, which no man
+knows how to stop--which no man can stop. You have done it all!"[221]
+
+[Footnote 221: 2 Parker's Additional, 74, 75, 81, 83.]
+
+June 4th, I preached "of the New Crime against Humanity," and said:--
+
+"Wednesday, the 24th of May, the city was all calm and still. The poor
+black man was at work with one of his own nation, earning an honest
+livelihood. A Judge of Probate, Boston born and Boston bred, a man in
+easy circumstances, a Professor in Harvard College, was sitting in his
+office, and with a single spurt of his pen he dashes off the liberty
+of a man--a citizen of Massachusetts. He kidnaps a man endowed by his
+Creator with the unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit
+of happiness. He leaves the writ with the Marshal, and goes home to
+his family, caresses his children, and enjoys his cigar. The frivolous
+smoke curls round his frivolous head, and at length he lays him down
+to sleep, and, I suppose, such dreams as haunt such heads. But when he
+wakes next morn, all the winds of indignation, wrath, and honest
+scorn, are let loose. Before night, they are blowing all over this
+commonwealth--ay, before another night they have gone to the
+Mississippi, and wherever the lightning messenger can tell the tale.
+So have I read in an old mediæval legend that one summer afternoon,
+there came up a 'shape, all hot from Tartarus,' from hell below, but
+garmented and garbed to represent a civil-suited man, masked with
+humanity. He walked quiet and decorous through Milan's stately
+streets, and scattered from his hand an invisible dust. It touched the
+walls; it lay on the streets; it ascended to the cross on the
+minster's utmost top. It went down to the beggar's den. Peacefully he
+walked through the streets, vanished and went home. But the next
+morning, the pestilence was in Milan, and ere a week had sped half her
+population were in their graves; and half the other half, crying that
+hell was clutching at their hearts, fled from the reeking City of the
+Plague!"
+
+"I have studied the records of crime--it is a part of my ministry. I
+do not find that any College Professor has ever been hanged for murder
+in all the Anglo-Saxon family of men, till Harvard College had that
+solitary shame. Is not that enough? Now she is the first to have a
+Professor that kidnaps men. 'The Athens of America' furnished both!
+
+"I can understand how a man commits a crime of passion, or
+covetousness, or rage, nay, of revenge, or of ambition. But for a man
+in Boston, with no passion, no covetousness, no rage, with no ambition
+nor revenge, to steal a poor negro, to send him into bondage,--I
+cannot comprehend the fact. I can understand the consciousness of a
+lion, not a kidnapper's heart."
+
+"But there is another court. The Empsons and the Dudleys have been
+summoned there before: Jeffreys and Scroggs, the Kanes, and the
+Curtises, and the Lorings, must one day travel the same unwelcome
+road. Imagine the scene after man's mythological way. 'Edward, where
+is thy brother, Anthony?' 'I know not; am I my brother's keeper,
+Lord?' 'Edward, where is thy brother, Anthony?' 'Oh, Lord, he was
+friendless, and so I smote him; he was poor, and I starved him of more
+than life. He owned nothing but his African body. I took that away
+from him, and gave it to another man!'
+
+"Then listen to the voice of the Crucified--'Did I not tell thee, when
+on earth, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy understanding
+and thy heart?"' 'But I thought thy kingdom was not of this world.'
+
+"'Did I not tell thee that thou shouldst love thy neighbor as thyself?
+Where is Anthony, thy brother? I was a stranger, and you sought my
+life; naked, and you rent away my skin; in prison, and you delivered
+me to the tormentors--fate far worse than death. Inasmuch as you did
+it to Anthony Burns, you did it unto me.'"[222]
+
+[Footnote 222: Parker's Additional, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gentlemen, I suppose the honorable Judge had the last three addresses
+in his mind while concocting his charge to the Grand-Jury which
+refused to find a bill. I infer this partly from what took place in
+the room of the next Grand-Jury which found this indictment, and
+partly also from another source which you will look at for a moment.
+
+I preach on Sundays in the Music Hall, which is owned by a Corporation
+who rent it to the 28th Congregational Society for their religious
+meetings. Mr. Charles P. Curtis, father-in-law of the Hon. Judge
+Curtis, and step-brother of Commissioner Loring, and a more distant
+relation but intimate friend of George T. Curtis, was then president
+of that Corporation, and one of its directors. At a meeting of the
+corporation, held presently after the kidnapping of Mr. Burns, Mr.
+Charles P. Curtis and his family endeavored to procure a vote of the
+Corporation to instruct the directors "to terminate the lease of the
+28th Congregational Society as soon as it can be legally done, and not
+to renew it." Mr. Charles P. Curtis managed this matter clandestinely,
+but not with his usual adroitness, for at the meeting he disclosed the
+cause of his act,--that _Mr. Parker had called his brother a
+murderer_, probably referring to the passage just read from the
+"Lesson for the Day." But he took nothing by that motion.[223]
+
+[Footnote 223: See the communications of Messrs. Chas. P. Curtis and
+Thomas B. Curtis, in the Boston Daily Advertiser of June, 1854; and
+the other articles setting forth the facts of the case.]
+
+What influence this private and familistic disposition had in framing
+the Judge's charge, I leave it for you and the People of America to
+determine. You also can conjecture whether it had any effect on Mr.
+Greenough, the other son-in-law of Mr. Charles P. Curtis, who refused
+to return my salutation, and who, "by a miracle," was put on the new
+Grand-Jury after the old one was discharged, and then was so "very
+anxious to procure an indictment" against me. I leave all that with
+you. You can easily appreciate the efforts made to silence not only my
+Sunday preaching, but also the magnificent eloquence of Wendell
+Phillips; yes, to choke all generous speech, in order that kidnappers
+might pursue their vocation with none to molest or make them afraid.
+
+But, Gentlemen, I fear you do not yet quite understand the arrogance
+of our Southern masters, and the fear and hatred they bear towards all
+who dare speak a word in behalf of the Rights of outraged Humanity.
+The gag-law of Congress which silenced the House of Representatives
+till John Quincy Adams, that noble son of a noble sire, burst through
+the Southern chain; the violation of the United States mails to detect
+"incendiary publications;" the torturing of men and women for an
+opinion against Slavery--all these are notorious; but they and all
+that I have yet stated of the action of the Federal Courts in the
+fugitive slave bill cases, with the "opinions" of Northern Judges
+already mentioned, do not fill up the cup of bitterness and poison
+which is to be poured down our throats. Let me, therefore, here give
+you one supplementary piece of evidence to prove how intensely the
+South hates the Northern Freedom of Speech. I purposely select this
+case from a period when Southern arrogance and Northern servility were
+far less infamous than now.
+
+About twenty years ago Mr. R.G. Williams of New York published this
+sentence in a newspaper called the Emancipator,--"God commands and all
+nature cries out, that man should not be held as property. The system
+of making men property has plunged 2,250,000 of our fellow countrymen
+into the deepest physical and moral degradation, and they are every
+moment sinking deeper."
+
+For this he was indicted by a Grand-Jury of the State of Alabama, and
+the Governor of that State made a demand on the Executive of New York
+insisting that Mr. Williams should be delivered up to take his trial
+in Alabama--a State where he had never been! But the New York
+Governor, after consulting with his law-advisers, did not come to the
+conclusion that it was consistent with the public policy of New York
+to "interfere actively" and promote Slavery in Alabama. _So he refused
+to deliver up Mr. Williams!_[224]
+
+[Footnote 224: Med Case, p. 25.]
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, before you can convict me of the crime charged,
+you must ask three several sets of questions, and be satisfied of all
+these things which I will now set forth.
+
+I. THE QUESTION OF FACT. Did I do the deed charged, and obstruct
+Marshal Freeman while in the peace of the United States, and
+discharging his official duty? This is a quite complicated question.
+Here are the several parts of it:--
+
+1. Was there any illegal obstruction or opposition at all made to the
+Marshal? This is not clear. True, an attack was made on the doors and
+windows of the Court House, but that is not necessarily an attack on
+the Marshal or his premises. He has a right in certain rooms of the
+Court House, and this he has in virtue of a lease. He has also a right
+to use the passage-ways of the house, in common with other persons and
+the People in general. His rights as Tenant are subject to the terms
+of his lease and to the law which determines the relation of Tenant
+and Landlord. Marshal Freeman as tenant has no more rights than
+Freeman Marshal, or John Doe, or Rachel Roe would have under the same
+circumstances. Of course he had a legal right to defend himself if
+attacked, and to close his own doors, bar and fortify the premises he
+rented against the illegal violence of others. But neither his lease
+nor the laws of the land authorized him to close the other doors, or
+to obstruct the passages, no more than to obstruct the Square or the
+Street. No lease, no law gave him that right.
+
+Now there have been three secret examinations of witnesses relative to
+this assault, before three Grand-Juries. No evidence has been offered
+which shows _that any attack was made on the premises of the Marshal_.
+The Supreme Court of Massachusetts was in session at the moment the
+attack was made on the Court House; the venerable Chief Justice was on
+the Bench; the jury had retired to consider the capital case then
+pending, and were expected to return with their verdict. The People
+had a right in the court-room, a right in the passage-ways and doors
+which lead thither. That court had not ordered the room to be cleared
+or the doors to be shut. Marshal Freeman closed the outer doors of the
+Court House, and thus debarred men of their right to enter a
+Massachusetts Court of Justice solemnly deciding a capital case. You
+are to consider whether an attack on the outer doors of the Court
+House, is an illegal attack on the Marshal who had shut those doors
+without any legal authority. If you decide this point as the
+government wishes, then you will proceed to the next question.
+
+2. Did I actually obstruct him? If not, then the inquiry stops here.
+You answer "not guilty." But if I did, then it is worth while to
+consider how I obstructed him. (1.) Was it by a physical act, by
+material force; or, (2.) by a metaphysical act, immaterial or
+spiritual force--a word, thought, a feeling, a wish, approbation,
+assent, consent, "evincing an express liking."
+
+3. Was Marshal Freeman, at the time of the obstruction, in the peace
+of the United States, or was he himself violating the law thereof? For
+if he were violating the law and thereby injuring some other man, and
+I obstructed him in that injury, then I am free from all legal guilt,
+and did a citizen's duty in obstructing his illegal conduct. Now it
+appears that he was kidnapping and stealing Anthony Burns for the
+purpose of making him the slave of one Suttle of Virginia, who wished
+to sell him and acquire money thereby; and that Mr. Freeman did this
+at the instigation of Commissioner Loring who was entitled to receive
+ten dollars if he enslaved Mr. Burns, and five only for setting him
+free. It appears also that Marshal Freeman was to receive large,
+official money for this kidnapping, and such honor as this
+Administration, and the Hunker newspapers, and lower law divines can
+bestow.
+
+Now you are to consider whether a man so doing was in the peace of the
+United States. He professes to have acted under the fugitive slave
+bill which authorizes him to seize, kidnap, steal, imprison, and carry
+off any person whatsoever, on the oath of any slaveholder who has
+fortified himself with a piece of paper of a certain form and tenor
+from any court of slaveholders in the slave States. Is that bill
+Constitutional? The Constitution of the United States is the People's
+Power of Attorney by which they authorize certain servants, called
+Legislative, Judicial, and Executive officers, to do certain matters
+and things in a certain way, but prohibit them from doing in the name
+of the People, any thing except those things specified, or those in
+any but the way pointed out. Does the fugitive slave bill attempt
+those things and only those, in the way provided for in that Power of
+Attorney; or other things, or in a different way?
+
+To determine this compound question you will look (1.) at the ultimate
+Purpose of the Constitution, the End which the People wanted to
+attain; and (2.) at the provisional Means, the method by which they
+proposed to reach it. Here of course the Purpose is more important
+than the Means. The Preamble to this Power of Attorney clearly sets
+forth this Purpose aimed at: here it is, "to form a more perfect
+Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for
+the Common Defence, promote the General Welfare, and secure the
+Blessings of Liberty." Is the fugitive slave bill a Measure tending to
+that End?
+
+To answer that question you are to consult your own mind and
+conscience. You are not to take the opinion of the Court. For (1.) it
+would probably be their purchased _official_ opinion which the
+government pays for, and so is of no value whatever; or (2.) if it be
+their _personal_ opinion, from what Mr. Sprague and Mr. Curtis have
+said and done before, you know that their personal opinion in the
+matter would be of no value whatsoever. To me it is very plain that
+kidnapping a man in Boston and making him a slave, is not the way to
+form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic
+Tranquillity, provide for the Common Defence, promote the General
+Welfare, or secure the Blessings of Liberty. But you are to judge for
+yourselves. If you think the fugitive slave bill not a Means towards
+that End, which this national Power of Attorney proposes, then you
+will think it is unconstitutional, that Mr. Freeman was not in the
+peace of the United States, but acting against it; and then it was the
+Right of every citizen to obstruct his illegal wickedness and might be
+the Duty of some.
+
+But not only does the fugitive slave bill contravene and oppose the
+Purpose of the Constitution, it also transcends the Means which that
+Power of Attorney declares the People's agents shall make use of, and
+whereto it absolutely restricts them. The Constitution prescribes that
+"the Judicial power shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such
+inferior courts the Congress may ordain and establish." "The Judges
+... shall hold their offices during good behavior, and shall ...
+receive a compensation which shall not be diminished during their
+continuance in office." Now the Commissioner who kidnaps a man and
+declares him a slave, exercises _judicial power_. Commissioner Loring
+himself confesses it, in his Remonstrance against being removed from
+the office of Judge of Probate. You are to consider whether a
+Commissioner appointed by the Judge of the Court as a ministerial
+officer to take "bail and affidavits," and paid twice as much for
+stealing a victim as for setting free a man, is either such a
+"supreme" or such an "inferior court" as the Constitution vests the
+"judicial powers" in. If not, then the fugitive slave bill is
+unconstitutional because it does not use the Means which the People's
+Power of Attorney points out. Of course the inquiry stops at this
+point, and you return "not guilty."
+
+4. It is claimed that the fugitive slave bill is sustained by this
+clause in the Constitution, "No person held to service or labor in one
+State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in
+consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such
+service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to
+whom such service or labor may be due."[225] But if you try the
+fugitive slave bill by this rule, you must settle two questions. (1.)
+Who is meant by persons "held to service or labor?" and (2.) by whom
+shall they "be delivered up on claim?" Let us begin with the first.
+
+[Footnote 225: Art. iv. § 2, ¶ 2.]
+
+(1.) Who are the persons "held to service or labor?" The preamble to
+this People's Power of Attorney, sets forth the matters and things
+which the People's agents are empowered to achieve. "They are to form
+a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity,
+provide for the common Defence, promote the General Welfare and secure
+the Blessings of Liberty." Now the fugitive-from-labor clause must be
+interpreted in part by the light of the Purpose of the Constitution.
+So it would appear that this Power of Attorney, requires the delivery
+of only such as are _justly_ "held to service or labor;" and only to
+those men to whom this "service" is _justly_ "due." Surely, it would
+be a monstrous act to deliver up to his master a person _unjustly_
+"held to service or labor," or one justly held to those to whom his
+service was not _justly_ due: it would be as bad to deliver up the
+_wrong fugitive_, as to deliver the right fugitive to the _wrong
+claimant_: it would be also monstrous to suppose that the People of
+the United States, with the Declaration of Independence in their
+memory, should empower their attorneys to deliver up a man _unjustly_
+held to service or labor, and that too by the very instrument which
+directs them to "establish Justice" and "secure the Blessings of
+Liberty." Whatsoever interpretation was at the time put on the
+Constitution, whatsoever the People thereby intended, two things are
+plain--namely, (1.) that the language implies only such as are
+_justly_ held to service, or labor, and (2.) that the People had no
+moral right to deliver up any except such as were _justly_ held, and
+had _unjustly_ escaped.
+
+If the opposite interpretation be accepted, and that clause be taken
+without restrictions, then see what will follow. South Carolina has
+already made a law by which she imprisons all _colored_ citizens of
+the free States who are found on her soil. Let us suppose she makes a
+new law for reducing to perpetual slavery all the white citizens of
+Massachusetts whom she finds on her soil; that a Boston vessel with
+500 Boston men and women--sailing for California,--is wrecked on her
+inhospitable coast, and those persons are all seized and reduced to
+slavery; but some ten or twenty of the most resolute escape from the
+"service or labor" to which they are held, and return to their
+business in Boston. But their "owners" come in pursuit; the kidnapping
+Commissioners, Curtis and Loring, with the help of the rest of the
+family of men-stealers, arrest them under the fugitive slave bill. On
+the mock trial, it is shown by the kidnapper that they were legally
+"held to service or labor," and according to the constitution "shall
+be delivered up;" that this enslavement is perfectly "legal" in South
+Carolina; and the constitution says that no "law or regulation" of
+Massachusetts shall set them free. They must go with Sims and Burns.
+Gentlemen, you see where you are going, if you allow the Constitution
+of parchment to override the Constitution of Justice.
+
+(2.) By whom shall they "be delivered up?" Either by the Federal
+Government, or else by the Government of the State into which they
+have escaped. Now the Federal Government has no constitutional power,
+except what the Constitution gives it. Gentlemen, there is not a line
+in that Power of Attorney by which the People authorize the Federal
+Government to make a man a slave in Massachusetts or anywhere else. I
+know the Government has done it, as the British Government levied
+ship-money, and put men to the rack, but it is against the
+Constitution of the land.
+
+Gentlemen, you will settle these constitutional questions according to
+your conscience, not mine. But if the fugitive slave bill demands the
+rendition of men from whom service is not _justly_ due--due by the Law
+of God, or if the Government unconstitutionally aims to do what the
+Constitution gave it no right to do--then the Marshal was not "in the
+peace of the United States." Your inquiry stops at this point.
+
+5. But, if satisfied on all which relates to this question of his
+being in the peace of the United States, you are next to inquire if
+Mr. Freeman, at the time of the obstruction was "Marshal of the United
+States," and "in the due and lawful discharge of his duties as such
+officer." There is no doubt that he was Marshal; but there may be a
+doubt that he was in the "lawful discharge of his duties as such
+officer." Omitting what I first said, (I. 1.) see what you must
+determine in order to make this clear.
+
+(1.) Was Commissioner Loring, who issued the warrant to kidnap Mr.
+Burns, legally qualified to do that act. Gentlemen, there is no record
+of his appointment and qualification by the form of an oath. No
+evidence has been adduced to this point. Mr. Loring says he was duly
+appointed and qualified. There is no written line, no other word of
+mouth to prove it.
+
+(2.) Admitting that Mr. Loring had the legal authority to command Mr.
+Freeman to steal Mr. Burns, it appears that stealing was done
+feloniously. The Marshal's guard seized him on the charge of
+Burglary--a false charge. You are to consider whether Mr. Freeman had
+legally taken possession of his victim.
+
+(3.) If satisfied thus far, you are to inquire if he held him legally.
+It seems he was imprisoned in a public building of Massachusetts,
+which was by him used as a jail for the purpose of keeping a man
+claimed as a fugitive slave, contrary to the express words of a
+regular and constitutional statute of Massachusetts.
+
+If you find that Mr. Freeman was not in the lawful discharge of his
+duties as Marshal, then the inquiry stops here, and you return a
+verdict of "not guilty."
+
+But if you are convinced that an obstruction was made against a
+Marshal in the peace of the United States, and in the legal discharge
+of a legal, constitutional duty, then you settle the question of Fact
+against me, and proceed to the next point.
+
+II. _The Question of Law._
+
+1. Is there a law of the United States punishing this deed of mine?
+The answer will depend partly on the kind of opposition or obstruction
+which I made. If you find (1.) that I obstructed him, while in the
+legal discharge of his legal duties, with physical force, violence,
+then there is a law, clear and unmistakable, forbidding and punishing
+that offence. But if you find (2.) that I obstructed him with only
+metaphysical force,--"words," "thoughts," "feelings," "wishes,"
+"consent," "assent," "evincing an express liking," "or approbation,"
+then it may be doubtful to you whether the law of 1790, or any other
+law of the United States forbids that.
+
+2. But if you find there is such a law, punishing such metaphysical
+resistance--and the court by the charge to the Grand-Jury seems
+plainly of that opinion, which is fortified by the authority of Chief
+Justice Kelyng and Judge Chase, two impeached judges--then you will
+consider whether that law is constitutional. And here you will look at
+two things, (1.) The Purpose of the Constitution already set forth;
+and (2.) at the Means provided for by that Power of Attorney. For if
+the agents of the People--legislative, judiciary, or executive--have
+exceeded their delegated authority, then their act is invalid and
+binding on no man. If I, in writing, authorize my special agent to
+sell my Ink-stand for a dollar, I am bound by his act in obedience
+thereto. But if on that warrant he sells my Writing-Desk for that sum,
+I am not bound by his unauthorized act. Now I think there will be
+grave doubts, whether any law, which with fine and imprisonment
+punishes such words, thoughts, feelings, consent, assent, "express
+liking," approbation, is warranted by the People's Power of Attorney
+to their agents. The opinion of the Court on such a matter, Gentlemen,
+I think is worth as much as Bacon's opinion in favor of the rack; or
+Jones's opinion that Charles I. had the right to imprison members of
+Parliament for words spoken in the Commons' Debate; or the opinion of
+the ten judges that Ship-money was lawful; or of the two chief
+justices that the Seven Bishops' Petition to James II. was high
+treason; or Thurlow's opinion that a jury is the natural enemy of the
+King. Gentlemen, I think it is worth nothing at all. But if you think
+otherwise, you have still to ask:--
+
+3. Is this law just? That is does it coincide with the Law of God, the
+Constitution of the Universe? There your own conscience must decide.
+Mr. Curtis has told you there is no Morality but Legality, no standard
+of Right and Wrong but the Statute, your only light comes from this
+printed page, "Statutes of the United States," and through these
+sheepskin covers. Gentlemen, if your conscience is also bound in
+sheepskin you will think as these Honorable Judges, and recognize only
+Judge Curtis's "Standard of Morality,"--no Higher Law. But even if you
+thus dispose of the Question of Law, there will yet remain the last
+part of your function.
+
+III. _The Question of the Application of the Law to the Fact._ To
+determine this Question you are to ask:--
+
+1. Does the law itself, the act of 1790, apply to such acts, that is,
+to such words, thoughts, wishes, feelings, consent, assent,
+approbation, express liking, and punish them with fine and
+imprisonment? If not, the consideration ends: but if it does, you will
+next ask:--
+
+2. Is it according to the Constitution of the United States--its
+Purpose, its Means--thus to punish such acts? If not satisfied
+thereof, you stop there; but if you accept Judge Curtis's opinion then
+you will next inquire:--
+
+3. Is it expedient in this particular case to apply this law, under
+the circumstances, to this man, and punish him with fine and
+imprisonment? If you say "yes" you will then proceed to the last part
+of the whole investigation, and will ask:--
+
+4. Is it just and right; that is according to the Natural Law of God,
+the Constitution of the Universe? Here you will consider several
+things.
+
+(1.) What was the Marshal legally, constitutionally, and justly doing
+at the time he was obstructed? He was stealing, kidnapping, and
+detaining an innocent man, Anthony Burns, with the intention of
+depriving him of what the Declaration of Independence calls his
+natural and unalienable Right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
+Mr. Burns had done no wrong or injury to any one--but simply came to
+Massachusetts, to possess and enjoy these natural rights. Marshal
+Freeman had seized him on the false charge of burglary, had chained
+him in a dungeon contrary to Massachusetts law,--there were irons on
+his hands.
+
+It is said he was a slave: now a slave is a person whom some one has
+stolen from himself, and by force keeps from his natural rights. Mr.
+Burns sought to rescue himself from the thieves who held him; Marshal
+Freeman took the thieves' part.
+
+(2.) Was there any effectual mode of securing to Mr. Burns his natural
+and unalienable Right except the mode of forcible rescue? Gentlemen of
+the Jury, it is very clear there was none at all. The laws of
+Massachusetts were of no avail. Your own Supreme Court, which in 1832,
+at the instigation of Mr. Charles P. Curtis, sent a little boy not
+fourteen years old into Cuban Slavery to gratify a slave-hunting West
+Indian, in 1851, had voluntarily put its neck under the Southern
+chain. Your Chief Justice, who acquired such honorable distinction in
+1836 by setting free the little girl Med from the hands of the
+Curtises, in 1851 spit in the face of Massachusetts, and spurned her
+laws with his judicial foot. It was plain that Commissioner Loring did
+not design to allow his victim a fair trial--for he had already
+prejudged the case; he advised Mr. Phillips "to make no defence, put
+no 'obstruction' in the way of the man's going back, as he probably
+will," and, before hearing the defence sought to settle the matter by
+a sale of Mr. Burns.
+
+Gentlemen, the result showed there was no chance of what the United
+States law reckons justice being done in the case--for Commissioner
+Loring not only decided the fate of Mr. Burns against law, and against
+evidence, but communicated his decision to the slave-hunters nearly
+twenty-four hours before he announced it in open court! No, Gentlemen,
+when a man claimed as a fugitive is brought before either of these two
+members of this family of kidnappers--who run now in couples, hunting
+men and seeking whom they may devour--there is no hope for him: it is
+only a mock-trial, worse than the Star-chamber inquisition of the
+Stuart kings. Place no "obstructions in the way of the man's going
+back," said the mildest of the two, "as he probably will." Over that
+door, historic and actual, as over that other, but fabulous, gate of
+Hell should be written:--
+
+     "Through me they go to the city of sorrow;
+     Through me they go to endless agony;
+     Through me they go among the nations lost:
+     Leave every hope, all ye that enter here!"
+
+The only hope of freedom for Mr. Burns lay in the limbs of the People!
+Anarchy afforded him the only chance of Justice.
+
+(3.) Did they who it is alleged made the attack on the Marshal, or
+they who it is said instigated them to the attack, do it from any
+wicked, unjust, or selfish motive? Nobody pretends it--Gentlemen, we
+had much to lose--ease, honor--for with many persons in Boston it is a
+disgrace to favor the unalienable Rights of man, as at Rome to read
+the Bible, or at Damascus to be a Christian--ease, honor, money,
+liberty--if this Court have its way,--nay, life itself; for one of the
+family which preserves the Union by kidnapping men, counts it a
+capital crime to rescue a victim from their hands, and Mr. Hallett,
+when only a democratic expectant of office, declared "if it only
+resists law and obstructs its officers ... it is treason ... and he
+who risks it must risk hanging for it." No, Gentlemen, I had much to
+lose by my words. I had nothing to gain. Nothing I mean but the
+satisfaction of doing my duty to Myself, my Brother, and my God. And
+tried by Judge Sprague's precept, "Obey both," that is nothing; or by
+Judge Curtis's "Standard of Morality" it is a crime; and according to
+his brother it is "Treason;" and according to, I know not how many
+ministers of commerce, it is "infidelity"--"treasonable, damnable
+doctrine."
+
+No, Gentlemen, no selfish motive could move me to such conduct. The
+voice of Duty was terribly clear: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto
+the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."
+
+Put all these things together, Gentlemen. Remember there is a duty of
+the strong to help the weak: that all men have a common interest in
+the common duty to keep the Eternal Law of Justice; remember we are
+all of us to appear one day before the Court which is of purer eyes
+than to love iniquity. Ask what says Conscience--what says God. Then
+decide as you must decide.
+
+The eyes of the nation are upon you. The Judges of this Honorable
+Court hold their office in Petty Serjeantry on condition of wresting
+the Laws and Constitution to the support of the fugitive slave bill,
+and of preventing, as far as possible, all noble thought which opposes
+the establishment of Despotism, now so rapidly encroaching upon our
+once Free Soil: they hold by this Petty Serjeantry--a menial service
+not mentioned in any book even of "Jocular Tenures."
+
+If you could find me guilty--it is not possible, only conceivable with
+a contradiction,--you would delight the Slave Power--Atchison,
+Cushing, Stringfellow, and their Northern and Southern crew--for to
+them I seem identified with New England Freedom of Speech. "Aha," they
+will neigh and snicker out, "Judge Curtis has got the North under his
+feet! Mr. Webster knew what he was about when putting him in place!"
+
+English is the only tongue in which Freedom can speak her political or
+religious word. Shall that tongue be silenced; tied in Faneuil Hall;
+torn out by a Slave-hunter? The Stamp Act only taxed commercial and
+legal documents; the fugitive slave bill makes our words misdemeanors.
+The Revenue Act did but lay a tax on tea, three-pence only on a pound:
+the Slave-hunters' act taxes our thoughts as a crime. The Boston Port
+Bill but closed our harbor, we could get in at Salem; but the Judge's
+Charge shuts up the mouth of all New England, not a word against
+man-hunting but is a "crime,"--the New Testament is full of
+"misdemeanors." Andros only took away the Charter of Massachusetts;
+Judge Curtis's "law" is a _quo warranto_ against Humanity itself.
+"Perfidious General Gage" took away the arms of Boston; Judge Curtis
+_charges_ upon our Soul; he would wring all religion out of you,--no
+"Standard of Morality" above the fugitive slave bill; you must not,
+even to God in your prayers, evince "an express liking" for the
+deliverance of an innocent man whom his family seek to transform to a
+beast of burthen and then sacrifice to the American Moloch.
+
+Decide according to your own Conscience, Gentlemen, not after mine.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, I must bring this defence to a close. Already
+it is too long for your patience, though far too short for the mighty
+interest at stake, for it is the Freedom of a Nation which you are to
+decide upon. I have shown you the aim and purposes of the Slave
+Power--to make this vast Continent one huge Despotism, a House of
+Bondage for African Americans, a House of Bondage also for Saxon
+Americans. I have pointed out the course of Despotism in Monarchic
+England; you have seen how there the Tyrants directly made wicked
+laws, or when that resource failed, how they reached indirectly after
+their End, and appointed officers to pervert the law, to ruin the
+people. You remember how the King appointed base men as Attorneys and
+Judges, and how wickedly they used their position and their power,
+scorning alike the law of God and the welfare of Man. "The Judges in
+their itinerant Circuits," says an old historian,[226] "the more to
+enslave the people to obedience, being to speak of the king, would
+give him sacred titles as if their advancement to high places must
+necessarily be laid upon the foundation of the People's debasement."
+You have not forgotten Saunders, Kelyng, and Jeffreys and Scroggs;
+Sibthorpe and Mainwaring you will remember for ever,--denouncing
+"eternal damnation" on such as refused the illegal tax of Charles I.
+or evinced an express disapprobation of his tyranny.
+
+[Footnote 226: In 2 Kennett, 753.]
+
+Gentlemen, you recollect how the rights of the jury were broken
+down,--how jurors were threatened with trial for perjury, insulted,
+fined, and imprisoned, because they would be faithful to the Law and
+their Conscience. You remember how the tyrannical king clutched at the
+People's purse and their person too, and smote at all freedom of
+speech, while the purchased Judges were always ready, the tools of
+Despotism. But you know what it all came to--Justice could not enter
+upon the law through the doors of Westminster Hall; so she tried it at
+Naseby and Worcester and with her "Invincible Ironsides" took
+possession by means of pike and gun. Charles I. laid his guilty head
+on the block; James II. only escaped the same fate by timely flight.
+If Courts will not decree Justice, then Civil War will, for it must be
+done, and a battle becomes a "Crowning Mercy."
+
+Gentlemen, I have shown you what the Slave Power of America aims
+at,--a Despotism which is worse for this age than the Stuarts' tyranny
+for that time. You see its successive steps of encroachment. Behold
+what it has done within ten years. It has made Slavery perpetual in
+Florida; has annexed Texas, a Slave State as big as the kingdom of
+France; has fought the Mexican War, with Northern money, and spread
+bondage over Utah, New Mexico, and California; it has given Texas ten
+millions of Northern dollars to help Slavery withal; it has passed the
+fugitive slave bill and kidnapped men in the West, in the Middle
+States, and even in our own New England; it has given ten millions of
+dollars for a little strip of worthless land, the Mesilla valley,
+whereon to make a Slave Railroad and carry bondage from the Atlantic
+to the Pacific; it has repealed the Prohibition of Slavery, and spread
+the mildew of the South all over Kansas and Nebraska. Ask your
+capitalists, who have bought Missouri lands and railroads, how their
+stock looks just now; not only your Liberty but even their Money is in
+peril. You know the boast of Mr. Toombs. Gentlemen, you know what the
+United States Courts have done--with poisoned weapons they have struck
+deadly blows at Freedom. You know Sharkey and Grier and Kane. You
+recollect the conduct of Kidnappers' Courts at Milwaukie, Sandusky,
+Cincinnati, Philadelphia--in the Hall of Independence. But why need I
+wander so far? Alas! you know too well what has been done in Boston,
+our own Boston, the grave of Puritan piety. You remember the Union
+Meeting, Ellen Craft, Sims, chains around the Court House, the Judges
+crawling under, soldiers in the street, drunk, smiting at the
+citizens; you do not forget Anthony Burns, the Marshal's guard, the
+loaded cannon in place of Justice, soldiers again in the streets
+smiting at and wounding the citizens. You recollect all this--the 19th
+of April, 1851, Boston delivering an innocent man at Savannah to be a
+slave for ever, and that day scourged in his jail while the hirelings
+who enthralled him were feasted at their Inn;--Anniversary week last
+year--a Boston Judge of Probate, the appointed guardian of orphans,
+kidnapping a poor and friendless man! You cannot forget these things,
+no, never!
+
+You know who did all this: a single family--the Honorable Judge
+Curtis, with his kinsfolk and friends, himself most subtly active with
+all his force throughout this work. When Mr. Webster prostituted
+himself to the Slave Power this family went out and pimped for him in
+the streets; they paraded in the newspapers, at the Revere House, and
+in public letters; they beckoned and made signs at Faneuil Hall. That
+crime of Sodom brought Daniel Webster to his grave at Marshfield, a
+mighty warning not to despise the Law of the Infinite God; but that
+sin of Gomorrah, it put the Hon. Benj. R. Curtis on this Bench; gave
+him his judicial power to construct his "law," construct his "jury,"
+to indict and try me. Try me! No, Gentlemen, it is you, your wives and
+your children, who are up for swift condemnation this day. Will you
+wait, will you add sin to sin, till God shall rain fire and brimstone
+on your heads, and a Dead Sea shall cover the place once so green and
+blossoming with American Liberty? Decide your own fate. When the
+Judges are false let the Juries be faithful, and we have "a crowning
+mercy" without cannon, and the cause of Justice is secure. For "when
+wicked men seem nearest to their hopes, the godly man is furthest from
+his fears."
+
+You know my "offence," Gentlemen. I have confessed more than the
+government could prove. You are the "Country:" the Nation by twelve
+Delegates is present here to-day. In the name of America, of mankind,
+you are to judge of the Law, the Fact, and the Application of the Law
+to the Fact. You are to decide whether you will spread Slavery and the
+Consequences of Slavery all over the North; whether Boston, New
+England, all the North, shall kidnap other Ellen Crafts, other Thomas
+Sims, other Anthony Burns,--whether Sharkey and Grier, and Kane and
+Curtis, shall be Tyrants over you--forbidding all Freedom of Speech:
+or whether Right and Justice, the Christian Religion, the natural
+service of the Infinite God shall bless our wide land with the
+numberless Beatitudes of Humanity. Should you command me to be fined
+and go to jail, I should take it very cheerfully, counting it more
+honor to be inside of a jail in the austere silence of my dungeon,
+rather than outside of it, with a faithless Jury, guilty of such
+treason to their Country and their God. But, forgive me! you cannot
+commit such a crime against Humanity. Pardon the monstrous figure of
+my speech,--it is only conceivable, not also possible. These Judges
+could do it--their speeches, their actions, that Charge, this
+Indictment, proves all that--but you cannot;--not you. You are the
+Representatives of the People, the Country, not idiotic in Conscience
+and the Affections.
+
+Gentlemen, I am a minister of Religion. It is my function to teach
+what is absolutely true and absolutely right. I am the servant of no
+sect,--how old soever, venerable and widely spread. I claim the same
+religious Rights with Luther and Calvin, with Budha and Mohammed; yes,
+with Moses and Jesus,--the unalienable Right to serve the God of
+Nature in my own way. I preach the Religion which belongs to Human
+Nature, as I understand it, which the Infinite God imperishably writes
+thereon,--Natural Piety, love of the infinitely perfect God, Natural
+Morality, the keeping of every law He has written on the body and in
+the soul of man, especially by loving and serving his creatures. Many
+wrong things I doubtless do, for which I must ask the forgiveness of
+mankind. But do you suppose I can keep the fugitive slave bill, obey
+these Judges, and kidnap my own Parishioners? It is no part of my
+"Christianity" to "send the mother that bore me into eternal bondage."
+Do you think I can suffer Commissioner Curtis and Commissioner Loring
+to steal my friends,--out of my meeting-house? Gentlemen, when God
+bids me do right and this Court bids me do wrong, I shall not pretend
+to "obey both." I am willing enough to suffer all that you will ever
+lay on me. But I will not do such a wrong, nor allow such wickedness
+to be done--so help me God! How could I teach Truth, Justice, Piety,
+if I stole men; if I allowed Saunders, Jeffreys, Scroggs, or Sharkey,
+Grier, Kane, or in one word, Curtis, to steal them? I love my Country,
+my kindred of Humanity; I love my God, Father and Mother of the white
+man and the black; and am I to suffer the Liberty of America to be
+trod under the hoof of Slaveholders, Slave-drivers; yes, of the
+judicial slaves of slaveholders' slave-drivers? I was neither born nor
+bred for that. I drew my first breath in a little town not far off, a
+poor little town where the farmers and mechanics first unsheathed that
+Revolutionary sword which, after eight years of hewing, clove asunder
+the Gordian knot that bound America to the British yoke. One raw
+morning in spring--it will be eighty years the 19th of this
+month--Hancock and Adams, the Moses and Aaron of that Great
+Deliverance, were both at Lexington; they also had "obstructed an
+officer" with brave words. British soldiers, a thousand strong, came
+to seize them and carry them over sea for trial, and so nip the bud of
+Freedom auspiciously opening in that early spring. The town militia
+came together before daylight "for training." A great, tall man, with
+a large head and a high, wide brow, their Captain,--one who "had seen
+service,"--marshalled them into line, numbering but seventy, and bad
+"every man load his piece with powder and ball." "I will order the
+first man shot that runs away," said he, when some faltered; "Don't
+fire unless fired upon, but if they want to have a war,--let it begin
+here." Gentlemen, you know what followed: those farmers and mechanics
+"fired the shot heard round the world." A little monument covers the
+bones of such as before had pledged their fortune and their sacred
+honor to the Freedom of America, and that day gave it also their
+lives. I was born in that little town, and bred up amid the memories
+of that day. When a boy my mother lifted me up, one Sunday, in her
+religious, patriotic arms, and held me while I read the first
+monumental line I ever saw:--
+
+     "SACRED TO LIBERTY AND THE RIGHTS OF MANKIND."
+
+Since then I have studied the memorial marbles of Greece and Rome in
+many an ancient town; nay, on Egyptian Obelisks have read what was
+written before the Eternal roused up Moses to lead Israel out of
+Egypt, but no chiselled stone has ever stirred me to such emotions as
+those rustic names of men who fell
+
+     "IN THE SACRED CAUSE OF GOD AND THEIR COUNTRY."
+
+Gentlemen, the Spirit of Liberty, the Love of Justice, was early
+fanned into a flame in my boyish heart. That monument covers the bones
+of my own kinsfolk; it was their blood which reddened the long, green
+grass at Lexington. It is my own name which stands chiselled on that
+stone; the tall Captain who marshalled his fellow farmers and
+mechanics into stern array and spoke such brave and dangerous words as
+opened the War of American Independence,--the last to leave the
+field,--was my father's father. I learned to read out of his Bible,
+and with a musket he that day captured from the foe, I learned also
+another religious lesson, that
+
+     "REBELLION TO TYRANTS IS OBEDIENCE TO GOD."
+
+I keep them both, "Sacred to Liberty and the Rights of Mankind," to
+use them both "In the Sacred Cause of God and my Country."
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, and you my fellow-countrymen of the North, I
+leave the matter with you. Say "Guilty!" You cannot do it. "Not
+Guilty." I know you will, for you remember there is another Court, not
+of fugitive slave bill law, where we shall all be tried by the Justice
+of the Infinite God. Hearken to the last verdict, "INASMUCH AS YE HAVE
+DONE IT UNTO ONE OF THE LEAST OF THESE MY BRETHREN, YE HAVE DONE IT
+UNTO ME."
+
+
+END.
+
+
+
+
+ERRATA.
+
+
+Page 19, line 16 from  top,  instead of _rest_, read _government_.
+ "   23   "   10   "    "       "    "  1618, read 1215.
+ "   76   "    2   "    "       "    "  _Aoncilia_, read _Ancilia_.
+ "   78   "    3   "  bottom,   "    "  _not_, read _or_.
+ "   84   "   11   "    "       "    "  _promoting_, read _perverting_.
+ "   89   "   18   "    "        omit   _his_, before _vengeance_.
+
+
+
+
+OTHER WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
+
+
+A DISCOURSE OF MATTERS PERTAINING TO RELIGION. 1 Vol. 12mo.
+    New Edition will appear in December.                         $1.25
+
+AN INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. From the German of De
+    Wette. 2d edition. 2 Vols. 8vo.                               3.75
+
+CRITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 1 Vol. 12mo. New Edition
+    will soon appear.                                             1.25
+
+OCCASIONAL SERMONS AND SPEECHES. 2 Vols. 12mo.                    2.50
+
+TEN SERMONS OF RELIGION. 1 Vol. 12mo.                             1.00
+
+SERMONS OF THEISM, ATHEISM, AND THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 1 Vol.
+    12mo.                                                         1.25
+
+ADDITIONAL SERMONS AND SPEECHES. 2 Vols. 12mo.                    2.50
+
+
+PAMPHLETS.
+
+TWO SERMONS ON LEAVING THE OLD AND ENTERING THE NEW PLACE
+OF WORSHIP. (1852.)                                                 20
+
+DISCOURSE OF DANIEL WEBSTER. (1853.) Cloth.                         50
+
+A SERMON OF OLD AGE. (1854.)                                        15
+
+THE NEW CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY. (1854.)                             20
+
+THE LAWS OF GOD AND THE STATUTES OF MAN. (1854.)                    15
+
+THE DANGERS WHICH THREATEN THE RIGHTS OF MAN IN AMERICA. (1854.)    20
+
+THE MORAL DANGERS INCIDENT TO PROSPERITY. (1855.)                   15
+
+CONSEQUENCES OF AN IMMORAL PRINCIPLE. (1855.)                       15
+
+FUNCTION OF A MINISTER. (1855.)                                     20
+
+TWO SERMONS IN PROCEEDINGS OF PROGRESSIVE FRIENDS. (1855.)          15
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Trial of Theodore Parker, by Theodore Parker
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+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Trial of Theodore Parker, by Theodore Parker.
+    </title>
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's The Trial of Theodore Parker, by Theodore Parker
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Trial of Theodore Parker
+       For the "Misdemeanor" of a Speech in Faneuil Hall against
+              Kidnapping, before the Circuit Court of the United States,
+              at Boston, April 3, 1855, with the Defence
+
+Author: Theodore Parker
+
+Release Date: February 17, 2010 [EBook #31298]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRIAL OF THEODORE PARKER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Meredith Bach, Linda Cantoni, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+<p class="notes"><i>Transcriber's Note:</i> A <a href="#CONTENTS">table of contents</a> has
+been added for the reader's convenience. Errors listed in the <a href="#ERRATA">Errata</a>
+section are linked to that section, and a pop-up correction has been
+provided. Other obvious printer errors have been corrected without note.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="border" style="text-align: center">
+<img src="images/title.jpg" width="338" height="584" alt="title page" title="title page" />
+</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+<div class="bbox">
+<h1><span class="gesperrt"><span class="sm">THE TRIAL</span></span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="xsm">OF</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="gesperrt">THEODORE PARKER</span>,</h1>
+
+<h2><span class="sm">FOR THE</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="gesperrt">&#8220;MISDEMEANOR&#8221;</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="sm">OF</span><br />
+<br />
+<i>A Speech in Faneuil Hall against Kidnapping,</i><br />
+<br />
+<span class="sm">BEFORE THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES,</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="xsm"><span class="gesperrt">AT BOSTON, APRIL 3, 1855</span>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="xsm">WITH</span><br />
+<br />
+THE DEFENCE,</h2>
+
+
+<h3 class="tbp"><span class="sm">BY</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="gesperrt">THEODORE PARKER</span>,<br />
+<span class="sm">MINISTER OF THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGREGATIONAL SOCIETY IN BOSTON.</span></h3>
+
+
+<p class="centertp">
+<span class="gesperrt">BOSTON</span>:<br />
+<span class="gesperrt">PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR</span>.<br />
+1855.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="center">
+<span class="sm">Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by<br />
+<span class="gesperrt">THEODORE PARKER</span>,<br />
+In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="centertp">
+<span class="sm"><span class="gesperrt">CAMBRIDGE</span>:</span><br />
+<span class="xsm">ALLEN AND FARNHAM, PRINTERS.</span>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<p class="center">
+<a href="#PREFACE">PREFACE</a><br />
+<a href="#INTRODUCTION">INTRODUCTION</a><br />
+<a href="#DEFENCE">DEFENCE</a><br />
+<a href="#ERRATA">ERRATA</a><br />
+<a href="#OTHER_WORKS_BY_THE_SAME_AUTHOR">OTHER WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR</a>
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3><span class="sm">TO</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="gesperrt">JOHN PARKER HALE</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="sm">AND</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="gesperrt">CHARLES MAYO ELLIS</span>,</h3>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="gesperrt">MAGNANIMOUS LAWYERS</span>,</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="gesperrt">FOR THEIR LABORS IN A NOBLE PROFESSION</span>,</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+WHICH HAVING ONCE IN ENGLAND ITS KELYNG, ITS SAUNDERS, ITS JEFFREYS, AND ITS<br />
+SCROGGS, AS NOW IN AMERICA ITS SHARKEY, ITS GRIER, ITS CURTIS, AND ITS<br />
+KANE, HAS YET ALSO SUCH GENEROUS ADVOCATES OF HUMANITY<br />
+AS EQUAL THE GLORIES OF HOLT AND ERSKINE, OF<br />
+MACKINTOSH AND ROMILLY,
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">FOR THEIR ELOQUENT AND FEARLESS DEFENCE OF TRUTH, RIGHT, AND LOVE,</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="lg"><span class="gesperrt">THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED</span>,</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">BY THEIR CLIENT AND FRIEND,</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="lg">THEODORE PARKER.</span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">v</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a><span class="gesperrt">PREFACE</span>.</h2>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<h3>TO THE PEOPLE OF THE FREE STATES OF AMERICA.</h3>
+
+<p class="tp"><span class="smcap">Fellow-Citizens and Friends</span>,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">If</span> it were a merely personal matter for which I was arraigned before
+the United States Court, after the trial was over I should trouble the
+public no further with that matter; and hitherto indeed, though often
+attacked, nay, almost continually for the last fourteen years, I have
+never returned a word in defence. But now, as this case is one of such
+vast and far-reaching importance, involving the great Human Right to
+Freedom of Speech, and as the actual question before the court was
+never brought to trial, I cannot let the occasion pass by without
+making further use of it.</p>
+
+<p>When Judge Curtis delivered his charge to the Grand-Jury, June 7th,
+1854, I made ready for trial, and in three or four days my line of
+defence was marked out&mdash;the fortifications sketched, the place of the
+batteries determined; I began to collect arms, and was soon ready for
+his attack. When that Grand-Jury, summoned with no special reference
+to me, refused to find a bill and were discharged, I took public
+notice of the conduct of Judge Curtis, in a Sermon for the Fourth of
+July.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> But I knew the friends of the fugitive slave bill at Boston
+and Washington too well to think they would let the matter sleep; I
+knew what arts could be used to pack a jury and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">vi</a></span> procure a bill. So I
+was not at all surprised when I heard of the efforts making by the
+Slave Power in Boston to obtain an indictment by another grand-jury
+summoned for that purpose. It need not be supposed that I was wholly
+ignorant of their doings from day to day. The arrest was no
+astonishment to me. I knew how much the reputation of this Court and
+of its Attorney depended on the success of this prosecution. I knew
+what private malignity was at work.</p>
+
+<p>After my arraignment I made elaborate preparation for my defence. I
+procured able counsel, men needing no commendation, to manage the
+technical details which I knew nothing about and so could not meddle
+with, while I took charge of other matters lying more level to my own
+capacity. I thought it best to take an active part in my own
+defence,&mdash;for the matter at issue belonged to my previous studies and
+general business; my personal friends and the People in general,
+seemed to expect me to defend myself as well as I could.</p>
+
+<p>A great political revolution took place between the Judge's charge and
+my arraignment, June 7th, and November 29th, 1854, and I thought the
+Court would not allow the case to come to open argument. For
+certainly, it would not be a very pleasant thing for Judge Sprague and
+Judge Curtis, who have taken such pains to establish slavery in
+Massachusetts, to sit there&mdash;each like a travestied Prometheus,
+chained up in a silk gown because they had brought to earth fire from
+the quarter opposite to Heaven&mdash;and listen to Mr. Hale, and Mr.
+Phillips and other anti-slavery lawyers, day after day: there were
+facts, sure to come to light, not honorable to the Court and not
+pleasant to look at in the presence of a New England community then
+getting indignant at the outrages of the Slave Power. I never thought
+the case would come to the jury. I looked over the indictment, and to
+my unlearned eye it seemed so looped and windowed with breaches that a
+skilful lawyer might drive a cart and six oxen through it in various
+directions; and so the Court might easily quash the indictment and
+leave all the blame of the failure on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">vii</a></span> the poor Attorney&mdash;whom they
+seemed to despise, though using him for their purposes&mdash;while they
+themselves should escape with a whole reputation, and ears which had
+not tingled under manly speech.</p>
+
+<p>Still, it was possible that the trial would come on. Of course, I knew
+the trial would not proceed on the day I was ordered to appear&mdash;the
+eighty-fifth anniversary of the Boston Massacre. It would be
+"unavoidably postponed," which came to pass accordingly. The Attorney,
+very politely, gave me all needed information from time to time.</p>
+
+<p>At the "trial," April 3d, it was optional with the defendant's counsel
+to beat the Government on the indictment before the Court; or on the
+merits of the case before the Jury. The latter would furnish the most
+piquant events, for some curious scenes were likely to take place in
+the examination of witnesses, as well as instruction to be offered in
+the Speeches delivered. But on the whole, it was thought best to blow
+up the enemy in his own fortress and with his own magazine, rather
+than to cut him to pieces with our shot in the open field. So the
+counsel rent the indictment into many pieces&mdash;apparently to the great
+comfort of the Judges, who thus escaped the battle, which then fell
+only on the head of the Attorney.</p>
+
+<p>At the time appointed I was ready with my defence&mdash;which I now print
+for the Country. It is a Minister's performance, not a lawyer's. Of
+course, I knew that the Court would not have allowed me to proceed
+with such a defence&mdash;and that I should be obliged to deliver it
+through the press. Had there been an actual jury trial, I should have
+had many other things to offer in reference to the Government's
+evidence, to the testimony given before the grand-jury, and to the
+conduct of some of the grand-jurors themselves. So the latter part of
+the defence is only the skeleton of what it otherwise might have
+been,&mdash;the geological material of the country, the Flora and Fauna
+left out.</p>
+
+<p>It would have been better to publish it immediately after the decision
+of the case: but my <i>brief</i> was not for the printer, and as many<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">viii</a></span>
+duties occurred at that time, it was not till now, in a little
+vacation from severer toils, that I have found leisure to write out my
+defence in full. Fellow-Citizens and Friends, I present it to you in
+hopes that it may serve the great cause of Human Freedom in America
+and the world; surely, it has seldom been in more danger.</p>
+
+<p class="right">THEODORE PARKER.</p>
+
+<p><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><span class="smcap">Boston</span>, <i>24th August</i>, 1855.</span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">ix</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION"></a><span class="gesperrt">INTRODUCTION</span>.</h2>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p><span class="smcap">On</span> Tuesday, the 23d of May, 1854, Charles F. Suttle of Virginia,
+presented to Edward Greeley Loring, Esquire, of Boston, Commissioner,
+a complaint under the fugitive slave bill&mdash;Act of September 18th,
+1850&mdash;praying for the seizure and enslavement of Anthony Burns.</p>
+
+<p>The next day, Wednesday, May 24th, Commissioner Loring issued the
+warrant: Mr. Burns was seized in the course of the evening of that
+day, on the false pretext of burglary, and carried to the Suffolk
+County Court House in which he was confined by the Marshal, under the
+above-named warrant, and there kept imprisoned under a strong and
+armed guard.</p>
+
+<p>On the 25th, at about nine o'clock in the morning, the Commissioner
+proceeded to hear and decide the case in the Circuit Court room, in
+which were stationed about sixty men serving as the Marshal's guard.
+Seth J. Thomas, Esquire, and Edward Griffin Parker, Esquire, members
+of the Suffolk Bar, appeared as counsel for Mr. Suttle to help him and
+Commissioner Loring make a man a Slave. Mr. Burns was kept in irons
+and surrounded by "the guard." The Slave-hunter's documents were
+immediately presented, and his witness was sworn and proceeded to
+testify.</p>
+
+<p>Wendell Phillips, Theodore Parker, Charles M. Ellis, and Richard H.
+Dana, with a few others, came into the Court room. Mr. Parker and some
+others, spoke with Mr. Burns, who sat in the dock ironed, between two
+of the Marshal's guard. After a little delay and con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">x</a></span>ference among
+these four and others, Mr. Dana interrupted the proceedings and asked
+that counsel might be assigned to Mr. Burns, and so a defence allowed.
+To this Mr. Thomas, the senior counsel for the Slave-hunters,
+objected. But after repeated protests on the part of Mr. Dana and Mr.
+Ellis, the Commissioner adjourned the hearing until ten o'clock,
+Saturday, May 27th.</p>
+
+<p>On the evening of Friday, May 26th, there was a large and earnest
+meeting of men and women at Faneuil Hall. Mr. George R. Russell, of
+West Roxbury, presided; his name is a fair exponent of the character
+and purposes of the meeting, which Dr. Samuel G. Howe called to order.</p>
+
+<p>Speeches were made and Resolutions passed. Mr. Phillips and Mr.
+Parker, amongst others, addressed the meeting; Mr. Parker's speech, as
+reported and published in the newspapers, is reprinted in this volume,
+<a href="#Page_199">page 199</a>. While this meeting was in session there was a gathering of a
+few persons about the Court House, the outer doors of which had been
+unlawfully closed by order of the Marshal; an attempt was made to
+break through them and enter the building, where the Supreme Court of
+Massachusetts was sitting engaged in a capital case; and the Courts of
+this State must always sit with open doors. In the strife one of the
+Marshal's guard, a man hired to aid in the Slave-hunt, was killed&mdash;but
+whether by one of the assailing party, or by the Marshal's guard, it
+is not yet quite clear. It does not appear from the evidence laid
+before the public or the three Grand-Juries, that there was any
+connection between the meeting at Faneuil Hall and the gathering at
+the Court House.</p>
+
+<p>Saturday, 27th, at ten o'clock, the Commissioner opened his Court
+again, his prisoner in irons before him. The other events are well
+known. Mr. Burns was taken away to Slavery on Friday, June 2d, by an
+armed body of soldiers with a cannon.</p>
+
+<p>The May Term of the Circuit Court at Boston began on the 15th of that
+month, and the Grand-Jury for that term had already been summoned.
+Here is the list:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">xi</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<table style="padding-top: 1em" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="grand jury">
+<tr>
+<td><span class="smcap">United States Circuit Court</span>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><span class="smcap">Massachusetts District.</span></span></td>
+<td class="right"><span class="xlg">}</span></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class="right">May Term, 1854. ss. May 15, 1854.</p>
+
+<p class="centertp">GRAND-JURY.</p>
+
+<table style="padding-bottom: 1em" border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="grand jury">
+<tr><td class="right">1</td><td class="center">Sworn.</td><td>Isaac Tower,</td><td class="center">Randolph,</td><td>Foreman.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">2</td><td class="center">"</td><td>Elbridge G. Manning,</td><td class="center">Andover.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">3</td><td class="center">"</td><td>Asa Angier,</td><td class="center">"</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">4</td><td class="center">"</td><td>Ballard Lovejoy,</td><td class="center">"</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">5</td><td class="center">"</td><td>Levi Eldridge,</td><td class="center">Chatham.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">6</td><td class="center">"</td><td>Isaac B. Young,</td><td class="center">"</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">7</td><td class="center">"</td><td>Josiah Peterson,</td><td class="center">Duxbury.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">8</td><td class="center">"</td><td>James Curtis,</td><td class="center">"</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">9</td><td class="center">Not Sworn.</td><td>William Amory,</td><td class="center">Boston,</td><td>Excused first day. Member of the bar.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">10</td><td class="center">Sworn.</td><td>James P. Bush,</td><td class="center">"</td><td>Absent June 28th.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">11</td><td class="center">"</td><td>John Clark,</td><td class="center">"</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">12</td><td class="center">"</td><td>Charles H. Mills,</td><td class="center">"</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">13</td><td class="center">"</td><td>William N. Tyler,</td><td class="center">"</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">14</td><td class="center">"</td><td>Samuel Weltch,</td><td class="center">"</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">15</td><td class="center">"</td><td>Reuben Nichols,</td><td class="center">Reading.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">16</td><td class="center">"</td><td>Benjamin M. Boyce,</td><td class="center">"</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">17</td><td class="center">"</td><td>Ephraim F. Belcher,</td><td class="center">Randolph.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">18</td><td class="center">"</td><td>Thomas S. Brimblecome,</td><td class="center">Fairhaven.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">19</td><td class="center">"</td><td>Obed F. Hitch,</td><td class="center">"</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">20</td><td class="center">"</td><td>Lowell Claflin,</td><td class="center">Hopkinton.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">21</td><td class="center">"</td><td>William Durant,</td><td class="center">Leominster.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">22</td><td class="center">"</td><td>Charles Grant,</td><td class="center">"</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">23</td><td class="center">"</td><td>Jeremiah B. Luther,</td><td class="center">Douglas.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>On the 7th of June, Judge Curtis gave to this Grand-Jury his
+charge.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> In that he spoke of the enforcement of the fugitive slave
+bill; and he charged the Jury especially and minutely upon the Statute
+of the United States of 1790, in relation to resisting officers in
+service of process as follows.</p>
+
+<p>That not only those who are present and actually obstruct, resist, and
+oppose, and all who are present leagued in the common design, and so
+situated as to be able in case of need, to afford assistance to those
+actually engaged; but all who, though absent, did procure,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">xii</a></span> counsel,
+command, or abet others to commit the offence; and all who, by
+indirect means, by <i>evincing an express liking, approbation, or assent
+to the design, were liable as principals</i>. And he added, "My
+instruction to you is, that language addressed to persons who
+immediately afterwards commit an offence, actually intended by the
+speaker to incite those addressed to commit it, and adapted thus to
+incite them, is such a counselling, or advising to the crime as the
+law contemplates, and the person so inciting others is liable to be
+indicted as a principal," and <i>it is of no importance that his advice
+or directions were departed from in respect to the time, or place, or
+precise mode, or means of committing it</i>.</p>
+
+<p>That Jury remained in session a few weeks: pains were taken to induce
+them to find bills against the speakers at Faneuil Hall; but they
+found no indictment under the law of 1790, or that of 1850; they were
+discharged.</p>
+
+<p>On the 22d of September, <i>venires</i> were issued by order of the Court
+for a new Grand-Jury; and, on the 16th of October, twenty-three were
+returned by Marshal Freeman, and impanelled. Here is the list of new
+Grand-Jurors:&mdash;</p>
+
+<table style="padding-top: 1em" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="grand jury">
+<tr>
+<td><span class="smcap">United States Circuit Court</span>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><span class="smcap">Massachusetts District.</span></span></td>
+<td class="right"><span class="xlg">}</span></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class="right">October Term, 1854. ss. October 16, 1854.</p>
+
+<p class="centertp">GRAND-JURY.</p>
+
+<table style="padding-bottom: 1em" border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="grand jury">
+<tr><td class="right">1</td><td class="center">Sworn.</td><td>Enoch Patterson, Jr.,</td><td class="center">Boston,</td><td>Foreman.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">2</td><td class="center">"</td><td>David Alden,</td><td class="center">"</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">3</td><td class="center">"</td><td>Stephen D. Abbott,</td><td class="center">Andover.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">4</td><td class="center">"</td><td>Isaac Beal,</td><td class="center">Chatham.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">5</td><td class="center">"</td><td>John Burrill,</td><td class="center">Reading.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">6</td><td class="center">"</td><td>Mathew Cox,</td><td class="center">Boston.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">7</td><td class="center">"</td><td>Richard B. Chandler,</td><td class="center">Duxbury.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">8</td><td class="center">"</td><td>Charles L. Cummings,</td><td class="center">Douglas.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">9</td><td class="center">"</td><td>Charles Carter,</td><td class="center">Leominster.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">10</td><td class="center">"</td><td>Warren Davis,</td><td class="center">Reading.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">11</td><td class="center">"</td><td>William W. Greenough,</td><td class="center">Boston.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">12</td><td class="center">"</td><td>George O. Hovey,</td><td class="center">"</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">13</td><td class="center">"</td><td>John M. Howland,</td><td class="center">Fairhaven.</td><td>&nbsp;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">xiii</a></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">14</td><td class="center">Sworn.</td><td>Manson D. Haws,</td><td class="center">Leominster.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">15</td><td class="center">"</td><td>John Holbrook,</td><td class="center">Randolph.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">&nbsp;</td><td class="center">Excused.</td><td>Nathaniel Johnson,</td><td class="center">Hopkinton,</td><td>Excused first day, October 16th, for the term.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">16</td><td class="center">Sworn.</td><td>George Londen,</td><td class="center">Duxbury.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">17</td><td class="center">"</td><td>Nathan Moore,</td><td class="center">Andover.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">18</td><td class="center">"</td><td>Samuel P. Ridler,</td><td class="center">Boston.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">19</td><td class="center">"</td><td>Christopher Ryder,</td><td class="center">Chatham.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">20</td><td class="center">"</td><td>John Smith,</td><td class="center">Andover.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">21</td><td class="center">"</td><td>Appollos Wales,</td><td class="center">Randolph.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">22</td><td class="center">"</td><td>Samuel L. Ward,</td><td class="center">Fairhaven.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>This Grand-Jury was not charged by the Judge upon the statute of 1790,
+or 1850, but was referred to Mr. Hallett, the Attorney, for the
+instructions previously given to the Jury that had been discharged,
+namely, for his charge of June 7th, already referred to. Mr. William
+W. Greenough, brother-in-law of Judge Curtis, was one of the Jury.
+They found the following indictment against Mr. Parker:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="center">UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Circuit Court of the United States of America, for the
+District of Massachusetts.</i></p>
+
+<p>At a Circuit Court of the United States of America, for the
+District of Massachusetts, begun and holden at Boston, the
+aforesaid District, on the sixteenth day of October, in the
+year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four
+(the fifteenth day of said October being Sunday).</p>
+
+<p>The Jurors of the United States within the aforesaid
+District, on their oath, present.</p>
+
+<p>1st. That heretofore to wit,&mdash;on the twenty-fourth day of
+May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and
+fifty-four, a certain warrant and legal process directed to
+the Marshal of the said District of Massachusetts, or either
+of his Deputies, was duly issued under the hand and seal of
+Edward G. Loring, Esquire, who was then and there a
+Commissioner of the Circuit Court of the United States, for
+said District, which said warrant and legal process was duly
+delivered to Watson Freeman, Esquire, who was then and there
+an officer of the United States, to wit, Marshal of the
+United States, for the said District of Massachusetts, at
+Boston, in the District aforesaid, on the said twenty-fourth
+day of May in the year aforesaid, and was of the purport and
+effect following, that is to say:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Massachusetts District, ss.</span></p>
+
+<p>To the Marshal of our District of Massachusetts, or either
+of his Deputies, <i>Greeting</i>:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">xiv</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In the name of the President of the United States of
+America, you are hereby commanded forthwith to apprehend
+Anthony Burns, a negro man, alleged now to be in your
+District, charged with being a fugitive from labor, and with
+having escaped from service in the State of Virginia, if he
+may be found in your precincts, and have him forthwith
+before me, Edward G. Loring, one of the Commissioners of the
+Circuit Court of the United States for the said District,
+then and there to answer to the complaint of Charles F.
+Suttle, of Alexandria, in the said State of Virginia,
+Merchant, alleging under oath that the said Anthony Burns on
+the twenty-fourth day of March last, did and for a long time
+prior thereto had, owed service and labor to him the said
+Suttle, in the said State of Virginia, under the laws
+thereof, and that, while held to service there by said
+Suttle, the said Burns escaped from the said State of
+Virginia, into the State of Massachusetts; and that the said
+Burns still owes service and labor to said Suttle in the
+said State of Virginia, and praying that said Burns may be
+restored to him said Suttle in said State of Virginia, and
+that such further proceedings may then and there be had in
+the premises as are by law in such cases provided.</p>
+
+<p>Hereof fail not, and make due return of this writ, with your
+doings therein before me.</p>
+
+<p>Witness my hand and seal at Boston, aforesaid, this
+twenty-fourth day of May, in the year one thousand eight
+hundred and fifty-four.</p>
+
+<p class="right">EDWARD G. LORING, <i>Commissioner</i>. [<span class="smcap">l.s.</span>]</p>
+
+<p>And the Jurors aforesaid do further present, that the said
+warrant and legal process, being duly issued and delivered
+as aforesaid, afterwards to wit, on the twenty-fifth day of
+May, in the year aforesaid, at Boston in said District, the
+said Watson Freeman then and there being an officer of the
+said United States, to wit Marshal of the District
+aforesaid, and in pursuance of said warrant and legal
+process, did then and there arrest the said Anthony Burns
+named therein, and had him before the said Edward G. Loring,
+Commissioner, for examination&mdash;and thereupon the hearing of
+the said case was adjourned by the said Commissioner until
+Saturday the twenty-seventh day of May, in the year
+aforesaid, at ten o'clock in the forenoon; and the said
+Marshal, who had so made return of the said Warrant, was
+duly ordered by the said Commissioner to retain the said
+Anthony Burns in his custody, and have him before the said
+Commissioner on the said twenty-seventh day of May in the
+year aforesaid, at the Court House in said Boston, which
+said last-mentioned legal process and order was duly issued
+under the hand of the said Edward G. Loring, Commissioner,
+and was of the purport and effect following, that is to say:</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">U.S. of AMERICA, District of Massachusetts.</span></p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Boston, May 25</i>, 1854.</p>
+
+<p>And now the hearing of this case being adjourned to
+Saturday, May 27, 1854, 10 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span>, the said Marshal, who has
+made return of this warrant, is hereby ordered to retain the
+said Anthony Burns in his custody, and have him before me at
+the time last mentioned, at the Court House in Boston, for
+the further hearing of the Complaint on which the warrant
+was issued.</p>
+
+<p class="right">EDWARD G. LORING, <i>Commissioner</i>.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">xv</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And the Jurors aforesaid do further present, that on the
+twenty-sixth day of May, in the year aforesaid, in pursuance
+of the warrant and legal process aforesaid, and of said
+further legal process and order last mentioned, the said
+Watson Freeman, Marshal as aforesaid, then and there, at the
+said Court House in said Boston, had in his custody the
+person of the said Anthony Burns, in the due and lawful
+execution of the said warrant and legal process, and of the
+said further legal process and order, in manner and form as
+he was therein commanded&mdash;and one Theodore Parker, of
+Boston, in said District, Clerk, then and there well knowing
+the premises, with force and arms did knowingly and wilfully
+obstruct, resist, and oppose the said Watson Freeman, then
+and there being an officer of the said United States, to
+wit, Marshal of the said District, in serving and attempting
+to serve and execute the said warrant and legal process, and
+the said further legal process and order in manner and form
+as he was therein commanded, to the great damage of the said
+Watson Freeman, to the great hinderance and obstruction of
+Justice, to the evil example of all others, in like case
+offending, against the peace and dignity of the said United
+States, and contrary to the form of the Statute in such case
+made and provided.</p>
+
+<p>2d. And the Jurors aforesaid, on their oath aforesaid, do
+further present, that on the twenty-sixth day of May, in the
+year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four,
+at Boston, in said District, one Theodore Parker, of Boston,
+in said District, Clerk, with force and arms, did knowingly
+and wilfully obstruct, resist, and oppose one Watson
+Freeman, who was then and there the Marshal of the United
+States of America, for the District of Massachusetts, and an
+officer of the said United States, in serving and attempting
+to serve and execute a certain warrant and legal process,
+which before that time, to wit, on the twenty-fourth day of
+May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and
+fifty-four, had been duly issued under the hand and seal of
+Edward G. Loring, Esquire, a Commissioner of the Circuit
+Court of the United States, for said District of
+Massachusetts, and directed to the Marshal of the District
+of Massachusetts, or either of his deputies, which said
+warrant and legal process the said Freeman, in the due and
+lawful execution of his said office, had then and there in
+his hands and possession for service of the same, and which
+he was then and there serving and attempting to serve and
+execute; which said warrant commanded the said Freeman to
+apprehend one Anthony Burns and to have him forthwith before
+the said Commissioner, then and there to be dealt with
+according to law. Against the peace and dignity of the said
+United States, and contrary to the form of the Statute in
+such case made and provided.</p>
+
+<p>3d. And the Jurors aforesaid, on their oath aforesaid, do
+further present, that on the twenty-sixth day of May, in the
+year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four,
+at Boston, in said District, the said Theodore Parker, with
+force and arms, did knowingly and wilfully obstruct, resist,
+and oppose one Watson Freeman, who was then and there an
+officer of the said United States, to wit, the Marshal of
+the United States for the said District of Massachusetts, in
+serving and attempting to serve and execute a certain legal
+process which before that time, to wit, on the 25th day of
+May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and
+fifty-four, had been duly issued under the hand of Edward G.
+Loring, who was then and there a Commissioner of the Circuit
+Court of the United States, for the said District of
+Massachusetts, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">xvi</a></span> was then and there duly empowered to
+issue said legal process, and which said legal process was
+duly committed for obedience and execution to the said
+Freeman, Marshal as aforesaid, wherein and whereby and in
+pursuance of the command whereof the said Freeman was then
+and there lawfully retaining, detaining, and holding one
+Anthony Burns for the further hearing and determination of a
+certain complaint, upon which a warrant before that time, to
+wit, on the twenty-fourth day of said May, had been duly
+issued under the hand and seal of the said Commissioner, by
+force of which warrant the said Anthony Burns had been duly
+arrested and apprehended by the said Freeman, and in
+execution of the same, on the twenty-fifth day of said May
+had been brought by the said Freeman before the said
+Commissioner.</p>
+
+<p>4th. And the jurors aforesaid, on their oath aforesaid, do
+further present, that on the twenty-sixth day of May, in the
+year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four,
+at Boston, in said district, the said Theodore Parker, with
+force and arms, did knowingly and wilfully obstruct, resist,
+and oppose one Watson Freeman, who was then and there an
+officer of the said United States, to wit, Marshal of the
+United States, for the District of Massachusetts, in serving
+and attempting to serve and execute a certain warrant and
+legal process, which before that time, to wit, on the
+twenty-fourth day of May, in the year of our Lord one
+thousand eight hundred and fifty-four, had been duly issued
+under the hand and seal of Edward G. Loring, Esquire, a
+Commissioner of the Circuit Court of the United States, for
+the District of Massachusetts, and directed to the Marshal
+of the said District of Massachusetts or either of his
+Deputies, which the said Freeman, in the due and lawful
+execution of his said office, had then and there in his
+hands and possession for service of the same, and which he
+was then and there serving and attempting to serve and
+execute; which warrant commanded the said Freeman to
+apprehend one Anthony Burns, and to have him forthwith
+before the said commissioner and that such further
+proceedings might then and there be had in the premises, as
+are by law in such cases provided,&mdash;and also in serving and
+attempting to serve and execute a certain further legal
+process which before that time, to wit, on the twenty-fifth
+day of May, in the year aforesaid, had been duly issued
+under the hand of the said Commissioner, and duly committed
+for obedience and execution to the said Freeman, wherein and
+whereby, and in pursuance of the command whereof, the said
+Freeman was then and there lawfully retaining, detaining,
+and holding the said Anthony Burns for the further hearing
+and determination of a certain complaint upon which the
+warrant aforesaid had been issued by the said Commissioner.</p>
+
+<p>5th. And the Jurors aforesaid on their oath aforesaid, do
+further present that one Theodore Parker, of Boston, in said
+District, Clerk, on the 26th day of May, in the year of our
+Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four, at Boston,
+in the said District of Massachusetts, with force and arms,
+in and upon one Watson Freeman, then and there in the peace
+of the said United States being, an assault did make, he the
+said Freeman also then and there being an officer of the
+said United States, to wit, Marshal of the United States,
+for the said District of Massachusetts, and then and there
+also being in the due and lawful discharge of his duties as
+such officer. And so the jurors aforesaid, on their oath
+aforesaid, do say and present that the said Theodore Parker,
+at Boston aforesaid, on the said twenty-sixth day of said
+May, with force and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">xvii</a></span> arms assaulted the said Freeman as such
+officer, and knowingly and wilfully obstructed, resisted,
+and opposed him in the discharge of his lawful duties in
+manner and form aforesaid, against the peace and dignity of
+the said United States, and contrary to the form of the
+Statute in such cases made and provided. And the Jurors
+aforesaid, on their oath aforesaid, do further present that
+the said Theodore Parker was first apprehended in said
+District of Massachusetts, after committing the aforesaid
+offence, against the peace and dignity of the said United
+States, and contrary to the form of the statute in such case
+made and provided. A true bill.</p>
+
+<p><span style="margin-left: 1em;">ENOCH PATTERSON, <span class="smcap">Jr.</span>, <i>Foreman</i>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">B.F. HALLETT, <i>United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts</i>.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Similar indictments were found against Mr. Phillips, Mr. Stowell, Rev.
+T.W. Higginson, John Morrison, Samuel T. Proudman, and John C. Cluer.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Parker was arraigned on Wednesday, November 29th, and ordered to
+recognize in bonds of $1,500 for his appearance at that Court, on the
+5th of March, 1855. His bondsmen were Messrs. Samuel May, Francis
+Jackson, and John R. Manley; his counsel were Hon. John P. Hale, and
+Charles M. Ellis, Esq. The other gentlemen were arraigned afterwards
+at different times.</p>
+
+<p>After considerable uncertainty about the engagements of Hon. Justice
+Curtis, Tuesday, April 3d, was fixed for the commencement of the
+trials. At that time there appeared as counsel for the government,
+Hon. Benjamin F. Hallett, District Attorney, and Elias Merwin, Esq.,
+formerly a law partner of Judge Curtis; on the other side were Hon.
+John P. Hale, and Charles M. Ellis, Esq., for Mr. Parker; Wm. L. Burt,
+Esq., John A. Andrew, Esq., and H.F. Durant, Esq., counsel for Messrs.
+Phillips, Higginson, Stowell, Bishop, Morrison, Proudman, and Cluer.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hale, as senior counsel, stated to the court that the counsel for
+the defendants in several of the cases had conferred, and
+concluded&mdash;on the supposition that the Court and Government would
+assent to the plan as most for their own convenience, as well as that
+of the defendants' counsel&mdash;to file the like motion on the different
+cases; and, instead of each counsel going over the whole ground for
+each case, to divide the matter presented for debate, and for each to
+discuss some particular positions on behalf of them all. This was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xviii" id="Page_xviii">xviii</a></span>
+assented to; and motions, of which the following is a copy, were filed
+in the several cases:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Circuit Court of the United States, Massachusetts District,
+ss.</span></p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>United States by Indictment</i> v. <i>Theodore Parker.</i></p>
+
+<p>And now said Theodore Parker comes and moves that the
+indictment against him be quashed, because,</p>
+
+<p>"1. The writ of venire for the jury that found said
+indictment was directed to and returned by Watson Freeman,
+the Marshal, who was not an indifferent person, and it was
+not served and returned as the law directs.</p>
+
+<p>"2. Because said Jury was not an impartial Jury of the
+District, designated as the laws require, but the jury
+Districts for this court embrace but a portion of the
+District and of the population, and said jury was in fact
+chosen and designated from but a fraction of the District
+and contrary to law.</p>
+
+<p>"3. Because the matters and things alleged in said
+indictment do not constitute any crime under the statute on
+which said indictment is framed, the said statute not
+embracing them, or being, so far as it might embrace them,
+repealed by the statute of eighteen hundred and fifty.</p>
+
+<p>"4. Because said indictment does not allege and set forth
+fully and sufficiently the authority and the proceedings
+whereon the alleged warrant and order were based, or facts
+sufficient to show that the alleged process and order were
+lawfully issued by any person duly authorized, and his
+authority and jurisdiction, and that the same were within
+such jurisdiction, and issued by the authority of the law,
+and originated, issued, and directed as the law prescribes;
+said warrant and order not being alleged to have issued from
+any court or tribunal of general or special jurisdiction,
+but by a person vested with certain specific statute
+authority.</p>
+
+<p>"5. Because said indictment and the several counts thereof
+are bad on the face of them, as follows, viz.:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"First, it nowhere appearing that the same were found by a
+grand-jury, because the second and third counts do not
+conclude, against the form of the statute, and have no
+conclusion, because the third and fourth counts do not set
+forth the estate, degree, or mystery of the person therein
+charged.</p>
+
+<p>"Because said indictment and the counts thereof are
+repugnant and inconsistent, the same being based on an
+alleged obstruction, resistance, and opposition to the
+service of an action, order, or warrant, which is therein
+averred to have been already served, executed, and returned.</p>
+
+<p>"Because the first and fifth counts are double.</p>
+
+<p>"Because the alleged order of May 25th, referred to therein,
+was a void and illegal, order.</p>
+
+<p>"Because, if the alleged warrant was served as therein
+alleged, said Watson Freeman did not, and by law could not
+thereafter, hold the person described therein, under any
+process or order.</p>
+
+<p>"And because the same do not set forth and allege fully and
+specifically the acts<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xix" id="Page_xix">xix</a></span> charged to be offences against the
+statute, so as to inform said party charged, of the nature
+and cause of the accusation.</p>
+
+<p>"6. Because the warrant set forth and referred to therein
+was void on its face, and issued from and ran into a
+jurisdiction not authorized by law, and directed the arrest
+of a person without legal cause, and because said indictment
+is otherwise bad, uncertain, and insufficient."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Mr. Wm. L. Burt commenced the argument of the motions, and presented
+several of the points. He was followed by Mr. C.M. Ellis, J.A. Andrew,
+and H.F. Durant, who severally discussed some of the grounds of the
+motions.</p>
+
+<p>Elias Merwin, Esquire, and Mr. Attorney Hallett, replied.</p>
+
+<p>The Court stated that they did not wish to hear Hon. John P. Hale, who
+was about to rejoin and close in support of the motion, and decided
+that the allegation, on the indictment, that Edward G. Loring was a
+Commissioner of the Circuit Court of the United States for said
+District, was not a legal averment that he was such a Commissioner as
+is described in the bill of 1850, and therefore the indictments were
+bad.</p>
+
+<p>The Court said they supposed it to be true that Mr. Loring was such a
+Commissioner, and that his authority could be proved by producing the
+record of his appointment; that they did not suppose the absence of
+this averment could be of any practical consequence to the defendants,
+so far as respected the substantial merits of the cases; and it was
+true the objection to the indictment was "technical;" but they held it
+sufficient, notwithstanding the averment that the warrant was "<i>duly
+issued</i>," and ordered the indictment against Stowell to be quashed. On
+every other point, save that that the Court could properly construct
+the Jury <i>roster</i> and return the Jury from a portion of the District,
+the Judge said they would express no opinion.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hallett insisted on his right to enter a <i>nolle prosequi</i> in the
+other cases; and the Judges decided that, though all the cases had
+been heard upon the motion, yet as it could make no difference whether
+an entry were made that this indictment be quashed, or an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xx" id="Page_xx">xx</a></span> entry of
+<i>nolle prosequi</i>, the Attorney might enter a <i>nolle prosequi</i> if he
+chose to do so <i>then</i>, before the Court passed any order on the
+motions.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hallett accordingly entered a <i>nolle prosequi</i> in all the other
+cases, and the whole affair was quashed.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">1</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="DEFENCE" id="DEFENCE"></a><span class="gesperrt">DEFENCE</span>.</h2>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p><span class="smcap">May it please the Court:</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Gentlemen of the Jury.</span>&mdash;It is no trifling matter which comes before
+you this day. You may hereafter decide on millions of money, and on
+the lives of your fellow men; but it is not likely that a question of
+this magnitude will ever twice be brought before the same jurymen.
+Opportunities to extend a far-reaching and ghastly wickedness, or to
+do great service for mankind, come but seldom in any man's life. Your
+verdict concerns all the people of the United States; its influence
+will reach to ages far remote, blessing or cursing whole generations
+not yet born. The affair is national in its width of reach,&mdash;its
+consequences of immense duration.</p>
+
+<p>In addressing you, Gentlemen, my language will be more didactic than
+rhetorical, more like a lecture, less like a speech; for I am not a
+lawyer but a minister, and do not aim to carry a Measure, which with
+you will go of its own accord, so much as to set forth a Principle
+that will make such prosecutions as impossible hereafter, as a
+conviction now is to-day.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, I address you provisionally, as Representatives of the
+People. To them, my words are ultimately addressed,&mdash;to the People of
+the Free States of America. I must examine many things minutely, not
+often touched upon in courts like this. For mine is a Political Trial;
+I shall treat it accordingly. I am charged with no immoral act&mdash;with
+none even of selfish ambition. It is not pretended that I have done a
+deed, or spoken a word, in the heat of passion, or vengeance, or with
+calculated covetousness, to bring money, office, or honor, to myself
+or any friend. I am not suspected of wishing to do harm to man or
+woman; or with disturbing any man's natural rights. Nay, I am not even
+charged with such an offence. The Attorney and the two Judges are of
+one heart and mind in this prosecution; Mr. Hallett's "Indictment" is
+only the beast of burthen to carry to its own place Mr. Curtis's
+"Charge to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">2</a></span> Grand-Jury," fit passenger for fitting carriage! The
+same tree bore the Judge's blossom in June, and the Attorney's fruit
+in October,&mdash;both reeking out the effluvia of the same substance. But
+neither Attorney nor Judge dares accuse me of ill-will which would
+harm another man, or of selfishness that seeks my own private
+advantage. No, Gentlemen of the Jury, I am on trial for my love of
+Justice; for my respect to the natural Rights of Man; for speaking a
+word in behalf of what the Declaration of Independence calls the
+"self-evident" Truth,&mdash;that all men have a natural, equal, and
+unalienable Right to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. I am
+charged with words against what John Wesley named, the "Sum of all
+Villanies," against a national crime so great, that it made
+freethinking Mr. Jefferson, with all his "French Infidelity,"
+"tremble" when he remembered "that God is just." I am on trial for my
+manly virtue,&mdash;a Minister of the Christian Religion on trial for
+keeping the Golden Rule! It is alleged that I have spoken in Boston
+against kidnapping in Boston; that in my own pulpit, as a minister, I
+have denounced Boston men for stealing my own parishioners; that as a
+man, in Faneuil Hall, the spirit of James Otis, of John Hancock, and
+three Adams's about me, with a word I "obstructed" the Marshal of
+Boston and a Boston Judge of Probate, in their confederated attempts
+to enslave a Boston man. When the Government of the United States has
+turned kidnapper, I am charged with the "misdemeanor" of appealing
+from the Atheism of purchased officials to the Conscience of the
+People; and with rousing up Christians to keep the golden rule, when
+the Rulers declared Religion had nothing to do with politics and there
+was no Law of God above the fugitive slave bill!</p>
+
+<p>Such are the acts charged. Gentlemen of the Jury, you are summoned
+here to declare them a Crime, and then to punish me for this
+"offence!" You are the Axe which the Government grasps with red hand
+to cleave my head asunder. It is a trial where Franklin Pierce,
+transiently President of the United States, and his official
+coadjutors,&mdash;Mr. Caleb Cushing, Mr. Benj. R. Curtis, and Mr. Benj. F.
+Hallett,&mdash;are on one side, and the People of the United States on the
+other. As a Measure, your decision may send me to jail for twelve
+months; may also fine me three hundred dollars. To me personally it is
+of very small consequence what your verdict shall be. The fine is
+nothing; the imprisonment for twelve months&mdash;Gentlemen, I laugh at it!
+Nay, were it death, I should smile at the official gibbet. A verdict
+of guilty would affix no stain to my reputation. I am sure to come out
+of this trial with honor&mdash;it is the Court that is sure to suffer
+loss&mdash;at least shame. I do not mean the Court will ever feel remorse,
+or even shame, for this conduct; I am no young man now, I know these
+men,&mdash;but the People are sure to burn the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">3</a></span> brand of shame deep into
+this tribunal. The blow of that axe, if not parried, will do me no
+harm.</p>
+
+<p>But it is not I, merely, now put to trial. Nay, it is the unalienable
+Rights of Humanity, it is truths self-evident. For on the back of that
+compliant Measure, unseen, there rides a Principle. The verdict
+expected of you condemns liberal institutions: all Religion but
+priestcraft&mdash;the abnegation of religion itself; all Rights but that to
+bondage&mdash;the denial of all rights. The word which fines me, puts your
+own purse in the hands of your worst enemies; the many-warded key
+which shuts me in jail, locks your lips forever&mdash;your children's lips
+forever. No complaint against oppression hereafter! Kidnapping will go
+on in silence, but at noonday, not a minister stirring. Meeting-houses
+will be shut; all court houses have a loaded cannon at their door,
+chains all round them, be stuffed with foreign soldiers inside, while
+commissioners swear away the life, the liberty, and even the Estate of
+the subjected "citizens." All Probate Judges will belong to the family
+of man-stealers. Faneuil Hall will be shut, or open only for a "Union
+Meeting," where the ruler calls together his menials to indorse some
+new act of injustice,&mdash;only creatures of the Government, men like the
+marshal's guard last June, allowed to speak words paid for by the
+People's coward sweat and miserable blood. The blow which smites my
+head will also cleave you asunder from crown to groin.</p>
+
+<p>Your verdict is to vindicate Religion with Freedom of Speech, and
+condemn the stealing of men; or else to confirm Kidnapping and condemn
+Religion with Freedom of Speech. You are to choose whether you will
+have such men as Wendell Phillips for your advisers, or such as
+Benjamin F. Hallett and Benjamin R. Curtis for your masters, with the
+marshal's guard, for their appropriate servants. Do you think I doubt
+how you will choose?</p>
+
+<p>Already a power of iniquity clutches at your children's throat; stabs
+at their life&mdash;at their soul's life. I stand between the living tyrant
+and his living victim; aye, betwixt him and expected victims not yet
+born,&mdash;your children, not mine. I have none to writhe under the
+successful lash which tyrants now so subtly braid therewith, one day,
+to scourge the flesh of well-descended men. I am to stand the champion
+of human Rights for generations yet unborn. It is a sad distinction!
+Hard duties have before been laid on me,&mdash;none so obviously demanding
+great powers as this. Whereto shall I look up for inspiring aid? Only
+to Him who gave words to the slow tongue of Moses and touched with
+fire Esaias' hesitating lips, and dawned into the soul of tent-makers
+and fishermen with such great wakening light, as shining through them,
+brought day to nations sitting in darkness, yet waiting for the
+consolation. May such<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">4</a></span> Truth and Justice enable me also, to speak a
+testimony unto the Gentiles; He who chose the weak things, to bring to
+nought the mighty, may not despise such humble services as mine.</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, my ministry deals chiefly with the Laws of God,
+little with the statutes of men. My manhood has been mainly passed in
+studying absolute, universal truth, teaching it to men, and applying
+it to the various departments of life. I have little to do with courts
+of law. Yet I am not now altogether a stranger to the circuit court
+room of the United States, having been in it on five several occasions
+before.</p>
+
+<p>1. A Polish exile,&mdash;a man of famous family, ancient and patrician
+before Christendom had laid eyes on America, once also of great
+individual wealth, a man of high rank alike acquired and inherited,
+once holding a high place at the court of the Czar,&mdash;became a fugitive
+from Russian despotism, seeking an asylum here; he came to the circuit
+court room to lecture on the Roman Law. I came to contribute my two
+mites of money, and receive his wealth of learning.</p>
+
+<p>2. The next time, I came at the summons of Thomas Sims. For a creature
+of the slave-power had spontaneously seized that poor and friendless
+boy and thrust him into a dungeon, hastening to make him a slave,&mdash;a
+beast of burthen. He had been on his mock trial seven days, and had
+never seen a Judge, only a commissioner, nor a Jury; no Court but a
+solitary kidnapper. Some of his attendants had spoken of me as a
+minister not heedless of the welfare and unalienable rights of a black
+man fallen among a family of thieves. I went to the court house.
+Outside it was belted with chains. In despotic Europe I had seen no
+such spectacle, save once when the dull tyrant who oppressed Bavaria
+with his licentious flesh, in 1844 put his capital in a brief state of
+siege and chained the streets. The official servant of the kidnapper,
+club in hand, a policeman of this city, goaded to his task by Mayor
+Bigelow and Marshal Tukey,&mdash;men congenitally mingled in such
+appropriate work,&mdash;bade me "Get under the chain." I pressed it down
+and went over. The Judges of our own Supreme Court, <i>they went
+under</i>,&mdash;had gone out and in, beneath the chain! How poetry mingles
+with fact! The chain was a symbol, and until this day remaineth the
+same chain, untaken away in the reading of the fugitive slave bill;
+and when the law of Massachusetts is read, the chain is also upon the
+neck of that court! Within the court house was full of armed men. I
+found Mr. Sims in a private room, illegally, in defiance of
+Massachusetts law, converted into a jail to hold men charged with no
+crime. Ruffians mounted guard at the entrance, armed with swords,
+fire-arms,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">5</a></span> and bludgeons. The door was locked and doubly barred
+besides. Inside the watch was kept by a horrid looking fellow, without
+a coat, a naked cutlass in his hand, and some twenty others, their
+mouths nauseous with tobacco and reeking also with half-digested rum
+paid for by the city. In such company, I gave what consolation
+Religion could offer to the first man Boston ever
+kidnapped,&mdash;consolations which took hold only of eternity, where the
+servant is free from his master, for there the wicked cease from
+troubling. I could offer him no comfort this side the grave.</p>
+
+<p>3. I visited the United States court a third time. A poor young man
+had been seized by the same talons which subsequently griped Sims in
+their poison, deadly clutch. But that time, wickedness went off
+hungry, defeated of its prey; "for the Lord delivered him out of their
+hands," and Shadrach escaped from that Babylonish furnace, heated
+seven times hotter than its wont: no smell of fire had passed on him.
+But the rescue of Shadrach was telegraphed as "treason." The innocent
+lightning flashed out the premeditated and legal lie,&mdash;"it is levying
+war!" What offence it was in that Fourth One who walked with the
+Hebrew children, "making their good confession," and sustained the old
+Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, I know not. But the modern countrymen
+of the African Shadrach, charged with some great crime, were haled
+into this court to be punished for their humanity! I came to look on
+these modern Angels of the Deliverance, to hear counsel of Mr. Dana,
+then so wise and humane, and to listen to the masterly eloquence which
+broke out from the great human heart of my friend, Mr. Hale, and
+rolled like the Mississippi, in its width, its depth, its beauty, and
+its continuous and unconquerable strength.</p>
+
+<p>4. The fourth time, a poor man had been kidnapped, also at night, and
+forced into the same illegal jail. He sat in the dock&mdash;an innocent
+man, to be made into a beast. The metamorphosis had begun;&mdash;he was
+already in chains and his human heart seemed dead in him; sixty
+ruffians were about him, aiding in this drama, hired out of the
+brothels and rum-shops for a few days, the lust of kidnapping serving
+to vary the continual glut of those other and less brutal appetites of
+unbridled flesh. While that "trial" lasted, whoredom had a Sabbath
+day, and brawlers rested from their toil. Opposite sat the Boston
+Judge of Probate, and the Boston District Attorney,&mdash;the Moses and
+Elias of this inverted transfiguration; there sat the marshal, two
+"gentlemen" from Virginia, claiming that a Boston man was their beast
+of burthen, owing service and labor in Richmond; two "lawyers,"
+"members of the Suffolk bar," pistols in their coats, came to support
+the allegation and enforce the claim. Honorable men stood up to defend
+him. There is one of them,&mdash;to defend<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">6</a></span> me [Charles M. Ellis.] You know
+very well the rest of that sad story,&mdash;the mock trial of Anthony Burns
+lasted from May 25th till June 2d. I was here in all the acts of that
+Tragedy. My own life was threatened; friend and foe gave me public or
+anonymous warning. I sat between men who had newly sworn to kill me,
+my garments touching theirs. The malaria of their rum and tobacco was
+an offence in my face. I saw their weapons, and laughed as I looked
+those drunken rowdies in their coward eye. They touch me!</p>
+
+<p>5. The fifth time I came here at the summons of an officer of this
+court,&mdash;very politely delivered, let me say it to his
+credit,&mdash;indicted and arrested for a "misdemeanor." I gave bail and
+withdrew.</p>
+
+<p>6. The sixth time,&mdash;Gentlemen,&mdash;it is the present, whereof I shall
+erelong have much to say.</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>At the first visit I found only scholarly and philanthropic gentlemen,
+coming out of sympathy with a Polish exile, a defeated soldier of
+freedom, from his broken English to learn sound Roman Law. On each of
+the other visits I have been in quite different company. I have
+invariably met this Honorable Court, its kinsfolk and its most
+intimate friends,&mdash;some member of the family of the distinguished
+Judge, now fitly presiding over this trial.</p>
+
+<p>1. It was Mr. George T. Curtis, the only brother of the honorable
+Justice now on the bench,&mdash;born of the same mother and father,&mdash;who
+had the glory of kidnapping Mr. Sims; it was he who seized Shadrach,
+and gave such witness against one of the Angels of the Deliverance,
+and then came back and enlarged his testimony; it was he who declared
+the rescue an act of "treason;" he who hung the court house in chains,
+and brought down the pliant neck of the Massachusetts Judges beneath
+that symbolic line of linked fetters long drawn out. To what weak
+forces will such necks bow when slavery commands!</p>
+
+<p>2. It was the honorable Judge now on the distinguished bench who tried
+men for the rescue of Shadrach. How he tried them is well known.</p>
+
+<p>3. It was Edward G. Loring, another of this family so distinguished,
+who kidnapped Mr. Burns and held him in irons; he whose broom swept up
+together the marshal's guard; he who advised Mr. Burns's counsel to
+make no defence,&mdash;"put no obstructions in the way of his going back,
+as he probably will;" he who, in the darkness of midnight, sought to
+sell his victim, before he had examined the evidence which might prove
+him a free man; he who delivered him up as a slave, against evidence
+as against law.</p>
+
+<p>4. Another of the same family, William W. Greenough, brother-in-law of
+Hon. Judge Curtis, was one of the grand-jury which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">7</a></span> found the
+indictment against me, and "the most active of all in that work."</p>
+
+<p>5. When I came here on the 29th of last November, the Hon. Judge
+Curtis sat on the bench and determined the amount of my bail, and the
+same eye which had frowned with such baleful aspect on the rescuers of
+Shadrach, quailed down underneath my look and sought the ground.</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>In thus mentioning my former visits to the court, I but relate the
+exploits of the Hon. Justice Curtis, of his kinsfolk and friends,
+adding to their glory and their renown. Their chief title to
+distinction rests on their devotion to the fugitive slave bill. It and
+their honor are "one and inseparable." Once only humanity and good
+letters brought me here, I met only scholars and philanthropists; on
+five other occasions, when assaults on freedom compelled my
+attendance, I have been confronted and surrounded with the loyalty of
+the distinguished Judge and his kinsfolk and friends, valiantly and
+disinterestedly obeying the fugitive slave bill "with alacrity;"
+patriotically conquering their prejudices against man-stealing&mdash;if
+such they ever had;&mdash;and earning for themselves an undying reputation
+by "saving the Union" from Justice, Domestic Tranquillity, general
+Welfare, and the Blessings of Liberty.</p>
+
+<p>If I am to be arraigned for any act, I regard it as a special good
+fortune that I am charged with such deeds, with seeking to arouse the
+noblest emotions of Human Nature; and by means of the grandest Ideas
+which Human History has brought to light. I could not have chosen
+nobler deeds in a life now stretching over nearly half a hundred
+years. I count it an honor to be tried for them. Nay, it adds to my
+happiness to look at the Court which is to try me&mdash;for if I were to
+search all Christendom through, nay, throughout all Heathendom, I know
+of no tribunal fitter to try a man for such deeds as I have done. I am
+fortunate in the charges brought; thrice fortunate in the judges and
+the attorney,&mdash;the Court which is to decide;&mdash;its history and
+character are already a judgment.</p>
+
+<p>6. For my sixth visit, I was recognized to appear on the fifth of
+March, 1855&mdash;the eighty-fifth anniversary of the Boston Massacre. I
+might have been bound over to any other of the great days of American
+history&mdash;22d of December, 19th of April, 17th of June, or the 4th of
+July. But as I am the first American ever brought to trial for a
+speech in Faneuil Hall against kidnapping; as I am the first to be
+tried under the act of 1790 for "obstructing an officer" with an
+argument, committing a "misdemeanor" by a word which appeals to the
+natural justice of mankind, so there could not perhaps be a fitter
+time chosen. For on the fifth of March, 1770, British<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">8</a></span> despotism also
+delivered its first shot into the American bosom. Not far from this
+place the hand of George III. wounded to death five innocent citizens
+of Boston,&mdash;one of them a negro. It was the first shot Britain ever
+fired into the body of the American people, then colonial subjects of
+the king-power. That day the fire was not returned,&mdash;only with ringing
+of bells and tumult of the public, with words and resolutions. The
+next day that American blood lay frozen in the street. Soon after the
+British government passed a law exempting all who should aid an
+officer in his tyranny from trial for murder in the place where they
+should commit their crime. Mr. Toucey has humbly copied that precedent
+of despotism. It was very proper that the new tyranny growing up here,
+should select that anniversary to shoot down freedom of thought and
+speech among the subjects of the slave-power. I welcomed the omen. The
+Fifth of March is a red-letter day in the calendar of Boston. The
+Court could hardly have chosen a better to punish a man for a thought
+and a word, especially a Boston man, for such a word in Faneuil
+Hall&mdash;a word against man-stealing. But I knew the case would never
+come to trial on that day&mdash;of course it was put off.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Sims and Mr. Burns were accused of no crime but birth from a
+mother whom some one had stolen. They had only a mock trial, without
+due process of law, with no judge, no jury, no judicial officer. But
+I, accused of a grave offence, am to enjoy a trial with due process of
+law. It is an actual judge before me and another judge at his side,
+both judicial officers known to the constitution. I know beforehand
+the decision of the court&mdash;its history is my judgment. Justice
+Curtis's Charge of last June, would make my daily talk a
+"misdemeanor," my public preaching and my private prayers a "crime,"
+nay, my very existence is constructively an "obstruction" to the
+marshal. On that side my condemnation is already sure.</p>
+
+<p>But there is another element. Gentlemen of the Jury, the judges and
+attorney cannot lay their hand on me until you twelve men with one
+voice say, "Yes! put him in jail." In the mock trial of Sims and Burns
+it was necessary to convince only a single official of the United
+States Court, a "ministerial" officer selected and appointed to do its
+inferior business, a man who needed no conviction, no evidence but the
+oath of a slave-hunter and the extorted "admission" of his victim, an
+official who was to have ten dollars for making a slave, five only for
+setting free a man! But you are a Massachusetts Jury, not of purchased
+officials, but of honest men. I think you have some "prejudices" to
+conquer in favor of justice. It has not appeared that you are to be
+paid twice as much for sending me to jail, as for acquitting me of the
+charge. I doubt that you have yet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">9</a></span> advised my counsel to make no
+defence, "put no obstructions in the way" of my being sent to jail as
+"he probably will."</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, a United States Commissioner has his place on condition
+that he performs such services as his masters "require." These United
+States Judges have their seat in consequence of services rendered to
+the ruling power of America, and for others of like sort yet to be
+paid to the stealers of men. Other rewards shine before them alluring
+to new service,&mdash;additional salary can pay additional alacrity. But
+you, Gentlemen, are not office-holders nor seekers of office, not
+hoping to gain money, or power, or honor, by any wickedness. You are
+to represent the unsophisticated Conscience of the People,&mdash;not the
+slave-power, but the power of Freedom.</p>
+
+<p>It is to you I shall address my defence! <span class="smcap">My</span> defence? No, Gentlemen,
+<span class="smcap">your</span> defence, the defence of your own Rights, inherent in your
+national Institutions as Americans, ay, in your Nature as Men. It is a
+singular good fortune that to you, as judges, I am pleading your own
+cause. You have more interest at stake than I. For at death my name
+will perish, while children and children's children, I trust, will
+gently mingle your memories in that fair tide of human life which
+never ends.</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>So much have I said by way of introduction, treating only of the
+accidents pertaining to this case. I will now come to the Primary
+Qualities and Substance thereof.</p>
+
+<p>This is a Political Trial. In <i>form</i>, I am charged with violating a
+certain statute never before applied to actions like mine; never meant
+to apply to such actions; not legally capable of such application. But
+in <i>fact</i>, my offence is very different from what the indictment
+attempts to set forth. The judges know this; the attorney knows it,
+and "never expected to procure a conviction." It is your cause, even
+more than mine, that I plead. So it concerns you to understand the
+whole matter thoroughly, that you may justly judge our common cause.
+To make the whole case clear, I will <i>land</i> it out into four great
+parcels of matter, which your mind can command at once, and then come
+to the details of each, ploughing it all over before your face, furrow
+by furrow. I shall speak,</p>
+
+<p>I. Of the State of Affairs in America which has led to this
+prosecution,&mdash;the Encroachments of a Power hostile to Democratic
+Institutions.</p>
+
+<p>II. Of the Mode of Operation pursued by this Encroaching Power, in
+other times and in our own,&mdash;of Systematic Corruption of the
+Judiciary.</p>
+
+<p>III. Of the great Safeguard which has been found serviceable in
+protecting Democratic Institutions and the Rights of Man they are
+designed to defend,&mdash;of the Trial by Jury.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">10</a></span></p>
+
+<p>IV. Of the Circumstances of this special case, <span class="smcap">United States</span> <i>versus</i>
+<span class="smcap">Theodore Parker</span>.</p>
+
+<p>I shall speak of each in its order, and begin at the head.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="hang">I. <span class="smcap">Of the state of affairs in America, which has led to this
+prosecution&mdash;The Encroachments of a power hostile to Democratic
+Institutions.</span></p>
+
+<p>In a republic where all emanates from the People, political
+institutions must have a Basis of Idea in the Nation's Thought, before
+they can acquire a Basis of Fact in the Force of the Nation. Now in
+America there are two diverse Ideas recognized as principles of
+Action&mdash;the Idea of Freedom and the Idea of Slavery. Allow me to read
+my analysis and description of each.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The Idea of Freedom first got a national expression on the
+Fourth of July, 1776. Here it is. I put it in a philosophic
+form. There are five points to it.</p>
+
+<p>First, All men are endowed by their Creator with certain
+natural rights, amongst which is the right to life, liberty,
+and the pursuit of happiness.</p>
+
+<p>Second, These rights are unalienable; they can be alienated
+only by the possessor thereof; the father cannot alienate
+them for the son, nor the son for the father; nor the
+husband for the wife, nor the wife for the husband; nor the
+strong for the weak, nor the weak for the strong; nor the
+few for the many, nor the many for the few; and so on.</p>
+
+<p>Third, In respect to these, all men are equal; the rich man
+has not more, and the poor less; the strong man has not
+more, and the weak man less:&mdash;all are exactly equal in these
+rights, however unequal in their powers.</p>
+
+<p>Fourth, It is the function of government to secure these
+natural, unalienable, and equal rights to every man.</p>
+
+<p>Fifth, Government derives all its divine right from its
+conformity with these ideas, all its human sanction from the
+consent of the governed.</p>
+
+<p>That is the Idea of Freedom. I used to call it "the American
+Idea;" that was when I was younger than I am to-day. It is
+derived from human nature; it rests on the immutable Laws of
+God; it is part of the natural religion of mankind. It
+demands a government after natural Justice, which is the
+point common between the conscience of God and the
+conscience of mankind; it is the point common also between
+the interests of one man and of all men.</p>
+
+<p>Now this government, just in its substance, in its form must
+be democratic: that is to say, the government of all, by
+all, and for all. You see what consequences must follow from
+such an idea, and the attempt to reënact the Law of God into
+political institutions. There will follow the freedom of the
+people, respect for every natural right of all men, the
+rights of their body and of their spirit&mdash;the rights of mind
+and conscience, heart and soul. There must be some
+restraint&mdash;as of children by their parents, as of bad men by
+good men; but it will be restraint for the joint good of all
+parties concerned; not restraint for the exclusive benefit
+of the restrainer. The ultimate consequence of this will be
+the material and spiritual welfare of all&mdash;riches, comfort,
+noble manhood, all desirable things.</p>
+
+<p>That is the Idea of Freedom. It appears in the Declaration
+of Independence; it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">11</a></span> reappears in the Preamble to the
+American Constitution, which aims "to establish Justice,
+insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common
+defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the
+blessings of Liberty." That is a religious idea; and when
+men pray for the "Reign of Justice" and the "Kingdom of
+Heaven" to come on earth politically, I suppose they mean
+that there may be a Commonwealth where every man has his
+natural rights of mind, body, and estate.</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>Next is the Idea of Slavery. Here it is. I put it also in a
+philosophic form. There are three points which I make.</p>
+
+<p>First, There are no natural, unalienable, and equal rights,
+wherewith men are endowed by their Creator; no natural,
+unalienable, and equal right to life, liberty, and the
+pursuit of happiness.</p>
+
+<p>Second, There is a great diversity of powers, and in virtue
+thereof the strong man may rule and oppress, enslave and
+ruin the weak, for his interest and against theirs.</p>
+
+<p>Third, There is no natural law of God to forbid the strong
+to oppress the weak, and enslave and ruin the weak.</p>
+
+<p>That is the Idea of Slavery. It has never got a national
+expression in America; it has never been laid down as a
+Principle in any act of the American people, nor in any
+single State, so far as I know. All profess the opposite;
+but it is involved in the Measures of both State and Nation.
+This Idea is founded in the selfishness of man; it is
+atheistic.</p>
+
+<p>The idea must lead to a corresponding government; that will
+be unjust in its substance,&mdash;for it will depend not on
+natural right, but on personal force; not on the
+Constitution of the Universe, but on the compact of men. It
+is the abnegation of God in the universe and of conscience
+in man. Its form will be despotism,&mdash;the government of all,
+by a part, for the sake of a part. It may be a single-headed
+despotism, or a despotism of many heads; but whether a
+Cyclops or a Hydra, it is alike "the abomination which
+maketh desolate." Its ultimate consequence is plain to
+foresee&mdash;poverty to a nation, misery, ruin.</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>These two Ideas are now fairly on foot. They are hostile;
+they are both mutually invasive and destructive. They are in
+exact opposition to each other, and the nation which
+embodies these two is not a figure of equilibrium. As both
+are active forces in the minds of men, and as each idea
+tends to become a fact&mdash;a universal and exclusive fact,&mdash;as
+men with these ideas organize into parties as a means to
+make their idea into a fact,&mdash;it follows that there must not
+only be strife amongst philosophical men about these
+antagonistic Principles and Ideas, but a strife of practical
+men about corresponding Facts and Measures. So the quarrel,
+if not otherwise ended, will pass from words to what seems
+more serious; and one will overcome the other.</p>
+
+<p>So long as these two Ideas exist in the nation as two
+political forces, there is no national unity of Idea, of
+course no unity of action. For there is no centre of gravity
+common to Freedom and Slavery. They will not compose an
+equilibrious figure. You may cry "Peace! Peace!" but so long
+as these two antagonistic Ideas remain, each seeking to
+organize itself and get exclusive power, there is no peace;
+there can be none.</p>
+
+<p>The question before the nation to-day is, Which shall
+prevail&mdash;the Idea and Fact of Freedom, or the Idea and the
+Fact of Slavery; Freedom, exclusive and universal, or
+Slavery, exclusive and universal? The question is not
+merely, Shall the African be bond or free? but, Shall
+America be a Democracy or a Despotism? For nothing is so
+remorseless as an idea, and no logic is so strong as the
+historical development of a national idea by millions of
+men. A measure is nothing without its Principle. The Idea
+which allows Slavery in South Carolina will establish it
+also in New England.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">12</a></span> The bondage of a black man in
+Alexandria imperils every white woman's daughter in Boston.
+You cannot escape the consequences of a first Principle more
+than you can "take the leap of Niagara and stop when
+half-way down." The Principle which recognizes Slavery in
+the Constitution of the United States would make all America
+a Despotism, while the Principle which made John Quincy
+Adams a free man would extirpate Slavery from Louisiana and
+Texas. It is plain America cannot long hold these two
+contradictions in the national consciousness. Equilibrium
+must come.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>These two ideas are represented by two parties which aim at the
+ultimate organization of their respective doctrines, the party
+indicating the special tendency towards Democracy or Despotism. The
+Party of Freedom is not yet well organized; that of Slavery is in
+admirable order and discipline. These two parties are continually at
+war attended with various success.</p>
+
+<p>1. In the individual States of the North, since the Revolution, the
+Party of Freedom has gained some great victories; it has abolished
+Personal Slavery in every northern State, and on a deep-laid
+foundation has built up Democratic Institutions with well proportioned
+beauty. The Idea of Freedom, so genial to the Anglo-Saxon, so welcome
+to all of Puritanic birth and breeding, has taken deep root in the
+consciousness of the great mass of the People at the North. In the
+severe simplicity of national deduction they will carry it to logical
+conclusions not yet foreseen by human providence. The free States are
+progressively democratic.</p>
+
+<p>But in all the Northern States, and more especially in its
+cities,&mdash;and here chiefly among the men of exclusive intellectual
+culture and the votaries of commerce and its riches,&mdash;there are
+exceptional men who embrace the Idea of Slavery and belong to its
+Party. They know no law higher than the transient interest of their
+politics or their commerce, their ease or ambition. They may not
+theoretically hate the People, but they so love their own money, their
+own ease or pleasure, that practically they oppose what promotes the
+welfare of mankind, and seek their own personal advancement to the
+injury of the human race. These are Northern men with Southern
+"Principles." They have their Journals too well known in Boston to
+need mention here.</p>
+
+<p>2. In the individual States of the South, the Idea and Party of
+Slavery has also gained great victories and been uniformly successful;
+it has extended and strengthened personal slavery, which has now a
+firmer hold in the minds of the controlling classes of Southern
+men,&mdash;the rich and "educated,"&mdash;than in 1776, or ever before. The
+Southern States are progressively despotic.</p>
+
+<p>Still, in all the Southern States there are exceptional men, hostile<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">13</a></span>
+to slavery,&mdash;the intelligent and religious from conviction, others
+from mere personal interest. These are Southern men with Northern
+Principles. They are much oppressed at home&mdash;kept from political
+advancement or social respectability, as much as democrats would be at
+Rome or Naples,&mdash;have no journals and little influence.</p>
+
+<p>3. In the Federal Government, the warfare goes on, each party seeking
+for mastery over the whole United States&mdash;the contest is carried on in
+Congress, in all the local legislatures; newspapers, speeches, even
+sermons, resound with the din of battle. See what forces contend and
+with what results.</p>
+
+<p>The nation lives by its productive industry, whereof there are these
+five chief departments:&mdash;Hunting and Fishing, the appropriation of the
+spontaneous live products of the land and sea; Agriculture, the use of
+the productive forces of the earth's surface; Mining, the
+appropriation of the metallic products of her bosom; Manufactures, the
+application of toil and thought to the products of Hunting and
+Fishing, Mining and Agriculture; Commerce, the exchange of value,
+distribution of the products of these four departments of industry,
+directly productive.</p>
+
+<p>Hunting and Fishing, Mining, Manufactures, Commerce, are mainly in the
+hands of Northern men&mdash;the South is almost wholly Agricultural. Her
+wealth consists of land and slaves. In 1850 the fifteen slave States
+had not fourteen hundred millions of other property. In the South
+property, with its consequent influence, is in few hands&mdash;in the North
+it is wide spread.</p>
+
+<p>Now the few controlling men of the South, the holders of land and
+slaves, have Unity of pecuniary Interest&mdash;the support of Slavery as a
+local measure,&mdash;for it is the source of their material wealth, and
+also a consequent Unity of political Idea, the support of Slavery as a
+universal Principle, for it is the source likewise of their political
+power. Accordingly the South presents against the North an even and
+well-disciplined front of veteran soldiers, is always hostile to
+Freedom, and as her "best educated" men devote much time to politics,
+making it the profession of their whole lives, it is plain they become
+formidable antagonists.</p>
+
+<p>But the North has a great variety of conflicting interests, a great
+amount of intellectual activity, where education and its consequent
+habits of reading and thinking are so wide spread, and therefore a
+great variety of opinion. Accordingly there is not the same Unity of
+pecuniary Interest and of political Idea, which distinguishes the
+South. Besides, in the North the ablest and best educated men do not
+devote their time to the thankless and stormy calling of politics;
+Virginia cares for nothing but Negroes and Politics, her loins and her
+brains gender but this twofold product: Massachusetts and New<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">14</a></span> York
+care for much beside. So the North does not present against the South
+an even and well-disciplined front of veteran soldiers, but a ragged,
+discordant line of raw recruits, enlisting for a short time with some
+special or even personal local interest to serve.</p>
+
+<p>What makes the matter yet worse for us, Gentlemen of the Jury, is
+this: While the great mass of the people at the North, engrossed in
+direct productive industry, are really hostile to slavery, those
+absorbed in the large operations of commerce, taken as a whole class,
+feel little interest in the Idea of Freedom; nay, they are positively
+opposed to it. Before the African Slave-trade was treated like other
+kindred forms of piracy, as a capital crime, they had their ships in
+that felonious traffic; and now their vessels engage in the American
+Slave-trade and their hand still deals in the bodies of their fellow
+men. In all the great commercial cities, like Philadelphia, New York
+and Boston these men prevail, and are the "eminent citizens,"
+overslaughing the press, the pulpit, the bar, and the court, with the
+Ideas of their lower law, and sweeping along all metropolitan and
+suburban fashion and respectability in their slimy flood. Hence the
+great cities of the North, governed by the low maxims of this class,
+have become the asylum of Northern men with Southern "Principles," and
+so the strong-hold of Slavery. And hitherto these great cities have
+controlled the politics of the Northern States, crowding the Apostles
+of Freedom out from the national board, and helping the party of
+slavery to triumph in all great battles.</p>
+
+<p>Thus aided, for many years the South has always elected her candidate
+for the Presidency by the vote of the people. But the American
+Executive is twofold,&mdash;part Presidential, part Senatorial. Sometimes
+these two Executives are concordant, sometimes discordant. The
+Senatorial Executive has always carried the day against the less
+permanent Presidential power, except in the solitary case where
+General Jackson's unconquerable will and matchless popularity enabled
+him to master the senate itself, who "registered" his decrees, or
+"expunged" their own censure, just as the iron ruler gave orders.</p>
+
+<p>Now by means of the control which the Northern Cities have over the
+Northern States, and such Commercial Men over those cities, it has
+come to pass that not only the Presidential, but also the Senatorial
+Executive, has long been hostile to the Idea of Freedom.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, the direct consequence is obvious,&mdash;the Party
+of Slavery has long been the conqueror in the field of Federal
+politics. In the numerous and great conflicts between the two, Freedom
+has prevailed against Slavery only twice since the close of the
+Revolutionary War,&mdash;in prohibiting involuntary servitude in the
+North-west Territory in 1787, and in the abolition of the African<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">15</a></span>
+Slave-trade in 1808. Her last triumph was forty-seven years ago,&mdash;nay,
+even that victory was really achieved twenty years before at the
+adoption of the constitution. In this warfare we have not gained a
+battle for freedom since 1788!</p>
+
+<p>For a time it seemed doubtful which would triumph, though Slavery
+gained Kentucky and Tennessee, and Louisiana was purchased as slave
+soil in 1803. But in 1820 slavery became the obvious and acknowledged
+master in the Federal Territory, marched victorious over the
+Mississippi, planted itself in Missouri, and has subsequently taken
+possession of Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas, all slave States; has
+purchased Florida; "reannexed" Texas; conquered Utah, New Mexico and
+California, all slave soil; and from Freedom and the North has just
+now reconquered Kansas and Nebraska. Ever since the Missouri
+Compromise in 1820 Slavery has been really the master, obviously so
+since the annexation of Texas in 1845. The slave-power appoints all
+the great national officers, executive, diplomatic, judicial, naval
+and military,&mdash;it controls the legislative departments. Look at this
+Honorable Court, Gentlemen, and recognize its power!</p>
+
+<p>The idea of Slavery must be carried out to its logical consequence, so
+our masters now meditate two series of Measures, both necessary to the
+development of Slavery as a Principle.</p>
+
+<p>(I.) African Slavery is to be declared a Federal Institution, national
+and sectional, and so extended into all the Territories of the United
+States. New soil is to be bought or plundered from Hayti, Spain,
+Mexico, South America "and the rest of mankind," that slavery may be
+planted there; that is the purpose of all the Official Fillibustering
+of the Government, and the Extra-official Fillibustering which it
+starts, or allows; Quitman "Enterprises," Kinney "Expeditions," Black
+Warrior and El Dorado "difficulties," all point to this; the "Ostend
+Conference" is a step in that direction; Slavery is to be restored to
+the so called "Free States," reëstablished in all the North. That is
+the design of the fugitive slave bill in 1850, and the kidnapping of
+northern men consequent thereon for the last five years; of President
+Pierce's inaugural declarations in behalf of slavery in 1853; of Mr.
+Toombs's threat in 1854, that "soon the master with his slaves will
+sit down at the foot of Bunker Hill Monument;" of Mr. Toucey's Bill in
+1855, providing that when a kidnapper violates the local laws of any
+State, he shall be tried by the fugitive slave bill court. Then the
+African Slave-trade is to be restored by federal enactments, or
+judicial decisions of the "Supreme Court of the United States." All
+these steps belong to Measure number One. The Supreme Court is ready
+to execute the commands of its lord. Soon you will see more
+"decisions" adverse to humanity.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">16</a></span></p>
+
+<p>(II.) The next movement is progressively to weaken and ultimately to
+destroy the Democratic Institutions of the North,&mdash;yes, also of the
+South. This design is indicated and sustained by some of the measures
+already mentioned as connected with the first purpose.</p>
+
+<p>To this point tend the words of President Pierce addressed to the
+soldiers of 1812 on the 8th of January 1855, in which he speaks of
+such as "disseminate political heresies," that is, the Idea of
+Freedom; "revile the government,"&mdash;expose its hostility against the
+unalienable Rights of man; "deride our institutions,"&mdash;to wit, the
+patriarchal institution of Slavery; "sow political
+dissensions,"&mdash;advise men not to vote for corrupt tools of the
+government; "set at defiance the laws of the land,"&mdash;meaning the
+fugitive slave bill which commands kidnapping.</p>
+
+<p>There belong the attempts of the Federal courts to enlarge their
+jurisdiction at the expense of State Rights; the cry, "Union first and
+Liberty afterwards;" the shout "No higher law," "Religion nothing to
+do with Politics."</p>
+
+<p>Thence come the attacks made on the freedom of the pulpit, of the
+press, and all freedom of speech. The Individual State which preserves
+freedom must be put down,&mdash;the individual person who protests against
+it must be silenced. No man must hold a federal office,&mdash;executive,
+diplomatic, judicial, or "ministerial,"&mdash;unless he has so far
+conquered his "prejudices" in favor of the natural Rights of man that
+he is ready to enslave a brother with alacrity. All these steps belong
+to Measure number Two.</p>
+
+<p>This latter Measure advances to its execution, realizing the Idea of
+Slavery, with subtle steps, yet creeps on rapid-moving feet. See how
+it has gained ground latterly. Obviously the fugitive slave bill
+struck only at the natural Rights of Colored men&mdash;as valuable as those
+of white men, but the colored are few and the white many,&mdash;the
+experiment must be made on the feebler body. But this despotism cannot
+enslave a black girl without thereby putting in peril the liberty of
+every white man. At first our masters only asked of Boston a little
+piece of chain, but just long enough to shackle the virtuous hands of
+Ellen Craft, a wife and mother, whom her Georgian "owner" wished to
+sell as a harlot at New Orleans! A meeting was summoned at Faneuil
+Hall, and Boston answered, "Yes, here is the chain. Let the
+woman-hunter capture Ellen Craft, make her a Prostitute at New
+Orleans. She is a virtuous wife and mother,&mdash;but no matter. Slavery is
+king and commands it. Let the 'owner' have his chain."</p>
+
+<p>There is no escaping the consequence of a first Principle. Soon that
+little chain lengthened itself out, and coiled itself all round the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">17</a></span>
+court house, and how greedily your judges stooped to go under! This
+Anaconda of the Dismal Swamp wound its constricting twists about the
+neck of all your courts, and the Judges turned black in the face, and
+when questioned of law, they could not pronounce "Habeas Corpus,"
+"Trial by Jury," nor utter a syllable for the Bible or the
+Massachusetts Constitution, but only wheeze and gurgle and squeak and
+gibber out their defences of Slavery! No, Boston could not bewray a
+woman wandering towards freedom, without chaining the court house and
+its judges, putting the town in a state of siege,&mdash;insolent soldiers
+striking at the people's neck. Now the attempt is making by this
+Honorable Court to put the same chain round Faneuil Hall, so that the
+old Cradle of Liberty shall no more rock to manhood the noble sons of
+freedom, but only serve as a nest that the spawn of Bondage may
+hibernate therein.</p>
+
+<p>I am on trial because I hate Slavery, because I love freedom for the
+black man, for the white man, and for all the human Race. I am not
+arraigned because I have violated the statute on which the indictment
+is framed&mdash;no child could think it&mdash;but because I am an advocate of
+Freedom, because my Word, my Thoughts, my Feelings, my Actions, nay,
+all my Life, my very Existence itself, are a protest against Slavery.
+Despotism cannot happily advance unless I am silenced. It is very
+clear logic which indicts me. Private personal malice, deep, long
+cherished, rancorous, has doubtless jagged and notched and poisoned
+too the public sword which smites at my neck. Still it is the public
+sword of Slavery which is wielded against me. Against <span class="smcap">me</span>? Against <span class="smcap">you</span>
+quite as much&mdash;against your children. For as Boston could not venture
+to kidnap a negro woman, without bringing down that avalanche of
+consequences connected with the Principle of Slavery,&mdash;without chains
+on her Judges, falsehood in her officers, blood in her courts, and
+drunken soldiers in her streets, and hypocrisy in her man-hunting
+ministers,&mdash;no more can she put me to silence alone. The thread which
+is to sew my lips together, will make your mouths but a silent and
+ugly seam in your faces. Slavery is Plaintiff in this case; Freedom
+Defendant. Before you as Judges, I plead your own cause&mdash;for you as
+defendant. I will not insult you by the belief or the fear that you
+can do other than right, in a matter where the law is so plain, and
+the Justice clear as noonday light. But should you decide as the
+wicked wish, as the court longs to instruct you, you doom your mouths
+to silence; you bow your manly faces to the ground, destine your
+memories to shame, and your children to bondage worse than negro
+slavery.</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>Such, Gentlemen of the Jury, is the state of affairs leading to this
+Prosecution&mdash;such the past, present, and prospective Encroachments<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">18</a></span> of
+a Power hostile to Democratic Institutions and the unalienable Rights
+they were designed to protect. Such also are the two Measures now in
+contemplation,&mdash;the Extension of African Bondage, and the Destruction
+of American Freedom.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="hang">II. <span class="smcap">Look next at the Mode of Operation hitherto pursued by this
+Encroaching Power, in other times and nations, and in our own,
+systematic corruption of the Judiciary.</span></p>
+
+<p>Here I shall show the process by which that Principle of Slavery
+becomes a Measure of political ruin to the People.</p>
+
+<p>In substance Despotism is always the same, Spanish or Carolinian, but
+the form varies to suit the ethnologic nature and historical customs
+of different people. I shall mention two forms&mdash;one to illustrate, the
+other to warn.</p>
+
+<p>(I.) The open Assumption of Power by military violence. This method is
+followed in countries where love of Individual Liberty is not much
+developed in the consciousness of the people, and where democratic
+institutions are not fixed facts in their history; where the nation is
+not accustomed to local self-government, but wonted to a strong
+central power directed by a single will. This form prevails in Russia,
+Turkey, and among all the Romanic tribes in Europe, and their
+descendants in America. Military usurpation, military rule is
+indigenous in France,&mdash;where two Napoleons succeed thereby,&mdash;in Italy,
+in Spain, and most eminently in Spanish America. But no people of the
+Teutonic family for any length of time ever tolerated a usurping
+soldier at the head of affairs, or submitted to martial arbitrary
+rule, or military violence in the chief magistrate. It is against our
+habit and disposition.</p>
+
+<p>Neither Cromwell nor William of Orange could do with the Anglo-Saxon
+what it would have been impossible not to do with Spaniards or
+Italians. Even warlike Swiss&mdash;Teutonic tribes&mdash;will have a government
+with due process of law, not by the abrupt violence of the soldier.
+Washington could not have established a military monarchy in America
+had he been so wickedly disposed. Even William the Conqueror must rule
+the Saxons by Saxon law.</p>
+
+<p>(II.) The corruption of the acknowledged safeguards of public
+security. This is attempted in nations who have a well-known love of
+individual liberty, and institutional defences thereof, the habit of
+Local Self-government by Democratic Law-making and Law-administering.
+For example, this experiment has been repeatedly made in England. The
+monarch seeking to destroy the liberty of the people,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">19</a></span> accomplishes
+his violent measure by the forms of peaceful law, by getting the
+judicial class of men on the side of despotism. Then all the
+wickedness can be done in the name, with the forms, and by "due
+process" of law, by regular officers thereof&mdash;done solemnly with the
+assistance of slow and public deliberation.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, this is a matter of such importance to the
+People of America just now, that I must beg you to bear with me while
+I explain this subtle operation. I will select examples from the
+history of England which are easy to understand, because her blood is
+kindred to our own, and the institutions of the two countries are
+related as parent and child. And besides, her past history affords
+alike warning and guidance in our present peril.</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>(I.) The first step in this process of political iniquity is, to
+appoint men for judges and other officers of the court, who know no
+law higher than the selfish will of the hand that feeds them, mere
+creatures of the <span title="Transcriber's Note: for 'rest' read 'government'"><a href="#ERRATA">rest</a></span>.</p>
+
+<p>I will select instances of this from the reign of the Stuart kings and
+one of their successors, from a period full of melancholy warning to
+America.</p>
+
+<p>I will begin with James I. (1603-1625), the first King of New England.
+At his very accession he had high notions of his royal Prerogative,
+and maintained that all the privileges of the House of Commons were
+derived from his royal grant. "I am your King," said he, "I am placed
+to govern you, and I shall [must] answer for your errors." It was
+quite enough to answer for his own,&mdash;poor man. "Let me make the
+Judges," said he, "and I care not who makes the laws."</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly for judicial officers he appointed such men as would
+execute his unlawful schemes for the destruction of public liberty. To
+such considerations was Francis Bacon mainly indebted for his
+elevation from one legal rank to another, until he reached the seat of
+the Lord Chancellor. A man whom Villers declared, "of excellent parts,
+but withal of a base and ungrateful temper, and an arrant knave, yet a
+fit instrument for the purposes of the government." He did not receive
+his appointment for that vast, hard-working genius which makes his
+name the ornament of many an age, but only for his sycophantic
+devotion to the royal will. Sir Edward Coke was promoted rapidly
+enough, whilst wholly subservient to the despotic court, but
+afterwards, though a miracle of legal knowledge, not equalled yet
+perhaps, he must not be appointed Lord Chancellor on account of "his
+occasional fits of independence." Chief Justice Ley was one of the
+right stamp, but it was thought "his subserviency might prove more
+valuable by retaining him to preside over the Court<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">20</a></span> of King's Bench."
+"For in making the highest judicial appointments the only question
+was, what would suit the arbitrary schemes of governing the
+country."<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> Hobart had resisted some illegal monopolies of the
+all-powerful Buckingham, and he was "unfit for promotion."</p>
+
+<p>James thought the Prerogative would be strengthened by the appointment
+of clergymen of the national church, perhaps the only class of men not
+then getting fired with love of liberty,&mdash;and made Williams, Bishop of
+Lincoln, Lord Keeper, a "man of rash and insolent, though servile
+temper, and of selfish, temporizing, and trimming political conduct,"
+who at that time had never acted as "a judge except at the Waldegrave
+Petty Sessions in making an order of bastardy or allowing a rate for
+the Parish poor," and was "as ignorant of the questions coming before
+him as the door-keepers of his court." But he was subservient, and had
+pleased the King by preaching the courtly doctrine that "subjects hold
+their liberties and their property at the will of the Sovereign whom
+they are bound in every extremity passively to obey."<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> Men like
+Fleming and other creatures of the throne, sanctioning the King's
+abundant claim to absolute power, were sure of judicial distinction;
+while it was only the force of public opinion which gave the humblest
+place of honor to such able and well-studied lawyers as would respect
+the constitutional Rights of the People and the just construction of
+the laws, and at all hazards maintain their judicial independence.
+Ecclesiastics who taught that the King "is above the laws by his
+absolute power," and "may quash any law passed by Parliament," were
+sure of rapid preferment. Thus Bancroft was promoted; thus Abbot was
+pushed aside; and for his mean, tyrannical and subservient disposition
+Rev. William Laud was continually promoted in expectation of the
+services which, as Archbishop, he subsequently performed in the
+overthrow of the Liberty of the People. But time would fail me to read
+over the long dark list of men whose personal shame secured them
+"official glory."</p>
+
+<p>In his address to the Judges in the Star-Chamber in 1616 James gave
+them this charge, "If there falls out a question which concerns any
+Prerogative or mysterie of State, <i>deale not with it till you consult
+with the King</i> or his Council, or both; for they are Transcendent
+Matters, and must not be slibberly carried with over rash
+wilfullnesse." "And this I commend unto your special care, as some of
+you of late have done very much, to <i>blunt the edge and vaine popular
+humor of some lawyers at the Barre</i>, that think they are not eloquent
+and bold-spirited enough, except they <i>meddle with the King's
+Prerogative</i>." "<i>That which concerns the mysterie of the King's Power
+is not lawful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">21</a></span> to be disputed.</i>"<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> Gentlemen, that was worthy of some
+judicial charges which you and I have heard.</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>Charles I. (1625-1659,) pursued the same course of tyranny by the same
+steps. Coventry could be implicitly relied on to do as commanded, and
+was made Lord Keeper in 1625. When the question of Ship-money was to
+be brought forward in 1636, Chief Justice Heath was thought not fit to
+be trusted with wielding the instrument of tyranny, and accordingly
+removed; "and Finch, well known to be ready to go all lengths, was
+appointed in his place." For he had steadfastly maintained that the
+King was absolute, and could dispense with law and parliament,&mdash;a fit
+person to be a Chief Justice, or a Lord Chancellor, in a tyrant's
+court, ready to enact iniquity into law. His compliance with the
+King's desire to violate the first principle of Magna Charta,
+"endeared him to the Court, and secured him further preferment as soon
+as any opportunity should occur." So he was soon made Lord Chancellor
+and raised to the peerage. Littleton had once been on the popular
+side, but deserted and went over to the Court&mdash;he was sure of
+preferment; and as he became more and more ready to destroy the
+liberties of the People, he was made Chief Justice, and finally Lord
+Chancellor in 1641. Lane was a "steady friend of the prerogative," and
+so was made Attorney-General to the Prince of Wales, and thence
+gradually elevated to the highest station.</p>
+
+<p>Other Judicial appointments were continually made in the same spirit.
+Thus when Sir Randolf Crewe was Chief Justice of the King's Bench, the
+government questioned him to ascertain if he were "sound," and were
+shocked to hear him declare that the King had no right to levy taxes
+without consent of Parliament, or imprison his subjects without due
+process of law. He was "immediately dismissed from his office,"
+(1626,) and Sir Nicolas Hyde appointed in his place. By such means the
+courts were filled with tools of the King or his favorites, and the
+pit digged for the liberties of the People, into which at last there
+fell&mdash;the head of the King!</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>Charles II. and James II., (1655-1686,) did not mend the evil, but
+appointed for judges "such a pack as had never before sat in
+Westminster Hall." Shaftesbury and Guildford had the highest judicial
+honors. Lord Chancellor Finch, mentioned already, had been accused by
+the Commons of High Treason and other misdemeanors, but escaped to the
+continent, and returned after the Restoration. He was appointed one of
+the Judges to try the Regicides. Thus he "who had been accused of high
+treason twenty years before by a full<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">22</a></span> parliament, and who by flying
+from their justice saved his life, was appointed to judge some of
+those who should have been his Judges."<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> He declared in Parliament
+that Milton, for services rendered to the cause of liberty while Latin
+Secretary to Cromwell, "deserved hanging."<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p>
+
+<p>In these reigns such men as Saunders, Wright, and Scroggs, were made
+Judges, men of the vilest character, with the meanest appetites,
+licentious, brutal, greedy of power and money, idiotic in the moral
+sense, appointed solely that they might serve as tools for the
+oppression of the People. Among these infamous men was George
+Jeffreys, of whom Lord Campbell says,&mdash;"He has been so much abused
+that I began my critical examination of his history in the hope and
+belief that I should find that his misdeeds had been exaggerated, and
+that I might be able to rescue his memory from some portion of the
+obloquy under which it labors; but I am sorry to say that in my
+matured opinion his cruelty and his political profligacy have not been
+sufficiently exposed or reprobated; and that he was not redeemed from
+his vices by one single solid virtue."<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> But in consequence of his
+having such a character, though not well-grounded in law, he was made
+a Judge, a Peer, and a Lord Chancellor! Wright, nearly as infamous,
+miraculously stupid and ignorant, "a detected swindler, knighted and
+clothed in ermine, took his place among the twelve judges of
+England."<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> He also was made Chief Justice successively of the
+Common Pleas and the King's Bench! Lord Campbell, himself a judge, at
+the end of his history of the reign of Charles and James, complains of
+"the irksome task of relating the actions of so many men devoid of
+political principle and ready to suggest or to support any measures,
+however arbitrary or mischievous, for the purpose of procuring their
+own advancement."<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> It was the practice of the Stuarts "to dismiss
+judges without seeking any other pretence, who showed any disposition
+to thwart government in political prosecutions."<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> Nor was this
+dismissal confined to cases where the judge would obey the law in
+merely Political trials. In 1686 four of the judges denied that the
+king had power to dispense with the laws of the land and change the
+form of religion: the next morning they were all driven from their
+posts, and four others, more compliant, were appointed and the
+judicial "opinion was unanimous." Hereupon Roger Coke says well,&mdash;"the
+king ... will make the judges in Westminster Hall to murder the common
+law, as well as the king and his brother desired to murder the
+parliament by itself; and to this end the king, when he would make any
+judges would make a bargain with them, that they should declare the
+king's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">23</a></span> power of dispensing with the penal laws and tests made against
+recusants, out of parliament."<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>Here, Gentlemen of the Jury, I must mention three obscure judges who
+received their appointments under Stuart kings. Before long I shall
+speak of their law and its application, and now only introduce them to
+you as a measure preliminary to a more intimate acquaintance
+hereafter.</p>
+
+<p>1. The first is Sir William Jones, by far the least ignoble of the
+three. He was descended from one of the Barons who wrung the Great
+Charter from the hands of King John in <span title="Transcriber's Note: for '1618' read '1215'"><a href="#ERRATA">1618</a></span>,
+and in 1628 dwelt in the same house
+which sheltered the more venerable head of his Welsh ancestor. In 1628
+he was made judge by Charles I. He broke down the laws of the realm to
+enable the king to make forced loans on his subjects, and by his
+special mandate (Lettre de Cachet) to imprison whom he would, as long
+as it pleased him, and without showing any reason for the commitment
+or the detention! Yes, he supported the king in his attempt to shut up
+members of parliament for words spoken in debate in the house of
+commons itself; to levy duties on imports, and a tax of ship-money on
+the land. He was summoned before parliament for his offences against
+public justice, and finally deprived of office, though ungratefully,
+by the king himself.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p>
+
+<p>2. Thomas Twysden was counsel for George Coney in 1655, a London
+merchant who refused to pay an illegal tax levied on him by
+Cromwell&mdash;who followed in the tyrannical footsteps of the king he
+slew. Twysden was thrown into the Tower for defending his client&mdash;as
+Mr. Sloane, at Sandusky, has just been punished by the honorable court
+of the United States for a similar offence,&mdash;but after a few days made
+a confession of his "error," defending the just laws of the land,
+promised to offend no more, and was set at liberty, ignominiously
+leaving his client to defend himself and be defeated. This Twysden was
+made judge by Charles II. The reporters recording his decisions put
+down "<i>Twysden in furore</i>," thinly veiling the judicial wrath in
+modest Latin. He was specially cruel against Quakers and other
+dissenters, treating George Fox, Margarett Fell, and John Bunyan with
+brutal violence.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p>
+
+<p>3. Sir John Kelyng is another obscure judge of those times. In the
+civil war he was a violent cavalier, and "however fit he might be to
+<i>charge</i> the Roundheads under Prince Rupert, he was very unfit to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">24</a></span>
+<i>charge</i> a jury in Westminster Hall." In 1660 he took part in the
+trial of the Regicides and led in the prosecution of Colonel Hacker,
+who in 1649 had charge of the execution of Charles I. In 1662 he took
+part in the prosecution of Sir Henry Vane, and by his cruel subtlety
+in constructing law, that former governor of Massachusetts,&mdash;one of
+the most illustrious minds of England, innocent of every crime, was
+convicted of high treason and put to death.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> For this service, in
+1663 Kelyng was made a judge; and then, by loyal zeal and judicial
+subserviency, he made up "for his want of learning and sound sense."
+But he was so incompetent that even the court of Charles II. hesitated
+to make him more than a puny judge. But he had been a "valiant
+cavalier," and had done good service already in making way with such
+as the king hated, and so after the death of Sir Nicolas Hyde, he was
+made Lord Chief Justice in his place. "In this office," says Judge
+Campbell, he "exceeded public expectation by the violent, fantastical,
+and ludicrous manner in which he conducted himself."<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> But I will
+not now anticipate what I have to say of him in a subsequent part of
+this defence.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, we shall meet these three together again before
+long, and I shall also speak of them "singly or in pairs." In the mean
+time I will mention one similar appointment in the reign of George the
+III.&mdash;the last king of New England.</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>In 1770 Sergeant Glynn, in Parliament, moved for an inquiry into the
+administration of criminal justice. Edmund Thurlow, a rough venal man,
+then recently appointed solicitor-general, proposed that a severe
+censure should be passed on him for the motion. Thurlow wanted the
+trial by jury abolished in all cases of libel, so that the liberty of
+the people should be in the exclusive care of government attorneys and
+judges appointed by the crown. Hear him speak on the 6th of December,
+1770.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"In my opinion no man should be allowed with impunity to
+make a wanton attack upon such venerable characters as the
+judges of the land. We award costs and damages to the
+aggrieved party in the most trifling actions. By what
+analogy, then, can we refuse the same justice in the most
+important cases, to the most important personages? If we
+allow every pitiful patriot thus to insult us with
+ridiculous accusations, without making him pay forfeit for
+his temerity, we shall be eternally pestered with the
+humming and buzzing of these stingless wasps. Though they
+cannot wound or poison, they will tease and vex. They will
+divert our attention from the important affairs of State to
+their own mean antipathies, and passions, and prejudices.
+Did they not count upon the spirit of the times and imagine
+that the same latitude which is taken by the libellers is
+here allowable, they would not have dared to offer so gross
+an outrage. I hope we shall now handle them so roughly as to
+make this the last of such<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">25</a></span> audacious attempts. They are
+already ridiculous and contemptible. To crown their
+disgrace, let us inflict some exemplary punishment. Else
+none of us is safe. Virtue and honor, you see from this
+instance, are no safeguard from their attacks."</p>
+
+<p>"The nature, the direct effect, and the remote consequences
+of a State libel, are so complicated and involved with
+various considerations of great pith and moment, that few
+juries can be adequate judges. So many circumstances are at
+once to be kept in view, so many ponderous interests are to
+be weighed, so many comparisons to be made, and so many
+judgments formed, that the mind of an ordinary man is
+distracted and confounded, and rendered incapable of coming
+to any regular conclusion. None but a judge, a man that has
+from his infancy been accustomed to decide intricate cases,
+is equal to such a difficult task. If we even suppose the
+jury sufficiently enlightened to unravel those knotty
+points, yet there remains an insuperable objection. In State
+libels, their passions are frequently so much engaged, that
+they may be justly considered as parties concerned against
+the crown."</p>
+
+<p>"In order, therefore, to preserve the balance of our
+constitution, <i>let us leave to the judges</i>, as the most
+indifferent persons, <i>the right of determining the malice or
+innocence of the intention</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not that I think the intention a matter of fact; no,
+in the sense put upon it by the judges, it is a matter of
+law."</p>
+
+<p>"Much dust has been raised about civil and criminal actions.
+But to what purpose? Is not reparation to be made to the
+public for any injury which it may have sustained, as much
+as to an individual? Is the welfare of the nation in
+general, of less consequence than that of a single person?
+Where then is the propriety of making such a bustle about
+the malice or innocence of the intention? The injury done is
+the only proper measure of the punishment to be inflicted,
+as well as of the damage to be assessed. Since you cannot
+plead the intention as a mitigation in the latter case,
+neither can you in the former."<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>What followed? On the 23d of July, 1771, he was made Attorney-General.
+His subsequent history did not disappoint the prophecy uttered above
+by his former conduct and his notorious character. "In truth his
+success was certain, with the respectable share he possessed of real
+talents and of valuable requirements&mdash;strongly marked features,
+piercing eyes, bushy eyebrows, and a sonorous voice, all worked to the
+best effect by an immeasurable share of self-confidence&mdash;he could not
+fail."<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> He hated America with the intense malignity of a low but
+strong and despotic nature, and "took a most zealous part and uttered
+very violent language against the colonists. He scorned the very
+notion of concession or conciliation; he considered 'sedition' and
+'treason,' (like <i>tobacco</i> and <i>potatoes</i>,) the peculiar plants of the
+American soil. The natives of these regions he thought were born to be
+taxed."<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> He favored the Stamp Act, the Coercion Bill,&mdash;quartering
+soldiers upon us, sending Americans beyond seas for trial,&mdash;the Boston
+Port Bill, and all the measures against the colonies. "To say that we
+have a right to tax America and never exercise that right, is
+ridiculous, and a man must abuse his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">26</a></span> understanding very much not to
+allow of that right;" "the right of taxing was never in the least
+given up to the Americans."<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> On another occasion he said, that "as
+attorney-general he had a right to set aside every charter in
+America."<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> What followed? Notwithstanding his youthful profligacy,
+the open profanity of his public and private speech, and his living in
+public and notorious contempt of matrimony,&mdash;he was made Lord
+Chancellor and elevated to the peerage in 1778! Him also we shall meet
+again.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, I might as well try to bale all the salt water
+out of the sea as to mention every glaring and notorious instance
+where an oppressive government has appointed some discarder of all
+Higher Law for its servant in crushing the People. Come therefore to
+the next point.</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>(II.) The next step is by means of <i>such Judges to punish and destroy
+or silence men who oppose the wickedness of the party in power, and
+the encroachments of despotism</i>. Let me describe the general mode of
+procedure, and then illustrate it by special examples.</p>
+
+<p>1. In the Privy Council, or elsewhere, it is resolved to punish the
+obnoxious men,&mdash;and the business is intrusted to the law-officers of
+the crown, appointed for such functions.</p>
+
+<p>2. They consult and agree to pervert and twist the law&mdash;statute or
+common&mdash;for that purpose. By this means they gratify their master, and
+prepare future advancement for themselves.</p>
+
+<p>3. The precedent thus established becomes the basis for new operations
+in the future, and may be twisted and perverted to serve other cases
+as they occur.</p>
+
+<p>Now, Gentlemen, look at some examples taken from British history, in
+times of the same Kings mentioned before.</p>
+
+<p>1. In 1610 two Puritans for refusing the <i>ex officio</i> oath, were
+clapped in Jail by the commissioners. They were brought on <i>habeas
+corpus</i> before a court, and Mr. Fuller, their counsel, a learned
+lawyer, insisted that they were imprisoned without due process of law.
+For this "contempt of court" he was thrown into jail by Archbishop
+Bancroft, whence he was rescued only by death.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p>
+
+<p>2. In 1613 there were many murmurs among the People of England at the
+tyranny of James. Fine and imprisonment did not quell the disturbance;
+so a more dreadful example was thought needful. The officials of
+Government broke into the study of Rev. Edmund Peacham, a Protestant
+minister, sixty or seventy years old. In an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">27</a></span> uncovered cask they found
+a manuscript sermon, never preached, nor designed for the pulpit or
+the press, never shown to any one. It contained some passages which
+might excite men to resist tyranny. He was arrested, and thrown into
+Jail, all his papers seized. The Government resolved to prosecute him
+for high treason. Francis Bacon, the powerful and corrupt
+Attorney-General, managed the prosecution. Before trial was ventured
+upon, he procured an extrajudicial opinion of the Judges appointed for
+such services,&mdash;irregularly given, out of court, that they would
+declare such an act high treason.</p>
+
+<p>But a manuscript sermon, neither preached nor designed for the public,
+was hardly evidence enough of treason even for such Judges&mdash;so
+purchased, for such an Attorney&mdash;so greedy of preferment, with such a
+Cabinet and such a King. For all those, like the Pharisees of old,
+"feared the People." So their victim was tortured on the rack, and
+twelve leading questions prepared by the Government officials, were
+put to him there. I quote Secretary Winwood's record&mdash;still extant in
+his own handwriting&mdash;"He was this day examined before torture, in
+torture, between torture, and after torture; notwithstanding nothing
+could be drawn from him, he still persisting in his obstinate and
+insensible denials and former answers." Bacon was present at the
+torture, which took place in the Tower, Jan. 19, 1614, O.S. (30th Jan.
+1615, N.S.). In August he was tried for high treason&mdash;"compassing and
+imagining the King's death"&mdash;before a packed jury; against law, and
+without legal evidence. He was of course found guilty under the ruling
+of the Court! But public opinion, even then making tyrants "tremble in
+their capitals," was so indignant at the outrage that the execution
+was not ventured on, and he was left to languish in Jail, till on the
+27th of March, 1616, a King more merciful took the old minister where
+the wicked cease from troubling.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p>
+
+<p>In this case, Gentlemen of the Jury, you will notice three violations
+of the law.</p>
+
+<p>(1.) The opinion of the Judges before the trial was extrajudicial and
+illegal.</p>
+
+<p>(2.) The application of torture was contrary to law.</p>
+
+<p>(3.) The statute of Treason was wrested to apply to this case&mdash;and a
+crime was constructed by the servants of the court.</p>
+
+<p>It is curious to read the opinion of James himself. "The British
+Solomon" thus wrote:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"So the only thing the Judges can doubt of is of the
+delinquent's intention, on his bare denial to clear him
+[himself], since nature teaches every man to defend his life
+as he may; and whether in case there was a doubt herein, the
+Judges should not rather incline to that side [namely, the
+side of the Government,] wherein all proba<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">28</a></span>bility lies: but
+if Judges will needs trust rather the bare negative of an
+<i>infamous delinquent</i>&mdash;then all the probabilities, or rather
+infallible consequences upon the other part, caring more for
+the safety of <i>such a monster</i> than the preservation of a
+crown in all ages following, whereupon depend the lives of
+many millions, happy then are all <i>desperate and seditious
+knaves</i>, but the fortune of this crown is more than
+miserable. Which God forefend."<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>3. In 1633, Laud, a tyrannical, ambitious man, and a servile creature
+of the King, mentioned before, was made Archbishop of Canterbury,
+continuing Bishop of London at the same time. Charles I. was strongly
+inclined to Romanism, Laud also leaned that way, aiming to come as
+near as possible to the Papal and not be shut out of the English
+Church. He made some new regulations in regard to the Communion Table
+and the Lord's Supper. John Williams, before mentioned, Dean of
+Westminster and Bishop of Lincoln, who had been Lord Keeper under King
+James, wrote a book against those innovations; besides, in his
+episcopal court he had once spoken of the Puritans as "good subjects,"
+and of his knowing "that the King did not wish them to be harshly
+dealt with." In 1637 Laud directed that he should be prosecuted in the
+Star-Chamber for "publishing false news and tales to the scandal of
+his Majesty's government;" and "for revealing counsels of State
+contrary to his oath of a Privy Counsellor." He was sentenced to pay a
+fine of £10,000,&mdash;equal to $50,000, or thrice the sum in these times;
+to be suspended from all offices, and kept a close prisoner in the
+Tower during the King's pleasure&mdash;whence the Revolution set him at
+liberty. Besides he wrote private letters to Mr. Osbalderston, and
+called Laud "the little great man," for this he, in 1639, was fined
+£5,000 to the King, and £3,000 to the Archbishop. Osbalderston in his
+letters had spoken of the "great Leviathan" and the "little Urchin,"
+and was fined £5,000, to the King, and the same to the Archbishop, and
+sentenced also to stand in the pillory with his ears nailed to it!<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p>
+
+<p>4. In 1629 Richard Chambers, a merchant of London, complained to the
+Privy Council of some illegal and unjust treatment, and declared "that
+the merchants in no part of the world are so screwed and wrung as in
+England; that in Turkey they have more encouragement." Laud, who hated
+freedom of speech and liberal comments on the government as much as
+"eminent citizens" nowadays, is said to have told the king, "If your
+majesty had many such Chambers, you would soon have no Chamber left to
+rest in." The merchant was tried before the "commissioners" at the
+Star-Chamber, and fined £2,000, and condemned to make a "submission
+for his great offence,"<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> which the stout Puritan refused to do, and
+was kept in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">29</a></span> prison till the Court of King's Bench, faithful to the
+law, on Habeas Corpus, admitted him to bail: for which they were
+reprimanded. Laud and all the ecclesiastical members of the
+"commission" wished his fine £3,000.</p>
+
+<p>5. In his place in Parliament in 1629, Sir John Eliot, one of the
+noblest men in England's noblest age, declared that "the Council and
+Judges had all conspired to trample underfoot the liberties of the
+subject." Gentlemen, the fact was as notorious as the advance of the
+Slave Power now is in America. But a few days after the king (Charles
+I.) had dismissed his refractory Parliament, Eliot, with Hollis, Long,
+Selden, Strode, and Valentine, most eminent members of the commons,
+and zealous for liberty and law, was seized by the king's command and
+thrown into prison. The Habeas Corpus was demanded&mdash;it was all in
+vain, for Laud and Strafford were at the head of affairs, and the
+priests and pliant Judges in Westminster Hall&mdash;Jones was one of
+them&mdash;clove down the law of the land just as their subcatenated
+successors did in Boston in 1851. The court decreed that they should
+be imprisoned during the king's pleasure, and not released until
+making submission and giving security for good behavior. Eliot was
+fined £2,000, Hollis and Valentine in smaller sums. Eliot&mdash;the brave
+man&mdash;refused submission, and died in the Tower. Thus was the attack
+made on all freedom of speech in Parliament!<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p>
+
+<p>6. In 1630, the very year of the first settlement of Boston, on the
+4th of June, Rev. Dr. Alexander Leighton was brought before the Court
+of High Commission, in the Star-Chamber, to be tried for a seditious
+libel. He had published "An Appeal to the Parliament, or a Plea
+against Prelacy," a work still well known, remonstrating against
+certain notorious grievances in church and State, "to the end the
+Parliament might take them into consideration and give such redress as
+might be for the honor of the king, the quiet of the people, and the
+peace of the church," the court of commissions accounted it "a most
+odious and heinous offence, deserving the most serious punishment the
+court could inflict, for framing a book so full of such pestilent,
+devilish, and dangerous assertions." The two Chief Justices declared
+if the case had been brought to their courts, they would have
+proceeded against him for Treason, and it was only "his majesty's
+exceeding great mercy and goodness" which selected the milder
+tribunal. His sentence was a fine of £10,000, to be set in the
+pillory, whipped, have one ear cut off; one side of his nose slit, one
+cheek branded with S.S., Sower of Sedition, and then at some
+convenient time be whipped again, branded, and mutilated on the other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">30</a></span>
+side, and confined in the Fleet during life! Before the punishment
+could be inflicted he escaped out of prison, but was recaptured and
+the odious sentence fully executed. Those who "obstructed" the officer
+in the execution of that "process" were fined £500 a piece.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a>
+Gentlemen of the Jury, which do you think would most have astonished
+the Founders of Massachusetts, then drawing near to Boston, that trial
+on the 4th of June, 1630, or this trial, two hundred and twenty-five
+years later? At the court of Charles it was a great honor to mutilate
+the body of a Puritan minister.</p>
+
+<p>But not only did such judges thus punish the most noble men who wrote
+on political matters, there was no freedom of speech allowed&mdash;so
+logical is despotism!</p>
+
+<p>7. William Prynn, a zealous Puritan and a very learned lawyer, wrote a
+folio against theatres called "a Scourge for Stage-Players," dull,
+learned, unreadable and uncommon thick. He was brought to the
+Star-Chamber in 1632-3, and Chief Justice Richardson&mdash;who had even
+then "but an indifferent reputation for honesty and veracity"&mdash;gave
+this sentence: "Mr. Prynn, I do declare you to be a Schism-Maker in
+the Church, a Sedition-Sower in the Commonwealth, a wolf in sheep's
+clothing; in a word 'omnium malorum nequissimus'&mdash;[the wickedest of
+all scoundrels]. I shall fine him £10,000, which is more than he is
+worth, yet less than he deserveth; I will not set him at liberty, no
+more than a plagued man or a mad dog, who though he cannot bite, yet
+will he foam; he is so far from being a sociable soul that he is not a
+rational soul; he is fit to live in dens with such beasts of prey as
+wolves and tygers like himself; therefore I do condemn him to
+perpetual Imprisonment, as those monsters that are no longer fit to
+live among men nor to see light." "I would have him branded in the
+forehead, slit in the nose, and his ears cropped too." The sentence
+was executed the 7th and 10th of May, 1633.<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> But nothing
+intimidated, the sturdy man committed other offences of like nature,
+"obstructing" other "officers," and was punished again, and banished.
+But on the summoning of Parliament returned to England, and became
+powerful in that Revolution which crushed the tyrants of the time.</p>
+
+<p>8. In 1685, James II. was in reality a Catholic. He wished to restore
+Romanism to England and abolish the work of the Reformation, the
+better to establish the despotism which all of his family had sought
+to plant. He was determined to punish such as spoke against the Papal
+Church, though no law prohibited such speaking. Judge<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">31</a></span> Jeffreys, a
+member of the cabinet and favorite of the king, was at that time chief
+justice&mdash;abundantly fit for the work demanded of him. The pious and
+venerable Richard Baxter was selected for the victim. Let Mr. Macaulay
+tell the story.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"In a Commentary on the New Testament, he had complained,
+with some bitterness, of the persecution which the
+Dissenters suffered. That men, who, for not using the
+Prayerbook, had been driven from their homes, stripped of
+their property, and locked up in dungeons, should dare to
+utter a murmur, was then thought a high crime against the
+State and Church. Roger Lestrange, the champion of the
+government, and the oracle of the clergy, sounded the note
+of war in the Observator. An information was filed. Baxter
+begged that he might be allowed some time to prepare for his
+defence. It was on the day on which Oates was pilloried in
+Palace Yard that the illustrious chief of the Puritans,
+oppressed by age and infirmities, came to Westminster Hall
+to make this request. Jeffreys burst into a storm of rage.
+'Not a minute,' he cried, 'to save his life. I can deal with
+saints as well as with sinners. There stands Oates on one
+side of the pillory; and if Baxter stood on the other, the
+two greatest rogues in the kingdom would stand together.'"</p>
+
+<p>"When the trial came on at Guildhall, a crowd of those who
+loved and honored Baxter, filled the court. At his side
+stood Doctor William Bates, one of the most eminent
+Non-conformist divines. Two Whig barristers of great note,
+Pollexfen and Wallop, appeared for the defendant."</p>
+
+<p>"Pollexfen had scarce begun his address to the jury, when
+the chief justice broke forth: 'Pollexfen, I know you well.
+I will set a mark on you. You are the patron of the faction.
+This is an old rogue, a schismatical knave, a hypocritical
+villain. He hates the Liturgy. He would have nothing but
+longwinded cant without book;' and then his lordship turned
+up his eyes, clasped his hands, and began to sing through
+his nose in imitation of what he supposed to be Baxter's
+style of praying, 'Lord, we are thy people, thy peculiar
+people, thy dear people.' Pollexfen gently reminded the
+court that his late majesty had thought Baxter deserving of
+a bishopric. 'And what ailed the old blockhead then,' cried
+Jeffreys, 'that he did not take it?' His fury now rose
+almost to madness. He called Baxter a dog, and swore that it
+would be no more than justice to whip such a villain through
+the whole city."</p>
+
+<p>"Wallop interposed, but fared no better than his leader.
+'You are in all these dirty causes, Mr. Wallop,' said the
+judge. 'Gentlemen of the long robe ought to be ashamed to
+assist such factious knaves.' The advocate made another
+attempt to obtain a hearing, but to no purpose. 'If you do
+not know your duty,' said Jeffreys, 'I will teach it you.'</p>
+
+<p>"Wallop sat down, and Baxter himself attempted to put in a
+word; but the chief justice drowned all expostulation in a
+torrent of ribaldry and invective, mingled with scraps of
+Hudibras. 'My lord,' said the old man, 'I have been much
+blamed by Dissenters for speaking respectfully of bishops.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Baxter for bishops!' cried the judge; 'that's a merry
+conceit indeed. I know what you mean by bishops&mdash;rascals
+like yourself, Kidderminster bishops, factious, snivelling
+Presbyterians!'</p>
+
+<p>"Again Baxter essayed to speak, and again Jeffreys bellowed,
+'Richard, Richard, dost thou think we will let thee poison
+the court? Richard, thou art an old knave. Thou hast written
+books enough to load a cart, and every book as full of
+sedition as an egg is full of meat. By the grace of God,
+I'll look after thee. I see a great many of your brotherhood
+waiting to know what will befall their mighty Don. And
+there,' he continued, fixing his savage eye on Bates, 'there
+is a doctor of the party at your elbow. But, by the grace of
+God Almighty, I will crush you all!'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">32</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Baxter held his peace. But one of the junior counsel for
+the defence made a last effort, and undertook to show that
+the words of which complaint was made, would not bear the
+construction put on them by the information. With this view
+he began to read the context. In a moment he was roared
+down. 'You sha'n't turn the court into a conventicle!' The
+noise of weeping was heard from some of those who surrounded
+Baxter. 'Snivelling calves!' said the judge."<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>He was sentenced to pay a fine of 500 marks, to lie in prison till he
+paid it, and be bound to good behavior for seven years. Jeffreys, it
+is said, wished him also to be whipped at the tail of a cart.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> But
+the King remitted his fine.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the reign of James II. the courts of law became more and
+more contemptible in the eyes of the people. "All the three common law
+courts were filled by incompetent and corrupt Judges."<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> But their
+power to do evil never diminished.</p>
+
+<p>9. James II. wished to restore the Catholic form of religion, rightly
+looking on Protestantism as hostile to his intended tyranny; so he
+claimed a right to dispense with the laws relating thereto, put a
+Jesuit into his Privy Council, expelled Protestants from their
+offices, and filled the vacancy thus illegally made with Papists; he
+appointed Catholic bishops.<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> In 1688 he published a proclamation.
+It was the second of the kind,&mdash;dispensing with all the laws of the
+realm against Catholicism; and ordered it to be read on two specified
+Sundays during the hours of service in all places of public worship.
+This measure seemed to be a special insult to the Protestants. The
+declaration of indulgence was against their conscience, and in
+violation of the undisputed laws of the land, but Chief Justice Wright
+declared from the bench his opinion that it was "legal and
+obligatory," and on the day appointed for reading the decree attended
+church "to give weight to the solemnity," and as it was not read&mdash;for
+the clerk "had forgot to bring a copy,"&mdash;he "indecently in the hearing
+of the congregation abused the priest, as disloyal, seditious, and
+irreligious."</p>
+
+<p>But the clergy thought differently from the Chief
+Justice&mdash;Episcopalians and Dissenters agreeing on this point. Seven
+bishops petitioned the King that they might not be obliged to violate
+their conscience, the articles of their religion, and the laws of the
+realm, by reading the declaration. They presented their petition in
+person to the King, who treated it and them with insolence and wrath.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"The king, says Kennet, was not contented to have this
+declaration published in the usual manner, but he was
+resolved to have it solemnly read in all churches as the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">33</a></span>
+political gospel of his reign. The bishops and clergy were,
+of all others the most averse to the subject-matter of the
+declaration, as being most sensible of the ill design and
+ill effects of it; and therefore the court seemed the more
+willing to mortify these their enemies, and make them become
+accessory to their own ruin; and even to eat their own dung,
+as father Petre proudly threatened, and therefore this order
+of council was made and published."<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>The petition was printed and published with great rapidity, the
+bishops were seized, thrown into the Tower, and prosecuted in the
+court for a "false, feigned, malicious, pernicious, and seditious"
+libel.</p>
+
+<p>Judge Allybone thus addressed the Jury.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"And I think, in the first place, that <i>no man can</i> take
+upon him to <i>write against the actual exercise of the
+government, unless he have leave from the government</i>, but
+he makes a libel, be what he writes true or false; for if
+once we come to impeach the government by way of argument,
+it is the argument that makes it the government, or not the
+government. So that I lay down that, in the first place,
+<i>the government ought not to be impeached by argument</i>, nor
+the exercise of the government shaken by argument; because I
+can manage a proposition, in itself doubtful, with a better
+pen than another man; this, say I, is a libel.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I lay down this for my next position, that <i>no private
+man can take upon him to write concerning the government at
+all</i>; for <i>what has any private man to do with the
+government</i>, if his interest be not stirred or shaken? It is
+the business of the government to manage matters relating to
+the government; it <i>is the business of subjects to mind only
+their own properties and interests</i>. If my interest is not
+shaken, <i>what have I to do with matters of government</i>? They
+are not within my sphere. If the government does come to
+shake my particular interest, the law is open for me, and I
+may redress myself by law; and when I intrude myself into
+other men's business that does not concern my particular
+interest, I am a libeller.</p>
+
+<p>"These I have laid down for plain propositions; now, then,
+let us consider further, whether, if I will take upon me to
+contradict the government, any specious pretence that I
+shall put upon it, shall dress it up in another form and
+give it a better denomination? And truly I think it is the
+worse, because it comes in a better dress; for by that rule,
+every man that can put on a good vizard, may be as
+mischievous as he will, to the government at the bottom, so
+that, whether it be in the form of a supplication, or an
+address, or a petition, if it be what it ought not to be,
+let us call it by its true name, and give it its right
+denomination&mdash;it is a libel."</p>
+
+<p>"The government here has published such a declaration as
+this that has been read, relating to matters of government;
+and <i>shall</i>, or ought <i>anybody</i> to come and <i>impeach that as
+illegal, which the government has done</i>? Truly, in my
+opinion, I do not think he should, or ought; for by this
+rule may every act of the government be shaken, when there
+is not a parliament <i>de facto</i> sitting.</p>
+
+<p>"When the house of lords and commons are in being, it is a
+proper way of applying to the king; there is all the
+openness in the world for those that are members of
+parliament, to make what addresses they please to the
+government, for the rectifying, altering, regulating, and
+making of what law they please; but if every private man
+shall come and interpose his advice, I think there can never
+be an end of advising the government.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">34</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"<i>We are not to measure things from any truth they have in
+themselves, but from that aspect they have upon the
+government; for there may be every tittle of a libel true,
+and yet it may be a libel still</i>; so that I put no great
+stress upon that objection, that the matter of it is not
+false; and for sedition, it is that which every libel
+carries in itself: and as every trespass implies <i>vi and
+armis</i>, so every libel against the government carries in it
+sedition, and all the other epithets that are in the
+information. This is my opinion as to law in general. I will
+not debate the prerogatives of the king, nor the privileges
+of the subject; but as this fact is, I think these venerable
+bishops did meddle with that which did not belong to them;
+they took upon them, in a petitionary, to contradict the
+actual exercise of the government, which I think no
+particular persons, or singular body, may do."<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>Listen, Gentlemen of the Jury, to the words of Attorney-General
+Powis:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"And I cannot omit here to take notice, that <i>there is not
+any one thing that the law is more jealous of</i>, or does more
+carefully provide for the prevention and punishment of,
+<i>than all accusations and arraignments of the government. No
+man is allowed to accuse even the most inferior magistrate
+of any misbehavior in his office</i>, unless it be in a legal
+course, <i>though the fact is true</i>. No man may say of a
+justice of the peace, to his face, that he is unjust in his
+office. <i>No man may tell a judge, either by word or
+petition, you have given an unjust, or an ill judgment</i>, and
+I will not obey it; <i>it is against the rules and laws of the
+kingdom, or the like</i>. No man may say of the great men of
+the nation, much less of the great officers of the kingdom,
+that they do act unreasonably or unjustly, or the like;
+least of all may any man say any such thing of the king; for
+these matters tend to possess the people, that the
+government is ill administered; and the consequence of that
+is, to set them upon desiring a reformation; and what that
+tends to, and will end in, we have all had a sad and too
+dear bought experience."<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>Hearken to the law of Solicitor-General Williams:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"If any person have slandered the government in writing, you
+are <i>not to examine the truth of that fact</i> in such writing,
+but the slander which it imports to the king or government;
+and <i>be it never so true</i>, yet if slanderous to the king or
+the government, <i>it is a libel and to be punished</i>; in that
+case, <i>the right or wrong</i> is <i>not to be examined, or if
+what was done by the government be legal, or no</i>; but
+whether the party have done such an act. If the king have a
+power (for still I keep to that), to issue forth
+proclamations to his subjects, and to make orders and
+constitutions in matters ecclesiastical, if he do issue
+forth his proclamation, and make an order upon the matters
+within his power and prerogative; and if any one would come
+and bring that power in question otherwise than in
+parliament, that the matter of that proclamation be not
+legal, I say that is sedition, and you are not to examine
+the legality or illegality of the order or proclamation, but
+the slander and reflection upon the government."</p>
+
+<p>"If a person do a thing that is libellous, you shall not
+examine the fact, but the consequence of it; whether it
+tended to stir up sedition against the public, or to stir up
+strife between man and man, in the case of private persons;
+as if a man should say of a judge, he has taken a bribe, and
+I will prove it.</p>
+
+<p>"They tell the king it is inconsistent with their honor,
+prudence, and conscience, to do what he would have them to
+do. And if these things be not reflective upon the king and
+government, I know not what is.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">35</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you what they should have done, Sir. If they were
+commanded to do any thing against <i>their consciences, they
+should have acquiesced till the meeting of the parliament</i>.
+[At which some people in the court hissed.]</p>
+
+<p>"<i>If the king will impose upon a man what he cannot do, he
+must acquiesce</i>; but shall he come and fly in the face of
+his prince? Shall he say it is illegal? and the prince acts
+against prudence, honor, or conscience, and throw dirt in
+the king's face? Sure that is not permitted; that is
+libelling with a witness."<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>Here, however, there was a <span class="smcap">Jury</span>&mdash;the seven bishops were acquitted amid
+the tumultuous huzzas of the people, who crowded all the open spaces
+in the neighborhood of Westminster Hall, and rent the air with their
+shouts, which even the soldiers repeated.<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a></p>
+
+<p>Two of the Judges&mdash;Sir John Powell and Sir Richard Holloway&mdash;stood out
+for law and justice, declaring such a petition to the King was not a
+libel. They were presently thrust from their offices.</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, the Stuarts soon filled up the measure of their
+time as of their iniquity, and were hustled from the throne of
+England. But, alas, I shall presently remind you of some examples of
+this tyranny in New England itself. Now I shall cite a few similar
+cases of oppression which happened in the reign of the last King of
+New England.</p>
+
+<p>I just now spoke of Edmund Thurlow, showing what his character was and
+by what means he gained his various offices, ministerial and judicial.
+I will next show you one instance more of the evil which comes from
+putting in office such men as are nothing but steps whereon despotism
+mounts up to its bad eminence.</p>
+
+<p>10. On the 8th of June, 1775,&mdash;it will be eighty years on the first
+anniversary of Judge Curtis's charge to the grand-jury,&mdash;John Horne,
+better known by his subsequent name John Horne Tooke, formerly a
+clergyman but then a scholarly man devoting himself to letters and
+politics&mdash;published the following notice in the <i>Morning Chronicle and
+London Advertiser</i>, as well as other newspapers:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"King's-Arms Tavern, Cornhill, June 7, 1775. At a special
+meeting this day of several members of the Constitutional
+Society, during an adjournment, a gentleman proposed that a
+subscription should be immediately entered into by such of
+the members present who might approve the purpose, for
+raising the sum of £100, to be applied to the relief of the
+widows, orphans, and aged parents of our beloved American
+fellow-subjects, who, faithful to the character of
+Englishmen, preferring death to slavery, were for that
+reason only inhumanly murdered by the king's troops at or
+near Lexington and Concord, in the province of
+Massachusetts, on the 19th of last April; which sum being
+immediately collected, it was thereupon resolved that Mr.
+Horne do pay to-morrow into the hands of Mess. Brownes and
+Collinson, on account of Dr. Franklin, the said sum of
+100<i>l.</i> and that Dr. Franklin be requested to apply the same
+to the above-mentioned purpose."</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">36</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At that time Thurlow, whom I introduced to you a little while ago, was
+Attorney-General, looking for further promotion from the Tory
+Government of Lord North. Mansfield was Chief Justice, a man of great
+ability, who has done so much to reform the English law, but whose
+hostility to America was only surpassed by the hatred which he bore to
+all freedom of speech and the rights of the Jury. The Government was
+eager to crush the liberty of the American Colonies. But this was a
+difficult matter, for in England itself there was a powerful party
+friendly to America, who took our side in the struggle for liberty.
+The city of London, however, was hostile to us, wishing to destroy our
+merchants and manufacturers, who disturbed the monopoly of that
+commercial metropolis. The government thought it necessary to punish
+any man who ventured to oppose their tyranny and sympathize with
+America. Accordingly it was determined that Mr. Horne should be
+brought to trial. But as public opinion, stimulated by Erskine, Camden
+and others, favored the rights of the Jury, it seems to have been
+thought dangerous to trust the case to a Grand-Jury. Perhaps the Judge
+had no brother-in-law to put on it, or the Attorney-General&mdash;though
+famous also for his profanity,&mdash;doubted that any <i>swearing</i> of his
+would insure a bill; nay, perhaps he did not venture to "bet ten
+dollars that I will get an indictment against him." Be that as it may,
+the Attorney-General dispensed with the services of the Grand-Jury and
+filed an information <i>ex officio</i> against Mr. Horne, therein styling
+him a "wicked, malicious, seditious, and ill-disposed person;"
+charging him, by that advertisement, with "wickedly, maliciously, and
+seditiously intending, designing, and venturing to stir up and excite
+discontents and sedition;" "to cause it to be believed that divers of
+his Majesty's innocent and deserving subjects had been inhumanly
+murdered by ... his Majesty's troops; and unlawfully and wickedly to
+encourage his Majesty's subjects in the said Province of Massachusetts
+to resist and oppose his Majesty's Government." He said the
+advertisement was "a false, wicked, malicious, scandalous, and
+seditious libel;" "full of ribaldry, Billingsgate, scurrility,
+balderdash, and impudence;" "wicked is a term too high for this
+advertisement;" "its impudence disarmed its wickedness." In short, Mr.
+Horne was accused of "resisting an officer," obstructing the execution
+of the "process" whereby the American Provinces were to be made the
+slave colonies of a metropolitan despotism. The usual charge of doing
+all this by "force and arms," was of course thrown in. The publication
+of the advertisement was declared a "crime of such heinousness and of
+such a size as fairly called for the highest resentment which any
+court of justice has thought proper to use with respect to crimes of
+this denomination;" "a libel such that it is impossible by any
+artifice to aggra<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">37</a></span>vate it;" "It will be totally impossible for the
+imagination of any man, however shrewd, to state a libel more
+scandalous and base in the fact imputed, more malignant and hostile to
+the country in which the libeller is born, more dangerous in the
+example if it were suffered to pass unpunished, than this:" "It is in
+language addressed to the lowest and most miserable mortals, ... it is
+addressed to the lowest of the mob, and the bulk of the people, who it
+is fit should be otherwise taught, who it is fit should be otherwise
+governed in this country."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Horne was brought to trial on the 4th of July, 1777. He defended
+himself, but though a vigorous writer, he was not a good speaker, and
+was in a strange place, while "Thurlow fought on his own dunghill,"
+says Lord Campbell, "and throughout the whole day had the advantage
+over him." There was a special jury packed for the purpose by the
+hireling sheriff,&mdash;a "London jury" famous for corruption,&mdash;a
+tyrannical and powerful judge, ready to turn every weapon of the court
+against the defendant and to construct law against the liberty of
+speech. Of course Mr. Horne was convicted.</p>
+
+<p>But how should he be punished? Thurlow determined.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"My Lords, the punishments to be inflicted upon misdemeanors
+of this sort, have usually been of three different kinds;
+fine, corporal punishment by imprisonment, and infamy by the
+judgment of the pillory. With regard to the <i>fine</i>, it is
+impossible for justice to make this sort of punishment,
+however the infamy will always fall upon the offender;
+because it is well known, that men who have more wealth, who
+have better and more respectful situations and reputations
+to be watchful over, employ men in desperate situations both
+of circumstances and characters, in order to do that which
+serves their party purposes; and when the punishment comes
+to be inflicted, this court must have regard to the apparent
+situation and circumstances of the man employed, that is, of
+the man convicted, with regard to the punishment.</p>
+
+<p>"With regard to <i>imprisonment</i>, that is a species of
+punishment not to be considered alike in all cases, but ...,
+that it would be proper for the judgment of the court to
+state circumstances which will make the imprisonment fall
+lighter or heavier, ... that would be proper, if I had not
+been spared all trouble upon that account, by hearing it
+solemnly avowed ... by the defendant himself, that
+imprisonment was no kind of inconvenience to him; for that
+certain employments, ... would occasion his confinement in
+so close a way, that it was mere matter of circumstance
+whether it happened in one place or another; and that the
+longest imprisonment which this court could inflict for
+punishment, was not beyond the reach of accommodation which
+those occasions rendered necessary to him. In this respect,
+therefore, imprisonment is not only, ... not an adequate
+punishment to the offence, but the public are told, ... that
+it will be <i>no punishment</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"I stated in the third place to your Lordships, <i>the pillory
+to have been the usual punishment for this species of
+offence</i>. I apprehend it to have been so, in this case, for
+above two hundred years before the time when prosecutions
+grew rank in the Star-Chamber ... the punishment of the
+pillory was inflicted, not only during the time that such
+prosecutions were rank in the Star-Chamber, but it also
+continued to be inflicted upon this sort of crime, and that
+by the best authority, after the time of the abolishing the
+Star-Chamber, after the time of the Revolution, and while my
+Lord Chief Justice Holt sat in this court.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">38</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I would desire no better, no more pointed, nor any more
+applicable argument than what that great chief justice used,
+when it was contended before him that an abuse upon
+government, upon the administration of several parts of
+government, amounted to nothing, because there was no abuse
+upon any particular man. That great chief justice said, they
+amounted to much more; they are <i>an abuse upon all men</i>.
+Government cannot exist, if the law cannot restrain that
+sort of abuse. Government cannot exist, unless ... the full
+punishment is inflicted which the most approved times have
+given to offences of much less denomination than these, of
+much less. I am sure it cannot be shown, that in any one of
+the cases that were punished in that manner, the
+aggravations of any one of those offences were any degree
+adequate to those which are presented to your Lordship now.
+If offences were so punished then, which are not so punished
+now, they lose that expiation which the wisdom of those ages
+thought proper to hold out to the public, as a restraint
+from such offences being committed again.</p>
+
+<p>"I am to judge of crimes in order to the prosecution; your
+lordship is to judge of them ultimately for punishment. I
+should have been extremely sorry, if I had been induced by
+any consideration whatever, to have brought a crime of the
+magnitude which this was (of the magnitude which this was
+when I first stated it) into a court of justice, if I had
+not had it in my contemplation also that it would meet with
+an adequate restraint, which I never thought would be done
+without affixing to it the <i>judgment of the pillory</i>; I
+should have been very sorry to have brought this man here,
+after all the aggravations that he has superinduced upon the
+offence itself, if I had not been persuaded that those
+aggravations would have induced the <i>judgment of the
+pillory</i>."<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>But Mansfield thought otherwise, and punished him with a fine of £200
+and imprisonment for twelve months.<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a></p>
+
+<p>"Thus," says Lord Brougham, "a bold and just denunciation of the
+attacks made upon our American Brethren, which nowadays would rank
+among the very mildest and tamest effusions of the periodical press,
+condemned him to prison for twelve months."<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a></p>
+
+<p>Thurlow was a man of low intellect, of a fierce countenance, a saucy,
+swaggering, insolent manner, debauched in his morals beyond the
+grossness of that indecent age,&mdash;ostentatiously living in public
+concubinage,&mdash;a notorious swearer in public and private. But he knew
+no law above the will of the hand that fed and could advance him, no
+justice which might check the insolence of power. And in less than a
+month after Mr. Horne was sent to jail, Thurlow was made Lord
+Chancellor of England, and sat on the woolsack in the House of Lords.
+His chief panegyrist can only say, "in worse times there have been
+worse chancellors." "But an age of comparative freedom and refinement
+has rarely exhibited one who so ill understood, or at least so ill
+discharged, the functions of a statesman and legislator."</p>
+
+<p>I will enrich this part of my argument with an example of the opinions
+of this Judge, which would endear him to the present ad<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">39</a></span>ministration
+in America, and entitle him to a high place among southern
+politicians. In 1788 a bill was brought into Parliament to mitigate
+the horrors of the African slave-trade. The Lord Chancellor, Thurlow,
+opposed it and said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"It appears that the French have offered premiums to
+encourage the African [slave] trade, and that they have
+succeeded. The natural presumption therefore is, that <i>we
+ought to do the same</i>. For my part, my Lords, I have no
+scruple to say that if the 'five days' fit of philanthropy'
+[the attempt to abolish the slave-trade] which has just
+sprung up, and which has slept for twenty years together,
+were allowed to sleep one summer longer, it would appear to
+me rather more wise than thus to take up a subject
+piecemeal, which it has been publicly declared ought not to
+be agitated at all till next session of Parliament. Perhaps,
+by such imprudence, the slaves themselves may be prompted by
+their own authority, to proceed at once to a 'total and
+immediate abolition of the trade.' One witness has come to
+your Lordship's bar with a face of woe&mdash;his eyes full of
+tears, and his countenance fraught with horror, and said,
+'<i>My Lords, I am ruined if you pass this bill! I have risked
+£30,000 on the trade this year! It is all I have been able
+to gain by my industry, and if I lose it I must go to the
+hospital!</i>' I desire of you to think of such things, my
+Lords, in your <i>humane phrensy, and to show some humanity to
+the whites as well as to the negroes</i>."<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>One measure of tyranny in the hands of such Judges is Constructive
+Crime, a crime which the revengeful, or the purchased judge distils
+out of an honest or a doubtful deed, in the alembic he has made out of
+the law broken up and recast by him for that purpose, twisted, drawn
+out, and coiled up in serpentine and labyrinthine folds. For as the
+sweet juices of the grape, the peach, the apple, pear, or plumb may be
+fermented, and then distilled into the most deadly intoxicating
+draught to madden man and infuriate woman, so by the sophistry of a
+State's Attorney and a Court Judge, well trained for this work, out of
+innocent actions, and honest, manly speech, the most ghastly crimes
+can be extorted, and then the "leprous distilment" be poured upon the
+innocent victim,</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="poem">
+<tr>
+<td>
+"And a most instant tetter barks about,<br />
+Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust,<br />
+All his smooth body!"
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Here is an example. In 1668 some London apprentices committed a riot
+by pulling down some houses of ill-fame in Moorfields, which had
+become a nuisance to the neighborhood; they shouted "Down with Bawdy
+Houses." Judge Kelyng had them indicted for High Treason. He said it
+was "an accroachment of royal authority." It was "levying war." He
+thus laid down the law. "The prisoners are indicted for levying war
+against the King. By levying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">40</a></span> war is not only meant when a body is
+gathered together as an army, but if a <i>company of people will go
+about any public reformation, this is high treason</i>. These people do
+pretend their design was against brothels; now let men to go about to
+pull down brothels, with a captain [an apprentice "walked about with a
+green apron on a pole"] and an ensign and weapons,&mdash;if this thing be
+endured, <i>who is safe</i>? It is high treason because it doth betray the
+peace of the nation, and <i>every subject is as much wronged as the
+King</i>; for if every man may reform what he will, no man is safe;
+therefore the thing is of desperate consequence, and we must make this
+for a public example. There is reason why we should be very cautious;
+we are but recently delivered from rebellion [Charles I. had been
+executed nineteen years before, and his son had been in peaceable
+possession of the throne for eight years], and we know that that
+rebellion first began under the pretence of religion and the law; for
+the Devil hath always this vizard upon it. We have great reason to be
+very wary that we fall not again into the same error. Apprentices for
+the future shall not go on in this manner. It proved that Beasly went
+as their captain with his sword, and flourished it over his head [this
+was the "weapons,"] and that Messenger walked about Moorfields with a
+green apron on the top of a pole [this was the "ensign"]. What was
+done by one, was done by all; in high treason all concerned are
+principals."<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a></p>
+
+<p>Thereupon thirteen apprentices who had been concerned in a riot were
+found guilty of high treason, sentenced, and four hanged. All of the
+eleven Judges&mdash;Twysden was one of them&mdash;concurred in the sentence,
+except Sir Matthew Hale. He declared there was no treason committed;
+there was "but an unruly company of apprentices."<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a></p>
+
+<p>This same Judge Kelyng, singularly thick-headed and ridiculous, loved
+to construct crimes where the law made none. Thus he declares, "in
+cases of high treason, if any one do any thing by which he showeth his
+<i>liking</i> and <i>approbation</i> to the Traitorous Design, this is in him
+High Treason. For all are Principals in High Treason, who contribute
+towards it by Action or Approbation."<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> He held it was an overt act
+of treason to print a "treasonable proposition," such as this, "The
+execution of Judgment and Justice is as well the people's as the
+magistrates' duty, and if the magistrates pervert Judgment, the people
+are bound by the law of God to execute judgment without them and upon
+them."<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> So the printer of the book, containing the "treasonable
+proposition," was executed. A man, by name Axtell, who commanded the
+guards which attended at the trial and execution of Charles I., was
+brought to trial for treason. He contended<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">41</a></span> that he acted as a soldier
+by the command of his superior officer, whom he must obey, or die. But
+it was resolved that "that was no excuse, for his superior was a
+Traitor and all that joined with him in that act were Traitors, and
+did by that approve the Treason, and when the command is Traitorous,
+then the Obedience to that Command is also Traitorous." So Axtell must
+die. The same rule of course smote at the head of any private soldier
+who served in the ranks!<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a></p>
+
+<p>These wicked constructions of treason by the court, out of small
+offences or honest actions, continued until Mr. Erskine attacked them
+with his Justice, and with his eloquence exposed them to the
+indignation of mankind, and so shamed the courts into humanity and
+common sense.<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> Yet still the same weapon lies hid under the
+Judicial bench as well of England as of America, whence any malignant
+or purchased Judge, when it suits his personal whim or public
+ambition, may draw it forth, and smite at the fortune, the reputation,
+or the life of any innocent man he has a private grudge against, but
+dares not meet in open day. Of this, Gentlemen of the Jury, in due
+time.</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>The mass of men, busy with their honest work, are not aware what power
+is left in the hands of judges&mdash;wholly irresponsible to the people;
+few men know how they often violate the laws they are nominally set to
+administer. Let me take but a single form of this judicial
+iniquity&mdash;the Use of Torture, borrowing my examples from the history
+of our mother country.</p>
+
+<p>In England the use of torture has never been conformable either to
+common or to statute law; but how often has it been practised by a
+corrupt administration and wicked judges! In 1549 Lord Seymour of
+Sudley, Admiral of England, was put to the torture;<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> in 1604 Guy
+Fawkes was "horribly racked."<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> Peacham was repeatedly put to
+torture as you have just now heard, and that in the presence of Lord
+Bacon himself in 1614.<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> Peacock was racked in 1620, Bacon and Coke
+both signing the warrant for this illegal wickedness,&mdash;"he deserveth
+it as well as Peacham did," said the Lord Chancellor, making his own
+"ungodly custom" stand for law.<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> In 1627 the Lord Deputy of Ireland
+wanted to torture two priests, and Charles I. gave him license, the
+privy council consenting&mdash;"all of one mind that he might rack the
+priests if he saw fit, and hang them if he found reason!"<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> In 1628
+the judges of England solemnly decided that torture<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">42</a></span> was unlawful; but
+it had always been so,&mdash;and Yelverton, one of the judges, was a member
+of the commission which stretched Peacham on the rack.<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> Yet, spite
+of this decision, torture still held its old place, and a warrant from
+the year 1610 still exists for inflicting this illegal atrocity on a
+victim of the court.<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> Yet even so late as 1804, when Thomas Pictou,
+governor of Trinidad, put a woman to tortures of the most cruel
+character, by the connivance of the court he entirely escaped from all
+judicial punishment.<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> Yes, torture was long continued in England
+itself, though not always by means of thumbscrews and Scottish boots
+and Spanish racks; the monstrous chains, the damp cells, the perpetual
+irritation which corrupt servants of a despotic court tormented their
+victims withal, was the old demon under another name.<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> Nay, within
+a few months the newspapers furnish us with examples of Americans
+being put to the torture of the lash to force a confession of their
+alleged crime&mdash;and this has been done by the power which this court
+has long been so zealous to support&mdash;the Slave Power of America.</p>
+
+<p>It has been well said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"It must be owned that the Guards and Fences of the law have
+not always proved an effectual security for the subject. The
+Reader will ... find many Instances wherein they who hold
+the sword of Justice did not employ it as they ought to in
+punishment of Evil-Doers, but to the Oppression and
+Destruction of Men more righteous than themselves. Indeed it
+is scarce possible to frame a Body of Laws which a
+tyrannical Prince, influenced by wicked Counsellors and
+corrupt Judges, may not be able to break through.... The Law
+itself is a dead letter. Judges are the interpreters of it,
+and if they prove men of no Conscience nor Integrity, they
+will give what sense they will to it, however different from
+the true one; and when they are supported by superior
+authority, will for a while prevail, till by repeated
+iniquities they grow intolerable and throw the State into
+convulsions which may at last end in their own ruin. This
+shows how valuable a Blessing is an upright and learned
+Judge, and of what great concern it is to the public that
+none be preferred to that office but such whose Ability and
+Integrity may be safely depended on."<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>Thus, Gentlemen of the Jury, is it that judges who know no law but the
+will of "the hand that feeds them," appointed for services rendered to
+the enemies of mankind and looking for yet higher rewards, have sought
+to establish the despotism of their masters on the ruin of the People.
+But the destruction of obnoxious individuals is not the whole of their
+enormity; so I come to the next part of the subject.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">43</a></span></p>
+
+<p>(III.) The next step is for such judges to interpret, wrest, and
+pervert the laws so as to prepare for prospective Acts of Tyranny.</p>
+
+<p>Here, Gentlemen of the Jury, I shall have only too many examples to
+warn you with.</p>
+
+<p>Early in his reign James I. sought to lay burthensome taxes on the
+people without any act of Parliament; this practice was continued by
+his successors.</p>
+
+<p>1. In 1606 came "the great Case of Impositions," not mentioned in the
+ordinary histories of England. The king assumed the right to tax the
+nation by his own prerogative. He ordered a duty of five shillings on
+every hundred pounds of currants imported into the kingdom to be
+levied in addition to the regular duty affixed by Act of Parliament.
+This was contrary to law, nay, to the Constitution of England, her
+Magna Charta itself provided against unparliamentary taxation. Sir
+John Bates, a London merchant, refused to pay the unlawful duty, and
+was prosecuted by information in the Star-Chamber. "The courts of
+justice," says Mr. Hallam, "did not consist of men conscientiously
+impartial between the king and the subject; some corrupt with hopes of
+promotion, many more fearful of removal, or awe-struck by the fear of
+power." On the "trial" it was abundantly shown that the king had no
+right to levy such a duty. "The accomplished but too pliant judges,
+and those indefatigable hunters of precedents for violations of
+constitutional government, the great law-officers of the crown,"
+decided against the laws, and Chief Justice Fleming maintained that
+the king might lay what tax he pleased on imported goods! The corrupt
+decision settled the law for years&mdash;and gave the king absolute power
+over this branch of the revenue, involving a complete destruction of
+the liberty of the people,&mdash;for the Principle would carry a thousand
+measures on its back.<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> The king declared Fleming a judge to his
+"heart's content." Bacon's subserviency did not pass unrewarded. Soon
+after James issued a decree under the great seal, imposing heavy
+duties on almost all merchandise "to be for ever hereafter paid to the
+king and his successors, on pain of his displeasure."<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> Thus the
+Measure became a Principle.</p>
+
+<p>2. James, wanting funds, demanded of his subjects forced contributions
+of money,&mdash;strangely called "Benevolences," though there was no
+"good-will" on either side. It was clearly against the fundamental
+laws of the kingdom. Sir Oliver St. John refused to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">44</a></span> pay what was
+demanded of him, and wrote a letter to the mayor of Marlborough
+against the illegal exaction. For this he was prosecuted in the
+Star-Chamber in 1615 by Attorney-General Bacon. The court, with Lord
+Chancellor Ellesmere at its head, of course decided that the king had
+a right to levy Benevolences at pleasure. St. John was fined five
+thousand pounds, and punished by imprisonment during the king's
+pleasure. This decision gave the king absolute power over all property
+in the realm,&mdash;every private purse was in his hands!<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> With such a
+court the king might well say, "Wheare any controversyes arise, my
+Lordes the Judges chosene betwixte me and my people shall discide and
+rulle me."<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a></p>
+
+<p>3. Charles I. proceeded in the steps of his father: he levied forced
+loans. Thomas Darnel and others refused to pay, and were put in prison
+on a General Warrant from the king which did not specify the cause of
+commitment. They brought their writs of <i>habeas corpus</i>, contending
+that their confinement was illegal. The matter came to trial in 1627.
+Sir Randolf Crewe, a man too just to be trusted to do the iniquity
+desired, was thrust out of office, and Sir Nicolas Hyde appointed
+chief justice in his place. The actual question was, Has the king a
+right to imprison any subject forever without process of law? It was
+abundantly shown that he had no such right. But the new chief justice,
+put in power to oppress the people, remembering the hand that fed him,
+thus decreed,&mdash;"Mr. Attorney hath told you that the <i>king hath done
+it, and we trust him in great matters</i>, and he is bound by law, and he
+bids us proceed by law; ... and we make no doubt but <i>the king</i>, if
+you look to him, he knowing the cause why you are imprisoned, <i>he will
+have mercy</i>; but that we believe that ... he cannot deliver you, but
+<i>you must be remanded</i>." Thus the judges gave the king absolute power
+over the liberties of any subject.<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a></p>
+
+<p>But the matter was brought up in Parliament and discussed by men of a
+different temper, who frightened the judge by threats of impeachment,
+and forced the king to agree to the <span class="smcap">Petition of Right</span> designed to put
+an end to all such illegal cruelty. Before Charles I. would sign that
+famous bill, he asked Judge Hyde if it would restrain the king "from
+committing or restraining a subject <i>without showing cause</i>." The
+crafty judge answered, "<i>Every law</i>, after it is made, <i>hath its
+exposition, which is to be left to the courts of justice to
+determine</i>; and although the Petition be granted <i>there is no fear of
+[such a] conclusion as is intimated in the question</i>!" That is, the
+court will interpret the plain law so as to oppress the subject and
+please the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">45</a></span> king! As the judges had promised to annul the law, the
+king signed it.<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> Charles dissolved Parliament and threw into jail
+its most noble and powerful members&mdash;one of whom, Eliot, never left
+the prison till death set him free.<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> The same chief justice gave an
+extrajudicial opinion justifying the illegal seizure of the
+members,&mdash;"that a parliament man committing an offence against the
+King in Parliament not in a parliamentary course, may be punished
+after the Parliament is ended;" "that by false slanders to bring the
+Lords of the Council and the Judges, not in a parliamentary way, into
+the hatred of the people and the government into contempt, was
+punishable out of Parliament, in the Star-Chamber, as an offence
+committed in Parliament beyond the office, and beside the duty of a
+parliament man."<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> Thus the judges struck down freedom of speech in
+Parliament.</p>
+
+<p>4. In 1634 Charles I. issued a writ levying ship-money, so called, on
+some seaport towns, without act of Parliament. London and some towns
+remonstrated, but were forced to submit, all the courts being against
+them. Chief Justice Finch, "a servile tool of the despotic court,"
+generalized this unlawful tax, extending it to inland towns as well as
+seaboard, to all the kingdom. All landholders were to be assessed in
+proportion to their property, and the tax, if not voluntarily paid,
+collected by force. The tax was unpopular, and clearly against the
+fundamental law of the kingdom. But if the government could not get
+the law on its side it could control its interpreters, for "every law
+hath its exposition." So the Judges of Assize were ordered in their
+circuits to tell the people to <i>comply with the order and pay the
+money</i>! The King got all extrajudicial opinion of the twelve Judges
+delivered irregularly, out of court, in which they unanimously
+declared that in time of danger the <i>King might levy such tax as he
+saw fit, and compel men to pay it</i>. He was the sole judge of the
+danger, and of the amount of the tax.<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a></p>
+
+<p>John Hampden was taxed twenty shillings&mdash;he refused to pay, though he
+knew well the fate of Richard Chambers a few years before. The case
+came to trial in 1637, in the Court of Exchequer before Lord
+Chancellor Coventry, a base creature, mentioned before. It was "the
+great case of Ship-money." The ablest lawyers in England showed that
+the tax was contrary to Magna Charta, to the fundamental laws of the
+realm, to the Petition of Right and to the practice of the kingdom.
+Hampden was defeated. Ten out of the twelve Judges sided with the
+King. Croke as the eleventh had made up his mind to do the same, but
+his noble wife implored him not to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">46</a></span> sacrifice his conscience for fear
+of danger, and the Woman, as it so often happens, saved the man.<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a>
+Attorney-General Banks thus set forth the opinion of the Government,
+and the consequent "decision" of the Judges. He rested the right of
+levying Ship-money on the "intrinsic, absolute authority of the King."
+There was no Higher Law in Old England in 1634! Banks said, "this
+power [of arbitrary and irresponsible taxation] is innate in the
+person of an absolute King, and in the persons of the Kings of
+England. All-magistracy it is of nature; and obedience and subjection
+[to] it is of nature. This power is not anyways derived from the
+people, but reserved unto the King when positive laws first began. For
+the King of England, he is an absolute monarch; nothing can be given
+to an absolute prince but what is inherent in his person. He can do no
+wrong. He is the sole judge and we ought not to question him, whom the
+law trusts we ought not to distrust." "The Acts of Parliament contain
+no express words to take away so high a prerogative; and the King's
+prerogative, even in lesser matters, is always saved, where express
+words do not restrain it."<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a></p>
+
+<p>It required six months of judicial labor to bring forth this result,
+which was of "infinite disservice to the crown." Thereupon Mr. Hallam
+says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Those who had trusted to the faith of the judges were
+undeceived by the honest repentance of some, and looked with
+indignation on so prostituted a crew. That respect for
+courts of justice which the happy structure of our Judicial
+administration has in general kept inviolate, was exchanged
+for distrust, contempt, and a desire of vengeance. They
+heard the speeches of some of the Judges with more
+displeasure than even their final decision. Ship-money was
+held lawful by Finch and several other Judges, not on the
+authority of precedents which must in their nature have some
+bounds, but on principles subversive of every property or
+privilege in the subject. Those paramount rights of
+monarchy, to which they appealed to-day in justification of
+Ship-money, might to-morrow serve to supersede other laws,
+and maintain more exertions of despotic power. It was
+manifest by the whole strain of the court lawyers that no
+limitations on the King's authority could exist but by the
+King's sufferance. This alarming tenet, long bruited among
+the churchmen and courtiers, now resounded in the halls of
+justice."<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>Thus by the purchased vote of a corrupt Judiciary all the laws of
+Parliament, all the customs of the Anglo-Saxon tribe, Magna Charta
+itself with its noble attendant charters, were at once swept away, and
+all the property of the kingdom put into the hands of the enemy of the
+People. These four decisions would make the King of England as
+absolute as the Sultan of Turkey, or the Russian Czar. If the opinion
+of the Judges in the case of Impositions and Ship-money were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">47</a></span> accepted
+in law,&mdash;then all the Property of the People was the King's; if the
+courts were correct in their judgments giving the King the power by
+his mere will to imprison any subject, during pleasure, and also to do
+the same even with members of Parliament and punish them for debates
+in the House of Commons, then all liberty was at an end, and the
+King's Prerogative extended over all acts of Parliament, all property,
+all persons.</p>
+
+<p>5. One step more must be taken to make the logic of despotism perfect,
+and complete the chain. That work was delegated to clergymen purchased
+for the purpose&mdash;Rev. Dr. Robert Sibthorpe and Rev. Dr. Roger
+Mainwaring. The first in a sermon "of rendering all their dues,"
+preached and printed in 1627, says, "the Prince who is the Head, and
+makes his Court and Council, it is his duty to direct and make laws.
+'He doth whatsoever pleaseth him;' 'where the word of the King is
+there is power, and who may say unto him, What doest thou?'" And
+again, "If Princes command any thing which subjects may not perform,
+because it is against the Laws of God, or of Nature, or impossible;
+yet Subjects are bound to undergo the punishment, without either
+resisting, or railing, or reviling, and are to yield a Passive
+Obedience where they cannot exhibit an Active one, ... but in all
+others he is bound to active obedience."<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a></p>
+
+<p>Mainwaring went further, and in two famous sermons&mdash;preached, one on
+the 4th of July, 1628, the other on the 29th of the same
+month&mdash;declared that "the King is not bound to observe the Laws of the
+Realm concerning the Subject's Rights and Liberties, but that his
+<i>Royal will and Command</i>, in imposing Loans, and Taxes, without
+consent of Parliament, <i>doth oblige the subject's conscience upon pain
+of eternal damnation</i>. That those who refused to pay this Loan
+offended against the Law of God and the King's Supreme Authority, and
+became guilty of Impiety, Disloyalty, and Rebellion. And that the
+authority of Parliament is not necessary for the raising of Aid and
+Subsidies; and that the slow proceedings of such great Assemblies were
+not fitted for the Supply of the State's urgent necessities, but would
+rather produce sundry impediments to the just designs of Princes."
+"<i>That Kings partake of omnipotence with God.</i>"<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a></p>
+
+<p>The nation was enraged. Mainwaring was brought before Par<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">48</a></span>liament,
+punished with fine and imprisonment and temporary suspension from
+office and perpetual disability for ecclesiastical preferment. But the
+King who ordered the publication of the sermons, and who doubtless had
+induced him to preach them, immediately made him Rector of Stamford
+Parish, soon appointed him Dean of Worcester, and finally in 1645 made
+him Bishop of St. David's. A few years ago such clerical apostasy
+would seem astonishing to an American. But now, Gentlemen of the Jury,
+so rapid has been the downfall of public virtue, that men filling the
+pulpits once graced and dignified by noblest puritanic piety, now
+publicly declare there is no law of God above the fugitive slave bill.
+Nay, a distinguished American minister boldly proclaimed his readiness
+to send his own Mother (or "Brother") into eternal bondage! Thus
+modern history explains the old; and the cheap bait of a republican
+bribe can seduce American dissenters, as the wealthy lure of royal
+gifts once drew British churchmen into the same pit of infamy. Alas,
+hypocrisy is of no sect or nation.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, the Government of England once decreed "that every
+clergyman, four times in the year, should instruct his parishioners in
+the Divine right of Kings, and the damnable sin of resistance."<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> No
+Higher Law! America has ministers who need no act of Parliament to
+teach them to do the same; they run before they are sent.</p>
+
+<p>6. After the head of one Stuart was shorn off and his son had
+returned, no wiser nor better than his father, the old progress of
+despotism began anew. I pass over what would but repeat the former
+history, and take two new examples to warn the nation with, differing
+from the old only in form.</p>
+
+<p>In 1672, Charles II. published a proclamation denouncing rigorous
+penalties against all such as <i>should speak disrespectfully of his
+acts</i>, or <i>hearing others thus speak should not immediately inform the
+magistrates</i>! Nay, in 1675, after he had sold himself to the French
+king, and was in receipt of an annual pension therefrom, he had this
+test-oath published for all to sign: "I do solemnly declare that <i>it
+is not lawful upon any pretence whatever to take up arms against the
+king</i>, ... and that <i>I will not</i>, at any time to come, <i>endeavor the
+alteration of the government</i>, either in Church or State."<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a></p>
+
+<p>An oath yet more stringent was enforced in Scotland with the edge of
+the sword, namely, to defend all the prerogatives of the crown, "<i>never
+without the king's permission to take part in any deliberations upon
+ecclesiastical or civil affairs; and never to seek any reform in
+Church or State</i>."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">49</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding all that the Charleses had done to break down the
+liberty of Englishmen, still the great corporate towns held out,
+intrenched behind their charters, and from that bulwark both annoyed
+the despot and defended the civil rights of the citizen. They also
+must be destroyed. So summons of <i>quo warranto</i> were served upon them,
+which frightened the smaller corporations and brought down their
+charters. Jeffreys was serviceable in this wicked work, and on his
+return from his Northern Circuit, rich with these infamous spoils, as
+a reward for destroying the liberties of his countrymen, the king
+publicly presented him with a ring, in token of "acceptance of his
+most eminent services." This fact was duly blazoned in the Gazette,
+and Jeffreys was "esteemed a mighty favorite," which, "together with
+his lofty airs, made all the charters, like the walls of Jericho, fall
+down before him, and he returned, laden with surrenders, the spoil of
+towns."<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a></p>
+
+<p>London still remained the strong-hold of commerce, of the Protestant
+Religion, and of liberal Ideas in domestic Government; for though
+subsequently corrupted by lust of gain, which sought a monopoly, the
+great commercial estates and families of England were not then on the
+side of Despotism, as now strangely happens in America.</p>
+
+<p>When the king sought to ruin Shaftesbury,&mdash;a corrupt man doubtless,
+but then on the side of liberty, the enemy of encroaching
+despotism,&mdash;a London Grand-Jury refused to find a bill, and was warmly
+applauded by the city. Their verdict of <span class="smcap">Ignoramus</span> was a "personal
+liberty bill" for that time, and therefore was the king's wrath
+exceeding hot, for "Ignoramus was mounted in Cathedra," and there was
+a stop put to such wickedness. So London must be brought down. She
+refused to surrender her Charter. In 1682 the king proceeded to wrest
+it from her by the purchased hand of the courts of law. But even they
+were not quite adequate to the work. So Chief Justice Pemberton was
+displaced, and Saunders,&mdash;a man as offensive in his personal habit of
+body as he was corrupt in conduct and character&mdash;was put in his
+office. Dolbin, too just for the crime demanded of him, was turned
+out, and Withins made to succeed him. For "so great a weight was there
+at stake as could not be trusted to men of doubtful principles," says
+North. Saunders, who had plotted this whole matter, was struck with an
+apoplexy when sentence was to be given, but sent his opinion in
+writing. Thus on the judgment given by only two judges, who assigned
+no reasons for their decision, it was declared that the Charter of
+London was forfeit,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">50</a></span> and the liberties and franchises of the city
+should "be seized into the king's hands."<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a></p>
+
+<p>Thus fell the charter of London! Gentlemen of the Jury, the same sword
+was soon to strike at the neck of New England; the charter of
+Massachusetts could not be safe in such a time.</p>
+
+<p>In 1686 James II. wished to destroy Protestantism,&mdash;not that he loved
+the Roman form of religion, but that tyranny which it would help him
+get and keep. So he claimed the right by his royal prerogative to
+dispense with any laws of the land. Of the twelve Judges of England
+eight were found on his side, and the four unexpectedly proven
+faithful were at once dismissed from office and their places filled
+with courtiers of the king, and the court was unanimous that the king
+had a constitutional right to destroy the constitution. Then he had
+not only command of the purses of his subjects and their bodies, but
+also of their mind and conscience, and could dictate the actual
+Religion of the People as well as the official "religion" of the
+priests.<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a></p>
+
+<p>One State-secret lay at the bottom of the Stuarts' plans,&mdash;to appoint
+base men for judges, and if by accident a just man came upon the
+bench, to keep him in obscurity or to hustle him from his post. What
+names they offer us&mdash;Kelyng, Finch, Saunders, Wright, Jeffreys,
+Scroggs!<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> infamous creatures, but admirable instruments to destroy
+generous men withal and devise means for the annihilation of the
+liberties of the people. Historians commonly dwell on the fields of
+battle, recording the victories of humanity, whereof the pike and gun
+were instruments; but pass idly over the more important warfare which
+goes on in the court house, only a few looking on, where lawyers are
+the champions of mankind, and the battle turns on a sentence; nay, on
+a word which determines the welfare of a nation for ages to come. On
+such little hinges of law do the great gates hang, and open or shut to
+let in the happiness or the ruin of millions of men! Naseby and
+Worcester are important places truly, venerable for great deeds.
+Cromwell and Blake are names not likely to perish while men can
+appreciate the heroism which sheds blood. But Westminster Hall has
+rung with more important thunder than cannon ever spoke, and Pym and
+Selden, St. John and Hampden&mdash;nay, Penn, Bunyan, Fox, Lilburne&mdash;have
+done great service for mankind. Gentlemen of the Jury, it is a matter
+of great magnitude which hinges on the small question of fact and law
+to-day. You are to open or shut for Humanity. If the People make
+themselves sheep there will be wolves enough to eat you up.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">51</a></span></p>
+<p>It is difficult to calculate the amount of evil wrought by such
+corrupt judges as I have spoken of; they poison the fountains of
+society. I need not speak of monsters like Scroggs and Jeffreys, whose
+names rot in perpetual infamy, but creatures less ignoble, like
+Wright, Saunders, Finch, Kelyng, Thurlow, Loughborough, and their
+coadjutors, must be regarded as far more dangerous than thieves,
+murderers, or pirates. A cruel, insolent Judge selecting the worst
+customs, the most oppressive statutes, and decisions which outrage
+human nature&mdash;what an amount of evil he can inflict on groaning
+humanity!</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, in this long sad history of judicial tyranny in
+England there is one thing particularly plain: such judges hate
+freedom of speech, they would restrict the Press, the Tongue, yes, the
+Thought of mankind. Especially do they hate any man who examines the
+actions of the government and its servile courts, and their violation
+of justice and the laws. They wish to take exemplary and malignant
+vengeance on all such. Let me freshen your knowledge of some examples.</p>
+
+<p>1. In 1410 the government made a decree "that whatsoever they were
+that should rede the Scriptures in the mother tongue, they should
+forfeit land, catel, body, lif, and godes from their heyres forever,
+and so be condempned for heretykes to God, enemies to the crowne, and
+most errant traiters to the land." The next year, in <i>one day
+thirty-nine persons were first hanged and then burned for this
+"crime."</i><a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a></p>
+
+<p>2. In 1590, Mr. Udall, a Puritan minister, published a book,
+"Demonstrations of Discipline," not agreeable to the authorities. He
+was brought to a trial for a Felony,&mdash;not merely a "misdemeanor." The
+jury were ordered by the judge to find him guilty of that crime if
+they were satisfied that he published the book,&mdash;for the court were to
+judge whether the deed amounted to that crime! He was found "guilty,"
+and died in jail after nearly three years of cruel confinement.<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a></p>
+
+<p>3. In 1619 one Williams of Essex wrote a book explaining a passage in
+the book of Daniel as foretelling the death of James I. in 1621. He
+inclosed the manuscript in a box, sealed it, and secretly conveyed it
+to the king. For this he was tried for high treason, and of course
+executed. "<i>Punitur Affectus, licet non sequatur Effectus</i>," said the
+court, for "<i>Scribere est agere</i>," "Punish the wish though the object
+be not reached," for "writing is doing!"<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a></p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">52</a></span></p>
+<p>4. In 1664 Mr. Keach, a Baptist, published a "Childs' Instructer, or a
+New and Easy Primmer," in which he taught the doctrines of his sect,
+"that children ought not to be baptized" but only adults; "that laymen
+may preach the gospel." He was brought before Lord Chief Justice Hyde,
+who after insulting the prisoner, thus charged the grand-jury:&mdash;"He is
+a base and dangerous fellow; and if this be suffered, children by
+learning of it will become such as he is, and therefore I hope you
+will do your duty." Of course such a jury indicted him. The "trial"
+took place before Judge Scroggs; the Jury were at first divided in
+opinion. "But," said the Judge, "you must agree!" So they found him
+guilty. He was fined "£20, twice set in the pillory, and bound to make
+public submission."<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a></p>
+
+<p>5. In 1679 George Wakeman and others were tried for high treason
+before Scroggs, whose conduct was atrocious, and several pamphlets
+were published commenting on the ridiculous and absurd conduct of this
+functionary, "Lord Chief Justice Scroggs." One Richard Radley in a
+bantering talk had bid another man "Go to Weal Hall, to my Lord
+Scroggs, <i>for he has received money enough of Dr. Wakeman</i>!" Radley
+was indicted for "speaking scandalous words of Chief Justice Scroggs."
+Whereupon at the opening of the court that eminent officer, who did
+not disdain to wreak public and judicial vengeance on heads that
+wrought his private and personal grief, made a speech setting forth
+his magisterial opinions on the liberty of the press. Doubtless this
+court knows original authority for the opinions they follow; but for
+your instruction, Gentlemen of the Jury, I will give you the chief
+things in the judicial speech of Scroggs, Lord Chief Justice of the
+Supreme Court of England in 1679.<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"For these hireling scribblers who traduce it [the fairness
+and equality of the trial in which he had been notoriously
+unfair and unequal], who write to eat, and lie for bread, I
+intend to meet with them another way; for they are only safe
+while they can be secret; but so are vermin, so long as they
+can hide themselves.... They shall know that the law wants
+not the power to punish a libellous and licentious press,
+nor I a resolution to exact it. And this is all the answer
+is fit to be given (besides a whip) to these hackney
+writers." "However, in the mean time, the <i>extravagant
+boldness of men's pens and tongues is not to be endured, but
+shall be severely punished</i>; for if once causes come to be
+tried with complacency to particular opinions, and shall be
+innocently censured if they go otherwise, public causes
+shall all receive the doom as the multitude happen to be
+possessed; and at length any cause shall become public ...
+at every session the Judges shall be arraigned, the Jury
+condemned, and the verdicts overawed to comply with popular
+wish and indecent shouts."</p>
+
+<p>"There are a set of men ... that too much approve and
+countenance such vulgar ways, ... that embrace all sorts of
+informations, true or false, likely or impossible, nay
+though never so silly and ridiculous, they refuse none; so
+shall all addresses be made to them, and they be looked on
+as the only patrons of religion and government!"</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">53</a></span></p>
+
+<p>His associates chimed in with accordant howl. Puny Judge Jones
+declared,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"We have a particular case here before us, as a matter of
+scandal against a great Judge, the <i>greatest Judge in the
+kingdom</i>, in criminal causes [the Lord Chancellor Nottingham
+was greater in <i>civil</i> causes]; and it is a great and an
+high charge upon him. And certainly there was never any age,
+I think, more licentious than this in aspersing governors,
+scattering of libels and <i>scandalous speeches against those
+that are in authority</i>: and without all doubt <i>it doth
+become the court to show their zeal in suppressing it</i>." [It
+was 'resisting an officer.'] "That trial [of Dr. Wakeman]
+was managed with <i>exact justice and perfect integrity</i>. And
+therefore I do think it very fit that this person be
+proceeded against by an information, that he may be made <i>a
+public example</i> to all such as shall presume to scandalize
+the government, and the governors, with any false aspersions
+and accusations."</p></div>
+
+<p>Accordingly Mr. Radley, for that act, was convicted of speaking
+"scandalous words against the Lord Chief Justice Scroggs" and fined
+£200.<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hudson says of the Star-Chamber, "So tender the court is of
+upholding the honor of the sentence, as they will punish them who
+speak against it with great severity."<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a></p>
+
+<p>6. In 1680 Benjamin Harris, a bookseller, sold a work called "An
+Appeal from the country to the city for the Preservation of his
+Majesty's Person, Liberty, Property, and the Protestant Religion." He
+was brought to trial for a libel, before Recorder Jeffreys and Chief
+Justice Scroggs who instructed the jury they were only to inquire <i>if
+Harris sold the book</i>, and if so, find him "guilty." It was for the
+court to determine what was a libel. He was fined five hundred pounds
+and placed in the pillory; the Chief Justice wished that he might be
+also whipped.<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a></p>
+
+<p>7. The same year Henry Carr was brought to trial. He published a
+periodical&mdash;"the Weekly Packet of advice from Rome, or the History of
+Popery"&mdash;hostile to Romanism. Before the case came to court, Scroggs
+prohibited the publication on his own authority. Mr. Carr was
+prosecuted for a libel before the same authority, and of course found
+guilty. The character of that court also was judgment against natural
+right. Jane Curtis and other women were in like manner punished for
+speaking or publishing words against the same "great judge."<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> And
+it was held to be a "misdemeanor" to publish a book reflecting on the
+justice of the nation&mdash;the truer the book the worse the libel! It was
+"obstructing an officer," and of course it was a greater offence to
+"obstruct" him with Justice and Truth than with wrong and lies. The
+greater the justice of the act the more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">54</a></span> dangerous the "crime!" If the
+language did not hit any one person it was "malice against all
+mankind."</p>
+
+<p>8. In 1684 Sir Samuel Barnardiston was brought to trial charged with a
+"High Misdemeanor." He had written three private letters to be
+sent&mdash;it was alleged&mdash;by post to his friend, also a private man. The
+letters do not appear designed for any further publication or use;
+they related to matters of news, the events of the day and comments
+thereon, and spoke in praise of Algernon Sidney and Lord Russell who
+were so wickedly beheaded about the time the letters were written. It
+would require a microscopic eye to detect any evil lurking there.
+Jeffreys presided at the trial, and told the jury:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"The letters are <i>factious, seditious, and malicious
+letters, and as base as the worst of mankind could ever have
+invented</i>." "And if he be guilty of it&mdash;the greater the man
+is the greater the crime, and the more understanding he has,
+the more malicious he seems to be; for your little ordinary
+sort of people, that are of common mean understanding, they
+may be wheedled and drawn in, and surprised into such
+things; but men of a public figure and of some value in the
+world that have been taken to be men of the greatest
+interest and reputation in a party, it cannot be thought a
+hidden surprise upon them; no, it is a work of time and
+thought, it is a thing fixed in his very nature, and it
+<i>shows so much venom as would make one think the whole mass
+of his blood were corrupt</i>." "Here is the matter he is now
+accused of, and here is in it malice against the king,
+malice against the government, malice against both Church
+and State, malice against any man that bears any share in
+the government, indeed malice against all mankind that are
+not of the same persuasion with these bloody miscreants."
+"Here is ... the sainting of two horrid conspirators! Here
+is the Lord Russell sainted, that blessed martyr; Lord
+Russell, that good man, that excellent Protestant, he is
+lamented! And here is Mr. Sidney sainted, what an
+extraordinary man he was! Yes, surely he was a very good
+man&mdash;and it is a shame to think that such bloody miscreants
+should be sainted and lamented who had any hand in that
+horrid murder [the execution of Charles I.] and treason ...
+who could confidently bless God for their being engaged in
+that good cause (as they call it) which was the rebellion
+which brought that blessed martyr to his death. It is high
+time for all mankind that have any Christianity, or fear of
+Heaven or Hell, to bestir themselves, to rid the nation of
+such caterpillars, such monsters of villany as those are!"</p></div>
+
+<p>Of course the packed jury found him guilty; he was fined £10,000.<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a></p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, such judges, with such kings and cabinets, have
+repeatedly brought the dearest rights of mankind into imminent peril.
+Sad indeed is the condition of a nation where Thought is not free,
+where the lips are sewed together, and the press is chained! Yet the
+evil which has ruined Spain and made an Asia Minor of Papal Italy,
+once threatened England. Nay, Gentlemen of the Jury, it required the
+greatest efforts of her noblest sons to vindicate for you and me the
+right to print, to speak, to think. Milton's "Speech for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">55</a></span> the Liberty
+of unlicensed Printing" is one monument of the warfare which lasted
+from Wicliffe to Thomas Carlyle. But other monuments are the fines and
+imprisonment, the exile and the beheading of men and women! Words are
+"sedition," "rebellion," "treason;" nay, even now at least in New
+England, a true word is a "Misdemeanor," it is "obstructing an
+officer." At how great cost has our modern liberty of speech been
+purchased! Answer John Lilburne, answer William Prynn, and Selden, and
+Eliot, and Hampden, and the other noble men who</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="poem">
+<tr>
+<td>
+&mdash;&mdash;"in the public breach devoted stood,<br />
+And for their country's cause were prodigal of blood."
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Answer Fox and Bunyan, and Penn and all the host of Baptists,
+Puritans, Quakers, martyrs, and confessors&mdash;it is by your stripes that
+we are healed! Healed! are we healed? Ask the court if it be not a
+"misdemeanor" to say so!</p>
+
+<p>A despotic government hates implacably the freedom of the press. In
+1680 the Lord Chief Justice of England declared the opinion of the
+twelve judges "indeed all subscribe that to <i>print or publish any
+news-books, or pamphlets of news whatsoever, is illegal; that it is a
+manifest intent to the breach of the peace</i>, and they may be proceeded
+against by law for an illegal thing." "And that is for a public notice
+to all people, and especially printers and booksellers, that <i>they
+ought to print no book or pamphlet of news whatsoever without
+authority;" "they shall be punished if they do it without authority</i>,
+though there is nothing reflecting on the government."<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a> Judge
+Scroggs was right&mdash;it was "resisting an officer," at least
+"obstructing" him in his wickedness. In England, says Lord Campbell,
+the name and family of Scroggs are both extinct. So much the worse for
+you and me, Gentlemen. The Scroggses came over to America; they
+settled in Massachusetts, they thrive famously in Boston; only the
+name is changed.</p>
+
+<p>In 1731 Sir Philip Yorke, attorney-general, solemnly declared that an
+editor is "<i>not to publish any thing reflecting on the character and
+reputation and administration of his Majesty or his Ministers</i>;" "if
+he breaks that law, or exceeds that liberty of the press he is to <i>be
+punished for it</i>." Where did he get his law&mdash;in the third year of
+Edward I., in <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 1275! But that statute of the Dark Ages was held
+good law in 1731; and it seems to be thought good law in 1855! And the
+attorney who affirmed the atrocious principle, soon became Chief
+Justice, a "consummate judge," a Peer, Lord Hardwicke, and Lord
+Chancellor!<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> Lord Mansfield had not a much higher opinion of the
+liberty of the press; indeed, in all libel cases, he assumed it was
+exclusively the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">56</a></span> function of the judges to determine whether the words
+published contained malicious or seditious matter, the jury were only
+to find the fact of publication.<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> Thus the party in power with
+their Loughboroughs, their Thurlows, their Jeffreys, their
+Scroggs&mdash;shall I add also American names&mdash;are the exclusive judges as
+to what shall be published relating to the party in power&mdash;their
+Loughboroughs, their Thurlows, their Jeffreys and their Scroggs, or
+their analogous American names! It was the free press of
+England&mdash;Elizabeth invoked it&mdash;which drove back the "invincible
+Armada;" this which stayed the tide of Papal despotism; this which
+dyked the tyranny of Louis XIV. out from Holland. Aye, it was this
+which the Stuarts, with their host of attendants, sought to break down
+and annihilate for ever;<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> which Thurlow and Mansfield so formidably
+attacked, and which now in America&mdash;but the American aspect of the
+matter must not now be looked in the face.</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>But spite of all these impediments in the way of liberty, the voice of
+humanity could not be forever silenced. Now and then a virtuous and
+high-minded judge appeared in office&mdash;like Hale or Holt, Camden or
+Erskine. Even in the worst times there were noble men who lifted up
+their voices. Let me select two examples from men not famous, but
+whose names, borne by other persons, are still familiar to this court.</p>
+
+<p>In 1627 Sir Robert Phillips, member for Somersetshire, in his place in
+Parliament, thus spoke against the advance of despotism:<a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a>&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"I read of a custom among the old Romans, that once every
+year they had a solemn feast for their slaves; at which they
+had liberty, without exception, to speak what they would,
+thereby to ease their afflicted minds; which being finished,
+they severally returned to their former servitude. This may,
+with some resemblance and distinction, well set forth our
+present state; where now, after the revolution of some time,
+and grievous sufferance of many violent oppressions, we
+have, as those slaves had, a day of liberty of speech; but
+shall not, I trust, be hereafter slaves, for we are free:
+yet what new illegal proceedings our estates and persons
+have suffered under, my heart yearns to think, my tongue
+falters to utter. They have been well represented by divers
+worthy gentlemen before me; yet one grievance, and the main
+one, as I conceive, hath not been touched, which is our
+Religion: religion, Mr. Speaker, made vendible by
+commission, and men, for pecuniary annual rates, dispensed
+withal; Judgments of law against our liberty there have been
+three; each latter stepping forwarder than the former, upon
+the Rights of the Subject; aiming, in the end, to tread and
+trample underfoot our law, and that even in the form of
+law."</p>
+
+<p>"The first was the Judgment of the Postnati, (the Scots,)
+... The second was the Judgment upon Impositions, in the
+Exchequer Court by the barons; which hath been the source
+and fountain of many bitter waters of affliction unto our
+merchants." "The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">57</a></span> third was that fatal late Judgment against
+the Liberty of the Subject imprisoned by the king, argued
+and pronounced but by one judge alone." "I can live,
+although another who has no right be put to live with me;
+nay, I can live although I pay excises and impositions more
+than I do; but to have my liberty, which is the soul of my
+life, taken from me by power; and to have my body pent up in
+a gaol, without remedy by law, and to be so adjudged: O
+improvident ancestors! O unwise forefathers! To be so
+curious in providing for the quiet possession of our lands,
+and the liberties of Parliament; and to neglect our persons
+and bodies, and to let them lie in prison, and that <i>durante
+bene placito</i>, remediless! If this be law, why do we talk of
+liberties? Why do we trouble ourselves with a dispute about
+law, franchises, property of goods, and the like? What may
+any man call his own, if not the Liberty of his Person? I am
+weary of treading these ways."<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>In 1641 Sir Philip Parker, Knight of the Shire for Suffolk, in his
+place in Parliament, thus spoke:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"The cries of the people have come up to me; the voice of
+the whole nation tingles in my ears." "'Tis true, I confess,
+we have tormented ourselves with daily troubles and
+vexations, and have been very solicitous for the welfare of
+the Commonwealth; but what have we performed, what have we
+perfected? Mr. Speaker, excuse my zeal in this case; for my
+mouth cannot imprison what my mind intends to let out;
+neither can my tongue conceal what my heart desires to
+promulge. Behold the Archbishop [Laud], that great
+incendiary of this kingdom, lies now like a firebrand raked
+up in the embers; but if ever he chance to blaze again I am
+afraid that what heretofore he had but in a spark, he will
+burn down to the ground in a full flame. Wherefore let us
+begin, for the kingdom is pregnant with expectation on this
+point. I confess there are many more delinquents, for the
+judges and other knights walk <i>in querpo</i>; but they are only
+thunderbolts forged in Canterbury's fire."<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>Six of the wicked judges were soon brought to trial.<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a></p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>This same threefold experiment of despotism which was attempted in
+England, was tried also in America by the same tyrannical hand. Here,
+also, the encroaching power put creatures of its arbitrary will in
+judicial offices; they then by perverting the laws, punished the
+patriots, and next proceeded to destroy the best institutions of the
+land itself. Here I shall take but a few examples, selected from the
+colonial history of our own New England.</p>
+
+<p>After capturing the great fortress of freedom at home, by taking away
+the charter of London, Charles proceeded to destroy the freedom of the
+colonies; the Charter of Massachusetts was wrested from us on a <i>quo
+warranto</i> in 1683,<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> and the colony lay at the feet of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">58</a></span> monarch.
+In privy council it had already been determined that our rights should
+be swept into the hands of some greedy official from the court.<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a>
+In 1686 James II. sent Sir Edmund Andros to New England as a
+"Commissioner" to destroy the liberty of the people. He came to Boston
+in the "Kingfisher, a fifty gun ship," and brought two companies of
+British soldiers, the first ever stationed in this town to dragoon the
+people into submission to an unrighteous law. Edward Randolph, the
+most determined enemy of the colony, greedily caressing the despotic
+hands that fed him, was his chief coadjutor and assistant, his
+secretary, in that wicked work. Andros was authorized to appoint his
+own council, and with their consent enact laws, levy taxes, to
+organize and command the militia. He was to enforce the hateful "Acts
+of Trade." He appointed a council to suit the purpose of his royal
+master, to whom no opposition was allowed. Dudley, the new Chief
+Justice, told the people who appealed to Magna Charta, "they must not
+think the privileges of Englishmen would follow them to the end of the
+world." Episcopacy was introduced; no marriages were to "be allowed
+lawful but such as were made by the minister of the Church of
+England." Accordingly, all must come to Boston to be married, for
+there was no Episcopal minister out of its limits. It was proposed
+that the Puritan Churches should pay the Episcopal salary, and the
+Congregational worship be prohibited. He threatened to punish any man
+"who gave two pence" toward the support of a Non-conformist minister.
+All fees to officers of the new government were made exorbitantly
+great. Only one Probate office was allowed in the Province, that was
+in Boston; and one of the creatures of despotic power was,
+prophetically, put in it. Andros altered the old form of oaths, and
+made the process of the courts to suit himself.</p>
+
+<p>He sought to wrest the charters from the Colonies; that of Rhode
+Island fell into his hands; Connecticut escaped by a "miracle:"</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="poem">
+<tr>
+<td>
+"The Charter-Oak&mdash;it was the tree<br />
+That saved our sacred Liberty."
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The Charter government of Plymouth was suspended. Massachusetts was
+put under arbitrary despotism. Towns were forbidden to meet, except
+for the choice of officers; there must be no deliberation; "discussion
+must be suppressed." He was to levy all the taxes; he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">59</a></span> assessed a
+penny in the pound in all the towns. Rev. John Wise, one of the
+ministers of Ipswich, advised the people to resist the tax.
+"Democracy," said he, "is Christ's government in Church and State; we
+have a good God and a good king; we shall do well to stand to our
+privileges." One of the Council said, "<i>You have no privileges left
+you, but not to be sold as slaves.</i>" Even that was not likely to last
+long. The town of Ipswich refused to pay the tax, because invalid; the
+governor having no authority to tax the people: "they will petition
+the King for liberty of an assembly before they make any rates." The
+minister and five others were arrested; they had "obstructed an
+officer." The Rev. Mr. Wise was guiltiest of all; he did it with a
+word, an idea. They were brought to Boston, and thrown into jail, "for
+contempt and high misdemeanors." They claimed the <i>habeas corpus</i>;
+Chief Justice Dudley refused it, on the ground that it did not extend
+to America! They were tried before a packed jury, and such a court as
+James II. was delighted to honor. The patriots plead the laws of
+England and Magna Charta. It was all in vain. "I am glad," said the
+judge to his packed jury, "there be so many worthy gentlemen of the
+jury, so capable to do the king service; and we expect a good verdict
+from you, seeing the matter hath been so sufficiently proved against
+the <i>criminals</i>." The jury of course found them guilty. They were
+fined from £15 to £50 a piece. The whole cost to the six was over
+£400. "It is not for his majesty's interest that you should thrive,"
+said one of those petty tyrants,&mdash;a tide-water of despotism.<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a></p>
+
+<p>Andros denied the colonial title to lands, claiming that as the
+charter was declared void, all the lands held under its authority
+escheated to the crown,&mdash;"The calf died in the cow's belly." A deed of
+purchase from the Indians was "worth no more than the scratch of a
+bear's paw." "The men of Massachusetts did much quote Lord Coke" for
+their titles: but Rev. John Higginson, minister of the first church in
+Salem, the son of the first minister ever ordained in New
+England,&mdash;and ancestor of this noble-hearted man [Rev. T.W. Higginson]
+who is now also indicted for a "misdemeanor,"&mdash;found other laws for
+their claim, and insisted on the citizens' just and natural right to
+the lands they had reclaimed from the wilderness.<a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a> Andros said,
+"You are either subjects, or else you are rebels;" and in either case,
+their lands would be forfeit.</p>
+
+<p>Andros hated freedom of speech and of thought. He was to allow no
+unlicensed printing. Randolph was appointed censor of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">60</a></span> the press, and
+ordered the printer to publish nothing without his approbation, nor
+"any almanac whatever." There must be but one town meeting in a year,
+and no "deliberation" at that; no "agitation," no discussion of
+grievances. There must be no preaching on the acts of the government.
+Rev. Dr. Increase Mather, one of the ablest men in the Colonies, was
+the special object of his hate. Randolph advised the authorities to
+forbid any non-conformist minister to land in New England without the
+special consent of the governor, and that he should restrain such as
+he saw fit to silence. The advice was not lost on such willing ears.
+John Gold, of Topsfield, was tried for "treasonable words," and fined
+fifty pounds&mdash;a great deal more at Topsfield in 1687, than "three
+hundred dollars" is now in Boston. Rev. Increase Mather had opposed
+the surrender of the Charter of Massachusetts, and published his
+reasons; but with such prudence, for he was careful how he "evinced an
+express liking" for justice, that it was difficult to take hold of
+him. So the friends of government forged a letter with his name, to a
+person in Amsterdam. Randolph showed the letter to persons whom he
+wished to prejudice against the alleged writer. When Mr. Mather
+learned the facts, he wrote a letter to a friend, clearing himself,
+and charging the forgery on Randolph or his brother. Randolph brought
+his action for a libel, claiming £500 damages. But it came to
+nothing&mdash;then. Now times are changed!</p>
+
+<p>Col. Pynchon, of Springfield, one of the officers in this new state of
+things, was empowered to bind over all persons suspected of riots,
+"outrageous or abusive <i>reflecting words and speeches against the
+government</i>." "The spirit of justice was banished from the courts that
+bore the name."<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a></p>
+
+<p>But notwithstanding the attempt to stifle speech, a great tall
+minister at Rowley, called Andros "a wicked man!" For that offence he
+was seized and put in prison! He, also, like Higginson, is represented
+in this court by one of his own name; and the same inextinguishable
+religious fire which burned in the bosom of Robert in Old England, and
+from Samuel in New England flashed into the commissioned face of
+Andros, now lightens at this bench from the eyes of <span class="smcap">Wendell Phillips</span>,
+who confers new glory on his much-honored ancestor.</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, you know how this wickedness was brought to an
+end. If the courts would not decree Justice, there was a rougher way
+of reaching it, and having it done. Civil war, revolution by violence,
+came in place of the simple forms of equity, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">61</a></span> the judges had set
+at nought. William of Orange, a most valiant son-in-law, drove the
+foul tyrant of Old England from that Island, where the Stuarts have
+ever since been only "Pretenders;" and on the 19th of April, 1689, the
+people of Massachusetts had the tyrant of New England put solemnly in
+jail! We were rid of that functionary for ever, and all such
+"commissioners" have been held odious in New England ever since the
+days of Andros. Eighty-six years later came another 19th of April,
+also famous. Well said Secretary Randolph, "Andros has to do with a
+perverse people,"&mdash;they would not bow to such tyranny in 1689. But he
+afterwards became a quite acceptable governor in Virginia,&mdash;where, I
+doubt not, he has descendants in African bondage at this day.</p>
+
+<p>Catholic James II. sought to establish arbitrary power in America, as
+in England, by his prerogative&mdash;the Omnipotence of the King; he
+failed; the high-handed despotism of the Stuarts went to the ground.
+The next attempt at the same thing was by the legislature&mdash;the
+Omnipotence of Parliament&mdash;for a several-headed despotism took the
+place of the old, and ruled at home with milder sway. It tried its
+hand in America; there were no more requisitions from a king hostile
+to the Colonies, but acts of Parliament took their place. After the
+French power in North America had given way, the British government
+sought to tame down and break in the sturdy son, who had grown up in
+the woods so big and rough, as obstinate as his father. Here are three
+measures of subjugation, all flowing from the same fountain of
+Principle&mdash;vicarious government by a feudal superior.</p>
+
+<p>1. All the chief colonial officers were to be appointed by the king,
+to hold office during his pleasure, to receive their pay from him.
+Such was the tenure of the executive officers who had a veto on all
+colonial legislation, and of the judicial officers. Thus the power of
+making and administering the laws fell from the people distributed
+everywhere, into the hands of the distant government centralized in
+the King.</p>
+
+<p>2. A standing army of British soldiers must be kept in the Colonies to
+overawe the people, and enforce the laws thus made and administered.</p>
+
+<p>3. A revenue was to be raised from the Colonies themselves&mdash;from which
+the King would pay his officers and provide for his army that enforced
+his laws. The eagle is to feather the arrow which shoots him in mid
+heaven.</p>
+
+<p>Thus law was a threefold cord wherewith to bind the strong Puritan.
+But his eyes were not put out&mdash;not then. Blindness came at a later
+day&mdash;when he had laid his head in the lap of a not attractive
+Deli<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">62</a></span>lah. With such judges and governors, backed by a standing army of
+hirelings&mdash;how soon would her liberty go down, and the Anglo-American
+States resemble Spanish America!</p>
+
+<p>In 1760 Francis Bernard was made governor of Massachusetts, and thus
+officially put at the head of the Judiciary, a man wholly devoted to
+the Crown, expecting to be made a baronet! He did not wish an annual
+election of councillors, but wanted the sovereign power to enforce its
+decrees by violent measures. Thus Thomas Hutchinson was made Chief
+Justice in 1760, and afterwards Lieutenant-Governor,&mdash;continually
+hostile to the constitution of his native land. Thus Andrew
+Oliver&mdash;"Governor Oliver," "hungry for office and power," was
+appointed Secretary, Commissioner of Stamps and Lieutenant-Governor;
+and Peter Oliver&mdash;"Judge Oliver"&mdash;though not bred a lawyer, was made
+Chief Justice, the man who refused to receive his salary from the
+treasury of Massachusetts, preferring the money of the crown which
+owned him. In the revolutionary times of the <i>five Judges of
+Massachusetts four were Tories</i>!</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, when the Stamp Act was passed&mdash;22d March, 1765&mdash;there
+were Judicial officers in the Colonies ready to declare it
+"constitutional;" executive magistrates ready to carry out any
+measures intrusted to them. "I will cram the stamps down their throat
+with the end of my sword," said an officer at New York. Governor
+Bernard wanted soldiers sent to Boston to enforce submission; so did
+Hutchinson and "Governor Oliver." The Governor of New York thought,
+"if <i>Judges be sent from England</i>, with an able attorney-general and
+solicitor-general to <i>make examples of some very few</i>, the Colony will
+remain quiet."<a name="FNanchor_104_104" id="FNanchor_104_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a></p>
+
+<p>In 1768 John Hancock was arrested at Boston&mdash;for a "misdemeanor;" I
+suppose, "obstructing an officer," or some such offence.<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> The
+government long sought to procure indictments against James Otis&mdash;who
+was so busy in fencing out despotism&mdash;Samuel Adams, and several other
+leading friends of the colony. But I suppose the judge did not succeed
+in getting his brother-in-law put on the grand-jury, and so the scheme
+fell through. No indictment for that "misdemeanor" then. Boston had
+the right men to do any thing for the crown, but they did not contrive
+to get upon the grand-jury.</p>
+
+<p>The King, it was George III., in his parliament, spoke of the Patriots
+of Boston, as "those turbulent and seditious persons." In the House of
+Commons, Stanley called Boston an "insolent town;" its inhabitants
+"must be treated as aliens;" its "charter and laws<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">63</a></span> must be so changed
+as to give the King the appointment of the Council, and to the
+<i>sheriffs the sole power of returning jurors</i>;" then the Stamp Act
+could be carried out, and a revenue raised without the consent of the
+people. The plan was admirably laid; an excellent counsel! Suppose, as
+a pure conjecture, an hypothesis of illustration&mdash;that there were in
+Boston a fugitive slave bill court, eager to kidnap men and so gain
+further advancement from the slave power, which alone distributes the
+federal offices; suppose the court should appoint its creatures,
+relatives, nay, its uterine brother&mdash;its brother in birth&mdash;as fugitive
+slave bill commissioners to hunt men; and then should get its
+matrimonial brother&mdash;its brother-in-law&mdash;on the grand-jury to indict
+all who resisted the fugitive slave bill! You see, gentlemen, what an
+admirable opportunity there would be to accomplish most manifold and
+atrocious wickedness. This supposed case exactly describes what was
+contemplated by the British authorities in the last century! Only,
+Gentlemen, it was so unlucky as not to succeed; nay, Gentlemen, as to
+fail&mdash;then! Such accidents will happen in the best of histories!</p>
+
+<p>It was moved in Parliament to address the king "to bring to condign
+punishment" such men as Otis and Adams and Hancock. Chief Justice
+Hutchinson declared Samuel Adams "<i>the greatest incendiary in the
+king's dominions</i>." Hutchinson was right for once. Samuel Adams lit a
+fire which will burn on Boston Common on the Fourth day of next July,
+Gentlemen, and on many other commons besides Boston. Aye, in the heart
+of many million men&mdash;and keep on burning long after Hutchinson ceases
+to be remembered with hate, and Adams with love. "The greatest
+incendiary!" so he was. Hutchinson also thought there must be "an
+Abridgment of what are called English Liberties," doubtless the
+liberty of speaking in Faneuil Hall, and other meeting-houses was one
+"of what are called English Liberties" that needed speedy abridgment.
+He wished the law of treason to be extended so that it might catch all
+the patriots of Boston by the neck. He thought it treasonable to deny
+the authority of Parliament.<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> Men suspected of "misdemeanors" were
+to be sent to England for trial! What a "trial" it would have
+been&mdash;Hancock and Adams in Westminster Hall with a jury packed by the
+government; Thurlow acting as Attorney-General, and another Thurlow
+growling on the bench and expecting further office as pay for fresh
+injustice! Truly there would have been an "abridgment of English
+Liberties." Gentlemen of the Jury, Mr. Phillips and Mr. Higginson in
+this case are charged with "obstructing an officer." Suppose they were
+sent to South Carolina to be tried by a jury of Slaveholders, or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">64</a></span>
+still worse, without change of place, to be tried by a court deadly
+hostile to freedom,&mdash;wresting law and perverting justice and
+"enlarging testimony," personally inimical to these gentlemen; suppose
+that the Slave-hunter whose "process" was alleged to be resisted, was
+kinsman to the court, and the judge had a near relation put on the
+jury&mdash;what opportunity would there be for justice; what expectation of
+it? Gentlemen of the Jury, that is the state of things which the
+despots of England wanted to bring about by sending Hancock and Adams
+over seas for trial! Bernard, Oliver, and Hutchinson were busy in
+getting evidence against the Patriots of New England, especially
+against Adams. Affidavits were sent out to England to prove that he
+was a fit subject to be transported for "trial" there. And an old
+statute was found from the enlightened reign of Henry VIII.
+authorizing that mode of trial in case of such "misdemeanor."
+Commissary Chew wished that two thirds of the lawyers and printers
+were shipped off to Africa "for at least seven years." Edes and Gill,
+patriotic printers in Boston, and "all the authors of numberless
+treasonable and seditious writings," were to go with them.<a name="FNanchor_107_107" id="FNanchor_107_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a> They
+were all guilty, very guilty! Gentlemen of the Jury, they committed
+"misdemeanors," they "obstructed officers," they resisted the process
+of despotism! But alas&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">"The Dog it was that died."</p>
+
+<p>Edes and Gill never saw Africa; the patriotic lawyers and printers
+made no reluctant voyage to England.</p>
+
+<p class="center">"The Dog it was that died."</p>
+
+<p>Bernard, Hutchinson, Oliver, and their coadjutors went over the seas
+for punishment after being tried at home by a Law older than the
+statute of Henry VIII.; a law not yet repealed, Gentlemen, the Higher
+Law which God wrote ineffaceably in the hearts of mankind; and
+indignant America pronounced sentence&mdash;Tories, Traitors! Commissary
+Chew learned a lesson at Saratoga in 1777. And the Franklins, the
+Mayhews, the Hancocks, the Adamses, they also were tried at home, and
+not found wanting; and the verdict! Gentlemen of the Jury, you know
+what verdict America has pronounced on these men and their kinsfolk!
+There is only one spot in the United States where the Hutchinsons, the
+Olivers, the Bernards are honored,&mdash;that is where the Adamses, the
+Hancocks, the Mayhews, and the Franklins, with the principles of
+justice they gave their lives to, are held in contempt! Where is the
+one spot, that speck of foreign dirt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">65</a></span> in the clean American garden? It
+is where the Democratic Herod and the Whig Pilate are made friends
+that they may crucify the Son of Man, the Desire of all nations, the
+Spirit of Humanity&mdash;it is the court of the Fugitive Slave Bill judges,
+the Gabbatha of the Kidnappers. Look there!</p>
+
+<p>In 1765 it was too late to conquer America. What Andros and Randolph
+could accomplish in 1686 with their sixty soldiers, could not be done
+in 1768 with all the red coats Britain could send out: nor in 1778
+with all the Hessians she could purchase. The 19th of April, 1689,
+foretold another 19th of April&mdash;as that many to-morrows after to-day!
+In the House of Lords Camden and Pitt thought Parliament not
+omnipotent.<a name="FNanchor_108_108" id="FNanchor_108_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> Samuel Adams declared "Acts of Parliament against
+natural equity are void;" prayed that "Boston might become a Christian
+Sparta," and looked to the Law of an Omnipotence somewhat higher than
+a king or a court. He not only had Justice, but also the People on his
+side. What came of that last attempt of the last king of New England
+to establish a despotism here? The same, Gentlemen, which will
+ultimately come of all such attempts.</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, there is one great obstacle which despotism has
+found in Anglo-Saxon lands, steadily opposing its steady attempts to
+destroy the liberties of the People. It is easy for the controlling
+power, which represents the Centripetal Tendency of the Nation, to
+place its corrupt and servile creatures in judicial offices, vested
+with power to fine, to imprison, and to kill; it is then easy for them
+to determine on the destruction of all such friends of Justice and
+Humanity as represent the Centrifugal Tendency of the Nation; and with
+such judicial instruments it is not difficult to wrest and pervert law
+in order to crush the Patriots, and construct a word into "Treason,"
+or "evincing express approbation" into a "Misdemeanor," "resisting an
+officer." And if the final decision rested with such a court, it would
+be exceeding easy to make way with any man whom the judge's private
+malignity or the public vengeance of his master, wished to smite and
+kill. But in the Anglo-Saxon people there is one institution, old,
+venerable, and well-beloved, which has stood for two thousand years,
+the great Fortress of Freedom. Thank God, Gentlemen, it still stands.
+Neither British Kings nor American Slave-drivers have yet brought it
+to the ground. Of this I must now say a word.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">66</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="hang">III. <span class="smcap">Of the Great Safeguard which has been found serviceable in
+protecting Democratic Institutions and the Rights of Man they are
+designed to defend.&mdash;Of the Trial by Jury.</span></p>
+
+<p>This is an invaluable protection against two classes of foes to the
+welfare of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>1. Against such as would commit offences upon the property or persons
+of men, without law and contrary to the form of law,&mdash;against common
+criminals of all denominations. Against such it is a sword&mdash;to resist
+and punish.</p>
+
+<p>2. Against such as would commit offences upon the property or persons
+of men, with the form of law and by means of its machinery,&mdash;against
+unjust legislators, corrupt Judges, and wicked magistrates; against
+such it is a shield defending the public head.</p>
+
+<p>In all the States of Anglo-Saxon origin there are two great popular
+institutions&mdash;Democratic Legislation and Democratic Administration of
+Law.</p>
+
+<p>In the process of its historical development the first has come to the
+representative form of democratic legislation,&mdash;popular law-making by
+a body of sworn delegates met in an Assembly, local or federal,
+subject to a constitution, written or only traditional, which is the
+People's Power of Attorney, authorizing them to do certain matters and
+things pertinent to law-making. These are a Jury of general
+Law-makers.</p>
+
+<p>In its process of historical development, the second has also come to
+a representative form, that of democratic application of law, popular
+law-applying, by a body of sworn delegates, that is a Court, subject
+to a constitution and laws, written or only traditional, which are the
+People's Power of Attorney authorizing them to do certain matters and
+things pertinent to law-applying. These are a Jury of special
+Law-appliers.</p>
+
+<p>Neither of them as yet has reached its perfect and ultimate form; both
+are still in a state of transition. These two are the most valuable
+institutional safeguards against unorganized selfishness in the
+community,&mdash;against thieves, robbers, murderers, traitors, and the
+like; against the organized selfishness which gets into places of
+delegated power, and would misuse the Form of law so as to prevent the
+People from attaining the Purpose of law.</p>
+
+<p>There is also a body of men intermediate between the two,&mdash;the
+Law-Explainers, the Judges. Speaking theoretically they are not
+ultimately either Law-makers or Law-appliers, yet practically, in
+their legitimate function, they certainly have much to do with both
+the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">67</a></span> making and applying of laws. For it is their business, not only
+to preside at all trials, and determine many subordinate questions of
+mere form to expedite the process, but also from the whole mass of
+laws, oral or written, statutes and customs, to select such particular
+laws as they think require special attention,&mdash;this is like the work
+of law-makers; and also, in their charges to the grand and petty
+Juries, to suggest the execution thereof in such cases as the times
+may bring,&mdash;this like the work of the law-appliers.</p>
+
+<p>The good judge continually modifies the laws of his country to the
+advantage of mankind. He leaves bad statutes, which aim at or would
+promote injustice, to sleep till themselves become obsolete, or
+parries their insidious thrusts at humanity; he selects good statutes
+which enact natural Justice into positive law; and mixes his own fresh
+instincts of humanity with the traditional institutions of the age.
+All this his official function requires of him&mdash;for his oath to keep
+and administer the laws binds him to look to the Purpose of Law&mdash;which
+is the Eternal Justice of God,&mdash;as well as to each special statute.
+Besides, after the Jury declares a man guilty, the Judge has the power
+to fix the quantity and sometimes the quality of his punishment. And
+the discretion of a great noble man will advance humanity.</p>
+
+<p>In this way a good Judge may do a great service to mankind, and
+correct the mistakes, or repel the injustice of the ultimate makers
+and appliers of law, and supply their defects. Thus in England those
+eminent Judges, Hale, Somers, Hobart, Holt, Camden, Mansfield, and
+Brougham, have done large service to mankind. Each had his personal
+and official faults, some of them great and glaring faults of both
+kinds, but each in his way helped enact natural Justice into positive
+law, and so to promote the only legitimate Purpose of human
+legislation, securing Natural Rights to all men. To such Judges
+mankind owes a quite considerable debt.</p>
+
+<p>But in America the Judge has an additional function; he is to
+determine the Constitutionality of a law. For while the British King
+and Parliament claim to be legislatively omnipotent, supreme, the
+Ultimate human source of law, the Living Constitution of the realm,
+and therefore themselves the only Norm of law,&mdash;howsoever ill-founded
+the claim may be,&mdash;in America it is the People, not their elected
+servants, who are the Ultimate human source of law, the Supreme
+Legislative power. Accordingly the People have prepared a written
+Constitution, a Power of Attorney authorizing their servants to do
+certain matters and things relating to the government of the nation.
+This constitution is the human Norm of law for all the servants of the
+people. So in administering law the Judge is to ask, Is the statute
+constitutional? does it square with the Norm of law<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">68</a></span> which the People
+have laid down; or have the legislative servants exceeded their Power
+of Attorney, and done matters and things which they were not empowered
+to do? In deciding this question, the Judge is to consider not merely
+the Provisional Means which the Constitution designates, but also the
+Ultimate Purpose thereof, the Justice and Liberty which, as its
+preamble declares, it expressly aims at, and which are also the ideal
+End of all sound legislation.</p>
+
+<p>There is no country in the world where a great man has so noble a
+place and opportunity to serve mankind as in America.</p>
+
+<p>But a wicked Judge, Gentlemen, may do great harm to mankind, as I have
+already most abundantly shown. For we have inherited a great mass of
+laws,&mdash;customary or statutory; the legislature repeals, modifies, or
+adds to them; the Judge is to expound them, and suggest their
+application to each special case. The Jury is to apply or refuse to
+apply the Judge's "law." In all old countries, some of these laws have
+come from a barbarous, perhaps even from a savage period; some are the
+work of tyrants who wrought cruelly for their own advantage, not
+justly, or for the good of mankind; some have been made in haste and
+heat, the legislature intending to do an unjust thing. Now an unjust
+Judge has great power to select wicked statutes, customs, or
+decisions; and in no country has he more power for evil than in the
+federal courts of the United States. For as in England, when the
+King-power makes a wicked law, the Judge, who is himself made by that
+same power, may declare it just, and execute the heinous thing; so in
+America, when the Slave power enacts a wicked statute, contrary to the
+purpose of the constitution and to the natural justice of God, the
+Judge, who is the creature of that same power, may declare it
+constitutional and binding on all the People who made the constitution
+as their Power of Attorney. Thus all the value of the constitution to
+check despotism is destroyed, and the Fortress of Freedom is betrayed
+into the hands of the enemies of liberty!</p>
+
+<p>But barbarous laws must not be applied in a civilized age; nor unjust
+laws enforced by righteous men. While left unrepealed, a fair and
+conscientious Jury will never do injustice, though a particular
+statute or custom demand it, and a wicked Judge insist upon the wrong;
+for they feel the moral instinct of human nature, and look not merely
+to the letter of a particular enactment, but also to the spirit and
+general purpose of law itself, which is justice between man and man.
+The wicked Judge, looking only to the power which raised him to his
+place, and may lift him higher still,&mdash;not to that other Hand which is
+over all,&mdash;or consulting his own meanness of nature, selects the
+wicked laws, and makes a wicked application thereof. Thus in America,
+under plea of serving the people, he can work most hideous wrong.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">69</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Besides, the Judges are lawyers, with the technical training of
+lawyers, with the disposition of character which comes from their
+special training and profession, and which marks the manners, the
+language and looks of a lawyer. They have the excellence of the
+lawyer, and also his defects. Commonly they are learned in their
+profession, acute and sharp, circumspect, cautious, skilful in making
+nice technical distinctions, and strongly disposed to adhere to
+historical precedents on the side of arbitrary power, rather than to
+obey the instinctive promptings of the moral sense in their own
+consciousness. Nay, it seems sometimes as if the moral sense became
+extinct, and the legal letter took the place of the spirit of Justice
+which gives life to the People. So they look to the special statute,
+its technical expositions and applications, but not to Justice, the
+ultimate Purpose of human law; they preserve the means and miss the
+end, put up the bars in the nicest fashion, and let the cattle perish
+in their pen. Like the nurse in the fable, they pour out the baby, and
+carefully cherish the wooden bath-tub! The Letter of the statute is
+the Idol of the Judicial Den, whereunto the worshipper offers
+sacrifices of human blood. The late Chief Justice Parker, one of the
+most humane and estimable men, told the Jury they <i>had nothing to do
+with the harshness of the statute</i>! but must execute a law, however
+cruel and unjust, because somebody had made it a law! How often Juries
+refuse to obey the statute and by its means to do a manifest
+injustice; but how rarely does a Judge turn off from the wickedness of
+the statute to do Justice, the great Purpose of human law and human
+life! Gentlemen, I once knew a democratic judge&mdash;a man with a noble
+mind, and a woman's nicer sense of right&mdash;who told the Jury, "Such is
+the law, such the decisions; such would be its application to this
+particular case. But it is unjust;&mdash;it would do a manifest and
+outrageous wrong if thus applied. You as Jurors are to do Justice by
+the law, not injustice. <i>You will bring in a verdict according to your
+conscience.</i>" They did so. Gentlemen, I should not dare tell you that
+Judge's name. It would greatly injure his reputation. God knows
+it&mdash;for there is a Higher Law.</p>
+
+<p>When the New York Convention assembled in 1846 to revise the
+constitution of that State, some powerful men therein felt the evil of
+having the Court of last Appeal consist wholly of lawyers. Mr. Ruggles
+thought the judges who reëxamine the decisions and pronounce the final
+judgment in disputed cases, and determine the constitutionality of
+laws, should be men who are "brought into direct contact with the
+people and their business." He wished that of the eight judges of this
+appellate Court, four should be Justices of the Supreme Court, and
+four more should be elected by the people on a general ballot, thus
+securing a popular element in that highest Court.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">70</a></span> By this popular
+element, representing the instinctive Justice of Humanity, he hoped to
+correct that evil tendency of professional men which leads them away
+"from the just conclusions of natural reason into the track of
+technical rules inapplicable to the circumstances of the case, and at
+variance with the nature and principles of our social and political
+institutions."<a name="FNanchor_109_109" id="FNanchor_109_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a> "Such judges," said another lawyer, "would retain
+more of the great general principles of moral justice, ... the
+impulses of natural equity, such as ... would knock off the rough
+corners of the common law and loosen the fetters of artificial and
+technical equity."<a name="FNanchor_110_110" id="FNanchor_110_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a></p>
+
+<p>Commonly in America, as in England, for judges the Federal Government
+appoints lawyers who have done some party service, or are willing to
+execute the designs of the great ruling Power, the Slaveholders,
+regardless alike of the interests of the People and the protestations
+of the Conscience of Mankind.<a name="FNanchor_111_111" id="FNanchor_111_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a> You know how Hardwicke and Thurlow
+got their office in England, how they filled it, and what additional
+recompense followed each added wickedness. Need I mention the name of
+Americans with a similar history? Gentlemen, I pass it by for the
+present.</p>
+
+<p>Still further, these judges thus appointed become familiar with fraud,
+violence, cruelty, selfishness,&mdash;refined or brutal,&mdash;which comes
+before them; they study the technicalities of the statutes, balance
+the scruples of advocates; they lose their fresh intuitions of
+justice, becoming more and more legal, less and less human, less
+natural and more technical; their eye is microscopic in its niceness
+of discrimination, microscopic also in its narrowness of range. They
+forget the universality of justice,&mdash;the End which laws should aim at;
+they direct their lynx-eyed attention to the speciality of the
+statutes which is only the Means, of no value save as conducing to
+that end. Their understanding is sharp as a mole's eye for the minute
+distinctions of the technicalities of their craft; but, as
+short-sighted as the mole, they cannot look at justice. So they come
+to acknowledge no obligation but the legal, and know no law except
+what is written in Black Letter on parchment, printed in
+statute-books, reported in decisions; the Law written by God on the
+soul of man they know not, only the statute and decision bound in pale
+sheepskin. In the logic of legal deduction&mdash;technical inference&mdash;they
+forget the intuition of conscience: not What is right? but What is
+law? is the question, and they pay the same deference to a wicked
+statute as a just one. So<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">71</a></span> the true Mussulman values the absurdities
+of the Koran as much as its noblest wisdom and tenderest humanity.</p>
+
+<p>Such a man so appointed, so disciplined, will administer the law
+fairly enough in civil cases between party and party, where he has no
+special interest to give him a bias&mdash;for he cares not whether John Doe
+or Richard Roe gain the parcel of ground in litigation before him. But
+in criminal cases he leans to severity, not mercy; he suspects the
+People; he reverences the government. In political trials he never
+forgets the hand that feeds him,&mdash;Charles Stuart, George Guelph, or
+the Slave Power of America.</p>
+
+<p>These things being so, in such trials you see the exceeding value of
+the jury, who are not Office-holders, under obligation to the hand
+that feeds them; not Office-seekers, willing to prostitute their
+faculties to the service of some overmastering lust; not lawyers
+wonted to nice technicalities; not members of a class, with its
+special discipline and peculiar prejudices; but men with their moral
+instincts normally active, and unsophisticated humanity in their
+hearts. Hence the great value of the jury in criminal trials.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, you are the jurors in this case, to decide between me and
+the government. Between the government and <span class="smcap">me</span>! no, Gentlemen, between
+the Fugitive Slave Bill and Humanity. You know the Function of the
+court&mdash;the manner of the Judges' appointment&mdash;the services they are
+expected to render in cases like this, the services they have already
+rendered.</p>
+
+<p>Let me speak of the Function of the Jury. To do that, I must say a few
+words of its Historical Development. I must make it very brief and
+sketchy. Here I shall point out six several steps in the successive
+development of popular Law-making and Law-applying.</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>1. In the barbarous periods of the Teutonic Family,<a name="FNanchor_112_112" id="FNanchor_112_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a> it seems the
+"whole People" came together at certain regular seasons to transact
+the business of the nation. There was also a meeting of the
+inhabitants of each district or neighborhood at stated times,&mdash;a
+"regular meeting;" and sometimes a special meeting to provide for some
+emergency&mdash;a "called meeting." If one man had wronged another the
+matter was inquired into at those popular meetings. One man
+presided&mdash;chosen for the occasion. In the early age it appears he was
+a priest, afterwards a noble, or some distinguished man, selected on
+the spot. The whole people investigated the matter, made the
+law&mdash;often an <i>ex post facto</i> law,&mdash;applied it to the special case,
+and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">72</a></span> on the spot administered the punishment&mdash;if corporeal, or decreed
+the recompense&mdash;if pecuniary. The majority carried the day. Thus at
+first the Body of People present on the occasion were the law-makers,
+the law-appliers, and law-executors. Each law was special&mdash;designed
+for the particular case in hand, retrospective for vengeance more than
+prospective for future welfare.</p>
+
+<p>2. Then in process of time, there came to be a body of laws&mdash;fixed and
+understood by the People. Partly, these came from the customs of the
+People, and represented past life already lived; but partly, also,
+from the decrees of the recognized authorities&mdash;theocratic, monarchic,
+aristocratic, democratic&mdash;representing the desire for a better life, a
+rule of conduct for the future. Then at their meetings, to punish an
+offender the people did not always make a new law, they simply used
+what they found already made. They inquired into the fact, the deed
+done, the law, and applied the general law to the special fact, made
+their decree and executed it. Thus extemporaneous Making of law for
+the particular case, gradually passed away, and was succeeded by the
+extemporaneous Declaration of the law previously made, and its
+Application to the matter in hand.</p>
+
+<p>3. By and by it was found inconvenient for a multitude to assemble and
+make the laws, so a body of select men took a more special charge of
+that function. Sometimes a chief, or king, usurped this for himself;
+or men were chosen by the people, and took an oath for the faithful
+discharge of their trust. Thus came popular law-making by sworn
+delegates, representatives of the people, who had a certain special
+power of attorney, authorizing them to make laws. These might be
+Priests&mdash;as at the beginning; or Nobles of priestly stock, as at the
+next stage; or Military Chiefs&mdash;as in all times of violence; or
+powerful Private men,&mdash;summoned from the nation, of their own accord
+undertaking the task, or chosen by the various neighborhoods,&mdash;the
+whole process seems to have been irregular and uncertain, as indeed it
+must be amongst rude people.</p>
+
+<p>So at that time there were two sources of law-making.</p>
+
+<p>(1.) The unorganized People&mdash;the primary source, whose unconscious
+life flows in certain channels and establishes certain customs, rules
+of conduct, obeyed before they are decreed, without any formal
+enactment. These were laws <i>de facto</i>.</p>
+
+<p>(2.) The organized Delegates&mdash;priestly, kingly, nobilitary, or
+warlike&mdash;the secondary source. These made statute laws. As this was a
+self-conscious and organized body, having an object distinctly set
+before its mind and devising means for its purposes, it easily
+appropriated to itself the chief part of the business of law-making.
+Statute laws became more and more numerous and important; they were
+the principal&mdash;the customs were only subsidiary, laws <i>de Jure</i>,
+enacted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">73</a></span> before they are obeyed by the People. Still new customs
+continued to flow from the primitive source of legislation, the
+People, and of course took new forms to suit the conditions of
+national life.</p>
+
+<p>4. Still the people came together to apply the laws&mdash;customary or
+enacted,&mdash;to the special cases which occurred. There were fixed
+periods when they assembled without notice given,&mdash;"regular law-days;"
+and if an emergency occurred, they were summoned on "extraordinary
+law-days." Here wrongs between party and party, and offences against
+the public, were set right by the "Country," the "Body of the county,"
+that is, by the bulk of the population. The majority carried the day.</p>
+
+<p>5. At length it was found inconvenient for so large a body to
+investigate each particular case, or to determine what cases should be
+presented for investigation.</p>
+
+<p>(1.) So this preliminary examination was delegated to a smaller body
+of men, sworn to discharge the trust faithfully, who made inquiry as
+to offences committed, and reported the criminals for trial to the
+full meeting, the actual "Body of the country." Here, then, is the
+first organized and sworn "Jury;" "the grand inquest;"&mdash;here is
+popular Indictment by delegates.</p>
+
+<p>(2.) Then it was found inconvenient for a large body&mdash;the whole
+country&mdash;to investigate the cases presented. Men were busy with their
+own work, and did not wish to appear and consume their time. So a
+smaller body of men was summoned to attend to any special case which
+was presented by the Grand Inquest. These also were sworn to do their
+duty. They were to try the men indicted. Here is Trial by sworn
+delegates, who represent the Body of the People. They were still
+called the "Country," as any spot of the Atlantic is the "Ocean." Here
+is the "Trial by Jury." They must be taken from the neighborhood of
+the parties concerned&mdash;for at this stage the jurors were also the
+witnesses, and other sworn witnesses were not then known. All the
+Jurors must concur in the vote of condemnation before the magistrate
+could hurt a hair of the accused's head.</p>
+
+<p>Still after the people had delegated their law-making to one body of
+sworn representatives, and the twofold function of law-applying, by
+Indictment and Trial, to other sworn representatives, there was yet a
+great concourse of people attending the court on the "law-days;"
+especially when important matters came up for adjudication; then the
+crowd of people took sides with Plaintiff or Defendant; with the
+authorities which accused, or with the man on trial, as the case might
+be. Sometimes, when the Jury acquitted, the people tore the suspected
+man to pieces; sometimes when the Jury condemned, they showed their
+indignation&mdash;nay, rescued the prisoner. For the old tradition of
+actual trial by the "Body of the Country" still prevailed.</p>
+
+<p>6. At length the Jurors are no longer the witnesses in the case.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">74</a></span>
+Others testify before them, and on the evidence which is offered, the
+Grand-Jury indict or not, and the Trial Jury acquit or condemn. Then
+the Jurors are no longer taken from the immediate neighborhood of the
+party on trial, only from his district or county. But sworn witnesses
+from the neighborhood, depose to the facts. There is no longer a great
+concourse of people in the open air, but the trial is carried on in a
+small court house, yet with open doors, in the face of the people,
+<i>coram populo</i>&mdash;public opinion still influences the Jury.</p>
+
+<p>As most of the Jurors were unlearned men, not accustomed to intricate
+questions, it became necessary for the presiding judge, a man of nicer
+culture, to prepare rules of evidence which should prevent the matter
+from becoming too complicated for the rustic judgment. Thence came the
+curious and strange "rules of evidence" which prevail in all countries
+where trial by Jury is established, but are unknown in lands where the
+trial is conducted solely by experts, educated men. But as the mass of
+the people, as in America, become well informed, the old rules appear
+ridiculous, and will perish.</p>
+
+<p>The number of sworn judges varies in different tribes of the Teutonic
+family, but as twelve has long been a sacred number with the
+Anglo-Saxons, that was gradually fixed for the Jury. Twelve consenting
+voices are indispensable for the indictment or the condemnation.</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>Such is the form of the Jury as we find it at this day. The other
+officers have also undergone a change. So, Gentlemen, let me give you
+a brief sketch of the Historical Formation of the Function of the
+Judge in nations of the same ethnological origin. Here I shall mention
+four steps.</p>
+
+<p>1. At the meetings of the people to make, apply, and execute the law,
+some one must preside to keep order, put the question, and declare the
+vote. He was the Moderator of the meeting. At first it would seem that
+some important man, a priest, or a noble, or some other wise,
+distinguished, or popular man, performed that function. The business
+over, he dropped into his private place again. A new one was chosen at
+each meeting.</p>
+
+<p>2. If the former moderator had shown skill and aptness, he was chosen
+the next time; again and again; at length it was a matter of course
+that he should preside. He studied the matter, and became "expert in
+all the manners and customs of his nation." This happens in most of
+the New England towns, where the same man is Moderator at the
+town-meetings for many years in succession. Men love to walk in the
+path they have once trodden, even if not the shortest way to their
+end.</p>
+
+<p>3. When the nation is organized more artificially and the laws chiefly
+proceed from the secondary source, the government,&mdash;elective or
+usurpatory&mdash;a judge is appointed by the central authority to visit<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">75</a></span>
+the districts (counties) and assist at the administration of justice.
+As the law is now made by the distant delegates, the judge they send
+down declares and explains it to the people, for they have not made it
+as before directly, nor found it ready-made, an old inherited custom,
+but only receive it as the authorities send it down from the Capitol.
+The law is <i>written</i>&mdash;the officer can read while they have no copy of
+the law, or could not read it had they the book. Hence the necessity
+of a judge learned in the law. Still the people are to apply the
+written law or apply it not.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, the old customs remain, the unwritten laws of the people,
+which the judge does not understand so well as they. He represents the
+written law, the assembly the unwritten custom or tradition. The judge
+is appointed that he may please the central power; the people are only
+to satisfy such moral convictions as they have. There is often a
+conflict between the statute and the custom, a conflict of laws; and
+still more between the judge and the jury&mdash;a conflict in respect to
+the application of the law.</p>
+
+<p>4. Then comes the critical period of the Trial by Jury. For the
+deputed judge seeks to enlarge his jurisdiction, to enforce his law,
+often against the customs and the consciences of the People, the jury,
+who only seek to enlarge Justice. He looks technically at the statute,
+the provisional Means of law, not at Justice the ultimate Purpose of
+law. To the "Country," the "Body of the People," or to the jury of
+inquest and of trial, he assumes not to suggest the law and its
+application, but absolutely to <i>dictate</i> it to them. He claims the
+exclusive right to decide on the Law and its Application; the jury is
+only to determine the Fact&mdash;whether the accused did the deed charged
+or not.</p>
+
+<p>If the judge succeeds in this battle, then tyranny advances step by
+step; the jury is weakened; its original function is curtailed;
+certain classes of cases are taken from its jurisdiction; it becomes
+only the tool of the government, and finally is thrown aside. Popular
+law-making is gone; popular law-applying is also gone; local
+self-government disappears and one homogeneous centralized tyranny
+takes the place of the manifold Freedom of the people. So the trial by
+jury faded out of all the South-Teutonic people, and even from many
+regions of the German and Scandinavian North. But the Anglo-Saxon,
+mixing his blood with Danes and Normans, his fierce kinsfolk of the
+same family, has kept and improved this ancient institution. When King
+or Parliament made wicked laws, or appointed corrupt and cruel men for
+judges, the People have held this old ancestral shield between the
+tyrant and his victim. Often cloven through or thrust aside, the Saxon
+Briton never abandons this. The Puritan swam the Atlantic with this on
+his arm&mdash;and now all the Anglo-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">76</a></span>Saxon tribe reverences this defence as
+the Romans their twelve <span title="Transcriber's Note: for 'AONCILIA' read 'ANCILIA'"><a href="#ERRATA"><span class="smcap">aoncilia</span></a></span>,
+the mythic shield which "fell from
+Heaven."<a name="FNanchor_113_113" id="FNanchor_113_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a></p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>After so much historic matter, Gentlemen, it is now easy to see what
+is&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Function of the Jury at this time</span>. Here I make three points.</p>
+
+<p>I. They are to decide the <span class="smcap">Question of Fact</span>, the matter charged, and
+determine whether the accused did the deed alleged to be done. That is
+the first step&mdash;to determine the Fact.</p>
+
+<p>II. They are to decide the <span class="smcap">Question of Law</span>, the statute or custom
+supposed to apply to the Deed done, and determine whether there is
+such a statute or custom, and whether it denounces such a Deed as a
+Crime assigning thereto a punishment. That is the second step&mdash;to
+determine the Law.</p>
+
+<p>III. They are to decide the <span class="smcap">Question of the Application of the Law to
+the Fact</span>, and to determine whether that special statute shall be
+applied to the particular person who did the deed charged against him.
+That is the third step&mdash;to determine the Application of the Law.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, I shall speak a few words on each of these points, treating
+the matter in the most general way. By and by I shall apply these
+general doctrines to this special case.</p>
+
+<p>I. The jury is to <span class="smcap">decide the Question of Fact</span>; to answer, Did the
+accused do the deed alleged, at the time and place alleged, with the
+alleged purpose and producing the alleged result? The answer will be
+controlled by the Evidence of sworn witnesses, who depose under a
+special oath to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
+truth." Their Evidence is the Testimony as to the Fact,&mdash;the sole
+testimony; the jury is the ultimate arbiter to decide on the
+credibility of the evidence, part by part, and its value as a whole.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes it is an easy matter to answer this Question of Fact;
+sometimes exceedingly difficult. If there be doubts they must weigh
+for the accused, who is held innocent until proven guilty.</p>
+
+<p>With us the theory that the jury is the exclusive judge of the
+Question of Fact is admitted on all sides. But in England it has often
+happened that the judge instructs the jury to "<i>find the facts</i>" so
+and so; that is&mdash;he undertakes to decide the Question of Fact.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">77</a></span> In
+libel cases it is very common for New England judges to undertake to
+determine what constitutes a libel, and to decide on the intentions of
+the accused; that is to decide the most important part of the complex
+and manifold Question of Fact. For it is as much a question of fact to
+determine what constitutes a libel, as what constitutes theft, the
+<i>animus libellandi</i> as much as the <i>animus furandi</i>. Sometimes juries
+have been found so lost to all sense of manhood, or so ignorant of
+their duties, as to submit to this judicial insolence and usurpation.</p>
+
+<p>If the Jury decide the Question of Fact in favor of the accused, their
+inquiry ceases at that step, they return their verdict, "<span class="smcap">not guilty</span>;"
+and the affair is ended. But if they find he did the deed as charged,
+then comes the next function of the Jury.</p>
+
+<p>II. The Jury are to <span class="smcap">decide the Question of Law</span>. Is there a statute or
+custom denouncing a penalty on that special deed? is the statute
+constitutional? To determine this matter, there are three sources of
+evidence external to their own knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>1. <i>The Testimony of the Government's Attorney.</i> The Government itself
+is his client, and he gives such a statement of the law as suits the
+special purposes of the rulers and his own private and particular
+interest, selects such statutes, customs, and decisions, as will serve
+this purpose, and declares, Such is the law. Nay, he makes inferences
+from the law, and thereby infers new customs, and constructs new
+statutes, invents new crimes. He treats the law as freely as he treats
+the facts&mdash;making the most that is possible against the party accused.
+You have seen already what tricks Government attorneys have played,
+how they pervert and twist the law&mdash;making it assume shapes never
+designed by its original makers. He gives his opinion as to the law,
+as he gave an opinion as to the fact. This is not necessarily his
+personal and actual, but only his official and assumed opinion&mdash;what
+he wishes the Jury to think is law in this particular case.</p>
+
+<p>2. <i>The Testimony of the Defendant's Attorney.</i> The accused is his
+client. He is to do all he can to represent the law as favorable as
+possible to the man on trial. He gives an opinion of the law, not his
+personal and actual, but his official and assumed opinion&mdash;what he
+wishes the Jury to think is law in this particular case.</p>
+
+<p>3. <i>The Testimony of the Judge on the Bench.</i> But in the English
+courts, and the Federal courts of the United States, he is commonly no
+more than a government attorney in disguise; I speak only of the
+general rule, not the exceptions to it. He has received his office as
+the reward for party services&mdash;was made a judge because he was
+one-sided as a lawyer. In all criminal cases he is expected to twist
+the law to the advantage of the hand that feeds him. Especially is
+this so in all Political trials&mdash;that is, prosecutions for opposition
+to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">78</a></span> the party which the judge represents. The judge may be impartial,
+or partial, just or unjust, ignorant or learned. He gives an opinion
+of the law,&mdash;not his personal and actual, but his official and assumed
+opinion&mdash;what he wishes the jury to think is law in this particular
+case. For the court also is a stage, and the judges, as well as the
+attorneys, may be players,</p>
+
+<p class="center">"And one man in his time play many parts."</p>
+
+<p>Of these three classes of witnesses, no one gives evidence under
+special oath to tell the law, the whole law, and nothing but the
+law&mdash;or if it be so understood, then all these men are sometimes most
+grossly and notoriously perjured; but each allows himself large
+latitude in declaring the law. The examples I have already cited, show
+that the judge often takes quite as wide a range as the
+attorney-general, or the prisoner's counsel.</p>
+
+<p>As the jury hears the manifold evidence as to the facts, and then
+makes up its mind thereon and decides the Question of Fact, often
+rejecting the opinion of various witnesses, as ignorant, partial,
+prejudiced, or plainly false and forsworn; so will the jury hear the
+manifold and often discrepant evidence as to the law, and then make up
+their mind thereon and decide the Question of Law, often rejecting the
+opinion of various witnesses thereupon ignorant, partial, prejudiced,
+or plainly false and forsworn.</p>
+
+<p>In regard to the Fact, the jury is limited to the evidence adduced in
+court. What any special juror knows from any other source is not
+relevant there to procure conviction. But in regard to the Law there
+is no such restriction; for if the jury know the law better than these
+three classes of witnesses for it in court, then the jury are to
+follow their better knowledge. At any rate, the jury are to make up
+their minds on this question of Law, and for themselves determine what
+the special Law is.</p>
+
+<p>Every man is to be held innocent until proved guilty&mdash;until the
+special Deed charged is proved against him, and until that special
+deed is proved a Crime. The jury is not to take the government
+attorney's opinion of the Fact, nor the prisoner's counsel's opinion
+of the Fact, nor yet the judge's opinion thereon; but to form their
+own opinion, from the evidence offered to make up their own judgment
+as to the Fact. So likewise they are not to take the government
+attorney's opinion of the Law, or the prisoner's counsel's opinion of
+the Law, nor yet the judge's opinion thereon; but from all the
+evidence offered, <span title="Transcriber's Note: for 'not' read 'or'"><a href="#ERRATA">not</a></span>
+otherwise known to them, to make up their own judgment as to
+the Law. After they have done so&mdash;if they decide the Law in favor of
+the accused, the process stops there. The man goes free; for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">79</a></span> it does
+not appear that his deed is unlawful. But if the jury find the Law
+against the deed, they then proceed to their third function.</p>
+
+<p>III. The jury is to decide the <span class="smcap">Question of the Application of the Law
+to the Fact</span>. Here is the question: "Ought the men who have done this
+deed against the form of Law to be punished thereby?" The government
+attorney and the judge are of the opinion that the law should be thus
+applied to this case, but they cannot lay their finger on him until
+the jury, specially sworn "well and truly to try and true deliverance
+make," have unanimously come to that opinion, and say, "Take him and
+apply the law to him."</p>
+
+<p>The Deed may be clear and the Statute clear, while the Application
+thereof to the man who did the deed does not follow, and ought not to
+follow. For</p>
+
+<p>1. It is not designed that the full rigor of every statute shall be
+applied to each deed done against the letter thereof. The statute is a
+great sleeping Lion, not to be roused up when everybody passes that
+way. This you see from daily practice of the courts. It remains in the
+Discretion of the Attorney to determine what offences he will present
+to the Grand-Jury,&mdash;he passes by many, and selects such as he thinks
+ought to be presented. It remains in the Discretion of the Grand-Jury
+to determine whom they will indict, for sometimes when the Fact and
+Law are clear enough to them, they yet find "no bill" or <i>ignore</i> the
+matter. And after the man is indicted, it still remains in the
+Discretion of the Attorney to determine whether he will prosecute the
+accused, or pass him by. Indeed I am told that the very Grand-Jury who
+found the bills which have brought you and me face to face, hesitated
+to indict a certain person on account of some circumstances which
+rendered his unlawful act less deserving of the legal punishment: the
+Attorney told them he thought they had better find a bill, and he
+would enter a <i>nolle prosequi</i> in court,&mdash;plainly admitting that while
+the Law and the Fact were both clear, that the Grand-Jury were to
+determine in their Discretion whether they would apply the law to that
+man, whether they would indict or not; and the Attorney whether he
+would prosecute or forbear. It remains equally in the Discretion of
+the Trial Jury to determine whether the man who did the unlawful deed
+shall be punished&mdash;whether the spirit of that statute and the Purpose
+of Law requires the punishment which it allows.</p>
+
+<p>2. Besides, in deciding this question&mdash;the jurors are not only to
+consider the one particular statute brought against the prisoner, but
+the whole Complex of Customs, Statutes, and Decisions, making up the
+Body of Law, and see if that requires the application of this special
+statute to this particular deed. Here are two things to be
+considered.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">80</a></span></p>
+
+<p>(1.) The general Purpose of the whole Body of Laws, the Object aimed
+at; and</p>
+
+<p>(2.) The Means for attaining the end. Now the Purpose of Law being the
+main thing, and the statute only subsidiary to that purpose, the
+question comes&mdash;"Shall we best achieve that Purpose by thus applying
+the statute, or by not applying it?" This rests with the Jury in their
+Discretion to determine.</p>
+
+<p>3. Still more, the Jury have consciences of their own, which they must
+be faithful to, which no official position can ever morally oblige
+them to violate. So they are to inquire, "Is it right in the sight of
+God, in the light of our consciences, to apply this special statute to
+this particular case and thus punish this man for that unlawful deed?"
+Then they are to ask, also, "Was the deed <i>naturally wrong</i>; done from
+a wrong motive, for a wrong purpose?" If not, then be the statute and
+the whole complex of laws what they may, it can never be right for a
+jury to punish a man for doing a right deed, however unlawful that
+deed may be. No oath can ever make it right for a man to do what is
+wrong, or what he thinks wrong&mdash;to punish a man for a just deed!</p>
+
+<p>But if the twelve men think that the Law ought not to be applied in
+this case&mdash;they find "not guilty," and he goes free; if otherwise,
+"guilty," and he is delivered over to the judges for sentence and its
+consequences, and the judge passes such sentence as the Law and his
+Discretion point out.</p>
+
+<p>The judge commonly, and especially in political trials, undertakes to
+decide the two last Questions himself, determining the Law and the
+Application thereof, and that by his Discretion. He wishes to leave
+nothing to the Discretion of the jury, who thus have only the single
+function of deciding the Question of Fact, which is not a Matter of
+Discretion&mdash;that is, of moral judgment,&mdash;but only a logical deduction
+from evidence, as the testimony compels. He would have no moral
+element enter into their verdict. The judge asks the jury to give him
+a deed of the ground on which he will erect such a building as suits
+his purpose, and then calls the whole thing the work of the jury, who
+only granted the land!</p>
+
+<p>But this assumption of the judges ultimately and exclusively to decide
+the question of Law and its Application, is a tyrannous usurpation.</p>
+
+<p>(1.) It is contrary to the fundamental Idea of the Institution of
+Trial by jury.</p>
+
+<p>(2.) It leads to monstrous tyranny by putting the Property, Liberty,
+and Life of every man at the mercy of the government officers, who
+determine the Law and its Application, leaving for the jury only the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">81</a></span>
+bare question of Fact, which the judge can so manage in many cases as
+to ruin most virtuous and deserving men.</p>
+
+<p>(3.) Not only in ancient times did the jury decide the three questions
+of Fact, of Law, and of its special Application, but in cases of great
+magnitude they continue to do so now, in both America and England, and
+sometimes in direct contradiction to the commands of the judges.</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, if you perform this threefold function, then
+you see the exceeding value of this mode of trial,</p>
+
+<p>1. For the punishment of wrong deeds done against the law, done by the
+unorganized selfishness of thieves, housebreakers, murderers, and
+other workers of unrighteousness;</p>
+
+<p>2. And also for the prevention of wrong deeds attempted in the name of
+law, by the organized selfishness of the makers and officers thereof.</p>
+
+<p>For in each special case brought to trial, the jury are judges of the
+Law and of its Application. They cannot make a law&mdash;statute or
+custom&mdash;nor repeal one; but in each particular case they must demand
+or forbid its execution. These Tribunes of the Saxon People have no
+general veto on law-making, and can efface no letter from the
+statute-book, but have a special and imperative veto on each case for
+the Application of the law.</p>
+
+<p>Justice, the point common to the interests of all men, yes, the point
+common to God and our Conscience, is the Aim and Purpose of Law in
+general; if it be not that the law is so far unnatural, immoral, and
+of no obligation on the conscience of any man. The special Statute,
+Custom, or Decision, is a provisional Means to that end; if just, a
+moral means and adequate in kind; if unjust, an immoral means,
+inadequate in kind, and fit only to defeat the attainment of that
+Justice which is the Purpose of all Law. Accordingly, if by an
+accident, a special statute is so made that its application in a
+particular case would do injustice and so defeat the Design and
+Purpose of Law itself, then the function of the jury under their oath
+requires them to preserve the End of law by refusing to apply the
+provisional statute to an unjust use. And if by design a statute is
+made in order to do injustice to any man&mdash;as it has very often
+happened in England as well as America,&mdash;then the jury will accomplish
+their function by refusing to apply that statute to any particular
+case. So will they fulfil their official oath, and conserve the great
+ultimate Purpose of Law itself.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, you will ask me where shall the jury find the Rule of
+Right, and how know what is just, what not? In your own Conscience,
+Gentlemen; not in the conscience of the Attorney for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">82</a></span>
+Plaintiff-Government, or the accused Defendant; not in the conscience
+of the community; still less in the technical "opinion" of the
+lawyers, or the ambition, the venality, the personal or purchased rage
+of the court. Of course you will get such help as you can find from
+judges, attorneys, and the public itself, but then decide as you must
+decide&mdash;each man in the light of his own conscience, under the
+terrible and beautiful eyes of God. How does the juror judge of the
+Credibility of Evidence? By the "opinion" of the lawyers on either
+side? by the judge's "opinion," or that of the community? No one would
+dare determine thus. He decides personally by his own common sense,
+not vicariously by another's opinion. And as you decide the Matter of
+Fact by your own Discretion of Intellect, so will you decide the
+Matter of Right by your own Discretion of Conscience.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, when the jury do their official duty it becomes impossible
+to execute a statute, or custom, or to enforce a decision which the
+jury&mdash;"the country"&mdash;think unjust and not fit to be applied.</p>
+
+<p>But if the judge usurps these two functions of the jury, and himself
+decides the Question of Law and its Application, you see what
+follows&mdash;consequences the most ghastly, injustice in the name of Law,
+and with the means of Law! Yes, tyranny spins and weaves with the
+machinery of Freedom, and a Nessus-shirt of bondage is fixed on the
+tortured body of the People. The power of the judge will be especially
+dangerous in times of political excitement, and in political trials.</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>Gentlemen, this matter is so important, and the danger now so imminent
+that you will pardon me a few words while I set forth the mode by
+which this wickedness goes to work, and what results it brings to
+pass. Follow me in some details.</p>
+
+<p>I. As to the judges dealing with the Grand-Jury.</p>
+
+<p>Here let me take the examples from the circuit court of the United
+States in a supposed case where a man is to be tried for violating the
+fugitive slave bill. You will see this is a case which may actually
+happen.</p>
+
+<p>1. The judge challenges the whole body summoned as grand-jurors and
+catechizes them after this fashion.</p>
+
+<p>(1.) "Have you formed an opinion that the law of the United States,
+known as the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, is Unconstitutional, so that
+you cannot indict a person under it for that reason, although the
+court holds the statute to be Constitutional?"</p>
+
+<p>This is riddling No. 1. Such as think the fugitive slave bill
+unconstitutional are at once set aside. The judge proceeds to ask such
+as have no doubt that it is constitutional,</p>
+
+<p>(2.) "Do you hold any opinions on the subject of Slavery in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">83</a></span> general,
+or of the Fugitive Slave Law in special, which would induce you to
+refuse to indict a man presented to you for helping his brother to
+freedom?"</p>
+
+<p>This is riddling No. 2; other "good men and true" are rejected, but
+some are found "faithful" to the purposes of the court; and the judge
+puts his next question,</p>
+
+<p>(3.) "Will you accept for Law whatever the court declares such?"</p>
+
+<p>This is riddling No. 3. Still the judge finds three-and-twenty men
+small enough to pass through all these sieves. They are to be "the
+jury." All the men who deny the constitutionality of the wicked
+statute; all who have such reverence for the unalienable Rights of man
+and for the Natural Law of God that they would not prevent a Christian
+from aiding his brother to escape from bondage; all who have such
+respect for their own manhood that they will not swear to take a
+judge's word for law before they hear it&mdash;are shut out from the "grand
+inquest;" they are no part of the "Country," or the "Body of the
+county," are not "good men and true."</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, consider the absurdity of swearing to take for
+law what another man will declare to be law, and before you hear it!
+Suppose the judge should be drunk and declare the fugitive slave bill
+in perfect harmony with the Sermon on the Mount, those noble words
+"Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto
+them,"&mdash;are jurors to believe him? What if the judge should be sober,
+and declare it a "misdemeanor" to call the fugitive slave bill a
+wicked and hateful statute, and all who thus offended should be put in
+jail for twelve months! Are honest men to take such talk for American
+law?</p>
+
+<p>The jurors then take this oath which the clerk reads them:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You, as a member of this Inquest for the District of Massachusetts,
+shall diligently inquire and true presentment make of all such matters
+and things as shall be given you in charge; the counsel of the United
+States, your fellows', and your own you shall keep secret; you shall
+present no man for envy, hatred, or revenge; neither shall you leave
+any man unpresented&mdash;for love, fear, favor, affection, or hope of
+reward; but you shall present things truly as they come to your
+knowledge, according to the best of your understanding. So help you
+God!"<a name="FNanchor_114_114" id="FNanchor_114_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a></p>
+
+<p>Then the judge appoints the most pliant member of the jury as
+"foreman"&mdash;selecting, if possible to find him, some postmaster or
+other official of the government, or some man marked for his injustice
+or venality, who may have the desirable influence with his fellows.</p>
+
+<p>2. The next thing is to moisten this material thus trebly sifted, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">84</a></span>
+mould it into such vessels of tyranny as he can fill with his private
+or judicial wrath and then empty on the heads of his personal foes or
+such as thwart his ambitious despotism or the purposes of his
+government. So he delivers his <span class="smcap">Charge to the Grand-Jury</span>.</p>
+
+<p>By way of introduction, he tells them&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>(1.) That they are not the Makers of Law. Legislation is the function
+of Congress and the President; even the <span class="smcap">Court</span>, the "<span class="smcap">Supreme Court of
+the United States</span>" itself cannot make a law, or repeal one!</p>
+
+<p>(2.) That they are not the Declarers, or Judges of Law. To know and
+set forth the Law is the function of the <span class="smcap">Court</span>. It is true every man
+in his personal capacity, as private citizen, is supposed to know the
+law, and if he violates it, of his own presumption, or by the
+persuasion of some others who falsely tell him about the law, he must
+be punished; for "<i>ignorantia nemini excusat</i>," ignorance excuseth
+none; the private advice of the full bench of judges would be held no
+excuse. But in their official capacity of jurors they are supposed to
+know nothing of the Law whatsoever.</p>
+
+<p>It seems taken for granted that though one of the Jurors may be an old
+judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, and have sat on the
+bench for twenty years; nay, though he may be also an old legislator
+of twenty years' standing, and as legislator have made the very
+statute in question, and also as judge subsequently have explained and
+declared it, yet the moment he takes the oath as Grand-Juror, all this
+knowledge is "gone from him" as completely Nebuchadnezzar's dream. The
+court is the assembly of magicians, astrologers, sorcerers, and
+Chaldeans to restore it. Congress might pass a law compelling
+ex-judges, ex-senators, and ex-representatives&mdash;who are so numerous
+nowadays, and continually increasing and likely to multiply yet
+more,&mdash;to serve as grand-jurors; soon as they take their oath, they
+are in law held and accounted to be utterly ignorant of law, and bound
+to accept as law whatsoever the court declares such. The acting judge
+may be young, blind, ignorant, ambitious, drunk with brandy or rage,
+he may have a personal interest in <span title="Transcriber's Note: for 'promoting' read 'perverting'"><a href="#ERRATA">promoting</a></span>
+the law, and may
+notoriously twist it so as to gratify his peculiar or familistic
+spleen, still the jury to accept the court's opinion for the nation's
+law. Any political ignoramus, if hoisted to the "bench," has judicial
+authority to declare the law,&mdash;it is absolute. If he errs, "he is
+responsible to the proper authorities&mdash;he may be removed by
+impeachment;" but the jury must not question the infallibility of his
+opinion. For though the grand-jury is "the country," the judge is not
+only all that, and more so; but is "the rest of mankind" besides.</p>
+
+<p>Then the judge goes further&mdash;talks <i>solemnly</i>, yet familiar; to
+wheedle jurors the better, he mixes himself with them, his "<span class="smcap">We</span>"
+embracing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">85</a></span> both judge and jury. I shall now quote actual language used
+in this very court, by the late Hon. Judge Woodbury:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"One of the peculiar dangers ... to which jurors, as well as
+judges, are exposed, is the <i>unpopularity, or obnoxiousness</i>
+... of any particular law, which has been violated, leading
+<i>us</i> ... to be timid or unfaithful in enforcing it ... the
+subject-matter being a delicate or offensive one." "While we
+... are holding the scales as well as the sword of Justice,
+in <i>humble imitation of the Divine Judge</i> on high," it is
+our duty to "<i>let law, as law</i>, [that is, whether it is just
+or unjust] <i>reign supreme</i>, reign equally over all, and as
+to <i>all things</i>, no less than persons; and till it is
+changed by the proper authorities, <i>not to interpose our
+individual caprices or fancies or speculations</i> [that is,
+our <i>convictions of justice</i>] <i>to defeat its due course and
+triumph</i>." We must <i>not</i> "<i>disregard laws</i>, when disliked,
+<i>because we can</i>, under the universal suffrage enjoyed here,
+<i>otherwise help</i> legally <i>to change or annul them</i> by our
+votes." "As jurors <i>you have sworn to obey them till so
+changed</i>, and ought to stand by them faithfully, to the last
+moment of their existence." "We are safest in our capacity
+of public officers ... to execute the laws as they are
+[right or wrong], <i>while others</i> who may make or retain bad
+laws in the statute-book, <i>are answerable for their own
+wrong</i>. If they preserve laws on the statute-book, which are
+darkness rather than light and life to the people, theirs is
+the fault, [that is, if a blacksmith make a dagger, and tell
+us to stab an innocent man with it, we must obey, and the
+blame will rest on the blacksmith who made the dagger, not
+on the assassin who murdered with it!] In some cases, also,
+when we think the <i>existing laws and punishments are wrong</i>,
+and hence venture to encourage others in disobedience by
+neglecting to indict and punish offenders, it should make us
+pause and halt when it is remembered, it may turn out that
+<i>we</i> ourselves <i>may not be exactly Solons or Solomons</i> in
+these respects, nor quite so much wiser than the laws
+themselves, as sometimes we are hastily induced to suppose."
+"Miserable must be the fate of that community where the
+ministers of the law are themselves disposed to disregard
+it;" "government will become a curse;" "and this whether
+such a <i>betrayal of public trust</i> springs from the
+<i>delusions of false philanthropy or fanatical prejudices, no
+less than when it comes from unbridled licentiousness</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"We must not lay the flattering unction to our souls, that
+because by some <i>possibility there may not be guilt</i>, we can
+rightfully discharge as if there were no guilt." "It is
+sometimes urged against agreeing to indict, convict, or
+punish, that we have <i>conscientious scruples on the
+subject</i>;" "if sincere tenderness of conscience presses on
+the heart and mind against executing some of the laws, <i>it
+should lead us to decline office or resign</i>; not to neglect
+or disobey, while in office, what we have promised and sworn
+to perform;" [as if the juror swore to do injustice!] "or if
+a majority prove unaccommodating or inflexible against us,
+then it behooves those differing from them ... <i>to withdraw
+entirely from such a government, and emigrate</i>." [So the
+juror must not try to do justice at home, but seek it in
+exile.] "But in all such cases we must take special care not
+to indulge ourselves in considering an act as a sin which
+<i>is only disagreeable</i>, or the result of only some
+<i>prejudice or caprice</i>." "<i>The presumptions are that all
+laws</i>, sanctioned by such intelligent, numerous, and
+respectable members of society as compose our legislative
+bodies, <i>are constitutional</i>, and until pronounced otherwise
+by the proper tribunal, the judiciary, <i>it is perilous for
+jurors to disobey them</i>," [that is, to refuse to execute
+them] "and it is trifling with their solemn obligations to
+<i>disregard them in any way and on any occasion, from
+constitutional doubts</i>, unless of the clearest and strongest
+character."<a name="FNanchor_115_115" id="FNanchor_115_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a></p></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">86</a></span></p>
+<p>He then tells them that <i>no feeling of Humanity</i> must be allowed to
+prevent them from executing any law which the court declares to them,
+"whether the statute is a harsh one, is not for us to determine."<a name="FNanchor_116_116" id="FNanchor_116_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a>
+<i>A cruel law is to be enforced as vigorously as a humane one</i>; an
+<i>unjust law</i> as a <i>just one</i>; a statute which aims to defeat the
+purpose of Law itself, just as readily as one which aims to secure the
+dearest rights of humanity. If the statute is notoriously wicked, as
+in the case supposed, then the Judge says: "It is to be observed that
+this statute [the fugitive slave bill] subjects no person to arrest
+who was not before liable to be seized and carried out of the State;"
+"Congress has enacted this law. <i>It is imperative, and it will be
+enforced.</i> Let no man mistake the mildness and forbearance with which
+the criminal code is habitually administered, [as in cases of engaging
+in the slave-trade] for weakness or timidity. <i>Resistance [to the
+fugitive slave bill] must make it sternly inflexible.</i>" "As great
+efforts have been made to convince the public that the recent law [the
+fugitive slave bill] cannot be enforced with a good conscience, but
+may be conscientiously resisted ... I deem it proper to advert,
+briefly, to <i>the moral aspects</i> of the subject." "The States without
+the constitution would be to each other foreign nations." "Those,
+therefore, who have the strongest convictions of the <i>immorality of
+the institution of slavery</i>, are not thereby authorized to conclude
+that the <i>provision for delivering up fugitive slaves is morally
+wrong</i>, [that is, if it be wrong to hold man in bondage, it is also
+not wrong,] or that our Fathers ... did not act wisely, justly, and
+humanely in acceding to the compacts of the Constitution." "Even those
+who go to the extreme of condemning the Constitution and the laws made
+under it, as <i>unjust and immoral</i>, cannot ... justify resistance. In
+their view, such laws are inconsistent with the justice and
+benevolence and against the will of the Supreme Lawgiver, and they
+emphatically ask, '<i>Which shall we obey, the law of man, or the Will
+of God?</i>' I answer, '<span class="smcap">Obey both</span>!' The <i>incompatibility</i> which the
+question assumes [between <i>Right and Wrong, or Good and Evil, or God
+and the Devil</i>] <i>does not exist</i>! Unjust and oppressive laws <i>may
+indeed be passed</i> by human governments. But if <i>Infinite and
+Inscrutable Wisdom permits political society</i>, having the power of
+human legislation, <i>to establish such laws, may not the same Infinite
+and Inscrutable Wisdom permit and require an individual</i>, who has no
+such power, <i>to obey them</i>?" [So "if Infinite and Inscrutable Wisdom
+permits" a Blacksmith<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">87</a></span> "having the power" to forge steel and temper
+it, to make daggers, "may not the same Infinite and Inscrutable Wisdom
+permit and require the individual" carpenter or tailor, who has no
+such power, to use the dagger for the purpose intended!] "Conscience,
+indeed, is to be reverenced, and obeyed; but still we must remember
+that it is <i>fallible</i>, especially when the rights of others are
+concerned, [that is, the right to kidnap men] <i>and may lead us to do
+great injustice</i>, [by refusing to punish a man who helps his brother
+enjoy his self-evident, natural, and unalienable right to life,
+liberty, and the pursuit of happiness]. The annals of the world abound
+with enormities committed by a narrow and darkened conscience." A
+<i>statute</i> "is the moral judgment, the <i>embodied conscience of the
+political community</i>, [the fugitive slave bill the 'embodied
+conscience' of New England]. To this not only is each individual bound
+to submit, [right or wrong,] but it is a new and <i>controlling element
+in forming his own moral judgment</i>;" [that is, he must <i>think</i> the
+statute is just]. "Obedience is a <i>moral duty</i>, [no matter how immoral
+the law may be]. <i>This is as certain as that the Creator made man a
+social being</i>;" "to <i>obey the laws of the land</i> [no matter what laws,
+or how wicked soever] <i>is, then, to obey the Will of God</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, you think I have imagined and made up this
+language out of my own fancy. No, Gentlemen, I could not do it. I have
+not the genius for such sophistry. I only quote the words of the Hon.
+Judge Peleg Sprague delivered to the grand-jury of this Circuit Court
+of United States at Boston, March 18, 1851.<a name="FNanchor_117_117" id="FNanchor_117_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a> Gentlemen, I showed
+you what Thurlow could say at Horne Tooke's trial on the 4th of July,
+1777. Nay, I quoted the words of Powis and Allybone, and Scroggs and
+Jeffreys.<a name="FNanchor_118_118" id="FNanchor_118_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a> But, Gentlemen, the judge of New England transcends the
+judges of Old England.</p>
+
+<p>3. Having made this general preparation for his work and shaped his
+vessel to the proper form, he proceeds to fill it with the requisite
+matter.</p>
+
+<p>(1.) He practically makes the Law just as he likes, so as to suit the
+general purpose of the government, or the special purpose of his
+private vengeance or ambition. Thus,</p>
+
+<p>a. Out of the whole complex of law&mdash;statutes, decisions, customs,
+charges, opinions of judicial men, since the Norman conquest or before
+it,&mdash;he selects that special weapon which will serve his present turn.
+And tells the jury, "that is the law which you are sworn to enforce. I
+have not made it&mdash;it is the <i>Lex terræ</i>, the Law of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">88</a></span> Land." Or if
+in such an arsenal, so copious, he finds no weapon ready made, then</p>
+
+<p>b. Out of that pile of ancient instruments he selects something which
+he forges over anew, and thus constructs a new form of law when he
+could not find one ready for his hand. If a straight statute will not
+catch the intended victims he perverts it to a hook and therewith lays
+hold. He thus settles the law.</p>
+
+<p>(2.) He next practically determines what Deed constitutes the
+"offence" forbidden by the law he has just made. So he selects some
+act which it is notorious was done by the man he strikes at, and
+declares it is the "offence," the "crime." Here too he is aided by
+ancient precedent; whereof if our brief Republican annals do not
+furnish examples, he hies to the exhaustless treasury of Despotism in
+the English common law. He opens the "Reports," the "Statutes of the
+Realm," or goes back to the "Year-books." Antiquity is rich in
+examples of tyranny. "He readily finds a stick who would beat a dog."
+"Such are the opinions," quoth he, "of the venerable Chief Justice
+Jones," or "my Lord Chancellor Finch," or "Baron Twysden," or "my Lord
+Chief Justice Kelyng."</p>
+
+<p>Thus the Judge constructs the Jury&mdash;out of such men as he wishes for
+his purpose; constructs the Law, constructs the Offence, the Crime:
+nay, he points out the particular Deed so plain that he constructs the
+Indictment. All that is left for the "Grand Inquest" is the mechanical
+work of listening to the "evidence" and signing the Bill&mdash;"<i>Billa
+Vera</i>," a true bill. That they may accomplish this work he delivers
+them over to the District Attorney; he may be also an agent of the
+government, appointed for his party services, looking for his reward,
+expecting future pay for present work, extra pay for uncommon zeal and
+"discretion." Gentlemen of the Jury, this <i>may</i> be the case&mdash;humanity
+is fallible, and it sometimes may happen even in the Circuit Court of
+the United States that such a man should hold the office of District
+Attorney. For it is not to be expected, nay, it is what we should not
+even ask&mdash;that this place should always be filled by such conspicuous
+talent, such consummate learning, and such unblemished integrity as
+that of the present attorney (Hon. Mr. Hallett). No, Gentlemen of the
+Jury, as I look round these walls I am proud of my country! Such a
+District Attorney, so bearing "his great commission in his look;" his
+political course as free from turning and winding as the river
+Missouri; high-minded, the very Cæsar's wife of democratic
+virtue,&mdash;spotless and unsuspected; never seeking office, yet alike
+faithful to his principles and his party; and with indignant foot
+spurning the Administration's bootless bribe,&mdash;the fact outtravels
+fancy. Nay, Gentlemen, it is something<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">89</a></span> to be an American&mdash;I feel it
+as I look about me. For the honorable Attorney is perfectly suited to
+this Honorable Court;&mdash;yea, to the Administration which gives them
+both their dignity and their work and its pay. Happy country with such
+an Attorney, fortunate with such a Court, but thrice and four times
+fortunate when such several stars of justice unite in such a
+constellation of juridic fire!</p>
+
+<p>But, Gentlemen, it is too much to ask of human nature that it should
+be always so. In my supposed case, the judge delivers the persons
+accused to the officers, restless, bellowing, and expecting some
+fodder to be pitched down to them from the national mow, already
+licking their mouths which drool with hungry anticipation. They will
+swear as the court desires. Then the Attorney talks with the most
+pliant jurors, coaxes them, wheedles them, stimulates them to do what
+he wants done. Some he threatens with the "displeasure of the
+government;" he swears at some. After all, if the jury refuse to find
+a bill,&mdash;a case, Gentlemen, which has happened,&mdash;they are discharged;
+and a new jury is summoned; some creature of the government is put on
+it, nay, perhaps some kinsman of the anxious judge, at least a
+Brother-in-Law, and at last twenty-three men are found of whom twelve
+consent to a "True Bill." Then great is the joy in the judge's
+heart,&mdash;it is corrupt judges I am speaking of, Gentlemen of the Jury,
+not of upright and noble men, may it please your Honors! There is
+great joy in the judge's heart, and great rejoicing <i>amongst his
+kinsfolk and intimate friends</i> who whinney and neigh over it in the
+public journals, and leer at the indicted man in the street, lolling
+out their tongues greedy for <span title="Transcriber's Note: omit 'his'"><a href="#ERRATA">his</a></span>
+vengeance!</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>II. Now, Gentlemen, look next at the judge's dealing with the
+Trial-Jury. He proceeds as before.</p>
+
+<p>1. He sifts the material returned to him, through those three sieves
+of questioning, and gets a Jury with no hard individual lumps of solid
+personal independence. They take the oath which you have just taken,
+Gentlemen: "You shall well and truly try the issue between the United
+States and the Defendant at the Bar, according to the law, and the
+evidence given you, so help you God!"</p>
+
+<p>The facts are then presented, and the case argued on both sides.</p>
+
+<p>2. The Judge sums up, and charges the Jury. He explains their oath; to
+try the issue <i>according to the law</i> does not mean (a) according to
+the whole complex which is called "<i>Law</i>," or "<i>The Law</i>," but
+according only to that particular statute which forbids the deed
+charged,&mdash;for otherwise the Jury must judge of the Purpose of Law,
+which is Justice, and inquire into the rightfulness of the deed and of
+the statute which forbids it. Nor does it mean (b) by the Jurors'
+notion of that statute, but only by the Judge's opinion thereof. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">90</a></span>
+tells them&mdash;if they proceed to inquire into the natural Justice of the
+deed, or into the law which forbids it, then they transcend their
+office, and are guilty of "Perjury," and reads them the statute for
+the punishment of that offence, and refers to examples&mdash;from the times
+of the Stuarts, though he does not mention that&mdash;when Jurors were
+fined and otherwise severely dealt with for daring to resist a judge.</p>
+
+<p>Then out of the facts testified to by the government witnesses, he
+selects some one which is best supported, of which there is no doubt.
+He then declares that the question of "Guilty or not guilty" turns on
+that point. If the accused did that deed&mdash;then he is Guilty. So the
+moral question, "Has the man done a wrong thing?" is taken from their
+consideration; the intellectual question, "Has he done a deed which
+amounts to the crime forbidden?" is not before them; only the
+mechanical question, "Did he do that particular act?" They are not to
+inquire as to the Justice of the law, its Constitutionality, or its
+Legality; nor the Justice or the Criminality of the deed&mdash;only of its
+Actuality, Did he do this deed? Nay, sometimes the Judge treats them
+as cattle, and orders them to <i>find the facts for the government</i>. If
+they refuse, he threatens them with punishment.</p>
+
+<p>Thus he constructs the Trial-Jury, the Law, the Evidence, the Crime,
+and the Fact.</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>Now, Gentlemen, when this is done and done thoroughly, the Judge has
+kept all the Forms, Presentment by the Grand-Jury, and Trial by a
+Petty Jury; but the substance is all gone; the Jury is only a stalking
+horse, and behind it creeps the Judicial servant of Tyranny, armed
+with the blunderbuss of law,&mdash;made and loaded by himself,&mdash;and
+delivers his shot in the name of law, but against Justice, that
+purpose of all law. Thus can tyranny be established&mdash;while all the
+forms of law are kept.<a name="FNanchor_119_119" id="FNanchor_119_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a></p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, let me make this more clear by a special case
+wholly fictitious.&mdash;Thomas Nason, a "Non-Resistant" and a Quaker, is a
+colored citizen of Boston, the son and once the slave of Hon. James
+Nason of Virginia, but now legally become a free man by self-purchase;
+he has the bill of sale of himself in his pocket, and so carries about
+him a title deed which would perhaps satisfy your Honors of his right
+to liberty. But his mother Lizzie (Randolph) Nason, a descendant of
+both Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison,&mdash;for Virginia, I am told, can
+boast of many children descended from two Presidents, perhaps from
+three, who</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="poem">
+<tr>
+<td>
+"Boast the pure blood of an illustrious race,<br />
+In quiet flow from Lucrece to Lucrece"&mdash;
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">91</a></span></p>
+
+<p>from Saxon master to African slave,&mdash;is still the bondwoman of the
+Hon. James, the father of her son Thomas. From the "Plantation
+manners" of her master, the concubine, "foolishly dissatisfied with
+slavery," flies to Boston, and takes refuge with her Quaker son, who
+conceals his mother, and shelters her for a time. But let me suppose
+that his Honor Judge Curtis, while at Washington, fired with that
+patriotism which is not only habitual but natural and indigenous to
+his Honor, informs Mr. Nason of the hiding-place of his female slave,
+thus betraying a "mistress" to her master, no longer, alas, her
+"keeper." It is no injurious imputation&mdash;it is an imaginary honor I
+attribute to the learned and honorable Judge. Mr. Nason sends the
+proper agent to Boston to save the Union of States by restoring the
+union of master and slave. Mr. George Ticknor Curtis, fugitive slave
+bill commissioner, and brother to the Hon. Judge, issues his warrant
+for kidnapping the mother; his coadjutor and friend, Mr. Butman,
+attempts to seize her in her son's house. Thomas, unarmed, resists the
+intruder, and with a child's pop-gun drives that valiant officer out
+of the house, and puts the mother in a place of safety,&mdash;beneath the
+flag of England, or the Pope, or the Czar. Commissioner Curtis
+telegraphs the news to Washington,&mdash;announcing a "<span class="smcap">new case of
+treason</span>&mdash;more 'levying war!'" The Secretaries of State and of War
+write dreadful letters, breathing fire and slaughter, and President
+Pierce, a man of most heroic courage, alike mindful of his former
+actual military exploits at Chapultepec, of his delegated triumph at
+Greytown, and of the immortal glory of Mr. Fillmore, issues his
+Proclamation, calling on all good citizens, and especially on the
+politicians of his party, to "Save the Union" from the treason of this
+terrible Thomas Nason, who will blow up the Constitution with a
+pop-gun!</p>
+
+<p>At the next session of the Honorable Circuit Court of the United
+States in and for the first District, his Honor the Hon. Benjamin
+Robbins Curtis, Judge, constructs and charges the Grand-Jury in the
+manner already set forth. He instructs them that if any man, by force
+and arms, namely, with a pop-gun, does resist a body of United States
+officers, attempting to kidnap a woman, his own mother, that he
+thereby levies war against the United States, and accordingly commits
+the crime of "Treason" which consists in levying war against the
+United States&mdash;the "<i>amount</i> of force is not material." And it is
+their duty to indict all persons in that form offending. The Attorney,
+the Hon. Benjamin Franklin Hallett, offers to "bet ten dollars that I
+will get" Nason "indicted," and urges the matter. But no bill is
+found, the Jury is discharged, a new Jury is summoned, and Mr. William
+W. Greenough, the Brother-in-law of the Judge is put on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">92</a></span> it, "drawn as
+Juror"&mdash;and then a "true bill" is found, Mr. Hallett actually making
+an indictment that cannot be quashed!</p>
+
+<p>On the day before Thanksgiving Thomas Nason is arraigned; and is
+brought to trial for this new Boston Massacre on the anniversary of
+the old one&mdash;on the Fifth of March. The judge constructs a Trial-Jury
+as before. Mr. Hallett, assisted by Mr. Thomas, Mr. George T. Curtis,
+and Commissioner Loring, manage the case for the government, bringing
+out the whole strength of the kidnapping party, and directing this
+Macedonian phalanx of Humanity and Law and Piety against a poor
+friendless negro. Mr. Hale, Mr. Ellis, and Mr. Dana defend him.
+Officer Butman and his coadjutors&mdash;members of the "Marshal's
+guard"&mdash;testify that Mr. Nason attacked them with the felonious weapon
+above named, putting them in mortal bodily fear greater than that
+which in Mexico once overthrew the (future) President of all this
+land! Mr. Herrman, the dealer in toys, testifies that he sold the
+murderous weapon for twenty-five cents to Mr. Nason who declared that
+he "could frighten Butman with it;" that it is of German manufacture,
+and is called a Knallbüchse!</p>
+
+<p>Judge Curtis sums up the matter. He tells the jury, (1.) That they are
+not to judge of the Law punishing treason, but to take it from the
+Court. (2.) Not to judge what Act constitutes the Crime of Treason,
+but take that also from the Court, and if the Court decides that
+offering a pop-gun at a rowdy's breast constitutes the crime of
+treason, they are to accept the decision as constitutional law. (3.)
+They are not to ask if it be just to hang a man for thus resisting a
+body of men who sought to kidnap his mother, for even if it be unjust
+and cruel it is none of their concern, for they must execute a cruel
+and unjust law with even more promptitude than a just and humane one,
+and in the language of the "Defender of the Constitution," "conquer
+their prejudices," and "do a disagreeable duty." (4.) If they think
+the Law commands one thing and the Will of God exactly the opposite,
+in the well-known words of Judge Sprague, they must "obey both" by
+keeping the law of man when it contradicts the law of God, for they
+can never be good Christians so long as they scruple to hang a Quaker
+for driving off a kidnapper; and obedience to the law is a moral duty,
+no matter how immoral the law may be, and "to obey the law of the land
+is to obey the will of God." (5.) But they have a simple question of
+fact to determine; namely, Did the Defendant resist officer Butman in
+the manner set forth? If satisfied of that, they must find him guilty.
+No mistaken notions of Justice must induce them to refuse their
+verdict&mdash;for they are not to make the law, but only help execute it;
+and their conscience is so "fallible, especially when the rights of
+others are concerned, and may lead them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">93</a></span> to do great injustice," for
+"the annals of the world abound with enormities committed by a narrow
+and darkened conscience." They must not ask if it be "religious" to do
+so&mdash;for to use the words of the most religious of all Americans, a man
+of most unspotted life in public and private, "Religion has nothing to
+do with politics," and this is a political trial. If there be any
+injustice in the law and its execution the blame lies with the makers
+thereof not with the jurors, and they may wash their hands as clean as
+Pilate's from the blood of Christ. Besides, if there be injustice the
+President can pardon the offender, and from his well-known religious
+character&mdash;which rests on the unbiased testimony of his <i>own minister</i>
+and the statement of several partisan newspapers published in the very
+heat of the election, when men, and especially politicians looking for
+office, never exaggerate,&mdash;he doubtless "will listen to petitions for
+a commutation of punishment!"</p>
+
+<p>But there is no injustice in it&mdash;for slavery is part of the <i>lex
+terræ</i>, the law of the land, protected by the Constitution itself,
+which is the <i>Lex Suprema</i>&mdash;the Supreme Law of the Land, and nearly
+eighty years old! Besides, "Slavery is not immoral," not contrary to
+the public policy of Massachusetts; and, moreover, the "mother" whom
+the criminal actually rescued, was a "foreigner" and "whatever rights
+she had, she had no right <i>here</i>."<a name="FNanchor_120_120" id="FNanchor_120_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a></p>
+
+<p>But it is not a cruel or an unchristian thing to require a negro
+layman to allow his mother to be kidnapped in his own
+house&mdash;especially if she were a born slave, and so by the very law "a
+chattel personal to all uses, intents, and purposes whatever," and of
+course wholly divested of all natural rights, even if a colored person
+ever had any&mdash;for an eminent American minister, of one of the most
+enlightened sects in Christendom, has publicly offered to send his own
+freeborn mother into bondage for ever!</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, if the jurors do not find a verdict of guilty, then they
+themselves are guilty of <span class="smcap">Perjury</span>!</p>
+
+<p>So the jury, without leaving their seats, find him guilty; the judge
+sentences; the President signs the Death-warrant, and Marshal Freeman
+hangs the man&mdash;to the great joy of the Commissioner's and the
+Marshal's guard who vacate the brothels once more and attend on that
+occasion and triumph over the murdered Quaker.</p>
+
+<p>But the mischief does not stop there; the Boston slave-hunters are not
+yet satisfied with blood; the judge constructs another grand-jury as
+before, only getting more of his kinsfolk thereon, and taking his law
+from the impeached Judges Kelyng and Chase, charges that all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">94</a></span> persons
+who <i>advise</i> to an act of levying war, or evince an "<i>express liking</i>"
+for it, or "<i>approbation</i>" of it, are also guilty of treason; and "in
+treason all are Principals." Accordingly the jury must indict all who
+have evinced an "express liking" of the rescue, though they did not
+evince approval of the rescue by such means. It appears that Rev. Mr.
+Grimes in the meeting-house the Sunday before the treason was
+consummated, had actually prayed that God would "break the arm of the
+oppressor and let the oppressed go free;" that he read from a book
+called the Old Testament, "Bewray not him that wandereth," "Hide the
+outcast," and other paragraphs and sentences of like seditious nature.
+Nay, that from the New Testament he had actually read the Sermon on
+the Mount, especially the Golden Rule and the summing of the Law and
+the Prophets in one word, Love,&mdash;and had applied this to the case of
+fugitive slaves; moreover, that he had read the xxvth chapter of
+Matthew from the 31st to the 46th verse, with dreadful emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>Nay, anti-slavery men&mdash;in lectures&mdash;and in speeches in the Music Hall,
+which was built by pious people&mdash;and in Faneuil Hall, which was the
+old Cradle of Liberty, had actually spoken against man-stealing,&mdash;and
+even against some of the family of kidnappers in Boston!</p>
+
+<p>Still further, he adds, with great solemnity, a woman&mdash;a negro
+woman,&mdash;the actual wife of the criminal Nason&mdash;had brought
+intelligence&mdash;to her husband&mdash;that Mr. George T. Curtis,&mdash;the brother
+of the judge,&mdash;had issued his warrant&mdash;and Mr. Butman&mdash;"with a
+monstrous watch"&mdash;was coming to execute it&mdash;she told her
+husband,&mdash;and&mdash;incited him to his dreadful crime! If you find these
+facts you must convict the prisoners.</p>
+
+<p>So thirty or forty more are hanged for treason.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, these fictitious cases doubtless seem
+extravagant to you. I am glad they do. In peaceful times, in the
+majority of cases there is no disagreement between the law, the judge,
+and the jurors; the law is just, or at least is an attempt at justice,
+the judge wishes to do justice by means thereof, and the jurors aim at
+the same thing. In such cases there is no motive for doing wrong to
+any person: so the judge fairly interprets the righteous and wholesome
+law, the jurors willingly receive the interpretation and apply it to
+the special case, and substantial justice is done. This happens not
+only in civil suits between party and party, but also in most of the
+criminal cases between the Public and the Defendant. But in times of
+great political excitement, in a period of crisis and transition, when
+one party seeks to establish a despotism and deprive some other class
+of men of their natural rights, cases like those I have imagined
+actually happen. Then there is a disagreement between the judge and
+the jury; nay, often between the jury and the special statute<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">95</a></span>
+wherewith the government seeks to work its iniquity. It is on such
+occasions that the great value of this institution appears,&mdash;then the
+jury hold a shield over the head of their brother and defend him from
+the malignity of the government and the Goliath of injustice,
+appointed its champion to defy the Law of the living God, is smote in
+the forehead by the smooth stone taken from a country brook, and lies
+there slain by a simple rustic hand; for in such cases the jury fall
+back on their original rights, judge of the Fact, the Law, and the
+Application of the Law to the Fact, and do justice in spite of the
+court, at least prevent injustice.</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>Now, Gentlemen of the Jury, I will mention some examples of this kind,
+partly to show the process by which attempts have been made to
+establish despotism, that by the English past you may be warned for
+the American present and future; and partly that your function in this
+and all cases may become clear to you and the Nation. The facts of
+history will show that my fancies are not extravagant.</p>
+
+<p>1. In April, 1554, just three hundred and one years ago this very
+month, in England, Sir Nicolas Throckmorton, a gentleman of
+distinguished family, was brought to trial for high treason. He had
+held a high military office under Henry VIII. and Edward VI., but
+"made himself obnoxious to the Papists, by his adherence to some of
+the persecuted Reformers." With his two brothers he attended Anne
+Askew to her martyrdom when she was burnt for heresy, where they were
+told to "take heed to your lives for you are marked men." He was
+brought to trial April 17th, 1554, the first year of Bloody Mary. Of
+course he was allowed no counsel; the court was insolent, and demanded
+his condemnation. But the jury acquitted him; whereupon the <i>court
+shut the twelve jurors in prison</i>! Four of them made their peace with
+the judges, and were delivered: but eight were kept in jail till the
+next December, and then fined,&mdash;three of them £60 apiece, and five
+£225 apiece.</p>
+
+<p>This is one of the earliest cases that I find, where an English jury
+in a political trial refused to return such a verdict as the tyrant
+demanded.<a name="FNanchor_121_121" id="FNanchor_121_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a></p>
+
+<p>2. In September, 1670, William Penn, afterwards so famous, and William
+Mead, were brought to trial before the Lord Mayor of Lon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">96</a></span>don, a
+creature of the king, charged with "a tumultuous assembly." For the
+Quaker meeting-house in Grace Church Street, had been forcibly shut by
+the government, and Mr. Penn had preached to an audience of Dissenters
+in the street itself. The court was exceedingly insolent and
+overbearing, interrupting and insulting the defendants continually.
+The jury found a special verdict&mdash;"guilty of speaking in Grace Church
+Street." The judge sent them out to return a verdict more suitable to
+the desire of the government. Again they substantially found the same
+verdict. "This both Mayor and Recorder resented at so high a rate that
+they exceeded the bounds of all reason and civility." The Recorder
+said, "You shall not be dismissed till we have a verdict that the
+court will accept; you shall be locked up without meat, drink, fire,
+and tobacco; you shall not think thus to abuse the court; we will have
+a verdict by the help of God, or you shall starve for it!" When Penn
+attempted to speak, the Recorder roared out, "Stop that prating
+fellow's mouth or put him out of court." The jury were sent out a
+third time, and kept all night, with no food, or drink, or bed. At
+last they returned a verdict of "not guilty," to the great wrath of
+the court. <i>The judge fined the jurors forty marks apiece</i>, about
+$140, <i>and put them in jail</i> until they should pay that sum. The
+foreman, Edward Bushel, refused to pay his fine and was kept in jail
+until he was discharged on <i>Habeas Corpus</i> in November. Here the
+attempt of a wicked government and a cruel judge was defeated by the
+noble conduct of the jurors, who dared be faithful to their duty.<a name="FNanchor_122_122" id="FNanchor_122_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_122_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a></p>
+
+<p>3. In 1681 an attempt was made to procure an indictment against the
+Earl of Shaftesbury, for High Treason. The Bill was presented to the
+Grand-Jury at London; Chief Justice Pemberton gave them the charge, at
+the king's desire&mdash;it was Charles II. They were commanded to <i>examine
+the evidence in public</i> in the presence of the court, in order that
+they might thus be overawed and forced to find a bill, in which case
+the court had matters so arranged that they were sure of a conviction.
+The court took part in examining the witnesses, attempting to make out
+a case against the Earl. But the jury returned the bill with <span class="smcap">Ignoramus</span>
+on it, and so found no indictment. The spectators rent the air with
+their shouts. The court was in great wrath, and soon after the king
+seized the Charter of London, as I have already shown you, seeking to
+destroy that strong-hold of Liberty. Shaftesbury escaped&mdash;the jury was
+discharged. Why did not the court summon another jury, and the chief
+justice put his brother-in-law on it? Roger Coke says, "But as the
+knights of Malta could make knights of their order for eight pence a
+piece, yet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">97</a></span> could not make a soldier or seaman; so these kings [the
+Stuarts] though <i>they could make what judges they pleased</i> to do their
+business, <i>yet could not make a grand-jury</i>." For the grand-juries
+were returned by the Sheriffs, and the sheriffs were chosen by the
+Livery, the corporation of London. This fact made the king desire to
+seize the charter, <i>then he could make a grand-jury to suit himself</i>,
+out of the kinsfolk of the judge.<a name="FNanchor_123_123" id="FNanchor_123_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_123_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a></p>
+
+<p>4. Next comes the remarkable case of the Seven Bishops, which I have
+spoken of already.<a name="FNanchor_124_124" id="FNanchor_124_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_124_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a> You remember the facts, Gentlemen. The king,
+James II., in 1688, wishing to overturn Protestantism&mdash;the better to
+establish his tyranny&mdash;issued his notorious proclamation, setting
+aside the laws of the land and subverting the English Church. He
+commanded all Bishops and other ministers of religion to read the
+illegal proclamation on a day fixed. Seven Bishops presented to him a
+petition in most decorous language, remonstrating against the
+Proclamation, and asking to be excused from reading it to their
+congregations. The king consulted with Father Petre,&mdash;a Jesuit, his
+confessor&mdash;on the matter, and had the bishops brought to trial for a
+misdemeanor, for publishing "a seditious libel in writing against his
+majesty and his government." It was "obstructing an officer."</p>
+
+<p>Then the question before the trial-jury was, Did the seven bishops, by
+presenting a petition to the king&mdash;asking that they might not be
+forced to do an act against the laws of England and their own
+consciences&mdash;commit the offence of publishing a seditious libel; and,
+Shall they be punished for that act? All the judges but two, Holloway
+and Powell, said "Yes," and the jury were so charged. But the jury
+said, "Not guilty." The consequence was this last of the Stuarts was
+foiled in his attempt to restore papal tyranny to England and
+establish such a despotism as already prevailed in France and Spain.
+Here the jury stood between the tyrant and the Liberties of the
+People.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, let me show you how that noble verdict was
+received. Soon as the verdict was given, says Bishop Burnet, "There
+were immediately very loud acclamations throughout Westminster Hall,
+and the words 'Not guilty,' 'Not guilty,' went round with shouts and
+huzzas; thereat the King's Solicitor moved very earnestly that such as
+had shouted in the court might be committed. But the shouts were
+carried on through the cities of Westminster and London and flew
+presently to Hounslow Heath, where the soldiers in the camp echoed
+them so loud that it startled the king."<a name="FNanchor_125_125" id="FNanchor_125_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_125_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a> "Every man seemed
+transported with joy. Bonfires were made all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">98</a></span> about the streets, and
+the news going over the nation, produced the like rejoicings all
+England over. The king's presence kept the army in some order. But he
+was no sooner gone out of the camp, than he was followed with an
+universal shouting, as if it had been a victory obtained."<a name="FNanchor_126_126" id="FNanchor_126_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_126_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a> "When
+the Bishops withdrew from the court, they were surrounded by countless
+thousands who eagerly knelt down to receive their blessing." Of course
+the two judges who stood out for the liberties of the citizens, were
+removed from office!</p>
+
+<p>5. Here is another remarkable case, that of William Owen, in 1752.
+These are the facts. In 1750 there was a contested election of a
+member of Parliament for Westminster. Hon. Alexander Murray, an
+anti-ministerial member of the Commons, was denounced to the House for
+his conduct during the election, and it was ordered that he should be
+confined a close prisoner in Newgate, and that he receive his sentence
+on his knees. He refused to kneel, and was punished with great cruelty
+by the bigoted and intolerant House. Mr. Owen, who was a bookseller,
+published a pamphlet, entitled "The Case of Alexander Murray, Esq.,"
+detailing the facts and commenting thereon. For this an information
+was laid against him, charging him with publishing a "wicked, false,
+scandalous, seditious, and malicious libel."</p>
+
+<p>On the trial, the Attorney-General, Ryder, thus delivered himself:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"What!&mdash;shall a person appeal from that Court, who are the
+only judges of things belonging to them, the House of
+Commons I mean. An appeal! To whom? To a mob? Must Justice
+be appealed from? To whom? To injustice? Appeal to 'the good
+people of England,' 'particularly the inhabitants of
+Westminster'! The House of Commons are the good people of
+England, being the representatives of the people. The rest
+are&mdash;what? Nothing&mdash;unless it be a mob. But the clear
+meaning of this libel was an <i>appeal to violence</i>, in fact,
+and to stigmatize the House." "Then he charges the House
+with sinking material evidence; which in fact is accusing
+the House of injustice. This is a charge the most shocking;
+the most severe, and the most unjust and virulent, against
+the good, the tender House of Commons; that safeguard of our
+liberty, and guardian of our welfare."</p>
+
+<p>"This libel ... will be found the most powerful invective
+that the skill of man could invent. I will not say the
+skill, but the wit, art, and false contrivance of man,
+instigated by Satan;" "to say that this is not a libel, is
+to say that there is no justice, equity, or right in the
+world."</p></div>
+
+<p>The Solicitor-General told the Jury that they were only to inquire <i>if
+Mr. Owen published the pamphlet</i>, "<i>the rest follows of course</i>;" "you
+are upon your oaths; you judge of the facts ... and <i>only them</i>."
+Chief Justice Lee summed up the evidence "and delivered it as his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">99</a></span>
+opinion, that the <i>Jury ought to find the defendant guilty;</i> for he
+thought the <i>fact of publication was fully proved; and if so they
+could not avoid bringing in the defendant guilty</i>."</p>
+
+<p>The jury returned, "Not guilty;" but Ryder, the Attorney-General, put
+this question, Do you think the evidence is not sufficient to convince
+you that <i>Owen did sell the book</i>? The foreman stuck to his general
+verdict, "Not guilty," "Not guilty;" and several of the jurymen said,
+"that is our verdict, my lord, and we abide by it." "Upon which the
+court broke up, and there was a prodigious shout in the hall." Then
+"the Jury judged as to facts, law, and justice of the whole, and
+therefore did not answer the leading question which was so artfully
+put to them."<a name="FNanchor_127_127" id="FNanchor_127_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_127_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a> Of course the insolent Attorney-General was soon
+made "Lord Chief Justice," and <i>rode</i> the bench after the antiquated
+routine.</p>
+
+<p>This was the third great case in which the Jury had vindicated the
+right of speech.</p>
+
+<p>6. Here is another case very famous in its day, and of great value as
+helping to establish the rights of juries, and so to protect the
+natural right of the citizens&mdash;the Trial of John Miller for reprinting
+Junius's Letter to the King, in 1770.</p>
+
+<p>Here are the facts. Mr. Miller was the publisher of a newspaper called
+the <i>London Evening Post</i>, and therein, on December 19, 1769, he
+reprinted Junius's celebrated Letter to the King. For this act, an
+information <i>ex officio</i> was laid against him, wherein he was charged
+with publishing a false, wicked, seditious, and malicious libel. A
+suit had already been brought against Woodfall, the publisher of the
+<i>Public Advertiser</i>, in which the letter originally appeared, but the
+prosecution had not turned out to the satisfaction of the government,
+nor had the great question been definitely settled. So this action was
+brought against Mr. Miller, who reprinted the original letter the day
+of its first appearance.<a name="FNanchor_128_128" id="FNanchor_128_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_128_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a></p>
+
+<p>Solicitor-General Thurlow,&mdash;whom you have met before,
+Gentlemen,&mdash;opened the case for the Crown, and said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"I have not of myself been able to imagine ... that there is
+a serious man of the profession in the kingdom who has the
+smallest doubt whether this ought to be deemed a libel or
+not;" "for I neither do, nor ever will, attempt to lay
+before a jury, a cause, in which I was under the necessity
+of stating a single principle that went to intrench, in the
+smallest degree, upon the avowed and acknowledged liberty of
+the subjects of this country, even with regard to the press.
+The complaint I have to lay before you is that that liberty
+has been so abused, so turned to licentiousness, ... that
+under the notion of arrogating liberty to one man, that is
+the writer, printer, and publisher of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">100</a></span> this paper, they do
+... annihilate and destroy the liberty of all men, more or
+less. Undoubtedly the man that has indulged the <i>liberty of
+robbing upon the highway</i>, has a very considerable portion
+of it allotted to him." The defendant "has published a
+paper, in which, concerning the King, concerning the House
+of Commons, and concerning the great officers of State,
+concerning the public affairs of the realm, there are
+uttered things of such tendency and application as ought to
+be punished." "When we are come to that situation, when it
+shall be lawful for any men in this country to speak of the
+sovereign [George III.] in terms attempting to fix upon him
+such contempt, abhorrence, and hatred, there is an end of
+all government whatsoever, and then liberty is indeed to
+shift for itself." He quotes from the paper: "'He [the king]
+has taken a decisive personal part against the subjects of
+America, and those subjects know how to distinguish the
+sovereign and a venal Parliament, upon one side, from the
+real sentiments of the English nation upon the other.' For
+God's sake is that no libel? To <i>talk of the king as taking
+a part of an hostile sort against one branch of his
+subjects</i>, and at the same time to <i>connect him ... with the
+parliament which he calls a venal parliament</i>; is that no
+libel?"</p></div>
+
+<p>Lord Mansfield,&mdash;the bitterest enemy of the citizens' right of speech
+and of the trial by jury,&mdash;charged upon the jury, "The question for
+you to try ... is, whether the <i>defendant did print</i>, or publish, or
+both, a <i>paper of the tenor</i>, and of the meaning, so <i>charged by the
+information</i>." "If it is of the tenor and meaning set out in the
+information, the next consideration is, whether he <i>did print and
+publish it</i>." "If you ... find the defendant not guilty, the fact
+established by that verdict is, <i>he did not publish a paper of that
+meaning</i>;" "the fact finally established by your verdict, if you find
+him guilty, is, that <i>he printed</i> and published a <i>paper, of the
+tenor</i> and of the meaning set <i>forth in the information</i>;" "but you do
+<i>not give an opinion ... whether it is or not lawful to print a paper</i>
+... of the tenor and meaning in the information;" "if in point of fact
+it is innocent, it would be an innocent thing."</p>
+
+<p>Thus practically the judge left the jury only one thing to determine,
+Did Mr. Miller print Junius's letter to the king? That was a fact as
+notorious as it now is in Boston that the <i>Daily Advertiser</i> supported
+the fugitive slave bill, and helped its execution, for the letter to
+the king was there in Mr. Miller's journal as plainly as those
+defences of the fugitive slave bill were in the <i>Advertiser</i>. If the
+jury said "guilty," the court had the defendant in their claws,&mdash;and
+all the wrath of the most malignant tories would fall on him and rend
+him in pieces. But the jury fell back on their legitimate function to
+determine the Fact, the Law, and the Application of the law to the
+fact, and returned a verdict, Not Guilty, which a great multitude
+repeated with loud acclaim!</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>7. Next, Gentlemen, I will relate a few cases in which the government
+set all justice at defiance and clove down the right of speech,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">101</a></span>
+commonly packing submissive juries. In 1790 and following years, while
+the French Revolution was in progress, the thoughtful eyes of England
+fell on the evils of her own country. America was already a Republic,
+just recovering from the shock of violent separation from her
+mother,&mdash;young, poor, but not unprosperous, and full of future promise
+too obvious to escape the sagacious politicians who there saw a
+cause&mdash;</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="poem">
+<tr>
+<td>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"&mdash;&mdash;with fear of change,</span><br />
+Perplexing Kings."
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The people of France, by a few spasmodic efforts, broke the threefold
+chain of Priest, King, and Noble, and began to lift up their head. But
+Saxon England is sober, and so went to work more solemnly than her
+mercurial neighbor. And besides, the British people had already a
+firm, broad basis of personal freedom to stand on. Much was thought,
+written, and spoken about reform in England, then most desperately
+needing it. The American Revolution had English admirers whom no
+courts could silence. Nay, at first the French Revolution delighted
+some of the ablest and best men in Britain, who therein beheld the
+carrying out of the great Principles which Aristotle and Machiavelli
+had laid down as the law of the historical development and social
+evolution of mankind. They wished some improvement in England itself.
+But of course there was a strong opposition made to all change.
+Parliament refused to relieve the evils which were made obvious. The
+upper House of Nobles was composed of the Elder Sons of the families
+which had a social and pecuniary interest in oppressing the people,
+and the lower House "consisted mainly of the Younger Sons of the same
+families, or still worse the purchased dependents" of their families.
+Societies were organized for Reform, such as the "London Corresponding
+Society," "the Friends of the People," etc., etc. The last mentioned
+contained many literary, scientific, and political men, and about
+thirty members of Parliament. Great complaints were made in public at
+the inequality of Representation in Parliament. Stormy debates took
+place in Parliament itself&mdash;such as we have not yet heard in America,
+but which wicked and abandoned men are fast bringing upon us. Pitt and
+Fox were on opposite sides.</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="poem">
+<tr>
+<td>
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">"&mdash;&mdash;and such a frown</span><br />
+Each cast at the other, as when two black clouds,<br />
+With Heaven's artillery fraught, come rattling on<br />
+Over the Caspian, then stand front to front,<br />
+Hovering a space, till winds the signal blow<br />
+To join their dark encounter in mid air."
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">102</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At that time the House of Commons was mainly filled with creatures of
+a few powerful men; thus 91 commoners elected 139 members of the
+commons, and 71 peers also elected 163; so 302 British members of
+Parliament, besides 45 more from Scotland,&mdash;347 in all,&mdash;were returned
+by 162 persons. This was called "Representation of the People." From
+the party who feared to lose their power of tyranny, there went out
+the decree, "Discussion on the subject of national grievances must be
+suppressed, in Parliament and out of Parliament." Violent attempts
+were made to suppress discussion. In short, the same efforts were made
+in England which were attempted in New York and Boston in 1850 and the
+two following years, till they were ended by a little sprinkling of
+dust. But in Britain the public mind is harsher than ever in America,
+and the weapons which broke in the hand of Old England were much more
+formidable than that which here so suddenly snapped, and with such
+damage to the assassinating hand.</p>
+
+<p>(1.) In 1792, John Lambert and two others published an advertisement
+in the London Morning Chronicle, with which they were connected as
+printers or proprietors, addressed "to the friends of free inquiry and
+the general good," inviting them in a peaceful, calm, and unbiased
+manner to endeavor to improve the public morals in respect to law,
+taxation, representation, and political administration. They were
+prosecuted, on <i>ex officio</i> information, for a "false, wicked,
+scandalous, and seditious libel." The government made every effort to
+secure their conviction. But it failed.<a name="FNanchor_129_129" id="FNanchor_129_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_129_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a></p>
+
+<p>(2.) The same year, Duffin and Lloyd, two debtors in the Fleet Prison,
+one an American citizen, wrote on the door of the prison chapel "this
+house to let; peaceable possession will be given by the present
+tenants on or before the first day of January, 1793, being the
+commencement of liberty in Great Britain. The republic of France
+having rooted out despotism, their glorious example and success
+against tyrants renders infamous Bastiles no longer necessary in
+Europe." They also were indicted for a "wicked, infamous, and
+seditious libel," and found guilty. Lloyd was put in the pillory!<a name="FNanchor_130_130" id="FNanchor_130_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_130_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a></p>
+
+<p>(3.) In 1793, Rev. William Frend, of the University of Cambridge,
+published a harmless pamphlet entitled "Peace and Union recommended to
+the associated bodies of Republicans and anti-Republicans." He was
+brought to trial, represented as a "heretic, deist, infidel, and
+atheist," and by sentence of the court banished from the
+university.<a name="FNanchor_131_131" id="FNanchor_131_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_131_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a></p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">103</a></span></p>
+<p>(4.) The same year, John Frost, Esq., "a gentleman" and attorney, when
+slightly intoxicated after dinner, and provoked by others, said, "I am
+for equality. I see no reason why any man should not be upon a footing
+with another; it is every man's birthright." And when asked if he
+would have no king, he answered, "Yes, no king; the constitution of
+this country is a bad one." This took place in a random talk at a
+tavern in London. He was indicted as a person of a "depraved, impious,
+and disquiet mind, and of a seditious disposition, and contriving,
+practising, and maliciously, turbulently, and seditiously intending
+the peace and common tranquillity of our lord the king and his laws to
+disturb," "to the evil example of all others in like case offending."
+He was sentenced to six months in Newgate, and one hour in the
+pillory! He must find sureties for good behavior for five years,
+himself in £500, two others in £100 each, be imprisoned until the
+sureties were found, and be struck from the list of attornies!<a name="FNanchor_132_132" id="FNanchor_132_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_132_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a></p>
+
+<p>(5.) Rev. William Winterbotham, the same year, in two sermons, exposed
+some of the evils in the constitution and administration of England,
+and for that was fined £200, and sentenced to jail for four years,&mdash;a
+good deal more than $300 and twelve months' imprisonment.<a name="FNanchor_133_133" id="FNanchor_133_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_133_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a></p>
+
+<p>(6.) The same year, Thomas Briellat, a London pump-maker, in a private
+conversation said, "A reformation cannot be effected without a
+revolution; we have no occasion for kings; there never will be any
+good time until all kings are abolished from the face of the earth; it
+is my wish that there were no kings at all." "I wish the French would
+land 500,000 men to fight the government party." He was tried, found
+guilty, and sentenced to a fine of £100, and sent to jail for a
+year.<a name="FNanchor_134_134" id="FNanchor_134_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_134_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a></p>
+
+<p>(7.) Richard Phillips, afterwards Sheriff of London, was sent to jail
+for eighteen months for selling Paine's Rights of Man; for the same
+offence two other booksellers were fined and sent to Newgate <i>for four
+years</i>! A surgeon and a physician were sent to Newgate for two years
+for having "<i>seditious libels in their possession</i>." Thirteen persons
+were indicted at once.<a name="FNanchor_135_135" id="FNanchor_135_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_135_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a></p>
+
+<p>(8.) In 1793 a charge was brought against the Rev. Thomas Fyshe
+Palmer, formerly a Senior Fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge, and
+then a Unitarian minister at Dundee. Mr. Palmer wrote an Address which
+was adopted at a meeting of the Friends of Liberty and published by
+them, which, in moderate language, called on the People "to join us in
+our exertions for the preservation of our perishing liberty, and the
+recovery of our long lost rights." He distributed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">104</a></span> copies of this
+address. He was prosecuted for "Leasing-making," for publishing a
+"seditious and inflammatory writing." The (Scotch) jury found him
+guilty, and the judges sentenced him to <i>transportation for seven
+years</i>. The sentence was executed with rigorous harshness.<a name="FNanchor_136_136" id="FNanchor_136_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_136_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a></p>
+
+<p>(9.) The same year Thomas Muir, Esq., was brought to trial for
+Leasing-making or public Libel at Edinburgh. He was a promising young
+lawyer, with liberal tendencies in politics, desiring the education of
+the great mass of the people and a reform in Parliament. He was a
+member of various Reform societies, and sometimes spoke at their
+meetings in a moderate tone recommending only legal efforts&mdash;by
+discussion and petition&mdash;to remedy the public grievances. His Honor
+(Mr. Curtis) who belongs to a family so notoriously "democratic" in
+the beginning of this century, and so eager in its denunciations of
+the Federalists of that period, knows that the law even of
+England&mdash;which they so much hated&mdash;allows all that. It appeared that
+Mr. Muir also lent a copy of Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man" to a
+mechanic who asked the loan as a favor. For these offences he was
+indicted for sedition, charged with instituting "a Society for
+Reform," and with an endeavor "to represent the government of this
+country as oppressive and tyrannical, and the legislative body as
+venal and corrupt." It was alleged in the indictment that he
+complained of the government of England as "costly," the monarchy as
+"useless, cumbersome, and expensive," that he advised persons to read
+Paine's Rights of Man, and circulated copies of a periodical called
+"the <i>Patriot</i>," which complained of the grievances of the people. On
+trial he was treated with great insolence and harshness, reprimanded,
+interrupted, and insulted by the agents of the government&mdash;the court.
+An association of men had offered a reward of five guineas for the
+discovery of any person who circulated the writings of Thomas Paine.
+Five of the fifteen jurors were members of that association,&mdash;and in
+Scotland a bare majority of the jurors convicts. Mr. Muir defended
+himself, and that ably. Lord Justice Clark charged his packed jury:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"There are two things which you should attend to, which
+require no proof. The first is that the British Constitution
+is the <i>best in the world</i>!" "Is not every man <i>secure in
+his life, liberty, and property? Is not happiness in the
+power of every man?</i> 'Does not every man sit safely under
+his own vine and fig-tree' and none shall make him afraid?"
+"The other circumstance ... is the state of the country
+during last winter. <i>There was a spirit of sedition and
+revolt going abroad.</i>" "I leave it for you to judge whether
+it was perfectly innocent or not in Mr. Muir ... to go about
+... among <i>the lower classes of the people ... inducing them
+to believe that a reform was absolutely necessary, to
+preserve their safety and their liberty</i>, which, had it not
+been for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">105</a></span> him, they never would have suspected to have been
+in danger." "He ran a parallel between the French and
+English Constitutions, and <i>talked of their respective
+taxes</i> ... and gave a preference to the French." "He has
+brought many witnesses to prove his general good behavior,
+and his recommending peaceable measures, and petitioning to
+Parliament." "Mr. Muir might have known that <i>no attention
+could be paid to such a rabble, what right had they to
+representation</i>? He could have told them the <i>Parliament
+would never listen to their petition</i>! How could they think
+of it? A government in any country should be just like a
+corporation; and in this country it is <i>made up of the
+landed interest, which alone has a right to be
+represented</i>."</p></div>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, you might think this speech was made by the "Castle Garden
+Committee," or at the Boston "Union Meeting" in 1850, but it comes
+from the year 1793.</p>
+
+<p>Of course the jury found him guilty: the judges sentenced him to
+<i>transportation for fourteen years</i>! Lord Swinton quoted from the
+Roman law, that the punishment for sedition was <i>crucifixion</i>, or
+exposure <i>to be torn to pieces by wild beasts</i>, or transportation. "We
+have chosen the <i>mildest of these punishments</i>." This sentence was
+executed with great cruelty. But Mr. Pitt, then in the high places of
+power, declared these punishments were dictated by a "sound
+discretion."<a name="FNanchor_137_137" id="FNanchor_137_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_137_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a></p>
+
+<p>For like offences several others underwent the same or similar
+punishment. But these enormities were perpetrated by the government in
+Scotland&mdash;where the Roman Law had early been introduced and had
+accustomed the Semi-Saxons to forms of injustice foreign to the
+ethnologic instinct and historic customs of the parent tribe. But
+begun is half done. Emboldened by their success in punishing the
+friends of Humanity in Scotland, the ministry proceeded to attempt the
+same thing in England itself. Then began that British Reign of Terror,
+which lasted longer than the French, and brought the liberties of the
+People into such peril as they had not known since William of Orange
+hurled the last of the Stuarts from his throne. Dreadful laws were
+passed, atrocious almost as our own fugitive slave bill. First came
+"the Traitorous correspondence Bill;" next the "Habeas Corpus
+Suspension Act;" and then the "Seditious Practices Act," with the
+"Treasonable Attempts Bill" by legislative exposition establishing
+constructive treason! All these iniquitous measures were brought
+forward in Parliament by Sir John Scott&mdash;then Attorney-General, one of
+those North Britons who find the pleasantest prospect in Scotland is
+the road to London. He also was vehemently active in defending the
+tyranny of the Scotch judges just referred to, as indeed all judicial
+insolence and legal wrong.<a name="FNanchor_138_138" id="FNanchor_138_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_138_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a> He opposed all attempts to reform the
+law which punished with death a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">106</a></span> theft of five shillings. In two years
+there were more prosecutions for seditious libel than in twenty
+before. But Scott had his reward, and was made Lord Chancellor in
+1801, and elevated to the peerage as Lord Eldon.<a name="FNanchor_139_139" id="FNanchor_139_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_139_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a></p>
+
+<p>8. Then came that series of trials for high treason which disgraced
+the British nation and glutted the sanguinary vengeance of the court.
+The government suborned spies to feign themselves "radicals," join the
+various Reform Societies, worm themselves into the confidence of
+patriotic and philanthropic or rash men, possess themselves of their
+secrets, catch at their words, and then repeat in court what they were
+paid for fabricating in their secret haunts. A ridiculous fable was
+got up that there was a plot to assassinate the King! Many were
+arrested, charged with treason&mdash;"constructive treason." On the
+evidence of spies of the government, hired informers&mdash;such men,
+Gentlemen of Jury, as Commissioner Loring and Marshal Freeman jointly
+made use of last year to kidnap Mr. Burns&mdash;estimable men were seized
+and locked up in the most loathsome dungeons of the kingdom, with
+intentional malignity confined amongst the vilest of notorious
+criminals. The judges wrested the law, constructing libels, seditions,
+"misdemeanors," treasons&mdash;any crime which it served their purpose to
+forge out of acts innocent, or only rash or indiscreet. Juries were
+packed by bribed sheriffs, and purchased spies were brought in
+evidence to swear away the liberty or the life of noble men. One of
+the government witnesses was subsequently convicted of ten perjuries!
+No man was safe who dared utter a serious word against George III. or
+Mr. Pitt.</p>
+
+<p>Here, Gentlemen, I shall mention two cases of great importance in
+which the jury did their duty and turned the stream of ministerial and
+judicial tyranny.</p>
+
+<p>(1.) In 1794 in a bill suspending the Habeas Corpus, Parliament
+declared "that a treacherous and detestable conspiracy had been formed
+for subverting the existing laws and constitution, and for introducing
+the system of anarchy and violence which had lately prevailed in
+France." Soon after the grand-jury for Middlesex indicted twelve men
+for high treason; they were members of some of the Societies mentioned
+just now. "The overt act charged against them was, that they had
+engaged <i>in a conspiracy to call a convention</i>, the object of which
+was to bring about a revolution in the country," but it was not
+alleged that there was any plot against the King's life, or any
+preparation for force.<a name="FNanchor_140_140" id="FNanchor_140_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_140_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a> Thomas Hardy, a shoemaker, was first
+brought to trial. The trial began October 28, 1794, just sixty years<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">107</a></span>
+before Mr. Curtis's grand-jury found a bill against me. Sir John
+Scott, the attorney-general, in opening the Prosecution, made a
+<i>speech nine hours' long</i>, attempting to construct treason out of
+belonging to a society. All who belonged to it were to be considered
+guilty of "compassing the death of our Lord the King." Chief Justice
+Eyre, in addressing the grand-jury, referred to the act of Parliament
+as <i>proof of a conspiracy</i>.<a name="FNanchor_141_141" id="FNanchor_141_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_141_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a> Mr. Erskine defended Hardy in a
+speech which "will live forever." Seldom had English Liberty been in
+such peril; never did English lawyers more manfully defend it. The
+jury, a London jury, returned "<span class="smcap">Not Guilty</span>."<a name="FNanchor_142_142" id="FNanchor_142_142"></a><a href="#Footnote_142_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a> Gentlemen, the report
+of the trial occupies more than twelve hundred pages in this
+volume,<a name="FNanchor_143_143" id="FNanchor_143_143"></a><a href="#Footnote_143_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a> and it shook the nation. The British juries for a long
+time had slept on their post, and allowed the enemy to enter the camp
+and murder its inmates. But the trial of Hardy woke up those heedless
+sentinels, and Liberty was safe&mdash;in England, I mean.</p>
+
+<p>(2.) Still the infatuated government went on, not conscious of the
+spirit of Anglo-Saxon liberty it had at last roused from long, heavy
+and deathlike sleep, and eleven days after brought Mr. John Horne
+Tooke to trial. You remember, Gentlemen, that on the first anniversary
+of the Declaration of Independence, he was tried for publishing a
+notice of a meeting which raised £100 for the widows and orphan
+children of our citizens who fell at Lexington on the 19th of April,
+1775, and for that offence was punished with fine and
+imprisonment.<a name="FNanchor_144_144" id="FNanchor_144_144"></a><a href="#Footnote_144_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a> After the acquittal of Hardy, the government
+brought Mr. Tooke to trial, relying on the same evidence to convict
+him which had so signally failed a fortnight before. The overt act
+relied on to convict him of "levying war" and "compassing the death of
+our Lord the King," was membership of a Reform society! Mr. Erskine
+defended him: "I <i>will</i> assert the freedom of an Englishman; I will
+maintain the dignity of man, I will vindicate and glory in the
+principles which raised this country to her preëminence among the
+nations of the earth; and as she shone the bright star of the morning
+to shed the light of liberty upon nations which now enjoy it, so may
+she continue in her radiant sphere to revive the ancient privileges of
+the world which have been lost, and still to bring them forward to
+tongues and people who have never known them yet, in the mysterious
+progression of things."<a name="FNanchor_145_145" id="FNanchor_145_145"></a><a href="#Footnote_145_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a></p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, Horne Tooke was acquitted&mdash;the government routed and
+overwhelmed with disgrace, gave up the other prosecutions, and the
+treason trials ended. Even George III. had wit enough left to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">108</a></span> see the
+blunder which his ministers&mdash;the Slave Power of England in 1794&mdash;had
+committed, and stammered forth, "You have got us into the wrong box my
+Lord [Loughborough]; you have got us into the wrong box. Constructive
+treason won't do my Lord; constructive treason won't do." By and by,
+Gentlemen, other men, wiser than poor feeble-minded George III., will
+find out that "constructive <i>misdemeanors</i> won't do."</p>
+
+<p>Of these trials, Mr. Campbell, himself a Judge, declares, "This [the
+conduct of the government] was more exceptionable in principle than
+any thing done during the reign of Charles II.; for then the
+fabricators of the Popish Plot did not think of corroborating the
+testimony of Oates and Bedloe by a public statute; and then, if the
+facts alleged had been true, they would have amounted to a plain case
+of actual treason; whereas here, admitting the truth of all the facts
+alleged, there was no pretence for saying that any treason
+contemplated by the legislature had been committed. If this scheme had
+succeeded, not only would there have been a sacrifice of life contrary
+to law, but all political 'agitation' must have been extinguished in
+England, as there would have been a precedent for holding that the
+effort to carry a measure by influencing public opinion through the
+means openly resorted to in our days, is a 'compassing the death of
+the sovereign.' The only chance of escaping such servitude would have
+been civil war. It is frightful to think of the perils to which the
+nation was exposed.... But Erskine and the crisis were framed for each
+other.... His contemporaries, who without him might have seen the
+extinction of freedom among us, saw it, by his peculiar genius, placed
+on an imperishable basis."<a name="FNanchor_146_146" id="FNanchor_146_146"></a><a href="#Footnote_146_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a> But Erskine without a Jury, Gentlemen,
+what could he have done? He could only wail, O Jerusalem,
+Jerusalem&mdash;when she would not!</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>Now, Gentlemen, let us come over to this side of the water. I shall
+mention some cases in which the Jury have manfully done their duty,
+some others in which they have allowed themselves to be browbeaten and
+bullied by a judge, and so have done the greatest wrong.</p>
+
+<p>1. First look at the famous case of John Peter Zenger.<a name="FNanchor_147_147" id="FNanchor_147_147"></a><a href="#Footnote_147_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a> Here are
+the facts. In 1733, Mr. Zenger established a newspaper in New
+York&mdash;there was only one there before&mdash;called the "New York Weekly
+Journal," "containing the freshest Advices foreign and domestic." In
+some numbers of this he complained, modestly enough, of various
+grievances in the administration of the Province, then ruled by
+Governor Cosby. He said, "as matters now stand their [the People's]
+liberties and properties are precarious, and that Slavery is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">109</a></span> likely
+to be entailed on them and their posterity, if some past things be not
+amended." He published the remarks of some one who said he "should be
+glad to hear that the Assembly would exert themselves, as became them,
+by showing that they have the interest of their country more at heart
+than the gratification of any private view of any of their members, or
+being at all affected by the smiles or frowns of a Governor, both
+which ought equally to be despised when the interest of the country is
+at stake." "We see men's deeds destroyed, judges arbitrarily
+displaced, new courts erected without consent of the legislature, by
+which, it seems to me, trials by juries are taken away when a Governor
+pleases." "Who, then, in that province can call any thing his own, or
+enjoy any liberty longer than those in the administration will
+condescend to let him do it?"</p>
+
+<p>In October, 1734, Chief Justice de Lancey gave a charge to the
+Grand-Jury, urging them to indict Mr. Zenger for a libel. He says, "It
+is a very high aggravation of a libel that it tends to scandalize the
+government by <i>reflecting on those who are intrusted with the
+administration of public affairs</i>, which ... has a direct tendency to
+breed in the public a dislike of their Governors." "If he who hath
+either read a libel himself, or hath heard it read by another, <i>do
+afterwards</i> maliciously <i>read or report any part of it in the presence
+of others</i>, or <i>lend or show it to another, he is guilty of an
+unlawful publication of it.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>But the Judge had not packed the Grand-Jury with sufficient care, and
+so no bill was found. Thereupon the Governor's Council sent a message
+to the General Assembly of New York, complaining of Mr. Zenger's
+Journal as tending "to alienate the affections of the people of this
+province from his majesty's government," and asking them to inquire
+into the said papers and the authors thereof; the Council required
+that the obnoxious numbers might "be <i>burned by the hands of the
+common hangman or whipper, near the pillory</i>." The Assembly let them
+lie on the table. The Court of Quarter-sessions was applied to to burn
+the papers; but as that body refused, the sheriff "delivered them unto
+the hands of <i>his own negro</i>, and ordered him to put them into the
+fire, which he did."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Zenger was imprisoned by a warrant from the Governor, a <i>lettre de
+cachet</i>, and "for several days denied the use of pen, ink, and paper,
+and the liberty of speech with any person." An <i>ex officio</i>
+information was brought against him, charging him with "malicious and
+seditious libel." His counsel, Messrs. Alexander and Smith, took
+exceptions to the proceedings. The Chief Justice would neither hear
+nor allow the exceptions, "for" said he, "you thought to have gained a
+great deal of applause and popularity by opposing this court ... but
+you have brought it to that point, that either we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">110</a></span> must go from the
+bench or you from the bar, therefore we exclude you." So "for contempt
+of court" their names were struck from the list of attorneys. The case
+came on for trial. The clerk of the Court sought to pack his jury, and
+instead of producing the "Freeholders' book" to select the Jury from,
+presented a list of forty-eight persons which he said he had taken
+from that book. This Honorable Court knows how easy it is to violate
+the law in summoning jurors; none knew it better a hundred and twenty
+years ago. Of the 48 some were not freeholders at all; others held
+commissions and offices at the Governor's pleasure; others were of the
+late displaced magistrates who had a grudge against Mr. Zenger for
+exposing their official conduct; besides, there were the governor's
+baker, tailor, shoemaker, candle-maker, and joiner. But it does not
+appear that this Judge had any Brother-in-law on the list; corruption
+had not yet reached that height. But that wicked list was set aside
+after much ado, and a Jury summoned in the legal manner. It may
+astonish the Court but it was really done&mdash;and a Jury summoned
+according to law. The trial went on. Andrew Hamilton of Philadelphia
+defended Mr. Zenger with law, wit, learning, and eloquence. He
+admitted the fact of printing and publishing the documents, and rested
+the defence on the truth of their assertions. The Attorney-General,
+Mr. Bradley, said, "supposing they were true, the law says that they
+are not the less libellous for that: nay, indeed, the law says, <i>their
+being true is an aggravation of the crime</i>." He "did not know what
+could be said in defence of a man that had so notoriously scandalized
+the governor and principal magistrates ... by <i>charging them with
+depriving the people of their rights and liberties, and taking away
+trials by juries, and in short putting an end to the law itself</i>. If
+this was not a libel, he did not know what was one. Such persons as
+did take these liberties ... ought to suffer for stirring up sedition
+and discontent among the people."</p>
+
+<p>The Chief Justice declared, "It is far from being a justification of a
+libel that the contents thereof are true ... since the <i>greater
+appearance there is of truth, so much the more provoking is it</i>!" "The
+jury may find that Mr. Zenger printed and published these papers, and
+<i>leave it to the court to judge whether they are libellous</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>That would be to put the dove's neck in the mouth of the fox, and
+allow him to decide whether he would bite it off. Mr. Hamilton
+replied:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"This of leaving it to the judgment of the court whether the
+words are libellous or not, in effect renders Juries useless
+(to say no worse), in many cases." "If the faults, mistakes,
+nay even the vices of such a person be private and personal,
+and don't affect the peace of the public, or the liberty or
+property of our neighbor, it is unmanly and unmannerly to
+expose them, either by word or writing. But, when a ruler of
+the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">111</a></span> people brings his personal failings, but much more his
+vices, into his administration, and the people find
+themselves affected by them, either in their liberties or
+properties, that will alter the case mightily; and all the
+high things that are said in favor of rulers and of
+deputies, and upon the side of power, will not be able to
+stop people's mouths when they feel themselves oppressed, I
+mean in a free government. It is true <i>in times past it was
+a crime to speak truth</i>; and in that terrible court of
+Star-Chamber many worthy and brave men suffered for so
+doing; and yet even in that court, and in those bad times, a
+great and good man durst say, what I hope will not be taken
+amiss of me to say in this place, namely, 'The practice of
+informations for libels is a sword in the hands of a wicked
+king, and an arrant coward, to cut down and destroy the
+innocent; the one cannot because of his high station, and
+the other dares not, because of his want of courage, redress
+himself in another manner.'</p>
+
+<p>"It is a right which all persons claim and are entitled to,
+to complain when they are hurt; they have a right publicly
+to remonstrate against the abuses of power, in the strongest
+terms; to put their neighbors upon their guard against the
+craft or open violence of men in authority; and to assert
+with courage the sense they have of the blessings of
+liberty, the value they put upon it, and their resolution at
+all hazards to preserve it as one of the greatest blessings
+Heaven can bestow." "It is a duty which all good men owe to
+their country, to guard against the unhappy influence of ill
+men when intrusted with power, and especially against their
+creatures and dependants, who as they are generally more
+necessitous, are surely more covetous and cruel."</p></div>
+
+<p>According to the Judge the Jury had only one question before them,
+"Did Zenger publish the words charged in the information?" That fact
+was clear; nay, he did not himself deny it. He confessed it in court.
+But the jury fell back on their rights and duties to decide the
+Question of Fact, of Law, and of the Application of the Law to the
+Fact, and returned "<span class="smcap">Not Guilty</span>," "upon which there were three huzzas
+in the Hall." Had this Honorable Court been then in existence I
+suppose it would have talked of indicting the jurors for "perjury,"
+and would doubtless have had its labor for its pains. For the Common
+Council of New York presented Mr. Hamilton with a costly gold box and
+the freedom of the city. Gentlemen, this took place one hundred and
+twenty years ago. Forty years before the Revolution, Andrew Hamilton
+helped lay the "brilliant foundation of liberty," whereon another
+Hamilton was also to raise up noble walls of freedom. Gentlemen of the
+Jury, by Wisdom is a house builded, but the foolish plucketh it down
+with her own hands. Will you allow that to be done? What if the jury
+in 1735 had been faithless? The axe which smote down Zenger in New
+York, bloody and cruel, would have shorn off the heads of Otis and
+Quincy, and Adams and Hancock at Boston; the family of Scroggs alone
+would be held in honor in New England.<a name="FNanchor_148_148" id="FNanchor_148_148"></a><a href="#Footnote_148_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a></p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, it once happened in New York that Governor Nicholson was
+offended with one of the clergymen of the Province. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">112</a></span> met him on the
+road one day, and "as it was usual with him (under the protection of
+his commission) used the poor minister with the worst of language,
+threatened to cut off his ears, slit his nose, and at last to shoot
+him through the head." The minister, "being a reverend man, continued
+all this time uncovered in the heat of the sun, until he found an
+opportunity to fly for it, and coming to a neighbor's house fell ill
+of a fever and wrote for a doctor," relating the facts and concluding
+that the governor was crazy, for no man in his right mind would behave
+so ill. The doctor showed the letter; the governor brought a
+prosecution against the minister for publishing a "scandalous, wicked,
+and seditious libel." No doubt he could have found a judge even then
+who would twist the law so as to make the letter "sedition" and
+"libel;" nay, perhaps he could construct a jury so as to secure a
+conviction, but before it reached trial the prosecution was stopped by
+the order of Queen Anne.</p>
+
+<p>2. In 1816, in Massachusetts, there occurred the celebrated case of
+Commonwealth <i>vs.</i> Bowen, to which I shall again refer in a subsequent
+part of this defence. These are the facts. In September, 1815,
+Jonathan Jewett was convicted of murder in Hampshire county,
+Massachusetts, and sentenced to be hanged on the 9th of the following
+November. He was confined at Northampton, and hung himself in his cell
+on the night preceding the morning appointed for his public execution.
+George Bowen was confined in the same jail, in an apartment adjacent
+to Jewett's, and in such a situation that they could freely converse
+together. Bowen repeatedly and frequently advised and urged Jewett to
+destroy himself and thus disappoint the sheriff and the expectant
+people. He did so, and the coroner's jury returned that he committed
+suicide. But nevertheless, Bowen was indicted for the wilful murder of
+Jewett. It was charged that he "feloniously, wilfully, and of his
+malice aforethought, did counsel, hire, persuade, and procure the said
+Jewett the said felony and murder of himself to do and commit;" or
+that he himself murdered the said Jewett by hanging him.</p>
+
+<p>At the trial Attorney-General Perez Morton contended that Bowen "was
+guilty of <i>murder as principal</i>;" and he cited and relied chiefly on
+the following authority from the Reports of our old friend Kelyng.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Memorandum, that my brother <i>Twisden</i> showed me a report
+which he had of a charge given by Justice <i>Jones</i> to the
+grand-jury, at the King's Bench barre, <i>Michaelmas Term</i>, 9
+<i>Car.</i> 1, in which he said, that poisoning another was
+murder at common law. And the statute of 1 <i>Ed.</i> 6, was but
+declaratory of the common law, and an affirmation of it. If
+one drinks poison by the provocation of another, and dieth
+of it, this is murder in the person that persuaded it. And
+he took this difference. If A. give poison to J.S. to give
+to J.D., and J.S. knowing it to be poison, give it to J.D.
+who taketh it in the absence of J.S., and dieth of it; in
+this case J.S., who gave it to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">113</a></span> J.D., is principal; and A.
+who gave the poison to J.S., and was absent when it was
+taken, is but accessory before the fact. But if A. buyeth
+poison for J.S., and J.S., in the absence of A., taketh it
+and dieth of it, in this case A., though he be absent, yet
+he is principal. So it is if A. giveth poison to B. to give
+unto C.; and B., not knowing it to be poison, but believing
+it to be a good medicine, giveth it to C., who dieth of it;
+in this case A., who is absent, is principal, or else a man
+should be murdered, and there should be no principal. For
+B., who knoweth nothing of the poison, is in no fault,
+though he gave it to C. So if A. puts a sword into the hands
+of a madman, and bids him kill B. with it, and then A. goeth
+away, and the madman kills B. with the sword, as A.
+commanded him, this is murder in A., though absent, and he
+is principal; for it is no crime in the madman, who did the
+fact by reason of his madness."<a name="FNanchor_149_149" id="FNanchor_149_149"></a><a href="#Footnote_149_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>Mr. Morton also laid down this as law, "<i>the adviser of one who
+commits a felony of himself is a murderer</i>." He might have added, "the
+adviser of one who breaks into his own house is a burglar."</p>
+
+<p>Chief Justice Parker&mdash;who once declared that the jury had nothing to
+do with the harshness of a law&mdash;charged the jury that the important
+question for them was, Did Bowen's advice induce Jewett to kill
+himself? if so, they were to find him guilty of wilful murder! "The
+community has an interest <i>in the public execution</i> of criminals [the
+crowd having an <i>interest in the spectacle</i>] and to take such an one
+out of the reach of the law [by advising him to self-destruction] is
+no trivial offence." "<i>You are not to consider the atrocity of this
+offence in the least degree diminished by the consideration that
+justice was thirsting for its sacrifice</i>; and that but a small portion
+of Jewett's earthly existence could, in any event, remain to
+him."<a name="FNanchor_150_150" id="FNanchor_150_150"></a><a href="#Footnote_150_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a></p>
+
+<p>There was no doubt that Bowen advised Jewett to commit suicide; but
+the jury, in defiance of the judge's charge and Mr. Kelyng's law,
+nevertheless returned "<span class="smcap">Not Guilty</span>."</p>
+
+<p>Here, Gentlemen, is a remarkable instance of a judge, in private a
+benevolent man, perverting his official power, and constructing the
+crime of murder out of advice given to a man to anticipate a public
+execution by privately hanging himself! The law relied on was the
+Memorandum of the charge to a grand-jury made by a judge who
+notoriously broke the fundamental laws of England, by declaring that
+the king had a constitutional right to imprison, at will and as long
+as he liked, any of his subjects without trial, even members of
+Parliament for words uttered in public debate; and also the right to
+levy ship-money contrary to the Acts of Parliament. This charge was
+made in the tyrannical reign of Charles I. in 1634, by a tyrannical
+judge. There was no report, only <i>a memorandum</i> of it, and that not
+printed till seventy-four years after! It had not the force of law<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">114</a></span>
+even then: it was only the memorandum of the "opinion" of a single
+judge, not even the "opinion" of the full court. The memorandum is
+contained in Kelyng's Book, which Lord Campbell calls "a folio volume
+of decisions in criminal cases, which are of no value whatever, except
+to make us laugh at some of the silly egotisms with which they
+abound."<a name="FNanchor_151_151" id="FNanchor_151_151"></a><a href="#Footnote_151_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a> On such authority in 1816 would even a Massachusetts
+court, with a judge who was a kindly man in private, dash away the
+life of a fellow-creature,&mdash;with such mockery of law! But, Gentlemen,
+the jury at that time did not slumber; they set the matter right, and
+did justice spite of Judge Kelyng and his "law." They made nothing of
+the judge's charge!</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, I will now mention some cases of gross
+injustice perpetrated by the Federal Courts of the United States.</p>
+
+<p>The tenth article of amendments to the Constitution provides that
+"powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
+prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States
+respectively, or to the People." The Constitution itself confers no
+Common Law Jurisdiction on the Government. Neither the People nor
+their Representatives had ever decreed the Common Law of England to be
+a part of the law of the United States. Yet, spite of the absence of
+positive enactment and the express words of the above amendment to the
+Constitution, the Supreme Court at once assumed this jurisdiction. In
+1799, Chief Justice Ellsworth said, "the Common Law of this country
+remains the same as it was before the Revolution;"<a name="FNanchor_152_152" id="FNanchor_152_152"></a><a href="#Footnote_152_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a> and proceeded
+on that supposition to exercise the powers of English Judges of Common
+Law, undertaking to punish men for offences which no Act of Congress
+forbid. You see at once what monstrous tyranny would follow from that
+usurpation. Had the English Common Law power of punishing for
+"seditious libel," for example, been allowed to the Federal court,
+Gentlemen, you know too well what would follow. But this monstrous
+assumption was presently brought to an ignominious end; and strange as
+it may appear, by one of the judges of the court itself. Samuel Chase
+of Maryland, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence,
+had been an Anti-Federalist and a strong State-Right's man, as such
+insisting on a strict construction of the Constitution. Singular as it
+may appear he was made a Judge in 1796, and what is yet more
+surprising, in 1798, declared "the United States as a Federal
+govern<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">115</a></span>ment, had no Common Law," and thus ended this claim.<a name="FNanchor_153_153" id="FNanchor_153_153"></a><a href="#Footnote_153_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a> But
+tyranny did not end; nay, he himself, a man of uncommon powers and
+legal attainments, became a most atrocious example of Judicial
+despotism.</p>
+
+<p>1. In 1791 a direct tax was levied by Act of Congress on all lands and
+houses; excise officers were to ascertain their value. The "Alien and
+Sedition Laws" were also passed the same year. The execution of the
+law relative to the direct tax was resisted in Northampton county,
+Penn., and some prisoners rescued from an officer of the United
+States. The President, Mr. Adams, issued his proclamation. In 1799
+John Fries was arrested on the charge of treason. The overt act
+alleged was resistance to that one special law of Congress. Judge
+Iredell charged the Grand-Jury, "You have heard the government as
+grossly abused as if it had been guilty of the vilest tyranny." Had he
+read the private correspondence of the Cabinet, he might have found
+other specimens of "abuse." He defended both the Alien and Sedition
+Laws.&mdash;They were "constitutional" and "proper."<a name="FNanchor_154_154" id="FNanchor_154_154"></a><a href="#Footnote_154_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fries was indicted for treason. The Judiciary Act of Congress of
+1789 provides that "in cases punishable with death the trial shall be
+had in the county where the offence was committed; or when that cannot
+be done without great inconvenience, twelve petit jurors at least
+shall be summoned from thence." The offence was committed in
+Northampton county, and he was indicted and brought to trial in
+Philadelphia county, nor could the court be induced to comply with the
+statute!</p>
+
+<p>The government laid down the law and constructed treason with the
+usual ingenuity of officials working by the job. Judge Kelyng's loose
+opinion that an attack on a brothel was high treason, was cited by Mr.
+Rawle, the District Attorney, as good law.<a name="FNanchor_155_155" id="FNanchor_155_155"></a><a href="#Footnote_155_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a> What "in England is
+called constructive levying of war, in this country must be called
+direct levying of war." Judge Peters charged that though force was
+necessary to constitute the crime of treason, yet "the quantum of
+force is immaterial," of course it may be wielding a wheat straw, or a
+word, I suppose. "The doctrine of constructive treason has produced
+much real mischief in another country" [England]. "The <i>greater part
+of the objections to it are irrelevant here</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Fries was found guilty. His counsel moved for a new trial, on the
+ground that before the trial one of the jurors had declared, "Fries
+ought to be hung;" "I myself shall be in danger unless we hang<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">116</a></span> them
+all;" that the jurors were irregularly drawn, and the trial was not
+held in the county where the offence was committed. Judge Iredell
+ruled that it was "<i>a high contempt</i> at this time <i>to call for a
+renewal of an argument whereon a solemn, decisive opinion was
+delivered</i>." Judge Peters declared the juror had "said no more than
+all friends to the laws and the government were warranted in thinking
+and saying." Yet a new trial was granted.</p>
+
+<p>The new trial was held before Judge Chase, who had, as Mr. Wharton
+says, a "singular instinct for tumults which scents it at a distance
+... and irresistibly impels a participation in it," "moving
+perpetually with a mob at his heels." Yet "apart from his criminal
+jurisdiction he was reckoned a wise and impartial judge, a master of
+the Common Law, and a thorough and indefatigable administrator of
+public functions." "It was this despotic ardor of temperament ...
+which made him, when a young man, employ with resolute audacity the
+engine of popular revolt, and which led him when older, and when in
+possession of that power against which he had so steadily warred, to
+wield with the same vigor the sword of constituted authority."<a name="FNanchor_156_156" id="FNanchor_156_156"></a><a href="#Footnote_156_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a>
+Gentlemen, he was like many that this Honorable Court perhaps have
+known, who were privateering Democrats in 1812, and Kidnapping Whigs
+in 1850. To him we are indebted for the invaluable decision that the
+United States courts have no Common Law jurisdiction.</p>
+
+<p>At this new trial he treated the defendants' counsel in such a manner
+that they abandoned the case, and left the Prisoner without defence.
+The District Attorney, taking his law from Kelyng and similar servants
+of British despots, laid it down that treason "may consist in
+<i>assembling together in numbers</i>, and by actual force, or by terror,
+<i>opposing any particular law</i>;" "<i>Force need not be used</i> to manifest
+this spirit of rebellion." "Even <i>if the matter made a grievance of
+was illegal, the demolition of it</i> in this way <i>was</i>, nevertheless,
+<i>treason</i>," "a rising with intent by force to prevent the execution of
+a law ... preventing the marshal executing his warrants, and
+preventing the other officers ... amounted to levying war." "In short
+an opposition to the acts of Congress in whole or in part [that is to
+<i>any one law</i>] ... either by collecting numbers, or by a display of
+force ... which should operate ... either throughout the United
+States, or in <i>any part thereof to procure a repeal or a suspension</i>
+of the law ... this offence be considered to be <i>strictly</i> treason."</p>
+
+<p>Judge Chase laid it down as law not to be questioned in his court,
+"that any ... rising of any body of the people ... to attain by force
+... any object of a great public nature ... is a levying of war:"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">117</a></span>
+"any such ... rising to resist ... the execution of any statutes of
+United States ... or for any other object of a general nature or
+national concern, under any pretence as that the statute was unjust
+... or unconstitutional is a levying war;" "<i>any force ... will
+constitute the crime</i> of levying war."</p>
+
+<p>If that be law, then an old negro woman who, with a dishcloth,
+frightens officer Butman away from kidnapping her granddaughter in
+Southac street, does thereby levy war against the United States and
+commits the crime of treason.</p>
+
+<p>The jury, overborne by the assumptions of the judge, or ignorant of
+their duties and their rights, allowed this tyrannical court to have
+its way, surrendered the necks of the people, and brought in a verdict
+of guilty. Judge Chase made an insolent address to the prisoner and
+sentenced him to death. But Mr. Adams, with a remarkable degree of
+justice, gave him a full pardon, and drew down upon himself thereby
+the wrath of his cabinet.<a name="FNanchor_157_157" id="FNanchor_157_157"></a><a href="#Footnote_157_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a></p>
+
+<p>2. In 1788 Mathew Lyon, a native of Ireland, a Revolutionary soldier,
+a member of congress, and editor of a newspaper in Vermont, was
+brought to trial under the Sedition Law, for a false, malicious, and
+seditious libel. He had published in his newspaper a somewhat severe
+attack on the Federalists then in power. The article, alleged to be
+"seditious," was a letter written and mailed at the seat of government
+seven days before, and published nine days after, the passage of the
+Sedition Law itself. It was as much a political trial, Gentlemen, as
+this&mdash;purely political. Judge Patterson&mdash;United States Circuit Judge
+of Vermont&mdash;charged that the jury had nothing whatever to do with the
+constitutionality of the Sedition Law. "Congress has said that the
+author and publisher of seditious libels is to be punished." "The only
+question you are to determine is ... Did Mr. Lyon publish the
+writing?... Did he do so seditiously, with the intent of making odious
+or contemptible the President and government, and bringing them both
+into disrepute?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Lyon was found guilty, and punished by a fine of $1,000 and
+imprisonment for four months. The "Seditious Libel" would now be
+thought a quite moderate Editorial or "Letter from our Correspondent."
+His imprisonment was enforced with such rigor that his constituents
+threatened to tear down the jail, which he prevented.<a name="FNanchor_158_158" id="FNanchor_158_158"></a><a href="#Footnote_158_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a></p>
+
+<p>3. In 1799 Thomas Cooper, a native of England, residing at
+Northumberland, Pennsylvania, published a handbill reflecting severely
+on the conduct of President Adams. He was prosecuted by an
+In<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">118</a></span>formation <i>ex officio</i>, in the Circuit Court for Pennsylvania, and
+brought to trial before Judge Chase, already referred to, charged with
+a "false, scandalous, and malicious attack" on the President. Mr.
+Chase charged the jury, "A Republican government can only be destroyed
+in two ways: the introduction of luxury, or the licentiousness of the
+press. This latter is the more slow, but most sure and certain means
+of bringing about the destruction of the government." He made a fierce
+and violent harangue, arguing the case against the defendant with the
+spirit which has since become so notorious in the United States courts
+in that State. The pliant jury found Mr. Cooper guilty, and he was
+fined $400 and sent to jail for six months. He subsequently became a
+judge in Pennsylvania, as conspicuous for judicial tyranny as Mr.
+Chase himself, and was removed by Address of the Legislature from his
+seat, but afterwards went to South Carolina where he became Professor
+at her college, and a famous nullifier in 1830.<a name="FNanchor_159_159" id="FNanchor_159_159"></a><a href="#Footnote_159_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a></p>
+
+<p>4. In 1799, or 1800, Mr. Callender, a native of England, then residing
+at Richmond, in Virginia&mdash;a base and mean fellow, as his whole history
+proved, depraved in morals and malignant in temper&mdash;published a
+pamphlet called "The Prospect before us," full of the common abuse of
+Mr. Adams and his administration. He was indicted for a false,
+malicious, and seditious libel, and brought to trial before Judge
+Chase who pressed the Sedition Law with inquisitorial energy and
+executed it with intolerant rigor.<a name="FNanchor_160_160" id="FNanchor_160_160"></a><a href="#Footnote_160_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a> As he started for Richmond to
+hold the trial, he declared "he would teach the lawyers in Virginia
+the difference between the liberty and the licentiousness of the
+press." He told the marshal "not to put any of those creatures called
+Democrats on the jury,"&mdash;it does not appear that he had his own
+Brother-in-Law on it however;&mdash;"he likened himself to a schoolmaster
+who was to turn the unruly boys of the Virginia courts over his knee
+and give them a little wholesome chastisement."</p>
+
+<p>Some of the ablest lawyers in Virginia were engaged for the defence.
+But they could not secure any decent regard to the common forms of
+law, or to the claims of justice. He would not grant the delay always
+usual in such cases, and indispensable to the defence. He refused to
+allow the defendants' counsel to examine their most important witness,
+and allowed them to put none but written questions approved of by him!
+The defendant was not allowed to prove the truth of any statements,
+alleged to be libellous, by establishing the truth of one part through
+one witness and of another through a different one. He would not allow
+him to argue to the jury that the law was unconstitutional. "We all
+know that juries have the right to decide the law as well as the fact,
+and the Constitution is the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">119</a></span> Supreme law of the land." "Then," said
+Mr. Wirt, "since the jury have a right to consider the law, and since
+the Constitution is law, it is certainly syllogistic that the jury
+have a right to consider the Constitution;" and the judge exclaimed,
+"a <i>non sequitur</i>, Sir!" "Sit down, Sir!" Mr. Wirt sat down. The judge
+declared "a right is given to the jury to determine what the law is in
+the case before them, and not to decide whether a statute is a law or
+not, or whether it is void, under an opinion that it is
+unconstitutional." "It appears to me the right now claimed has a
+direct tendency to dissolve the Union." "No citizen of knowledge and
+information ... will believe, without very strong and indubitable
+proof, that Congress will, intentionally, make any law in violation of
+the Federal Constitution." "If such a case should happen, the mode of
+redress is pointed out in the Constitution." It was obvious that
+Congress had made laws in violation of the Constitution, and he
+insisted that the jury should enforce those laws against their own
+conscience. After all his violent injustice he of course declared "the
+decisions of courts of justice will not be influenced by political and
+<i>local</i> principles and prejudices." The packed jury found the prisoner
+guilty. He was fined $200 and sent to jail for nine months.</p>
+
+<p>But Virginia was too high-spirited to bear this. Nay, Gentlemen of the
+Jury, the whole Nation then was too fond of justice and liberty to
+allow such wickedness to proceed in the name of law. "Virginia was in
+a flame;" the lawyers "throughout the country were stung to the
+quick." They had not been so long under the slave-power then as now.
+At this day, Gentlemen, such conduct, such insolence, yet more
+oppressive, rouses no general indignation in the lawyers. But then the
+Alien and Sedition Laws ruined the Administration, and sent Mr.
+Adams&mdash;who yet never favored them&mdash;from his seat; his successor, Mr.
+Jefferson, says, "<i>I discharged every person under punishment</i>, or
+prosecution, <i>under the Sedition Law, because I considered and now
+consider, that law to be a nullity as absolute and as palpable as if
+Congress had ordered us to fall down and worship a golden
+image</i>."<a name="FNanchor_161_161" id="FNanchor_161_161"></a><a href="#Footnote_161_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a> Judge Chase was impeached by the House of
+Representatives, tried by the Senate, and only escaped condemnation by
+the prejudice of the political partisans. As it was, a majority were
+in favor of his condemnation. But the Constitution, properly, requires
+two thirds. Judge Chase escaped by this provision. But his influence
+was gone.</p>
+
+<p>The Alien and Sedition Laws, which sought to gag the People, and make
+a Speech a "misdemeanor," soon went to their own place; and on the 4th
+of July, 1840, Congress passed a law to pay Mr. Lyon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">120</a></span> and others the
+full amount of the fine and costs levied upon them, with interest to
+the date of payment: a Committee of the House had made a report on
+Lyon's case, stating that "the law was unconstitutional, null, and
+void, passed under a mistaken exercise of undelegated power, and that
+the mistake ought to be remedied by returning the fine so obtained,
+with interest thereon."<a name="FNanchor_162_162" id="FNanchor_162_162"></a><a href="#Footnote_162_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a> Just now, Gentlemen, Judge Chase and the
+principles of the Sedition Law appear to be in high favor with the
+Federal Courts: but one day the fugitive slave bill will follow the
+Alien and Sedition Bill, and Congress will refund all the money it has
+wrenched unjustly from victims of the Court. There is a To-morrow
+after to-day, and a Higher Law which crushes all fugitive slave bills
+into their kindred dust.</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>Gentlemen, allow me to vary this narrative of British and American
+despotism by an example from a different nation. I will refresh you
+with a case more nearly resembling that before you; it is an instance
+of German tyranny. In 1853, Dr. Gervinus, Professor of History in the
+University of Heidelberg in Germany, published this little volume of
+about 200 pages,<a name="FNanchor_163_163" id="FNanchor_163_163"></a><a href="#Footnote_163_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a> "An Introduction to the History of the 19th
+Century." Mr. Gervinus is one of the most enlightened men in the
+world, a man of great genius for the philosophical investigation of
+human history, and enriched with such culture and learning as is not
+common even in that home of learned men. His book, designed only for
+scholars, and hardly intelligible to the majority of readers even in
+America, sets forth this great fact,&mdash;The democratic tendency of
+mankind shown in all history.</p>
+
+<p>Gervinus was seized and brought to trial on the 24th of February,
+1853, at Mannheim, charged with publishing a work against
+constitutional monarchy, intending thereby to depose the lawful head
+of the State, the Grand Duke Charles Leopold, and with changing and
+endangering the constitution, "disturbing the public tranquillity and
+order, and incurring the guilt of High Treason." In short he was
+charged with "obstructing an officer" and attempting to "dissolve the
+Union," with "levying war." For his trial the judge purposely selected
+a small room, though four times larger than what now circumscribes the
+dignity of this Honorable Court; he did not wish the people to hear
+Gervinus's defence. But I will read you some extracts from the preface
+to the English translation of his book:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"I offer nothing purely theoretical or speculative, and as
+few opinions and conclusions as can possibly be given in a
+historical narrative. The work finally reaches a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">121</a></span> period
+when the Present and the Future become its subject, and when
+therefore it can no longer relate any events of history
+which have been completed; and is confined to the simple
+statement of <i>the Fact</i> that opposite opinions exist, and
+may yet be advanced, concerning the problem of the Future.
+These opinions are themselves weighed against one another,
+but their value is not determined by dogmas, or phrases, or
+declamations, but simply by facts. If the balance incline
+towards a more liberal form of government, towards
+democratic institutions, and therefore towards
+self-government, and the participation of the many rather
+than of the few in the affairs of the State, I am not to
+blame, nor is it my ordinance, but that of History and of
+Providence. My work is only (what all historical narrative
+should be) a vindication of the decrees of Providence; and
+to revolt against them appears to me neither pious in a
+moral point of view, nor wise in a political. That which is
+proved by the most remarkable facts of History, will not be
+altered in the smallest degree by the suppression of my
+work, or by my condemnation. The charge on this head is an
+absurdity, since no rational end can be attained by it. It
+aims at the suppression of a truth which, should <i>I</i> not
+tell it, will be ever louder and louder proclaimed by the
+<i>Facts of History</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"To believe such a thing possible is a proof how limited an
+idea exists of the eager inquiry going on after
+knowledge&mdash;and truth, the source and origin of all
+knowledge. There will always be so eager a demand for a
+history of the Present time, that, even should <i>I</i> be
+prevented, ten others would arise, only to proclaim the
+louder, and to repeat the oftener, the truth which is here
+suppressed. To believe that the philosophy of History can be
+silenced by persecution, argues an entire ignorance even of
+the external mechanism of philosophy. A political pamphlet,
+intended to serve a particular purpose at a particular
+period, may be suppressed. The author of such a pamphlet,
+bent on agitation, can easily console himself for its
+suppression. It has cost him little time and trouble; it is
+only a means to an end, one means out of many means, any of
+which, when this is lost, will serve the author as well. But
+it is not thus with philosophical works, it is not thus with
+the work before me. This book is deeply rooted in the
+vocation of my whole life, and is the end of my
+philosophical research; I have prepared myself for it by the
+labor of years, and the labor of years will be necessary for
+its completion. I have reached a time of life when I can
+neither change my vocation, nor even cease to labor in this
+vocation. I am also so imbued with my philosophy, that even
+if I could change I would not. I may be hindered in the
+prosecution of this work for four months, but in the fifth I
+shall return to it. For a judicial sentence cannot arrest
+(like a mere pamphlet) the philosophical scheme interwoven
+into a whole existence."</p>
+
+<p>"If it is possible that this 'Introduction' can be condemned
+in Germany, that it can be prohibited, that by these means
+the work should be strangled in its birth, then the
+philosophy of history has no longer a place in Germany. The
+tribunal of Baden will have given the first blow, in
+pronouncing judgment on a matter which is purely
+philosophical, and Germany, whose freedom of philosophical
+research has been her pride and her boast, of which even the
+various administrations of the nation have never been
+jealous, will receive a shock such as she never before
+sustained."</p>
+
+<p>"My book is on so strictly a philosophical plan, and treats
+of such comprehensive historical questions, that, properly,
+no judgment of any value could be pronounced upon it but by
+the professed historian, of whom there are not two dozen in
+all Germany. Among them there has not, to this hour, been
+found one competent to give an opinion in a few weeks on a
+book which is the fruit of half a life. On the other hand,
+there was soon a whole set of fanatical partisans and
+obstreperous bunglers in a neighboring press, who in eight
+days had condemned this work, in some instances, by calling
+it an historical commonplace, and in others, a political
+pamphlet with '<i>destructive tendencies</i>.' At the same time,
+and in a manner easily accounted for, under the influence<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">122</a></span>
+of such an expression of public opinion, and almost before
+any other could make itself heard, accusations were made
+against the book, and it was confiscated. Let no one take it
+amiss if, in the urgency of my defence, <i>I</i> for a moment lay
+aside modesty, as far as such modesty might prove injurious
+to my cause. My work demonstrates a law of historical
+development, which I do not claim as my property, or as
+originating in me, but which has been demonstrated more than
+two thousand years ago by the greatest thinker of all ages,
+derived from observations on the history of the Grecian
+State. To repeat a law which has been already demonstrated,
+ought to appear but a trifling circumstance, and indeed
+might merit the term of an historical commonplace; we could
+even suppose that it might be mentioned in a popular as well
+as in a philosophical book. Nevertheless this law has
+scarcely been twice repeated in the course of two thousand
+years, and then only by two imitators, who scarcely
+understood its whole purport, though they were the most
+thinking heads of the most thinking nations&mdash;Machiavelli in
+Italy, and Hegel in Germany. I solemnly ask of the whole
+philosophical world if my words can be gainsaid, and to name
+for me the third, by whom the Aristotelian law, of which I
+speak, has been repeated and understood. I have ventured to
+consider the thought of Aristotle, and to apply it to the
+history of modern European States, and I found it confirmed
+by a series of developments which have occupied two thousand
+years. I also found that the whole series of events
+confirmatory of this law (itself deduced from experience)
+are not yet entirely fulfilled. Like the astronomer, who,
+from a known fraction of the path of a newly discovered
+planet, calculates its whole course, I ventured to divine
+that which is still wanting, and which may yet take
+centuries to complete. I turned silently to those whose
+profession was the study of history, to prove the justice of
+my calculations; I handed my book over to coming generations
+and coming centuries, with the silent demand, when the
+required series of events shall be fulfilled, then to
+pronounce the final sentence, whether this law, and its
+purport as now explained, be just or not. This is the
+philosophical character, and these the contents of my
+book&mdash;no more than was indispensably necessary to make this
+calculation. And now comes the charge, and pronounces that
+in the character of a pamphleteer, I have endeavored to
+excite a revolution in the Grand Duchy of Baden, or in the
+German Confederation."</p></div>
+
+<p>On the 8th of March&mdash;it should have been the <i>fifth</i>&mdash;the thing came
+to a close. On account of "his hostility to constitutional monarchy,
+and his declaration of its weakness, his denial of its good-will
+[towards the people], and his representing that the American Democracy
+was a universal necessity and a desirable fact," sentence was
+pronounced against him, condemning him to an imprisonment of four
+months, and ordering his book to be destroyed. There was no Jury of
+the People to try him! Here our own Court has an admirable precedent
+for punishing me for a word.<a name="FNanchor_164_164" id="FNanchor_164_164"></a><a href="#Footnote_164_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a></p>
+
+<p>But even in Massachusetts, within twenty years, an attempt was made to
+punish a man for his opinions on a matter of history which had no
+connection with politics, or even with American Slavery. In July,
+1834, Rev. George R. Noyes, a Unitarian Minister at Petersham, a
+retired scholar, a blameless man of fine abilities and very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">123</a></span> large
+attainments in theological learning, wrote an elaborate article in the
+Christian Examiner, the organ of the "Liberal Christians" in America,
+in which he maintained that Jesus of Nazareth is not the Messiah
+predicted in the Old Testament. "It is difficult," said this
+accomplished Theologian, "to point out any predictions which have been
+properly fulfilled in Jesus." Peter and Paul found the death and
+resurrection of Jesus in the 16th Psalm, but they "were in an error,"
+which should not surprise us, for "the Evangelists and Apostles never
+claimed to be <i>inspired reasoners and interpreters</i>;" "they partook of
+the errors and prejudices of their age in things in which Christ had
+not instructed them." "The commonly received doctrine of the
+inspiration of all the writings included in the Bible, is a millstone
+hung round its neck [the neck of Christianity], sufficient to sink
+it."</p>
+
+<p>The article was written with remarkable candor and moderation, and
+indicated a devout and holy purpose in the author. The doctrines were
+by no means new. But Hon. James T. Austin, was then Attorney-General
+of the State; his attention being called to it by an anonymous writer
+in a newspaper, he attacked Mr. Noyes's article, thus giving vent to
+his opinion thereon: "He considers its learning very ill bestowed, its
+researches worse than useless, and that its tendency is to strike down
+one of the pillars on which the fabric of Christianity is supported."
+"Its tendency is to shock the pious,&mdash;confound the
+unlearned,&mdash;overwhelm those who are but moderately versed in the
+recondite investigations of theology, and above all to open an arsenal
+whence all the small wits of the infidel army may supply themselves
+with arms. Its greater evil is to disarm the power of public opinion."
+"It certainly disarms to a great degree the power of the law."<a name="FNanchor_165_165" id="FNanchor_165_165"></a><a href="#Footnote_165_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a></p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, suppose it had not been necessary to submit the matter to a
+Jury, what would the right of freedom of conscience be worth in the
+hands of such a man, "dressed in a little brief authority?" It was
+said at the time that the author was actually presented to the
+Grand-Jury, and an attempt made to procure an indictment for
+Blasphemy, or Misdemeanor. I know not how true the rumor was. The
+threat of prosecution came to nought, and Dr. Noyes, one of the most
+scholarly men in America, is now Professor of Theology in the Divinity
+School at Cambridge, and an honor to the liberal sect which maintains
+him there.</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>Gentlemen, when laws are unjustly severe, denouncing a punishment
+highly excessive, the juries refuse to convict. Examples of this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">124</a></span> are
+very common in trials for capital offences, now that the conscience of
+moral men has become so justly hostile to the judicial shedding of
+blood. There is no doubt with the Jurors as to the Fact, none as to
+the Law; but they say it is unjust to apply such a law to such a fact
+and hang a man. The Jury exercising their moral discretion, spite of
+the judge, and spite of the special statute or custom, are yet
+faithful to their official obligation and manly duty, and serve
+Justice, the ultimate End and Purpose of Law, whereto the statutes and
+customs are only provisional means. Foolish judges accuse such juries
+of "Perjury;" but it is clear enough, Gentlemen, where the falseness
+is.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you take notice of that juryman dressed in blue?" said one of the
+judges at the old Bailey to Judge Nares. "Yes." "Well, then, take my
+word for it, there will not be a single conviction to-day for any
+capital offence." So it turned out. The "gentleman in blue" thought it
+unjust and wicked, contrary to the ultimate Purpose of law, to hang
+men, and he was faithful to his juror's oath in refusing to convict.
+Of course he did not doubt of the Fact, or the Law, only of the
+Justice of its Application. One day there will be a good many
+"gentlemen in blue."</p>
+
+<p>To prevent this moral independence of the jury from defeating the
+immoral aim of the government, or of the judges, or the
+legislature&mdash;the court questions the jurors beforehand, and drives off
+from the panel all who think the statute unfit for such application.
+Gentlemen, that is a piece of wicked tyranny. It would be as unfair to
+exclude such men from the legislature, or from the polls, as from the
+jury box. In such cases the defendant is not tried by his "country,"
+but by a jury packed for the purpose of convicting him, spite of the
+moral feelings of the people.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes the statute is so framed that the jurors must by their
+verdict tell an apparent falsehood, or commit a great injustice. When
+it was a capital offence in England to steal forty shillings, and
+evidence made it plain that the accused had actually stolen eight or
+ten times that value, you all know how often the jurors brought in a
+verdict of "<i>stealing thirty-nine shillings</i>."<a name="FNanchor_166_166" id="FNanchor_166_166"></a><a href="#Footnote_166_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a> They preferred to
+tell what seemed to be a lie, rather than kill a man for stealing
+fifteen or twenty dollars. The verdict of <span class="smcap">not guilty</span> would have been
+perfectly just in form as in substance, and conformable to their
+official oath.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, tyrannical rulers, and their servants, despotic and corrupt
+judges, have sought to frighten the juries from the exercise of all
+discretion&mdash;either moral or intellectual. To that end they threaten<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">125</a></span>
+them before the verdict, and punish them when they decide contrary to
+the wish of the tyrant. To make the jurors agree in a unanimous
+verdict, they were kept without "fire or water or food or bed" until
+they came to a conclusion; if eleven were of one mind and the twelfth
+not convinced, the refractory juror was fined or put in jail.<a name="FNanchor_167_167" id="FNanchor_167_167"></a><a href="#Footnote_167_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a> If
+the verdict, when unanimously given, did not satisfy the judge or his
+master, the jurors were often punished.<a name="FNanchor_168_168" id="FNanchor_168_168"></a><a href="#Footnote_168_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a> I have already shown you
+how the juries were treated&mdash;with fine and imprisonment&mdash;who acquitted
+Throckmorton and Penn.<a name="FNanchor_169_169" id="FNanchor_169_169"></a><a href="#Footnote_169_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a> When John Lilburne was tried for his life
+in 1653, he censured the authorities which prosecuted him and appealed
+to the "honorable Jury, the Keepers of the Liberties of England:" they
+found him Not Guilty, and were themselves brought before the council
+of State for punishment. "Thomas Greene of Snow-hill, tallow chandler,
+Foreman of the Jury, being asked what the grounds and reasons were
+that moved him to find ... Lilburne not guilty, ... saith '<i>that he
+did discharge his conscience in what he then did, and that he will
+give no further answer to any questions which shall be asked him upon
+that matter</i>.'"<a name="FNanchor_170_170" id="FNanchor_170_170"></a><a href="#Footnote_170_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a> This was in the time of Cromwell; but as the
+People were indignant at his tyrannical conduct in that matter, and
+his insolent attempt to punish the jurors, they escaped without fine
+or imprisonment. Indeed more than a hundred and twenty-five years
+before, Thomas Smith had declared "such doings to be very violent,
+tyrannical, and contrary to the liberty and customs of the realm of
+England." Sir Matthew Hale said at a later day, "It would be a most
+unhappy case for the judge himself, if the prisoner's fate depended
+upon his directions; unhappy also for the prisoner; for if the judge's
+opinion must rule the verdict, the trial by jury would be
+useless."<a name="FNanchor_171_171" id="FNanchor_171_171"></a><a href="#Footnote_171_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a> Judge Kelyng was particularly hostile to the jury,
+throwing aside "all regard to moderation and decency." He compelled
+the grand-jury of Somersetshire to find an indictment against their
+consciences, reproaching Sir Hugh Wyndham, the foreman, as the "Head
+of a Faction." He told the jury, "You are all my servants, and I will
+make the best in England stoop!" He said it was a "misdemeanor" for
+them to discriminate between murder and manslaughter; that was for the
+court to determine. But, Gentlemen, it does not appear that he had his
+brother-in-law on that grand-jury. Several persons were indicted for
+"attending a conven<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">126</a></span>ticle;" the jury acquitted them contrary to his
+wish, and he fined them $334 apiece, and put them in jail till it was
+paid. On another occasion, this servile creature of Charles II. fined
+and imprisoned all the jurors because they convicted of <i>manslaughter</i>
+a man whom he wanted to hang. But for this conduct he was accused in
+the House of Commons, and brought to answer for it at their bar.<a name="FNanchor_172_172" id="FNanchor_172_172"></a><a href="#Footnote_172_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a></p>
+
+<p>In 1680 Chief Justice Scroggs was brought up before the House of
+Commons for discharging "a refractory grand-jury"&mdash;such an one as was
+discharged in Boston last July: Sir Francis Winnington said, "If the
+judges instead of acting by law shall be acted by their own ambition,
+and endeavor to get promotion rather by worshipping the rising sun
+than doing justice, this nation will soon be reduced to a miserable
+condition." "As faults committed by judges are of more dangerous
+consequence than others to the public, so there do not want precedents
+of severer chastisements for them than for others."<a name="FNanchor_173_173" id="FNanchor_173_173"></a><a href="#Footnote_173_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a></p>
+
+<p>But spite of the continual attempt to destroy the value of the trial
+by jury, and take from the People their ancient, sevenfold shield, the
+progress of liberty is perpetual. Now and then there arose lawyers and
+judges like Sir Matthew Hale, Holt, Vaughan, Somers, Camden, and
+Erskine, who reached out a helping hand. Nay, politicians came up to
+its defence. But the great power which has sustained and developed it
+is the sturdy and unconquerable Love of individual Liberty which is
+one of the most marked characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon, whether
+Briton or American. The Common People of England sent Juries, as well
+as regiments of Ironsides, to do battle for the Right. Gentlemen, let
+us devoutly thank God for this Safeguard of Freedom, and take heed
+that it suffers no detriment in our day, but serves always the Higher
+Law of the Infinite God.</p>
+
+<p>Now, Gentlemen of the Jury, I come to the end.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="hang">IV. <span class="smcap">Of the Circumstances of this Special Case, United States versus
+Theodore Parker.</span></p>
+
+<p>Here, Gentlemen, I shall speak of three things.</p>
+
+<p>(I.) Of the Fugitive Slave Bill.</p>
+
+<p>At the close of the Revolution there was a contradiction in the
+national consciousness: the People were divided between the Idea of
+Freedom and the Idea of Slavery. There consequently ensued a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">127</a></span> struggle
+between the two elements. This has continued ever since the Treaty of
+Peace in 1783.</p>
+
+<p>Twice the Idea of Freedom has won an important victory: in 1787
+Slavery was prohibited in the North-West Territory; in 1808 the
+African Slave Trade was abolished. Gentlemen, this is all that has
+been done for seventy-two years; the last triumph of American Freedom
+over American Slavery was forty-seven years ago!</p>
+
+<p>But the victories of Slavery have been manifold: in 1787 Slavery came
+into the Constitution,&mdash;it was left in the individual States as a part
+of their "Republican form of government;" the slaves were counted
+fractions of men, without the personal rights of integral humanity,
+and so to be represented by their masters; and the rendition of
+fugitive slaves was provided for. In 1792 out of old territory a new
+Slave State was made and Kentucky came into the Union. Tennessee
+followed in 1796, Mississippi in 1817, Alabama in 1819, and thus four
+Slave States were newly made out of soil which the Declaration of
+Independence covered with ideal freedom. In 1793 the Federal
+government took Slavery under its special patronage and passed the
+first fugitive slave bill for the capture of such as should escape
+from bondage in one State, and flee to another. In 1803 Louisiana was
+purchased and Slavery left in that vast territory; thus the first
+expansion of our borders was an extension of bondage,&mdash;out of that
+soil three great States, Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, have since
+been made, all despotic, with more than half a million of Americans
+fettered there to-day. Florida was purchased as slave soil, and in
+1845 made a State with perpetual Slavery written in its Constitution.
+In 1845 Texas was annexed and Slavery extended over nearly four
+hundred thousand square miles of once free soil; in 1848 Slavery was
+spread over California, Utah, and New Mexico. Here were seven great
+victories of Slavery over Freedom.</p>
+
+<p>At first it seemed doubtful which was master in the federal councils;
+but in 1820, in a great battle&mdash;the Missouri Compromise&mdash;Slavery
+triumphed, and has ever since been master. In 1845 Texas was annexed,
+and Slavery became the open, acknowledged, and most insolent master.
+The rich, intelligent, and submissive North only registers the decrees
+of the poor, the ignorant, but the controlling South; accepts for
+Officers such as the master appoints, for laws what the Slave-driver
+commands. The Slave-Power became predominant in American politics,
+business, literature, and "Religion."</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, do you doubt what I say? Look at this Honorable
+Court,&mdash;at its Judges, its Attorney, at its Marshal, and its Marshal's
+Guard: they all hold their offices by petty serjeantry of menial
+service rendered to the Slave-Power. It would be an insult to any one
+of this august fraternity to hint that he had the faintest respect<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">128</a></span>
+for the great Principles of American Liberty, or any love of justice
+for all men. I shall not be guilty of that "contempt of court."
+Gentlemen, I had expected that this Court would be solemnly opened
+with prayer. I knew whom the Slave-Power would select as its priest to
+"intercede with Heaven." I expected to hear the Rev. Nehemiah Adams,
+D.D., ask the God he worships and serves to take "a South-side view of
+American Slavery" in general, and in special of this prosecution of a
+minister of the Christian Religion for attempting to keep the Golden
+Rule. Should the Court hereafter indulge its public proclivity to
+prayer, that eminent divine will doubtless be its advocate&mdash;fit
+mediator for a Court which knows no Higher Law.</p>
+
+<p>Well, Gentlemen, that sevenfold triumph was not enough. Slavery will
+never be contented so long as there is an inch of free soil in the
+United States! New victories must be attempted. Mr. Toombs has
+declared to this noble Advocate of Justice and Defender of Humanity,
+[John P. Hale] who renews the virtuous glories of his illustrious
+namesake, Sir Matthew Hale, that, "Before long the master will sit
+down with his slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill Monument." But one
+thing disturbed our masters at the South&mdash;the concubine runs away from
+her lusty lord, the mulatto slave child from her white father; I have
+had the "best blood of Virginia," fugitive children of her "first
+families" in my own house, and have given many a dollar to help the
+sons and daughters of "Southern Democrats" enjoy a taste of Northern
+Democracy. The slaves would run away. The law of 1793 was not adequate
+to keep or catch these African Christians who heeded not the Southern
+command, "Slaves, obey your masters." The Decision of the Supreme
+Court in the Prigg case,<a name="FNanchor_174_174" id="FNanchor_174_174"></a><a href="#Footnote_174_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a> showed the disposition of the Federal
+Government, and took out of the hands of the individual States the
+defence of their own citizens. Still the slaves would run away. In
+1849 there were more than five hundred fugitives from Southern
+Democracy in Boston&mdash;and their masters could not catch them. What a
+misfortune! Boston retained $200,000 of human Property of the
+Christian and chivalric South! Surely the Union was "in danger."</p>
+
+<p>In 1850 came the fugitive slave bill. When first concocted, its
+author,&mdash;a restless politician, a man of small mind and mean
+character, with "Plantation manners,"&mdash;thought it was "too bad to
+pass." He designed it not for an actual law, but an insult to the
+North so aggravating that she must resist the outrage, and then there
+would be an opportunity for some excitement and agitation at the
+South&mdash;and perhaps some "nullification" in South Carolina and
+Virginia; and in that general fermentation who knows what scum would
+be thrown<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">129</a></span> up! Even Mr. Clay "never expected the law would be
+enforced." "No Northern <i>gentleman</i>," said he, "will ever help return
+a fugitive slave." It seemed impossible for the bill to pass.</p>
+
+<p>But at that time Massachusetts had in the Senate of the nation a
+disappointed politician, a man of great understanding, of most mighty
+powers of speech,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">"Created hugest that swim the ocean stream,"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>and what more than all else contributed to his success in life, the
+most magnificent and commanding personal appearance. At that time&mdash;his
+ambition nothing abated by the many years which make men
+venerable,&mdash;he was a bankrupt in money, a bankrupt in reputation, and
+a bankrupt in morals&mdash;I speak only of his public morals, not his
+private,&mdash;a bankrupt in political character, pensioned by the Money
+Power of the North. Thrice disappointed, he was at that time gaming
+for the Presidency. When the South laid down the fugitive slave bill,
+on the national Faro-table, Mr. Webster bet his all upon that card. He
+staked his mind&mdash;and it was one of vast compass; his eloquence, which
+could shake the continent; his position, the senatorial influence of
+Massachusetts; his wide reputation, which rung with many a noble word
+for justice and the Rights of man; he staked his conscience and his
+life. Gentlemen, you know the rest,&mdash;the card won, the South took the
+<i>trick</i>, and Webster lost all he could lose,&mdash;his conscience, his
+position, his reputation; not his wide-compassing mind, not his
+earth-shaking eloquence. Finally he lost his&mdash;life. Peace to his
+mighty shade. God be merciful to him that showed no mercy. The warning
+of his fall is worth more than the guidance of his success. Let us
+forgive; it were wicked to forget. For fifty years no American has had
+such opportunity to serve his country in an hour of need. Never has an
+American so signally betrayed the trust&mdash;not once since Benedict
+Arnold turned a less ignoble traitor!</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, you know the speech of the 7th of March. You know it too
+well. He proposed to support the fugitive slave bill "with all its
+provisions, to the fullest extent." At that time this bill of
+abominations was worse than even now; for then it left the liberty of
+a man to the discretion not only of any judge or commissioner of any
+Federal court, but to any clerk or marshal thereof, nay, to any
+collector of the customs and every one of the seventeen thousand
+postmasters in the United States! It provided that an affidavit made
+before any officer empowered, by the United States or any State, to
+administer oaths, should be taken as conclusive evidence to prove a
+man a slave! So John Smith of some unknown town in Texas, might make
+affi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">130</a></span>davit before John Jones, a justice of peace in the same place,
+that Lewis Hayden, or Wendell Phillips, or his Honor Judge Curtis, was
+his (Smith's) slave, and had escaped to Boston: might bring hither
+John Brown, a Postmaster from Texas, or find some collector of the
+customs or minion of the court in Massachusetts, seize his victim, and
+swear away his liberty; and any man might be at once consigned to
+eternal bondage! All that the bill provided for,&mdash;and authorized the
+kidnapper to employ as many persons as he might think proper to
+accomplish his purpose by force, at the expense of the United States!
+All this Mr. Webster volunteered to support "to the fullest extent."</p>
+
+<p>The bill was amended, here bettered, there worsened, and came to the
+final vote. Gentlemen, the Money Power of the North joined the Slave
+Power of the South to kidnap men in America after 1850, as it had
+kidnapped them in Africa before 1808. Out of fifty Senators only
+twelve said, No; while in the House 109 voted Yea. The Hon. Samuel A.
+Eliot gave the vote of Beacon and State Streets for kidnapping men on
+the soil of Boston. The one Massachusetts vote for man-stealing must
+come from the town which once bore a Franklin and an Adams in her
+bosom; yes, from under the eaves of John Hancock's house! That one
+vote was not disgrace enough; his successor [Hon. William Appleton]
+must take a needless delight in reaffirming the infamy. When the bill
+passed, Gentlemen, you remember how Mr. Webster rejoiced:&mdash;</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="poem">
+<tr>
+<td>
+"Now is the winter of our discontent<br />
+Made glorious summer,"
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>was his public outcry on the housetop! And Boston fired a hundred guns
+of joy! Do you know <i>who</i> fired them? Ask Mr. Attorney Hallett; ask
+Mr. Justice Curtis. They can "instruct the jury."</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, you know the operation of the fugitive slave bill. It
+subverts the Purposes of the Constitution, it destroys Justice,
+disturbs domestic Tranquillity, hinders the common Defence and the
+general Welfare, and annihilates the Blessings of Liberty. It defies
+the first Principles of the Declaration of Independence,&mdash;think of the
+fugitive slave bill as an appendix to that document! It violates the
+Idea of Democracy. It contradicts the very substance of the Christian
+Religion&mdash;the two great commandments of Love to God, and Love to man,
+whereon "hang all the Law and the Prophets." It makes natural humanity
+a crime; it subjects all the Christian virtues to fine and
+imprisonment. It is a <i>lettre de cachet</i> against Philanthropy.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, you know the fugitive slave bill is
+unconstitutional. I need not argue the matter; it is too plain to need
+proof.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">131</a></span> See how it opposes Justice, the ultimate purpose of human law;
+nay, the declared objects of the Constitution itself! But yet its
+unconstitutionality has been most abundantly shown by our own
+fellow-citizens. I need not go out of Massachusetts for defenders of
+Justice and Law. You remember the Speeches of Mr. Phillips, Mr.
+Sewall, Mr. Rantoul, Mr. Sumner, Mr. Mann, the arguments of Mr.
+Hildreth. The judges before you by nature are able-minded men, both of
+them; both also learned as lawyers and otherwise well educated,&mdash;I
+love to honor their natural powers, and their acquired learning; would
+I could offer higher praise. Now, I will not insult their manly
+understanding with the supposition that either of them ever thought
+the fugitive slave bill constitutional. No, Gentlemen, it is not
+possible that in the <i>personal</i> opinion of Mr. Sprague, or even Mr.
+Curtis, this bill can be held for a constitutional law. But the Court
+has its official dress: part of it is of silk&mdash;or supposed to be,&mdash;the
+gown which decorates the outward figure of the man who wears its ample
+folds; it is made after a prescribed pattern. But part of it also is
+made of <i>opinion</i> which hides the ability and learning of the
+honorable Court. The constitutionality of the fugitive slave bill is a
+part of the judge's official dress: accordingly, as no federal judge
+sits without his "silk gown," so none appears without his "opinion"
+that the fugitive slave bill is constitutional. But if the court
+should solemnly declare that such was its <i>personal
+opinion</i>&mdash;Gentlemen of the Jury, I,&mdash;I&mdash;should not believe it&mdash;any
+more than if they declared the gown of silk was the natural judicial
+covering, the actual "true skin" of the judges. No, Gentlemen, these
+judges are not monsters, not naturally idiotic in their Conscience.
+This opinion is their official robe, a supplementary cuticle, an
+artificial epidermis, woven from without, to be thrown off one day,
+when it shall serve their turn, by political desquamation. Let them
+wear it; "they have their reward." But you and I, Gentlemen, let us
+thank God we are not officially barked about with such a leprous
+elephantiasis as that. You are to judge of its constitutionality for
+yourselves, not to take the <i>purchased, official opinion</i> of the judge
+as veil for your Conscience; let it hide the judges' if they like.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, I lack words to describe the fugitive slave bill; its sins
+outrun my power of speech. But you know the consequences which follow
+if it be accepted by the People, submitted to, and enforced: the State
+of Massachusetts is nothing; her courts nothing; her juries nothing;
+her laws nothing; her Constitution nothing&mdash;the Rights of the State
+are whistled away by the "opinion" of a fugitive slave bill judge, the
+rights of the citizen&mdash;all gone; his right to life, liberty, and the
+pursuit of happiness lies at the mercy of the meanest man whom this
+Court shall ever make a Commissioner to kidnap men.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">132</a></span> Yes, Gentlemen of
+the Jury, you hold your liberty at the mercy of George T. Curtis and
+Seth J. Thomas! You are the People, "the Country" to determine whether
+it shall come to this.</p>
+
+<p>You know the motive which led the South to desire this bill,&mdash;it was
+partly pecuniary, the desire to get the work of men and not pay for
+it; partly political, the desire to establish Slavery at the North.
+Mr. Toombs is not the only man who wishes the master to sit down with
+his slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill Monument! You know the motive of
+the Northern men who supported the bill;&mdash;words are idle here!</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, I said that Boston fired a hundred jubilant cannon when the
+fugitive slave bill became a law. It was only a <i>part of Boston</i> that
+fired them. The bill was odious here to all just and honorable men.
+Massachusetts hated the bill, and was in no haste to "conquer her
+prejudices" in favor of Justice, Humanity, and the Christian Religion;
+she did not like the "disagreeable duty" of making a public profession
+of practical Atheism. At first the yellow fever of the slave-hunters
+did not extend much beyond the pavements of Boston and Salem; so pains
+must be taken to spread the malady. The greatest efforts were made to
+induce the People to renounce their Christianity, to accept and
+enforce the wicked measure. The cry was raised, "The Union is in
+danger:" nobody believed it; they least of all who raised the cry.
+Some clergymen in the Churches of Commerce were coaxed, wheedled, or
+bought over, and they declared kidnapping would be imputed unto men
+for "righteousness." The actual man-stealer in Boston was likened to
+"faithful Abraham" in the Hebrew mythic tale,&mdash;"the rendition of a
+slave was like the sacrifice of Isaac." One Trinitarian minister, a
+son of Massachusetts, laid Conscience down before the Juggernaut of
+the fugitive slave bill, another would send his own mother into
+Slavery; both had their reward. Editors were brought over to the true
+faith of kidnapping. Alas, there were some in Boston who needed no
+conversion; who were always on the side of inhumanity. There were
+"Union meetings" called to save the Nation; and the meanest men in the
+great towns came to serve as Redeemers in this Salvation unto
+kidnapping. Mr. Webster outdid himself in giant efforts&mdash;and though
+old and sick, he wrought with mighty strength. So in the great poem
+the fallen angel, his Paradise of Virtue lost,&mdash;</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="poem">
+<tr>
+<td>
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">&mdash;&mdash;"with bold words</span><br />
+Breaking the horrid silence thus began.<br />
+'To do aught good never will be our task,<br />
+But ever to do ill our sole delight,<br />
+As being the contrary to His high will<br />
+Whom we resist....<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">133</a></span><br />
+Let us not slip the occasion....<br />
+But reassembling our afflicted powers<br />
+Consult how we may henceforth most offend<br />
+Our enemy; our own loss how repair,<br />
+How overcome this dire calamity;<br />
+What reinforcement we may gain from hope,<br />
+If not what resolution from despair.'"
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>One class of men needed no change, no stimulation. They were ready to
+execute this unjust, this unconstitutional Act; their lamps were
+trimmed and burning, their loins girt about, their feet swift to shed
+blood. Who were they? Ask Philadelphia, ask New York, ask Boston. Look
+at this bench. The Federal Courts were as ready to betray justice in
+1850 as Kelyng and Jeffreys and Scroggs and the other pliant judges of
+Charles II. or James II. to support his iniquities. I must speak of
+this.</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>(II.) Of the conduct of the Federal Courts.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, that you may understand the enormity of the
+conduct of the federal courts and the peril they bring upon their
+victims, I must refresh your memory with a few facts.</p>
+
+<p>1. I shall begin with the cases in Pennsylvania. In that State four
+officials of government have acquired great distinction by their zeal
+in enslaving men, McAllister, Ingraham, Grier, and Kane; the two first
+are "Commissioners," the latter two "Judges." In one year they had the
+glory of kidnapping twenty-six Americans and delivering them over to
+Slavery. Look at a few cases.</p>
+
+<p>(1.) On the 10th of March, 1851, Hannah Dellam was brought before
+Judge Kane charged with being a fugitive slave. She was far advanced
+in pregnancy, hourly expecting to give birth to a child. If a
+convicted murderess is in that condition, the law delays the execution
+of its ghastly sentence till the baby is born, whom the gallows
+orphans soon. The poor negro woman's counsel begged for delay that the
+child might be born in Pennsylvania and so be free,&mdash;a poor boon, but
+too great for a fugitive slave bill judge to grant. The judge who
+inherits the name of the first murderer, disgraced the family of Cain;
+he prolonged his court late into night, that he might send the child
+into Slavery while in the bowels of its mother! Judge Kane held his
+"court" and gave his decision in the very building where the
+Declaration of Independence was signed and published to the world. The
+memorable bell which summons his court, has for motto on its brazen
+lips, "Proclaim Liberty throughout the Land, to all the inhabitants
+thereof."</p>
+
+<p>(2.) The same year Rachel Parker, a free colored girl, was seized<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">134</a></span> in
+the house of Joseph C. Miller of West-Nottingham, Chester County, by
+Thomas McCreary of Elkton, Maryland. Mr. Miller pursued the kidnapper
+and found the girl at Baltimore, and brought a charge of kidnapping
+against McCreary. But before the matter was decided Mr. Miller was
+decoyed away and murdered! The man-hunter was set free and the girl
+kept as a slave, but after long confinement in jail was at last
+pronounced free&mdash;not by the Pennsylvania "judge" but by a Baltimore
+Jury!<a name="FNanchor_175_175" id="FNanchor_175_175"></a><a href="#Footnote_175_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a></p>
+
+<p>(3.) The same year occurred the Christiana Tragedy. Here are the
+facts.</p>
+
+<p>In Virginia a general law confers a reward of $100 on any man who
+shall bring back to Virginia a slave that has escaped into another
+State, and gives him also ten cents for each mile of travel in the
+chase after a man. Accordingly, beside the officers of the fugitive
+slave bill courts commissioned for that purpose, there is a body of
+professional Slave-hunters, who prowl about the borders of
+Pennsylvania and entrap their prey. In September, 1850, "a colored
+man, known in the neighborhood around Christiana to be free, was
+seized and carried away by professional kidnappers, and never
+afterwards seen by his family." In March, 1851, in the same
+neighborhood, under the roof of his employer, during the night,
+another colored man was tied, gagged, and carried away, "marking the
+road along which he was dragged by his own blood." He was never
+afterwards heard from. "These and many other acts of a similar kind
+had so alarmed the neighborhood, that the very name of Kidnapper was
+sufficient to create a panic."<a name="FNanchor_176_176" id="FNanchor_176_176"></a><a href="#Footnote_176_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"On the 11th of September, Edward Gorsuch, of Maryland, his
+son, Dickerson Gorsuch, with a party of friends, and a
+United States officer named Kline, who bore the warrant of
+Commissioner Ingraham, made their appearance in a
+neighborhood near Christiana, Lancaster County,
+Pennsylvania, in pursuit of a Slave. They lay in wait for
+their prey near the house of William Parker, a colored man.
+When discovered and challenged, they approached the house,
+and Gorsuch demanded his Slave. It was denied that he was
+there. High words ensued, and two shots were fired by the
+assailants at the house. The alarm was then given by blowing
+a horn, and the neighborhood roused. A party of colored men,
+from thirty to fifty strong, most of them armed in some way,
+were before long on the ground. Castner Hanway and Elijah
+Lewis, both white men and Friends, rode up before the
+engagement began and endeavored to prevent bloodshed by
+persuading both parties to disperse peaceably. Kline, the
+Deputy Marshal, ordered them to join the <i>posse</i>, which
+they, of course, refused to do, but urged upon him the
+necessity of withdrawing his men for their own safety. This
+he finally did, as far as he personally was concerned, when
+satisfied that there was actual danger of bloody resistance.
+Gorsuch, however, and his party persisted in their attempt,
+and he and two of his party fired on the colored men, who
+returned the fire with deadly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">135</a></span> effect. Gorsuch was killed on
+the spot, his son severely, though not mortally, wounded,
+and the rest of the party put to flight. The dead and
+wounded were cared for by the neighbors, mostly Friends and
+Abolitionists. The Slave, for the capture of whom this
+enterprise was undertaken, made his escape and reached a
+land of safety.</p>
+
+<p>"Judge Grier denounced the act from the Bench as one of
+Treason. A party of marines were ordered to the ground to
+keep the peace after the battle had been fought and won.
+United States Marshal Roberts, Commissioner Ingraham, United
+States District Attorney Ashmead, with a strong body of
+police, accompanied them, and kept the seat of war under a
+kind of martial law for several days. The country was
+scoured, houses ransacked, and about thirty arrests made.
+Among those arrested were Castner Hanway and Elijah Lewis,
+whose only crime had been endeavoring to prevent the
+effusion of blood. The prisoners were brought to
+Philadelphia, examined before a Commissioner, and committed
+on a charge of High Treason. At the next term of the
+District Court, under a charge from Judge Kane, the
+Grand-Jury found indictments against all of them for this
+crime."<a name="FNanchor_177_177" id="FNanchor_177_177"></a><a href="#Footnote_177_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>Mr. Hanway was brought to trial&mdash;for his life, charged with "treason."
+It appears that this was his overt act.&mdash;He was a Quaker, an
+anti-slavery Quaker, and a "non-resistant;" when he heard of the
+attack on the colored people, he rode on a sorrel horse to the spot,
+in his shirt-sleeves, with a broad felt hat on; he advised the colored
+men not to fire, "For God's sake don't fire;" but when Deputy Marshal
+Kline ordered him to assist in the kidnapping, he refused and would
+have nothing to do with it. Some of the colored people fired, and with
+such effect on the Kidnappers as I have just now shown. It appeared
+also that Mr. Hanway had said the fugitive slave bill was
+unconstitutional, and that he would never aid in kidnapping a
+man&mdash;words which I suppose this Honorable Court will consider as a
+constructive "misdemeanor;" "obstructing an officer."</p>
+
+<p>For this "offence" his case was presented to the grand-jury of the
+Circuit Court the 29th of September, 1851. Judge Kane charged the
+jury&mdash;laying down the law of treason. Mr. Hanway was indicted for
+"wickedly devising and intending the peace and tranquillity of the ...
+United States to disturb;" and that he "wickedly and traitorously did
+intend to levy war against the said United States." And also that he
+"with force and arms, maliciously and traitorously did prepare and
+compose and ... and cause and procure to be prepared and composed,
+divers books, pamphlets, letters, and declarations, resolutions,
+addresses, papers, and writings, and did ... maliciously and
+traitorously publish and disperse ... divers other books ...
+containing ... incitement, encouragement, and exhortations, to move,
+induce, and persuade persons held to service in any of the United
+States ... who had escaped ... to resist, oppose, and prevent, by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">136</a></span>
+violence and intimidation, the execution of the said laws, [that is
+the law for kidnapping their own persons]."</p>
+
+<p>He was brought to trial at Philadelphia, November 24th 1851, before
+Honorable Judges Kane and Grier, then and subsequently so eminent for
+their zeal in perverting law and doing judicial iniquity. Gentlemen of
+the Jury&mdash;it is no slander to say this. It is their great glory that
+in the cause of Slavery they have struck at the first principles of
+American Democracy, and set at nought the Christian Religion. It is
+only their panegyric which I pronounce.</p>
+
+<p>On behalf of the government there appeared six persons as prosecuting
+officers. One United States Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Cooper),
+the Attorney-General of Maryland, the District Attorney of
+Pennsylvania, the Recorder of the City of Philadelphia, and two
+members of her bar.<a name="FNanchor_178_178" id="FNanchor_178_178"></a><a href="#Footnote_178_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a> For Mr. Webster, then Secretary of State, was
+highly desirous that Maryland should send her Attorney-General, Hon.
+Mr. Brent, to help the government of the United States prosecute a
+Quaker miller, a Non-resistant, for the crime of treason. Hon. James
+Cooper, the Pennsylvania Senator, also appeared on behalf of Maryland,
+seeking to convict one of his own constituents! Gentlemen, such
+conduct carries us back to the time of the Stuarts; but despotism is
+always the same. It was very proper that the United States government
+should thus outrage the common decencies of judicial process.</p>
+
+<p>This question amongst others was put to each juror:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Have you formed an opinion that the law of the United
+States, known as the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, is
+unconstitutional, so that you cannot for that reason convict
+a person indicted for a forcible resistance thereto, if the
+facts alleged in the indictment are proved and the court
+hold the statute to be constitutional?"</p></div>
+
+<p>Thus all persons were excluded from the jury who believed this wicked
+bill a violation of the constitution; and one most important means of
+the prisoner's legitimate defence was purposely swept away by the
+court.</p>
+
+<p>Now look at the law as laid down by the government.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ashmead, the government's Attorney, said when the Constitution was
+adopted "Men had not then become wiser than the laws [the laws of
+England and colonial laws which they were born under and broke away
+from]; nor had they learned to measure the plain and unambiguous
+letter of the Constitution by an artificial standard of their own
+creation [that is the Self-evident Truth that all men have a natural
+and unalienable Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pur<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">137</a></span>suit of
+Happiness]; to obey or disregard it according as it came up to or fell
+beneath it [as the law was just or unjust]."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You will receive the law from the court.</i>" "You <i>are bound by the
+instructions which the court may give</i> in respect to it;" "<i>it is in
+no sense true that you are judges of the law</i>." "<i>You must take the
+interpretation which the court puts upon it.</i> You have a right to
+apply the law to the facts, but you have no right to go further."</p>
+
+<p>"The crime charged against this defendant is ... that of <i>levying war
+against the United States</i>. The phrase <i>levying war</i> was long before
+the adoption of the Constitution, a phrase ... <i>embracing such a
+forcible resistance to the laws as that charged against this
+defendant</i> [that is, speaking against the fugitive slave bill and
+refusing to kidnap a man is 'levying war against the United States']!"</p>
+
+<p>It is treason "if the intention is by force to prevent the execution
+of <i>any one ... of the general laws of the United States</i>, or <i>to
+resist</i> the exercise of <i>any legitimate authority of the government</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Levying war embraces ... any combination forcibly to prevent or
+oppose the execution ... of a public statute, if accompanied or
+followed by an act of forcible opposition." Of course the court is to
+determine the meaning of <i>force</i>; and using the same latitude of
+construction as in interpreting <i>levying war</i>, it would mean, a
+<i>word</i>, a <i>look</i>, a <i>thought</i>, a <i>wish</i>, a <i>fancy</i> even.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ludlow enforced the same opinions, relying in part on the old
+tyrannical decisions of the British courts in the ages of despotism,
+and on the opinion of Judge Chase&mdash;who had derived his law of treason
+from that source, and was impeached before the American Senate for his
+oppressive conduct while judge in the very trials whence these
+iniquitous doctrines were derived! But Mr. Ludlow says "if a <i>spurious
+doctrine have been introduced into the common law ... it would require
+great hardihood in a judge to reject it</i>." So the jury must accept "a
+spurious doctrine" as genuine law!</p>
+
+<p>"In treason, all the <i>participes criminis</i> are principals; there are
+no accessaries to this crime. Every act which ... would render a man
+an <i>accessary</i> will ... make him a <i>principal</i>." "If any man joins and
+acts with an assembly of people, <i>his intent is always to be
+considered ... the same as theirs; the law ... judgeth of the intent
+by the Fact</i>." This was Judge Kelyng's "law."</p>
+
+<p>"It may be ... advanced that because Hanway was not armed, he was not
+guilty. It is perfectly well settled that <i>arms are not necessary</i>."
+"Military weapons ... are not necessary ... to a levying war." "This
+is the opinion of Judge Chase," and "it may be alleged that Judge
+Chase was impeached, and that [therefore] his opinions are of little
+weight. Whatever may have been the grounds of that impeachment, <i>it is
+not for us to discuss</i>."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">138</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"If a body of men be assembled for the purpose of effecting a
+treasonable object [that is, 'to oppose the execution of a public
+statute,' no matter what or how] <i>all those who perform any part,
+however minute, or however remote from the scene of action ... are
+equally traitors</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Brent, the Maryland State Attorney, whom Mr. Webster had sent
+there, declared that "<i>any combination</i> like this, of colored and
+white persons, <i>to prevent the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law, is
+treason</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Cooper, the Pennsylvania Senator, adds, "Castner Hanway ... having
+been present ... at the time the overt act was committed, he is a
+principal ... provided he was there aiding and abetting the objects of
+the confederated parties." "<i>Persons</i> procuring, contriving, or
+<i>consenting</i>, come within the words aid and abet." So "<i>if he</i>
+encourages, <i>assists, or consents to the act</i>, it is enough; <i>he
+becomes at once an aider and abettor, and obnoxious to all the pains
+and penalties denounced against it</i>." "If persons <i>do assemble
+themselves</i> and act with <i>some</i> force in opposition to <i>some</i> law ...
+and <i>hope thereby to get it repealed, this is a levying war and high
+treason</i>." That is, an assembly of men acting against any law, with
+any force of argument, in order to procure its repeal, levies war and
+is guilty of treason!</p>
+
+<p>To connect Mr. Hanway with this constructive treason, the government
+relied on the evidence of Mr. Kline, the Deputy Marshal of the court,
+a man like Mr. Butman and Mr. Patrick Riley, so well known in this
+court, and so conspicuous for courage and general elevation of
+character. Witnesses testified that Kline was so much addicted to
+falsehood that they would not believe him on oath,&mdash;but what of that?
+He had "conquered his prejudices." It appeared that Mr. Hanway went to
+the scene of action on a sorrel horse, in his shirt-sleeves, with a
+felt hat on, and did not join the Deputy in attempting to kidnap when
+commanded. Hear how Mr. Ludlow constructs levying war out of the
+disobedience of a non-resistant Quaker in a felt hat and
+shirt-sleeves, mounted on a sorrel horse! Hearken to this voice of the
+government:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Suddenly he sees the assembled band of infuriated men....
+Does he leave the spot? No, Sir! Does he restrain the
+negroes? Take the evidence for the defence in its fullest
+latitude, and you will perceive he raised the feeble cry,
+'Don't shoot! for God's sake don't shoot!' and there it
+ended. Is that consistent with innocence?... according to
+their own evidence the conclusion is irresistible that he
+was not innocent."</p></div>
+
+<p>"But he does more than this." When summoned by the Deputy to steal a
+man "he is thrown off his guard, and exclaims, 'I will not assist
+you;' 'he allowed the colored people had a right to defend<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">139</a></span>
+themselves.' 'He did not care for that Act of Congress or any other
+Act of Congress.'"</p>
+
+<p>And so with his unsaddled sorrel nag this non-resistant miller levies
+war upon the United States by crying "Don't fire," and commits treason
+by the force and arms of a broad-brimmed Quaker hat. "The smallest
+amount of force is sufficient," "military weapons are not necessary to
+levy war!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Brent thought if Mr. Hanway was not hanged it would appear that a
+"small and miserable and traitorous faction can resist and annul the
+laws of the United States." "Put down these factions [the Free-Soil
+Party, the Liberty Party, the Anti-Slavery Societies], overwhelm them
+with shame, disgrace, and ruin, or you are not good citizens
+fulfilling the bonds that bind you to us of the South."</p>
+
+<p>The government Attorney declared that Mr. Hanway and others</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Had no right to refuse to assist because it was repugnant
+to their consciences. Conscience! Conscience ... is the
+pretended justification for an American citizen to refuse to
+execute a law of his country." "<i>Damnable, treasonable
+doctrine.</i>" "He has become a conspirator, he has connected
+himself with them, and all their acts are his acts, and all
+their intentions are his intentions."</p>
+
+<p>"The whole neighborhood was not only disloyal, but wanting
+in common humanity:" "the whole region is infected," "in
+<i>that horde of traitors</i>;" "a whole county, a whole
+township, a whole neighborhood are involved in plotting
+treason." "When you see these things <i>can you not infer ...
+that he went there by pre-arrangement</i>!" "When you see a man
+... not saying one word to save his dear colored friends
+from the guilt of murder, I say it is passing human
+credulity to say that you cannot <i>infer</i> in all that <i>a
+feeling of hostility to the law, and an intention to resist
+it</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"The consequences [of the verdict] are not with the jury:"
+the responsibility will not be with you&mdash;you are not
+responsible for those just consequences."</p>
+
+<p>"When you allege that a master has come into Pennsylvania
+and illegally seized and possessed himself of his slave
+without process, you are to inquire, 'Has he done that which
+he had authority to do in his own State?' You are to look to
+the <i>laws of his own State</i>; for the Supreme Court
+says,<a name="FNanchor_179_179" id="FNanchor_179_179"></a><a href="#Footnote_179_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a> 'He <i>has the same right to repossess his slave
+here as in his own State</i>.'" "He who employs a man said to
+have come from Maryland without being satisfied of his
+freedom, is himself guilty of the first wrong."</p></div>
+
+<p>Senator Cooper closed for the government. Law was not enough for him;
+he would have the sanction of "Religion" also. So he read extract from
+a Sermon. Gentlemen of the Jury, you have not had the benefit of Rev.
+Dr. Adams's prayers in this court; it is a pity you should not be
+blessed with the theology of despotism; listen therefore to the
+"Thanksgiving Sermon" of Rev. Dr. Wadsworth, which Hon. Mr. Cooper
+read to the Jury in Independence Hall.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"For passing by all other causes of irritation as just now
+secondary and subordinate, look for a moment, at the
+influence which the Gospel of Christ would have in this
+great sectional controversy about slavery.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">140</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"First, It would say to the Northern fanatic, who <i>vapors
+about man-stealing</i> as if there were no other evil under the
+sun but this one evil of Slavery&mdash;it would say to him,
+Emulate the spirit of your blessed Master and his apostles,
+<i>who, against this very evil</i> [man-stealing] in their own
+times, <i>brought no railing accusation</i>; but in one instance
+at least, <i>sent back a fugitive</i> from the household of
+Philemon.</p>
+
+<p>"In treating Southern <i>Christian slaveholders</i> with
+Christian courtesy, and <i>sending back their fugitives</i> when
+apprehended among you, you neither indorse the system nor
+partake of its evil; you are only performing in good faith
+the agreement, and redeeming the pledges of your
+forefathers, and leaving to each man for himself to answer
+for his own acts at the judgment-seat of Jesus. It would
+tear away from the man, as the foulest cloak of hypocrisy,
+that pretence of a religious principle in this whole matter
+of political abolitionism.</p>
+
+<p>"Religious principle! Oh my God! That religious principle,
+that for the sake of <i>an abstract right</i> whose very exercise
+were disastrous to the unprepared bondmen who inherit it,
+would tear this blest confederacy in pieces, and deluge
+these smiling plains in fraternal blood, and barter the
+loftiest freedom that the world ever saw, for the armed
+despotism of a great civil warfare! That religious principle
+which, in disaster to man's last great experiment, would
+fling the whole race back into the gloom of an older
+barbarism&mdash;rearing out of the ruin of these free homes, the
+thrones of a more adamantine despotism&mdash;freedom's beacons
+all extinguished, and the whole race slaves. That religious
+principle through which, losing sight of God's great purpose
+of evangelizing the nations, [by American Slavery,] would
+shatter the mightiest wheel in the mechanism of salvation,
+and palsy the wing of God's preaching angel in its flight
+through the skies.</p>
+
+<p>"Alas&mdash;alas! ye that count as little this bond of blessed
+brotherhood, wrought by our fathers' mighty hands and
+bleeding hearts&mdash;we tell you, sorrowing and in tears, that
+your pretence is foul hypocrisy. Ye have reversed the first
+precept of the gospel, for your wisdom is a dove's, and your
+harmlessness a serpent's. <i>Ye have not the first principle
+within you either of religion or philanthropy, or common
+human benevolence.</i> Your principle is the principle of Judas
+Iscariot, and with the doom of the traitor ye shall go to
+your own place."</p></div>
+
+<p>"No, Sir&mdash;no, Sir," concludes the Senator thirsting for his
+constituent's blood, "'There is no gospel in all this treasonable
+fanaticism&mdash;for treason to my country is rebellion to my God.'"</p>
+
+<p>Judge Grier charged the Jury;&mdash;but as <i>he stuck out from the
+phonographer's report</i>&mdash;of which the proof-sheets were sent to
+him&mdash;<i>the most offensive portion</i>, Gentlemen of the Jury, I shall not
+be able to enlighten you with all the legal words of this "consummate
+judge." So be content with the following Elegant Extracts.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"With the exception of a few individuals of perverted
+intellect in some small districts or neighborhoods whose
+moral atmosphere has been tainted and poisoned by male and
+female vagrant lecturers and conventions, no party in
+politics, no sect of religion, or any respectable numbers or
+character can be found within our borders, who have viewed
+with approbation or have looked with any other than feelings
+of abhorrence upon this disgraceful tragedy."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not in this Hall of Independence that meetings of
+infuriated fanatics and unprincipled demagogues have been
+held to counsel a bloody resistance to the laws of the land.
+It is not in <i>this</i> city that conventions are held
+denouncing the Constitution, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">141</a></span> Laws, and the Bible. It is
+not <i>here</i> that the pulpit has been desecrated by seditious
+exhortations, teaching that theft [a man stealing his own
+limbs and person from his 'lawful owner'] is meritorious,
+murder [in self-defence killing a man-stealer] excusable,
+and treason [opposition to the fugitive slave bill] a
+virtue!"</p>
+
+<p>"The guilt of this foul murder [the shooting of a kidnapper
+by the men whom he intended for his victims, and whose
+premises he invaded without due process of law, and with
+armed force], rests not alone on the deluded individuals who
+were its immediate perpetrators, but the blood taints with
+even deeper dye the skirts of those who promulgated
+doctrines subversive of all morality and all government,
+[that is, of Slavery and the fugitive slave bill]."</p>
+
+<p>"This murderous tragedy is but the necessary development of
+principles and the natural fruit from seed sown by others
+whom the arm of the law cannot reach," [such as the Authors
+of the Declaration of Independence, and still more the
+Author of the "Sermon on the Mount]."</p>
+
+<p>"This [the slave clause of the Constitution] is the Supreme
+law of the land, <i>binding ... on the conscience</i> and conduct
+of every individual citizen of the United States." "The
+shout of disapprobation with which this [the fugitive slave
+bill] has been received by some, has been caused ... because
+it is an act which can be executed ... the real objection
+... is to the Constitution itself, which is supposed to be
+void in this particular, from the effect of some 'higher
+law.' It is true that the number of persons whose
+consciences affect to be governed by such a law [that is the
+law of Natural Morality and Religion], is very small. But
+there is a much larger number who take up opinions on
+trust,&mdash;and have concluded this must be a very pernicious
+and unjust enactment, for no other reason than because the
+others shout their disapprobation with such violence and
+vituperation."</p>
+
+<p>"This law is Constitutional." "The question of its
+Constitutionality is to be settled by the Courts, [fugitive
+slave bill courts,] and not by conventions either of laymen
+or ecclesiastics." "<i>We are as much bound to support this
+law as any other.</i>" "The jury should regard the construction
+of the Constitution as given them by the court as to what is
+the true meaning of the words <i>levying war</i>." "In treason
+all are principals, and a man may be guilty of aiding and
+abetting, though not present."</p></div>
+
+<p>He spoke of those "associations, or conventions, which occasionally or
+annually infest the neighboring village of West-Chester, for the
+purpose of railing at and resisting the Constitution and laws of the
+land [that is the fugitive slave bill and other laws which annihilate
+a man's unalienable right to his liberty], and denouncing those who
+execute them as no better than a Scroggs or a Jeffreys;&mdash;who stimulate
+and exhort poor negroes to the perpetration of offences which they
+know must bring them to the penitentiary or the gallows."</p>
+
+<p>But he thought refusing to aid the deputy marshal in kidnapping was
+not an act of levying war, or treason against the United States. "In
+so doing he is not acting the part of an honest, loyal citizen [who
+ought to do any wickedness which a bum-bailiff commands]; he may be
+<i>liable to be punished for a misdemeanor for his refusal to
+interfere</i>."</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"But he thought the government was right "in procuring an
+indictment for Treason." For "meetings had been held in many
+places in the North, denouncing the law, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">142</a></span> advising a
+traitorous resistance to its execution: conventions of
+infuriated fanatics had invited to acts of rebellion; and
+even the pulpit had been defiled with furious denunciations
+of the law, and exhortations to a rebellious resistance to
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"The government was perfectly justified in supposing that
+this transaction was but the first overt act of a
+treasonable conspiracy, extending over many of the Northern
+States, to resist by force of arms the execution of this
+article of the Constitution and the laws framed in pursuance
+of it. In making these arrests, and having this
+investigation, the officers of government have done no more
+than their strict duty.</p>
+
+<p>"The activity, zeal, and ability, which have been exhibited
+by the learned Attorney of the United States, in endeavoring
+to bring to condign punishment the perpetrators of this
+gross offence, are deserving of all praise. <i>It has given
+great satisfaction to the Court also, that the learned
+Attorney-General of Maryland, and the very able counsel
+associated with him</i> [Senator Cooper of Pennsylvania] <i>have
+taken part in this prosecution</i>."</p></div>
+
+<p>In about fifteen minutes the Jury returned a verdict of "<span class="smcap">not
+guilty</span>."<a name="FNanchor_180_180" id="FNanchor_180_180"></a><a href="#Footnote_180_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a></p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>(4.) On the 29th of April, 1852, a man named William Smith was
+arrested by Commissioner McAllister of Columbia, Pennsylvania, on
+complaint of one Ridgeley of Baltimore. While in the custody of the
+officers, Smith endeavored to escape, and Ridgeley drew a pistol and
+shot him dead. The murderer escaped. No serious efforts were made by
+the State authorities to bring that offender to justice. "He has the
+same right to repossess his slave here as in his own State;" the same
+right to kill him if he attempts to escape! Mr. Toombs is modest&mdash;but
+we shall soon see the slaveholder not only sit down with his slaves at
+the foot of Bunker Hill Monument, but <i>shoot them if they attempt to
+run away</i>! Nay, Gentlemen, we shall see this Court defending the
+slave-hunter's "privilege."</p>
+
+<p>(5.) Here is another case, Gentlemen of the Jury, in which this same
+Judge Grier appears, and with his usual humanity. This is a brief
+account of the case of Daniel Kauffman. In 1852 he allowed a party of
+fugitive slaves to pass the night in his barn, and gave them food in
+the morning. For this he was brought before Judge Grier's court and
+fined $2,800! It was more than his entire property. Gentlemen, there
+are persons in this room who gave money to Mr. Kauffman, to indemnify
+him for his losses; were not they also guilty of treason, at least of
+a "misdemeanor?" They "evinced an express liking" for Freedom and
+Humanity, not Slavery and bloodshed.</p>
+
+<p>(6.) But here is yet one more,&mdash;which you shall have in the language
+of another:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">143</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"In a case of attempted Slave-catching at Wilkesbarre, in
+Pennsylvania, the Deputy Marshal, Wyncoop and his
+assistants, had behaved with such atrocious and abominable
+cruelty, that the citizens felt that justice demanded their
+punishment for the outrage. They were, accordingly, arrested
+on a warrant issued by a most respectable magistrate, on the
+oath of one of the principal inhabitants of the place. A
+writ of habeas corpus was forthwith sued out, returnable
+before Judge Grier. When the District Attorney, Ashmead,
+moved the discharge of the relators, (which, it is needless
+to say, was ordered,) Judge Grier delivered himself to the
+following effect. 'If <i>habeas corpuses</i> are to be taken out
+after that manner, <i>I will have an indictment sent to the
+United States Grand-Jury against the person who applies for
+the writ, or assists in getting it, the lawyer who defends
+it, and the sheriff who serves the writ</i>, to see whether the
+United States officers are to be arrested and harassed
+whenever they attempt to serve a process of the United
+States.'"</p></div>
+
+<p>2. Gentlemen of the Jury, you might suppose that love of liberty had
+altogether vanished from the "Free" States, else how could such men
+ride over the local law as well as natural justice? But I am happy to
+find one case where the wickedness of the fugitive slave bill courts
+was resisted by the people and the local judges&mdash;it is a solitary
+case, and occurred in Wisconsin:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"About the middle of March, 1854, a man named Joshua Glover,
+was seized near Racine, in Wisconsin, as a Fugitive Slave.
+His arrest was marked by the circumstances of cruelty and
+cowardice which seem to be essential to the execution of
+this Law above all others. He was brought, chained and
+bleeding, to Milwaukee, where he was lodged in jail. As soon
+as the news spread, an indignation, as general as it was
+righteous, prevailed throughout the city. A public meeting
+was forthwith called, and held in the open air, at which
+several of the principal citizens assisted. Stirring
+speeches were made, and strong resolutions passed, to the
+effect that the rights of the man should be asserted and
+defended to the utmost. Counsel learned in the law
+volunteered, and all necessary process was issued, as well
+against the claimant for the assault and battery, as in
+behalf of the man restrained of his liberty. A vigilance
+committee was appointed to see that Glover was not secretly
+hurried off, and the bells were ordered to be rung in case
+any such attempt should be made. But the people were not
+disposed to trust to the operation of the Slave Law,
+administered by United States Judges or Commissioners, and
+they stepped in and settled the question for themselves in a
+summary manner. A hundred men arrived, in the afternoon,
+from Racine, the town from which the man had been kidnapped,
+who marched in order to the jail. They were soon reinforced
+by multitudes more, and a formal demand was made for the
+slave. This being denied, an attack was made upon the door,
+which was soon broken in, the man released, and carried back
+in triumph to Racine, whence he was afterwards conveyed
+beyond the jurisdiction of the star-spangled banner. A mass
+convention of the citizens of Wisconsin was afterwards held
+to provide for similar cases, should they occur, and a most
+sound and healthy tone of feeling appears to have pervaded
+that youthful commonwealth.</p>
+
+<p>"After the rescue had been effected, the United States
+Marshal arrested several persons for the offence of
+resisting an officer in the discharge of his duties. Among
+these was Mr. Sherman M. Booth, the editor of the Free
+Democrat. When brought before a Commissioner, in the custody
+of the Marshal, a writ of habeas corpus was sued out on his
+behalf, and he was brought before Judge A.D. Smith, of the
+Supreme Court. After a full hearing, Judge Smith granted him
+his discharge, on the ground<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">144</a></span> that the fugitive slave law
+was unconstitutional. The Marshal then had the proceedings
+removed by a writ of certiorari before a full bench of the
+Supreme Court, when the decision of Judge Smith was
+confirmed, and Mr. Booth discharged from custody.
+Immediately afterwards, Judge Miller, of the United States
+District Court, issued another warrant for the arrest of Mr.
+Booth, making no mention of the fugitive slave act, but
+directing his arrest to answer to a charge for abetting the
+escape of a prisoner from the custody of the United States
+Marshal. Another writ of habeas corpus was sued out, but it
+was denied by the Supreme Court, on the ground that there
+was nothing on the face of the record to bring it within
+range of their former decision."</p>
+
+<p>"In the mean time the United States Judge and Marshal were
+busy in their vocation. It affirmed that the Grand-Jury was
+packed in the most unblushing manner, until an inquest was
+made up that would answer the purpose of the Government.
+However this may have been, indictments were found in the
+District Court, against Mr. Booth and several other persons.
+A petty Jury selected with the same care that had been
+bestowed on the composition of the Grand-Jury, convicted Mr.
+Booth and Mr. Ryecraft. All the weight of the government was
+thrown against the defendants. Special counsel were retained
+to assist the District Attorney, the instructions of the
+Court were precise and definite against them; all motions in
+their behalf resting on the irregularities and injustices of
+the proceedings were overruled. So were all motions
+subsequent to the conviction for an arrest of judgment. They
+were sentenced to fine and imprisonment&mdash;Mr. Booth to pay
+one thousand dollars and costs, and to be imprisoned one
+month, and Mr. Ryecraft to pay two hundred dollars, and to
+be imprisoned for ten days. On these sentences they were
+committed to jail. The public excitement in Milwaukee, and
+throughout the State, was intense. It was with difficulty
+that the people could be restrained from forcibly liberating
+the prisoners. Fortunately there was no occasion for any
+such extreme measures. They found protection, where it ought
+to be found, in the constituted authorities of their State.
+A writ of habeas corpus was issued in their behalf by the
+Supreme Court, then sitting at Madison, the Capital of the
+State, returnable before them there. Escorted by two
+thousand of their fellow-citizens, thither, in charge of the
+High Sheriff, they had a hearing at once. After full
+deliberation, the Court unanimously ordered them to be
+discharged. The majority of the Court made this decision on
+the ground of the unconstitutionality of the fugitive slave
+law, one Judge (Crawford) sustaining the law, but concurring
+in the order on the ground that no offence, under that Act,
+was charged in the indictment. So the prisoners were
+discharged, and brought home in triumph."</p></div>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, that matter will be carried up to the Supreme Court of the
+United States, and you may yet hear the opinion of the Hon. Associate
+Justice Curtis, for which let us wait with becoming reverence.</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>3. Here is the case of Mr. Sloane, which happened in the State of
+Ohio.</p>
+
+<p>In October, 1852, several colored persons were about leaving Sandusky
+in a steamer for Detroit, when they were seized and taken before Mr.
+Follet, mayor of the city, and claimed as fugitive slaves. This
+seizure was made by the city marshal and three persons claiming to act
+for the owners of the slaves.</p>
+
+<p>After the colored persons were brought before the mayor, their friends
+engaged Mr. Rush R. Sloane to act as counsel in their defence.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">145</a></span> He
+demanded of the mayor and the claimants by what authority the
+prisoners were detained. There was no reply. He then asked, whether
+they were in the custody of a United States Marshal or Commissioner.
+Again there was no reply. He next called for any writs, papers, or
+evidences by which they were detained. Still there was no answer. He
+then said to his clients, "<i>I see no authority to detain your colored
+friends.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>At that time some one near the door cried out, "Hustle them out," and
+soon the crowd and the alleged fugitives were in the street. Then one
+of the claimants said to Mr. Sloane, "I own these slaves; they are my
+property, and I shall hold you individually liable for their escape."
+<i>These were the first and only words he spoke to Mr. Sloane, and then
+not until the black men were in the street.</i></p>
+
+<p>In due time Mr. Sloane was arrested for resisting the execution of the
+fugitive slave bill, though he had <i>only acted as legal counsel for
+the alleged slaves and had offered no resistance to the law, by deed,
+or word, or sign</i>.</p>
+
+<p>He was brought to trial at Columbus. Before the jurors were sworn they
+were all asked "whether they had any conscientious scruples against
+the fugitive slave law, and would hesitate to convict under it." If
+they said "Yes," they were rejected. Thus a jury was packed for the
+purpose, and the trial went on. Thirteen unimpeached witnesses deposed
+to the facts stated before, while the slave claimant had no evidence
+but the <i>city marshal</i> of Sandusky&mdash;the Tukey of that place&mdash;and <i>two
+of the three slave-catchers</i>&mdash;who swore that they had with them
+<i>powers of attorney for the seizure of twenty-four slaves</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, such was the action of the court, and such the complexion
+of the packed jury, that Mr. Sloane was found "guilty." The Judge,
+Hon. Mr. Leavitt, refused to sign a bill of exceptions, enabling him
+to bring the matter before the Supreme Court. Mr. Sloane was sentenced
+to pay a fine of $3,000, and $930 <i>as costs of court</i>! Such was the
+penalty for a lawyer telling his clients that he saw no authority to
+detain them,&mdash;after having three times demanded the authority, and
+none had been shown!</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>4. Gentlemen of the Jury, I now come to cases which have happened in
+our own State,&mdash;in this city. Some alarm was felt as soon as Mr.
+Mason's fugitive slave bill was proposed in the Senate. But men said,
+"No northern man will support it. There is much smoke and no fire."
+But when on the 7th of March, 1850, Mr. Webster adopted the bill, and
+promised to defend it and the amendments to it, "with all its
+provisions to the fullest extent;" when he declared that Massachusetts
+would execute the infamous measure<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">146</a></span> "with alacrity"&mdash;then not only
+alarm but indignation took possession of northern breasts. The friends
+of Slavery at Boston must do all in their power to secure the passage
+of the bill, the prosperity of its adoptive father, and its ultimate
+enforcement&mdash;the kidnapping of men in Massachusetts. Here are the
+measures resorted to for attaining this end.</p>
+
+<p>i. A meeting was called at the Revere House, that Mr. Webster might
+defend his scheme for stealing his constituents and putting himself
+into the Presidency.</p>
+
+<p>ii. A public letter was written to him approving of his attempts to
+restore man-stealing, and other accompaniments of slavery, to the free
+States. This letter declared the "deep obligations" of the signers
+"for what this speech has done and is doing;" "we wish to thank you,"
+they say, "for recalling us to our duties under the constitution;"
+"you have pointed out to a whole people the path of duty, have
+convinced the understanding, and touched the conscience of the
+nation;" "we desire, therefore, to express to you our entire
+concurrence in the sentiments of your speech." This letter was dated
+at Boston, March 25th, 1850, and received 987 signatures, it is said.</p>
+
+<p>iii. When the bill became an Act of government, a hundred cannons, as
+I have before stated, were fired on Boston Common in token of joy at
+the restoration of slavery to our New England soil.</p>
+
+<p>iv. Articles were written in the newspapers in defence of kidnapping,
+in justification of the fugitive slave bill. The <i>Boston Courier</i> and
+<i>Boston Daily Advertiser</i> gave what influence they had in support of
+that crime against America.</p>
+
+<p>v. Several ministers of Boston came out and publicly, in sermons in
+their own pulpits, defended the fugitive slave bill, and called on
+their parishioners to enforce the law!</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, need I tell you of the feelings of the
+Philanthropists of Boston,&mdash;of the colored citizens who were to be the
+victims of this new abomination! Within twenty-four hours of its
+passage more than thirty citizens of Boston, colored citizens, fled in
+their peril to a man whose delight it is to undo the heavy burthens
+and let the oppressed go free. While others were firing their joyful
+cannon at the prospect of kidnapping their brothers and sisters,
+Francis Jackson helped his fellow Christians into the ark of
+Deliverance which he set afloat on that flood of Sin. Gentlemen, he is
+here to-day&mdash;he is one of my bondsmen. There are the others&mdash;this
+venerable gentleman [Samuel May], this steadfast friend [John R.
+Manley.]</p>
+
+<p>vi. It was not long before the kidnappers came here for their prey.</p>
+
+<p>(1.) I must dwell a moment on the first attempt. Gentlemen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">147</a></span> of the
+Jury, you know the story of William and Ellen Craft. They were slaves
+in Georgia; their master was said to be a "very pious man," "an
+excellent Christian." Ellen had a little baby,&mdash;it was sick and ready
+to die. But one day her "owner"&mdash;for this wife and mother was only a
+piece of property&mdash;had a dinner party at his house. Ellen must leave
+her dying child and wait upon the table. She was not permitted to
+catch the last sighing of her only child with her own lips; other and
+ruder hands must attend to the mother's sad privilege. But the groans
+and moanings of the dying child came to her ear and mingled with the
+joy and merriment of the guests whom the mother must wait upon. At
+length the moanings all were still&mdash;for Death took a North-side view
+of the little boy, and the born-slave had gone where the servant is
+free from his master and the weary is at rest&mdash;for <i>there</i> the wicked
+cease from troubling. Ellen and William resolved to flee to the North.
+They cherished the plan for years; he was a joiner, and hired himself
+of his owner for about two hundred dollars a year. They saved a little
+money, and stealthily, piece by piece, they bought a suit of
+gentleman's clothes to fit the wife; no two garments were obtained of
+the same dealer. Ellen disguised herself as a man, William attending
+as her servant, and so they fled off and came to Boston. No doubt
+these Hon. Judges think it was a very "immoral" thing. Mr. Curtis
+knows no morality here but "legality." Nay, it was a wicked thing&mdash;for
+Mr. Everett, a most accomplished scholar, and once a Unitarian
+minister, makes St. Paul command "<span class="smcap">Slaves</span>, obey your masters!" Nay,
+Hon. Judge Sprague says it is a "precept" of our "Divine Master!"</p>
+
+<p>Ellen and William lived here in Boston, intelligent, respected, happy.
+The first blow of the fugitive slave bill must fall on them. In
+October, 1850, one Hughes, a jailer from Macon, Georgia, a public
+negro-whipper, who had once beaten Ellen's uncle "almost to death,"
+came here with one Knight, his attendant, to kidnap William and Ellen
+Craft. They applied to Hon. Mr. Hallett for a writ. Perhaps they had
+heard (false) rumors that the Hon. Commissioner was "a little slippery
+in his character;" that he was "not overscrupulous in his conduct;"
+that he "would do any dirty work for political preferment." Gentlemen,
+you know that such rumors will get abroad, and will be whispered of
+the best of men. Of course you would never believe them in this case:
+but a kidnapper from Georgia might; "distance lends" illusion, as well
+as "enchantment, to the view." But be that as it may, Mr. Hallett (in
+1850) appeared to have too much manhood to kidnap a man. He was better
+than his reputation; I mean his reputation with Knight and Hughes, and
+would not (then) steal Mr. and Mrs. Craft. This is small praise; it is
+large in comparison with the conduct of his official brethren. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">148</a></span>
+for the salvation of the Union another Commissioner was found who had
+no such scruples. This Honorable Court&mdash;Mr. Woodbury was then in the
+chief place, and Mr. Sprague in his present position&mdash;issued the writ
+of man-stealing. Two gentlemen of this city were eminently, but
+secretly, active in their attempt to kidnap their victim. I shall
+speak of them by and by. Somebody took care of Ellen Craft. William
+less needed help; he armed himself with pistols and a poignard, and
+walked in the streets in the face of the sun. He was a tall, brave
+man, and was quite as cool then as this Honorable Court is now, while
+I relate their "glorious first essay" in man-stealing. Public opinion
+at length drove the (southern) kidnappers from Boston. Then the Crafts
+also left the town and the country, and found in the Monarchical
+Aristocracy of Old England what the New England Democracy refused to
+allow them&mdash;protection of their unalienable right to Life, Liberty,
+and the pursuit of Happiness.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, the Evangelists of slavery could not allow a Southern
+kidnapper to come to Boston and not steal his man: they were in great
+wrath at the defeat of Hughes and Knights. So they procured a meeting
+at Faneuil Hall to make ready for effectual kidnapping and restoring
+Slavery to Boston. "The great Union meeting" was held at Faneuil Hall
+November 26th, 1850,&mdash;two days before the annual Thanksgiving; it was
+"a preparatory meeting" to make ready the hearts of the People for
+that dear New England festival when we thank God for the Harvest of
+the Land, and the Harvest of the Sea, and still more for the State
+whose laws are Righteousness, and the Church that offers us "the
+Liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free," "the glorious Liberty of
+the Sons of God." Here are the Resolutions which were passed.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Resolved, That the preservation of the Constitution and the
+Union is the paramount duty of all citizens;&mdash;that the
+blessings which have flowed from them in times past, which
+the whole country is now enjoying under them, and which we
+firmly believe posterity will derive from them hereafter,
+are incalculable; and that they vastly transcend in
+importance all other political objects and considerations
+whatever.</p>
+
+<p>"Resolved, That it would be folly to deny that there has
+been and still is danger to the existence of the Union,
+where there is prevalent so much of a spirit of disunion,
+constantly weakening its strength and alienating the minds
+of one part of the people of the United States from another;
+and that if this spirit be not checked and restrained, and
+do not give way to a spirit of conciliation and of patriotic
+devotion to the general good of the whole country, we cannot
+expect a long continuance of the political tie which has
+hitherto made us one people; but must rather look to see
+groups of rival neighboring republics, whose existence will
+be a state of perpetual conflict and open war.</p>
+
+<p>"Resolved, That all the provisions of the Constitution of
+the United States&mdash;the supreme law of the land&mdash;are equally
+binding upon every citizen, and upon every State in the
+Union;&mdash;that <span class="smcap">all</span> laws passed by Congress, in pursuance of
+the Constitution, are equally binding on all the citizens,
+and no man is at liberty to resist or dis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">149</a></span>obey any one
+constitutional act of Congress any more than another; and
+that we do not desire or intend to claim the benefit of any
+one of the powers or advantages of the Constitution, and to
+refuse, or seem to refuse, to perform any part of its
+duties, or to submit to any part of its obligations.</p>
+
+<p>"Resolved, That the adjustment of the measures which
+disturbed the action of Congress for nearly ten months of
+its last session, ought to be carried out by the people of
+the United States in good faith, in all the substantial
+provisions; <i>because</i>, although we may differ with each
+other about the details of those measures, yet, in our
+judgment, a renewed popular agitation of any of the main
+questions then settled, would be fraught with new and
+extreme dangers to the peace and harmony of the country,
+which this adjustment has happily restored.</p>
+
+<p>"Resolved, That every species and form of resistance to the
+execution of a regularly enacted law, except by peaceable
+appeal to the regular action of the judicial tribunals upon
+the question of its constitutionality&mdash;an appeal which ought
+never to be opposed or impeded&mdash;is mischievous, and
+subversive of the first principles of social order, and
+tends to anarchy and bloodshed.</p>
+
+<p>"Resolved, That men, who directly or indirectly instigate or
+encourage those who are or may be the subjects of legal
+process, to offer violent resistance to the officers of the
+law, deserve the reprehension of an indignant community, and
+the severest punishment which its laws have provided for
+their offence; and that we have entire confidence that any
+combination or attempt to fix such a blot upon the fair fame
+of our State or city, will be promptly rebuked and punished,
+by an independent and impartial judiciary, and by firm and
+enlightened juries.</p>
+
+<p>"Resolved, That we will at all times, in all places, and
+under all circumstances, so far as our acts or influence may
+extend, sustain the Federal Union, uphold its Constitution,
+and enforce the duty of obedience to the laws."</p></div>
+
+<p>A singular preparation for a Thanksgiving day in Boston! But on that
+festival, Gentlemen, three Unitarian ministers thanked God that the
+fugitive slave bill would be kept in all the land!</p>
+
+<p>Several speeches were made at the meeting, some by Whigs, some by
+Democrats, for it was a "Union meeting," where Herod and Pilate were
+made friends. Gentlemen, I must depart a little from the severity of
+this defence and indulge you with some of the remarks of my
+distinguished opponent, Hon. Attorney Hallett: then he was merely a
+lawyer, and fugitive slave bill Commissioner, appointed "to take bail,
+affidavits," and colored men,&mdash;he was only an expectant Attorney. His
+speech was a forerunner of the "Indictment" which has brought us
+together. Hearken to the words of Mr. Hallett in his "preparatory
+lecture:"&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"We can now say that there is no law of the United States
+which cannot be executed in Massachusetts. If there was any
+doubt before, <i>there can be no doubt now</i>; and if there be
+any wild enough hereafter to resort to a fancied 'Higher
+Law' to put down law [that is, the fugitive slave bill],
+they will find in your determined will a stronger law to
+sustain <i>all the laws of the United States</i>." "The
+threatened nullification comes from Massachusetts upon a law
+[the fugitive slave bill] which the whole South insist is
+<i>vital to the protection of their property and industry</i>
+[much of their "property" and "industry" being addicted to
+running away]. <i>And shall Massachusetts nullify that law?</i>"
+"The question for us to-day is whether we will in good
+faith<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">150</a></span> abide by, and carry out these <i>Peace Measures</i> [for
+the rendition of fugitive slaves, the new establishment of
+Slavery in Utah and New Mexico, and the restoration of it to
+all the North] or whether we shall rush into renewed
+agitation," etc. "Resort is had to a new form of <i>moral
+treason</i> which assumes by the mysterious power of a '<i>Higher
+Law</i>' to trample down all law [that is, the fugitive slave
+bill]. Some of our fellow-citizens have avowed that the
+fugitive slave bill is to be treated like the <i>Stamp Act</i>,
+and never to be enforced in Massachusetts. If that means any
+thing, it means that which our fathers meant when they
+resisted the Stamp Act and threw the tea
+overboard&mdash;Revolution.<a name="FNanchor_181_181" id="FNanchor_181_181"></a><a href="#Footnote_181_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a> <i>It</i> [opposition to the fugitive
+slave bill] <i>is revolution, or it is treason. If it only
+resists law, and obstructs its officers, it is treason; and
+he who risks it, must risk hanging for it.</i>"<a name="FNanchor_182_182" id="FNanchor_182_182"></a><a href="#Footnote_182_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, that meeting determined to execute the fugitive slave bill
+"with all its provisions, to the fullest extent." It is dreadful to
+remember the articles in the Daily Advertiser and the Courier at that
+period. Some of the sermons in the Churches of Commerce on the
+following Thursday, Thanksgiving day, were filled with the most odious
+doctrines of practical atheism. The "preparatory meeting" had its
+effect. Soon the seed bore fruit after its kind. But some ministers
+were faithful to their Brother and their Lord.</p>
+
+<p>(2.) February 15th, 1851, a colored man named "Shadrach" was arrested
+under a warrant from that Commissioner who had been so active in the
+attempt to kidnap Mr. and Mrs. Craft. But a "miracle" was wrought:
+"where sin abounded Grace did much more abound," and "the Lord
+delivered him out of their hands." Shadrach went free to Canada, where
+he is now a useful citizen. He was rescued by a small number of
+colored persons at noonday. The kidnapping Commissioner telegraphed to
+Mr. Webster, "It is levying war&mdash;it is treason." Another asked, "What
+is to be done?" The answer from Washington was, "Mr. Webster was very
+much mortified."</p>
+
+<p>On the 18th, President Fillmore, at Mr. Webster's instigation, issued
+his proclamation calling on all well disposed citizens, and
+<i>commanding all officers</i>, "civil and military, to aid and assist in
+quelling this, and all other such combinations, <i>and to assist in
+recapturing the above-named person</i>" Shadrach. General orders came
+down from the Secretaries of War and the Navy, commanding the
+<i>military and naval officers to yield all practicable assistance</i> in
+the event of such another "<i>insurrection</i>." The City Government of
+Boston passed Resolutions regretting that a man had been saved from
+the shackles of slavery; cordially approving of the President's
+proclamation, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">151</a></span> promising their earnest efforts to carry out his
+recommendations. At that time Hon. Mr. Tukey was Marshal; Hon. John P.
+Bigelow was Mayor; Hon. Henry J. Gardner, a man equally remarkable for
+his temperance, truthfulness, and general integrity, was President of
+the Common Council.</p>
+
+<p>It was not long, Gentlemen, before the City Government had an
+opportunity to keep its word.</p>
+
+<p>(3.) On the night of the 3d of April, 1851, Thomas Sims was kidnapped
+by two police officers of Boston, pretending to arrest him for theft!
+Gentlemen of the Jury, you know the rest. He was on trial nine days.
+He never saw the face of a jury, a judge only once&mdash;who refused the
+<i>Habeas Corpus</i>, the great "Writ of Right." That judge&mdash;I wish his
+successors may better serve mankind&mdash;has gone to his own place; where,
+may God Almighty have mercy on his soul! You remember, Gentlemen, the
+chains round the Court House; the Judges of your own Supreme Court
+crawling under the southern chain. You do not forget the "Sims
+Brigade"&mdash;citizen soldiers called out and billeted in Faneuil Hall.
+You recollect the Cradle of Liberty shut to a Free Soil Convention,
+but open to those hirelings of the Slave Master. You will never forget
+the Pro-Slavery Sermons that stained so many Boston pulpits on the
+"Fast-day" which intervened during the mock trial!</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Sims had able defenders,&mdash;I speak now only of such as appeared on
+his behalf, others not less noble and powerful, aided by their
+unrecorded service&mdash;Mr. Sewall, Mr. Rantoul, men always on the side of
+Liberty, and one more from whose subsequent conduct, Gentlemen of the
+Jury, I grieve to say it, you would not expect such magnanimity then,
+Mr. Charles G. Loring. But of what avail was all this before such a
+Commissioner? Thomas Sims was declared "a chattel personal to all
+intents, uses, and purposes whatsoever." After it became plain that he
+would be decreed a slave, the poor victim of Boston kidnappers asked
+one boon of his counsel, "I cannot go back to Slavery," said he, "give
+me a knife, and when the Commissioner declares me a slave I will stab
+myself to the heart, and die before his eyes! I will not be a slave."
+The knife was withheld! At the darkest hour of the night Mayor Bigelow
+and Marshal Tukey, suitable companions, admirably joined by nature as
+by vocation, with two or three hundred police-men armed, some with
+bludgeons, some with drawn swords and horse pistols, took the poor boy
+out of his cell, chained, weeping, and bore him over the spot where,
+on the 5th of March, 1770, the British tyrant first shed New England
+blood; by another spot where your fathers and mine threw to the ocean
+the taxed tea of the oppressor. They put him on board a vessel, the
+"<i>Acorn</i>," and carried him off to eternal bondage. "And<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">152</a></span> this is
+Massachusetts liberty!" said he, as he stepped on board. Boston sent
+her Delegates to escort him back, and on the 19th of April, 1851, she
+delivered him up to his tormentors in the jail at Savannah, where he
+was scourged till human nature could bear no more, while his captors
+were feasted at the public cost. Seventy-six years before there was
+another 19th of April, also famous!</p>
+
+<p>(4.) Then came the examination and "trial" of the Shadrach Rescuers in
+February and the following months. Some of these trials took place
+before his Honor Judge Peleg Sprague. Therefore, you will allow me,
+Gentlemen, to refresh your memories with a word or two respecting the
+antecedents of this Judge&mdash;his previous history.</p>
+
+<p>In 1835 the abolition of Slavery in the British West Indies and the
+efforts of the friends of Freedom in the Northern States, excited
+great alarm at the South, lest the "peculiar institution" should
+itself be brought into peril. Fear of a "general insurrection of the
+slaves" was talked about and perhaps felt. The mails were opened in
+search of "incendiary publications;" a piano-forte sent from Boston to
+Virginia, was returned because the purchaser found an old copy of the
+"Emancipator" in the case which contained it. Public meetings for the
+promotion of American Slavery were held. There was one at Boston in
+Faneuil Hall, August 21, 1835, at which a remarkable speech was made
+by a lawyer who had graduated at Harvard College in 1812, a man no
+longer young, of large talents and great attainments in the law. He
+spoke against discussion, and in behalf of Slavery and Slaveholders:
+he could see no good, but only unmixed evil "consequent upon agitating
+this subject here." He said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"When did fear ever induce a man to relax his power over the
+object that excited it? No, he will hold him down with a
+stronger grasp, he will draw the cords tighter, he will make
+the chains heavier and sink his victim to a still deeper
+dungeon."</p>
+
+<p>"The language and measures of the abolitionists clearly tend
+to insurrection and violence." "They [the slaves] hear that
+their masters have no legal or moral authority over them.
+That every moment's exercise of such dominion is sin, and
+that the laws that sanction it are morally void: that they
+are entitled to immediate emancipation, and that their
+masters are to be regarded as kidnappers and robbers for
+refusing it." "It is deluding these unfortunate beings to
+their own destruction, we should not aid them. The
+Constitution provides for the suppressing of insurrections
+... we should respond to its call [if the slaves attempted
+to recover their liberty]; nay, we should not wait for such
+a requisition, but on the instant should rush forward with
+fraternal emotions to defend our brethren from desolation
+and massacre."</p>
+
+<p>"The South will not tolerate our interference with their
+slaves, [by our discussing the matter in the newspapers and
+elsewhere]." "The Union then, if used to disturb this
+institution of Slavery, will be then as the 'spider's web; a
+breath will agitate, a blast will sweep it away forever.'"</p>
+
+<p>"If, then, these abolitionists shall go on ... the fate of
+our government is sealed.... And who will attempt to fathom
+the immeasurable abyss of a dissolution of the Union?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">153</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Tell the abolitionists this; present to them in full array
+the consequences of their attempts at immediate
+emancipation, and they meet all by a cold abstraction. They
+answer, '<i>We must do right regardless of consequences.</i>'"
+"They assume that such a course [undoing the heavy burthens
+and letting the oppressed go free, and loving your neighbor
+as yourself] <i>is</i> right. When that is the very point in
+controversy, and when inevitable consequences demonstrate
+that it must be wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"They [the abolitionists] insist upon immediate,
+instantaneous emancipation.... No man, say they, can be
+rightfully restrained of his liberty except for crime."
+"They come to the conclusion that no laws that sanction or
+uphold it [Slavery] can have any moral obligation. The
+Constitution is the Supreme law of the land. It does
+sanction, it does uphold Slavery; and if this doctrine be
+true, that sacred compact has always been [so far] morally
+null and void." "He [Washington] <span class="smcap">that Slaveholder</span> ... came
+with other Slaveholders to drive the British myrmidons from
+this city and this Hall. Our fathers did not refuse to hold
+communion with him or with them. With Slaveholders they
+formed the Confederation ... with them they made the
+Declaration of Independence." "And in the original draft of
+the Declaration was contained a most <i>eloquent passage upon
+this very topic of negro Slavery, which was stricken out in
+deference to the wishes of members from the South</i>."
+"Slavery existed then as now." "Our fathers were not less
+devoted friends of liberty, not less pure as philanthropists
+or pious as Christians than any of their children of the
+present day." [Therefore <i>we</i> must not attempt to emancipate
+a slave!]</p></div>
+
+<p>Here is the passage which the speaker thought it so praiseworthy in
+the Revolutionary Congress to strike out from the Declaration of
+Independence:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"He [the king] has waged cruel war against human nature
+itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty
+in the persons of a distant people who never offended him,
+captivating and carrying them into slavery in another
+hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their
+transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the
+opprobrium of <span class="smcap">Infidel</span> nations, is the warfare of the
+<span class="smcap">Christian</span> King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a
+market where <span class="smcap">Men</span> should be bought and sold, he has
+prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative
+attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce.
+And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of
+distinguished dye, he is now exciting those very people to
+rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which
+he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he
+also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed
+against the <span class="smcap">Liberties</span> of one people with crimes which he
+urges them to commit against the <span class="smcap">Lives</span> of another."</p></div>
+
+<p>Mr. Jefferson says, "It was struck out in <i>compliance to South
+Carolina and Georgia</i>, who had never attempted to restrain the
+importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, still wished to
+continue it. Our Northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little
+tender under it, for though their people have very few slaves
+themselves, yet they have been pretty considerable carriers of them to
+others."</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>But the orator went on protesting against righteousness:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"I would beseech them [the Abolitionists] to discard their
+dangerous abstractions [that men are endowed by their
+Creator with certain natural, equal, and unalienable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">154</a></span>
+Rights&mdash;to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness]
+which they [in common with the Declaration of Independence]
+adopt as universal rules of human conduct&mdash;without regard to
+time, condition, or circumstances; which <i>darken the
+understanding and mislead the judgment</i>, and urge them
+forward to consequences from which they will shrink back
+with horror. I would ask them to reflect that ... the
+religion they profess is not to be advanced by forgetting
+the precepts and the example of their Divine Master. Upon
+that example I would ask them to pause. He found Slavery,
+Roman Slavery, an institution of the country in which he
+lived. Did he denounce it? Did he attempt its immediate
+abolition? Did he do any thing, or say any thing which could
+in its remotest tendency encourage resistance and violence?
+No, his precept was, 'Servants (Slaves) obey your
+Masters.'"<a name="FNanchor_183_183" id="FNanchor_183_183"></a><a href="#Footnote_183_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a> "It was because <i>he would not interfere with
+the administration of the laws, or abrogate their
+authority</i>."</p></div>
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, this alleged precept of the "Divine Master"
+does not occur in any one of the four canonical Evangelists of the New
+Testament; nor have I found it in any of those Spurious and Apocryphal
+Records of old time. It appears originally in the Gospel according to
+the Hon. Peleg Sprague. "Slaves, obey your masters," "a comfortable
+Scripture" truly; a beatitude for the stealers of men!</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, that was the language of Mr. Peleg Sprague at
+the time when the State of Georgia offered $5,000 for the head of Mr.
+Garrison; when the Governors of Virginia and other Slave States, sent
+letters to the Governor of Massachusetts asking for "penal statutes"
+to prohibit our discussion in Boston; it was the very year that a mob
+of "Gentlemen of Property and Standing" in Boston broke up a meeting
+of women assembled to endeavor to abolish Slavery. Gentlemen of the
+Jury, Mr. Sprague had his reward&mdash;he sits on the bench to try me for a
+"misdemeanor"&mdash;"obstructing, resisting, and opposing an officer of the
+United States," "while in the discharge of his duty" to steal a man in
+Boston, that his "owner" might sell him in Richmond. The "chief
+commandment" of the New Testament is, "Slaves, obey your masters;" on
+that commandment he would now hang all the law, and the Abolitionists.</p>
+
+<p>It would take a long time to tell the dark, sad tale of the trial of
+the Shadrach Rescuers; how the Judge constructed and charged the Jury;
+how he constructed his "law." It was the old story of the Stuart
+despotism, wickedness in the name of the law and with its forms.
+Gentlemen, in that trial you saw the value of the jury. The Judges of
+Massachusetts went under the chain which the kidnappers placed about
+the Court House in 1851. The Federal Judges sought to kidnap the
+citizens of Boston and to punish all such as opposed man-stealing. The
+Massachusetts Judges allowed the law, which they had sworn to execute,
+to be struck down to the ground; nay, themselves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">155</a></span> sought to strike it
+down. The Federal Judges perverted the law to make it an instrument of
+torture against all such as love mankind. But the jury held up the
+Shield of Justice, and the poisoned weapons of the court fell blunted
+to the ground. The government took nothing by that motion&mdash;nothing but
+defeat. There was no conviction. One of the jurors said, "You may get
+one Hunker on any panel; it is not easy to get twelve. There was no
+danger of a conviction." But still it is painful to think in what
+peril our lives and our liberties then were.</p>
+
+<p>(5.) At length came the "Burns case." You know it too well. On the
+night of Wednesday, May 26, 1854, in virtue of Commissioner Loring's
+warrant, Anthony Burns was arrested on the charge of burglary, and
+thrust into jail. The next morning he was brought up for condemnation.
+Two noble men, Mr. Dana and my friend Mr. Ellis, defended Mr. Burns.
+There was to be no regular trial before Commissioner Loring.</p>
+
+<p>On the evening of Friday, May 28th, there was a meeting at Faneuil
+Hall, and an attack on the Court House where Mr. Burns was illegally
+held in duress. In the attack a Mr. Batchelder was killed,&mdash;a man
+hired to aid in this kidnapping, as he had been in the stealing of Mr.
+Sims. To judge from the evidence offered before the Grand-Jury of the
+Massachusetts Court, and especially from the testimony of Marshal
+Freeman, it appears he was accidentally killed by some of his own
+confederates in that wickedness, and before the door of the Court
+House was broken through. But that is of no consequence: as Mr. Dana
+has said, "He went in for his pay, and has got his <i>corn</i>." On Friday,
+June 4th, Mr. Burns was declared a slave by Commissioner Loring and
+delivered up to eternal bondage.</p>
+
+<p>It seems to be in consequence of my connection with this case that I
+am indicted; so you now approach the end of this long defence. I come
+to the last part of it.</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>(III.) Of the Indictment against Theodore Parker.</p>
+
+<p>I am indicted, gentlemen, for "resisting an officer" who was engaged
+in kidnapping Mr. Burns; and it is charged that I, at Boston, May
+26th, "with force and arms did knowingly and wilfully, obstruct,
+resist, and oppose, ... Watson Freeman, then and there being an
+officer of the United States, to the great damage of the said Watson
+Freeman; to the great hinderance and obstruction of justice, [to wit,
+of the kidnapping of Anthony Burns,] to the evil example of all others
+in like case offending, against the peace and dignity of the said
+United States and contrary to the form of the statute made and
+provided."</p>
+
+<p>It is also charged that "one Theodore Parker of Boston, ... with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">156</a></span>
+force and arms in and upon the said Watson Freeman, then and there, in
+the peace of the said United States being, an assault did make, he the
+said Freeman also then and there being an officer of the said United
+States, to wit, Marshal of the United States, ... and then and there
+also being in the due and lawful discharge of his duties as such
+officer" [to wit, stealing and kidnapping one Anthony Burns]. These
+and various other pleasant charges, Mr. Hallett, in the jocose manner
+of indictments, alleges against me; wherefrom I must defend myself, as
+best I may.</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>Now, Gentlemen, that you may completely understand the accusation
+brought against me, I must go back a little, and bring up several
+other matters of fact that have straggled away from this long column
+of argument which I have led into the field thus far;&mdash;and also rally
+some new forces not before drawn into the line of defence. I must
+speak of the Hon. Justice Curtis; of his conduct in relation to
+Slavery in general, to this particular prosecution, and to this
+special case, <i>United States</i> vs. <i>Theodore Parker</i>.</p>
+
+<p>First, Gentlemen, let me speak of some events which preceded Mr.
+Curtis's elevation to his present distinguished post. To make the
+whole case perfectly clear, I must make mention of some others
+intimately connected with him.</p>
+
+<p>There is a family in Boston which may be called the Curtis family. So
+far as it relates to the matter in hand, it may be said to consist of
+six persons, namely, Charles P. Curtis, lawyer, and Thomas B. Curtis,
+merchant, sons of the late Thomas Curtis; Benjamin R. Curtis, by birth
+a kinsman, and by marriage a son-in-law of Charles P. Curtis, late a
+practising lawyer, now this Honorable Judge of the Supreme Court of
+the United States, and his brother, George T. Curtis, lawyer, and
+United States Commissioner for the District of Massachusetts; Edward
+G. Loring, a step-son of the late Thomas Curtis, and accordingly
+step-brother of Charles P. and Thomas B. Curtis, lawyer, Judge of
+Probate for Boston, United States Commissioner, and, until recently,
+Lecturer at the Cambridge Law School; and also William W. Greenough,
+son-in-law of Charles P. Curtis, merchant.</p>
+
+<p>This family, though possessing many good qualities, has had a
+remarkably close and intimate connection with all, or most, of the
+recent cases of kidnapping in Boston. Here are some of the facts, so
+painful for me to relate, but so indispensable to a full understanding
+of this case.</p>
+
+<p>1. In 1836 Charles P. Curtis and Benjamin R. Curtis appeared as
+counsel for the slave-hunters in the famous case of the girl Med,
+originally a slave in the West Indies, and brought to Boston by her
+mistress. Med claimed her freedom on the ground that slavery was not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">157</a></span>
+recognized by the laws of Massachusetts, and could not exist here
+unless it were in the special case, under the Federal Constitution, of
+fugitives from the slave States of this Union. The Messrs. Curtis
+contended with all their skill&mdash;<i>totis viribus</i>, as lawyers say&mdash;that
+slavery might, by legal comity, exist in Massachusetts&mdash;that slaves
+were property by the law of nations; and that an ownership which is
+legal in the West Indies continued in Boston, at least so far as to
+leave the right to seize and carry away.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Charles P. Curtis had already appeared as counsel for a
+slave-hunter in 1832, and had succeeded in restoring a slave child,
+only twelve or fourteen years of age, to his claimant who took him to
+Cuba with the valuable promise that he should be free in the Spanish
+West Indies.<a name="FNanchor_184_184" id="FNanchor_184_184"></a><a href="#Footnote_184_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a></p>
+
+<p>In the Med case Mr. Benjamin R. Curtis made a long and elaborate
+argument to show that "a citizen of a slaveholding State, who comes to
+Massachusetts for a temporary purpose of business or pleasure and
+brings his slave as a personal attendant, may restrain that slave for
+the purpose of carrying him out of the State and returning him to the
+domicil of his owner." To support this proposition, he made two
+points:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"1. That this child by the law of Louisiana is <i>now</i> a slave."</p>
+
+<p>"2. That the law of Massachusetts will so far recognize and give
+effect to the law of Louisiana, as to allow the master to exercise
+this restricted power over his slave." That is, the power to keep her
+here as a slave, to remove her to Louisiana, and so make her a slave
+for ever and her children after her.</p>
+
+<p>To prove this last point he says by quotation, "we always <i>import</i>,
+together with their persons, <i>the existing relations of foreigners
+between themselves</i>." So as we "import" the natural relation of
+husband and wife, or parent and child, in the Irish immigrants, and
+respect the same, we ought equally to import and respect the unnatural
+and forcible relation of master and slave in our visitors from Cuba or
+Louisiana.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"It will be urged," he said, "that though we claim to
+exercise only a qualified and limited right over the slave,
+namely the right to remove him from the State, yet if this
+is allowed, all the rights of the master must be allowed,
+... and thus Slavery will be introduced into the
+Commonwealth. To this I answer,</p>
+
+<p>"(1.) There is no practical difficulty in giving this
+qualified effect to the law of Louisiana, [allowing the
+master to bring and keep his slaves here and remove them
+when he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">158</a></span> will]. The Constitution of the United States has
+settled this question. That provides for and secures to the
+master, the exercise of his right to the very extent claimed
+in this case."</p>
+
+<p>"(2.) Neither is there any theoretical difficulty."</p></div>
+
+<p>To do this, he thinks, will "promote harmony and good feeling, where
+it is extremely desirable to promote it, encourage frequent
+intercourse, and soften prejudices by increasing acquaintance, and
+tend to peace and union and good-will." "It will work no injury to the
+State [Massachusetts], by violating any public law of the State. The
+only law in the statute-book applicable to the subject of Slavery is
+the law against kidnapping." "It will work no direct injury to the
+citizens of this State for, ... it respects only strangers." "It is
+consistent with the public policy of Massachusetts, to permit this ...
+right of the master." "<i>It may be perfectly consistent with our policy
+not only to recognize the validity and propriety of those
+institutions</i> [of Slavery] <i>in the States where they exist</i>, but <i>even
+to interfere actively to enable the citizens of those States to enjoy
+those institutions at home.</i>" That is, it may be the duty of
+Massachusetts, "to interfere actively" in Louisiana for the
+establishment and support of Slavery there!</p>
+
+<p>Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, he adds, have
+made laws allowing the slaveholder this right: "The legislatures of
+those States are the legitimate and highest authority in regard to
+their public policy; what they have declared on this subject, must be
+deemed to be true.... We are not at liberty to suppose that it is
+contrary to their public policy, that the master should exercise this
+right within their territory. I respectfully ask what difference there
+is between the policy of Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island, and New
+Jersey, and the policy of Massachusetts, on the subject of Slavery."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall now attempt," he adds, "to prove that <i>Slavery is not
+immoral</i>." How do you think he proved that? Did he cite the Bible? No,
+he left that to lower law divines. Did he manufacture Bible? No, the
+Hon. Peleg Sprague had sufficiently done that a year before. He took a
+shorter cut&mdash;he denied there was any morality but Legality. "I take it
+to be perfectly clear," said this young man in all the moral
+enthusiasm of his youth, "that the Standard of Morality by which
+Courts of Justice are to be guided is that which the law prescribes.
+Your Honors' Opinion as Men or as Moralists has no bearing on the
+question. Your Honors are to declare what the Law deems moral or
+immoral."</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, that needs no comment; this trial is comment enough. But
+according to that rule no law is immoral. It was "not immoral" in 1410
+to hang and burn thirty-nine men in one day for reading the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">159</a></span> Bible in
+English; the Catholic Inquisition in Spain was "not immoral;" the
+butchery of Martyrs was all right soon as lawful! There is no Higher
+Law!</p>
+
+<p>It was "not immoral" for the servants of King Pharaoh to drown all the
+new-born Hebrew boys; nor for Herod's butchers to murder the Innocents
+at Bethlehem. Nay, all the atrocities of the Saint Bartholomew
+Massacres, Gentlemen, they were "not immoral," for "the Standard of
+Morality" is "that which the law prescribes." So any legislature that
+can frame an act, any tyrant who can issue a decree, any court which
+can deliver an "opinion," can at once nullify the legislation of the
+Universe and "dissolve the union" of Man and God: "Religion has
+nothing to do with politics; there it makes men mad." Is that the
+doctrine of Young Massachusetts? Hearken then to the Old. In 1765 her
+House of Representatives unanimously resolved that "there are certain
+essential Rights ... which are founded on the Law of God and Nature,
+and are the Common Rights of Mankind, and that the inhabitants of this
+Province are unalienably entitled to these essential Rights in common
+with all men, and <i>that no law of Society ... can divest them of these
+Rights</i>." No "Standard of Morality" but Law! A thousand years before
+Jesus of Nazareth taught his Beatitudes of Humanity, the old Hebrews
+knew better. Hearken to a Psalm nearly three thousand years old.</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="poem">
+<tr>
+<td>
+Among the assemblies of the great,<br />
+A Greater Ruler takes his seat;<br />
+The God of Heaven, as Judge, surveys<br />
+Those Gods on earth, and all their ways.<br />
+Why will ye, then, frame wicked laws?<br />
+Or why support the unrighteous cause?<br />
+When will ye once defend the poor,<br />
+That sinners vex the Saints no more?<br />
+Arise, oh Lord, and let thy Son<br />
+Possess his universal Throne,<br />
+And rule the nations with his rod;<br />
+He is our Judge, and he our God.
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"By the <i>law of this Commonwealth</i>," added Mr. Curtis, "<i>Slavery is
+not immoral.</i> By the Supreme law of this Commonwealth Slavery is not
+only recognized as a valid institution, but to a certain extent is
+incorporated into our own law. Before you [the court] rise from your
+seats, you may be called upon by the master of a fugitive slave, to
+grant a certificate ... which <i>will put the whole force of the
+Commonwealth at his disposal, to remove his slave from our
+Territory</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, that was conquering his prejudices "with
+alacrity;" it was obeying the fugitive slave bill fourteen years
+before it was heard of.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">160</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He adds still further, by quotation, "I have no doubt but the citizen
+of a Slave State has a right to pass, upon business or pleasure,
+through any of the States attended by his slaves&mdash;and his right to
+reclaim his slave would be unquestioned. An escape from the attendance
+upon the person of his master, while on a journey through a free
+State, should be considered as an escape from the State where the
+master had a right of citizenship."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Charles P. Curtis thus sustained his kinsman:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Is that to be considered immoral which the Court is bound
+to assist in doing? <i>It is not for us to denounce as</i>
+legally <i>immoral a practice which is permitted</i> and
+sanctioned <i>by the supreme law of the land</i>!" "It is said
+the practice of Slavery is corrupting in its influence on
+public morals. But the practice of bringing slaves here was
+much more common thirty years ago than now. If this practice
+be so corrupting, why is it tolerated in other States?"...
+"The law of New York allows even foreigners to go there with
+their slaves; and have the morals of that State suffered in
+consequence? In Pennsylvania the law is similar, but where
+is the evidence of its pernicious influence?" "As to the
+<i>right to using them</i>, [the slaves voluntarily brought here
+by their masters,] <i>notwithstanding the supposed horror at
+such an admission</i>, the legislatures of New York and
+Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and New Jersey, have actually
+enacted statutes allowing precisely that privilege."<a name="FNanchor_185_185" id="FNanchor_185_185"></a><a href="#Footnote_185_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>But the Supreme Court of Massachusetts held otherwise. Med was
+declared free. Chief Justice Shaw covered himself with honor by his
+decision. And soon after, (Aug. 29,) the Daily Advertiser, the "organ"
+of the opinions of this family, said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"In some of the States there is ... legislative provision
+for cases of this sort, [allowing masters to bring and hold
+slaves therein,] and it would seem that <i>some such provision
+is necessary in this State</i>, unless we would prohibit
+citizens of the Slave States from travelling in this State
+with their families, and unless we would permit such of them
+as wish to emancipate their slaves, to throw them, at their
+pleasure, upon the people of this State."</p></div>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, Mr. Curtis in 1836 contended for all which Mr. Toombs
+boasts he shall get&mdash;the right of the slaveholder to sit down at the
+foot of Bunker Hill monument with his slaves! Nay, Mr. Curtis granted
+more: it may be the duty of Massachusetts "to interfere actively," and
+establish slavery in Louisiana, or in Kansas. It may be said, this was
+only a lawyer pleading for his client. It was&mdash;a lawyer asking the
+Supreme Court of Massachusetts to establish slavery in this
+Commonwealth. Is it innocent in a lawyer to ask the court to do a
+wicked thing, to urge the court to do it? Then is it equally innocent
+to ask the Treasurer of a Railroad to forge stock, or an editor to
+publish lies, or a counterfeiter to make and utter base coin, or an
+assassin to murder men. Surely it is as innocent to urge men to kidnap
+blacks in Africa as in Boston.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">161</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, That declaration&mdash;that the Statute supersedes natural
+Justice, and that the only "Standard of Morality" by which the courts
+are to be guided is "that which the law prescribes"&mdash;deserves your
+careful consideration. "He that squares his conscience by the law is a
+scoundrel"&mdash;say the proverbs of many nations. What do you think of a
+man who knows no lawgiver but the General Court of Massachusetts, or
+the American Congress: no Justice but the Statutes? If Mr. Curtis's
+doctrine is correct, then Franklin, Hancock, Adams, Washington, were
+only Rebels and Traitors! They refused that "Standard of Morality."
+Nay, our Puritan Fathers were all "criminals;" the twelve Apostles
+committed not only "misdemeanors" but sins; and Jesus of Nazareth was
+only a malefactor, a wanton disturber of the public peace of the
+world!</p>
+
+<p>The slave child Med, poor, fatherless, and unprotected, comes before
+the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, claiming her natural and
+unalienable Right to Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,&mdash;if not
+granted she is a slave for ever. In behalf of her wealthy "owner" Mr.
+Curtis resists the girl's claim; tells the court she "is now a slave;"
+there is "no practical difficulty" in allowing the master to keep her
+in that condition, no "theoretical difficulty;" "slavery is not
+immoral;" it may be the duty of Massachusetts not only to recognize
+slavery at home, but also "even to interfere actively" to support
+slavery abroad; the law is the only "Standard of Morality" for the
+courts; that establishes slavery in Massachusetts! Gentlemen, what do
+mankind say to such sophistry? Hearken to this Hebrew Bible: "Wo unto
+them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness
+which they have prescribed, to turn aside the needy from judgment, and
+to take away the Right from the poor of my people, that widows may be
+their prey, and <i>that they may rob the fatherless</i>." Let the stern
+Psalm of the Puritans still further answer from the manly bosom of the
+Bible.</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="poem">
+<tr>
+<td>
+"Judges who rule the world by laws,<br />
+Will ye despise the righteous cause,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When the injured poor before you stands?</span><br />
+Dare ye condemn the righteous poor<br />
+And let rich sinners 'scape secure,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">While Gold and Greatness bribe your hands?</span><br />
+<br />
+"Have ye forgot, or never knew,<br />
+That God will judge the judges too?<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">High in the Heavens his Justice reigns;</span><br />
+Yet you invade the rights of God,<br />
+And send your bold decrees abroad,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To bind the Conscience in your chains.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Break out their teeth, eternal God,<br />
+Those teeth of lions dy'd in blood;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">162</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And crush the serpents in the dust;</span><br />
+As empty chaff, when whirlwinds rise,<br />
+Before the sweeping tempest flies,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">So let their hopes and names be lost.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Thus shall the Justice of the Lord<br />
+Freedom and peace to men afford;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And all that hear shall join and say,</span><br />
+Sure there's a God that rules on high,<br />
+A God that hears his children cry,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And all their sufferings will repay."</span>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>2. After Mr. Webster had made his speech of March 7, 1850, pledging
+himself and his State to the support of the fugitive slave bill, then
+before Congress, "to the fullest extent," Thomas B. Curtis, with the
+help of others, got up a letter to Mr. Webster, dated March 25, 1850,
+signed, it is said, by 987 persons, who say: "We desire to express to
+you our deep obligations for what this speech has done and is doing."
+"You have pointed out to a whole people the path of duty, have
+convinced the understanding and touched the conscience of the nation."
+"We desire, therefore, to express to you our entire concurrence in the
+sentiments of your speech."</p>
+
+<p>3. A little later, Mr. Webster returned to Boston, and was
+"rapturously received" at the Revere House, April 29, 1850, by a
+"great multitude," when Benjamin R. Curtis made a public address, and
+expressed his "abounding gratitude for the ability and fidelity" which
+Mr. Webster had "brought to the defence of the Constitution and of the
+Union," and commended him as "<i>eminently vigilant, wise, and faithful
+to his country, without a shadow of turning</i>."</p>
+
+<p>4. Presently, after the passage of the fugitive slave bill, at a
+dinner party, at the house of a distinguished counsellor of Boston,
+Charles P. Curtis declared that he hoped the first fugitive slave who
+should come to Boston would be seized and sent back!</p>
+
+<p>5. Charles P. Curtis and his step-brother Edward G. Loring, and George
+T. Curtis, defended the fugitive slave bill by writing articles in the
+<i>Boston Daily Advertiser</i>.</p>
+
+<p>6. In November, 1850, the slave-hunters, thus invited and encouraged,
+came to Boston, seeking to kidnap William and Ellen Craft: but they in
+vain applied to Commissioner Benj. F. Hallett, and to Judges Woodbury
+and Sprague, for a warrant to arrest their prey. Finally, they betook
+themselves to Commissioner George T. Curtis, who at once agreed to
+grant a warrant; but, according to his own statement, in a letter to
+Mr. Webster, Nov. 23, 1850, as he anticipated resistance, and
+considered it very important that the Marshal should have more support
+than it was in his power as a Commissioner to afford, he procured a
+meeting of the Commissioners, four in num<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">163</a></span>ber, and with their aid
+succeeded in persuading the Circuit Court, then in session, to issue
+the warrant.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, as that letter of Mr. George T. Curtis contains some
+matters which are of great importance, you will thank me for
+refreshing your memory with such pieces of history.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"An application [for a warrant to arrest Mr. Craft] had
+already been made to the judges [Messrs. Woodbury and
+Sprague] privately ... they could not grant a warrant on
+account of the pendency of an important Patent Cause then on
+trial before a jury." "To this I replied, that ... the
+ordinary business of the Court ought to give way for a
+sufficient length of time, to enable the judges to receive
+this application and to hear the case." "On a private
+intimation to the presiding judge of our desire to confer
+with him [the desire of the kidnapping commissioners, Mr.
+B.F. Hallett, Mr. Edward G. Loring, Mr. C.L. Woodbury, and
+Mr. G.T. Curtis] the jury were dismissed at <i>an earlier hour
+than usual, ... and every person present except the
+Marshal's deputies left the room, and the doors were
+closed</i>." "The learned Judge said ... that he would attend
+at half past eight the next morning, to grant the warrant."
+"A process was placed in the hands of the Marshal ... in the
+execution of which he might be called upon to <i>break open
+dwelling-houses, and perhaps take life</i>, by quelling
+resistance, actual or <i>threatened</i>." "I devoted at once a
+good deal of time to the necessary investigations of the
+subject." "There is a great deal of legislation needed to
+make the general government independent of State control,"
+says this "Expounder of the Constitution," "and independent
+of the power of mobs, whenever and wherever its measures
+chance to be unpopular." "The office of United States
+Marshal is by no means organized and fortified by
+legislation as it should be to encounter popular
+disturbance."</p></div>
+
+<p>7. The warrant having been issued for the seizure of Mr. Craft,
+Marshal Devens applied to Benjamin R. Curtis for legal advice as to
+the degree of force he might use in serving it, and whether it ought
+to be regarded as a civil or a criminal process. George T. Curtis was
+employed by his brother to search for authorities on these points.
+They two, together, as appears from the letter of George T. Curtis to
+Mr. Webster, induced Marshal Devens to ask a further question, which
+gave Benjamin R. Curtis an opportunity to come out with an elaborate
+opinion in favor of the constitutionality of the fugitive slave bill,
+dated November 9, 1850. This was published in the newspapers. In order
+to maintain the constitutionality of this act, Benjamin R. Curtis was
+driven to assume, as all its defenders must, that the Commissioner, in
+returning the fugitive, performs none of the duties of a Judge; that
+the hearing before him is not "a case arising under the laws of the
+United States;" that he acts not as a judicial, but merely as an
+executive and "ministerial" officer&mdash;not deciding him to be a slave,
+but merely giving him up, to enable that point to be tried
+elsewhere.<a name="FNanchor_186_186" id="FNanchor_186_186"></a><a href="#Footnote_186_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a> But, spite of this opinion, public justice and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">164</a></span>
+Vigilance Committee forced the (Southern) slave-hunters to flee from
+Boston, after which, Mr. and Mrs. Craft left America to find safety in
+England, the evident rage and fierce threats of the disappointed
+Boston slave-hunters making it unsafe for them to remain.</p>
+
+<p>8. After the failure of this attempt to arrest Mr. Craft, Thomas B.
+Curtis got up a "Union Meeting" at Faneuil Hall, November 26,
+1850.<a name="FNanchor_187_187" id="FNanchor_187_187"></a><a href="#Footnote_187_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a> The call was addressed to such as "regard with disfavor all
+further popular agitation" of the subject of Slavery. Thomas B. Curtis
+called the meeting to order: William W. Greenough, from the "Committee
+of Arrangements," presented the resolutions, which you have already
+heard.<a name="FNanchor_188_188" id="FNanchor_188_188"></a><a href="#Footnote_188_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a> It was said at the time that they were written, wholly or
+in part, by Mr. Benjamin R. Curtis, who moved their adoption and made
+a long and elaborate speech thereon.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, as I just now gave you some passages from Mr.
+Hallett's speech on that occasion, allow me now to read you some
+extracts from Mr. Curtis's address. The general aim of the speech was
+to reconcile the People to kidnapping; the rhetorical means to this
+end were an attempt to show that kidnapping was expedient; that it was
+indispensable; that it had been long since agreed to; that the Slaves
+were foreigners and had no right in <i>Massachusetts</i>. He said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"We have come here not to consider particular measures of
+government but to assert that we have a government, not to
+determine whether this or that law be wise or just, but to
+declare that there is law, and its duties and power."</p>
+
+<p>"Every sovereign State has and must have the right to judge
+<i>what persons from abroad</i> shall be admitted."</p>
+
+<p>"Are not these persons [fugitive slaves] foreigners as to
+us&mdash;and what right have they to come here at all, <i>against
+the will of the legislative power of the State</i>.
+[Massachusetts had no legislation forbidding them!] And if
+their coming here or remaining here, is not consistent with
+the safety of the State and the welfare of the citizens <i>may
+we not</i> prohibit their coming, or <i>send them back</i> if they
+come?" "<i>To deny this</i> is to deny the right of
+self-preservation to a State.... It ... <i>throws us back at
+once into a condition below the most degraded savages who
+have a semblance of government</i>." "You know that the great
+duty of justice could not otherwise be performed, [that is
+without the fugitive-from-labor clause in the Constitution];
+that our peace at home and our safety from foreign
+aggression could not otherwise be insured; and that only by
+this means could we obtain 'the Blessings of Liberty' to the
+people of Massachusetts and their posterity." "In no other
+way could we become an example of, and security for, the
+capacity of man, safely and peacefully and wisely to govern
+himself under free and popular institutions."</p></div>
+
+<p>So the fugitive slave bill is an argument against human depravity,
+showing the capacity of man to govern himself "safely and peacefully
+and wisely."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">165</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He adds, as early as 1643 the New England colonies found it necessary
+"to insert an article substantially like this one," for the rendition
+of fugitive servants, and in 1789 the Federal government demanded that
+the Spaniards should surrender the fugitive slaves of Georgia.
+Injustice, Gentlemen, has never lacked a precedent since Cain killed
+Abel. Mr. Curtis continues:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"When I look abroad over 100,000 happy homes in
+Massachusetts and see a people, such as the blessed sun has
+rarely shone upon, so intelligent and educated, moral,
+religious, progressive, and free to do every thing but
+wrong&mdash;I fear to say that I should not be in the wrong to
+put all this at risk, because our <i>passionate will</i> impels
+us to break a promise our wise and good fathers made, not to
+allow a <i>class of foreigners</i> to come here, or to <i>send them
+back if they came</i>."</p></div>
+
+<p>So the refusal to kidnap Ellen and William Craft came of the
+"<i>passionate will</i>" of the people, and is likely to ruin the happy
+homes of a moral and religious people!</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>With the rights of these persons</i> I firmly believe
+<i>Massachusetts has nothing to do</i>. It is enough for us that
+they have no right to be <i>here</i>. Whatever natural rights
+they have&mdash;and I admit these natural rights to their fullest
+extent&mdash;this is not the <i>soil</i> on which to vindicate them.
+This is <i>our</i> soil, sacred to <i>our</i> peace, on which we
+intend to perform <i>our</i> promises, and work out for the
+benefit of ourselves and our posterity and the world, the
+destiny which our Creator has assigned to <i>us</i>."</p></div>
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, it is written of that Creator that He is "no
+Respecter of Persons;" and "hath made of one blood all nations of men
+for to dwell on all the face of the earth." The "Our Creator" of Mr.
+Curtis is also the Father of William and Ellen Craft; and that great
+Soul who has ploughed his moral truths deep into the history of
+mankind, represents the final Judge of us all as saying to such as
+scorned his natural Law of Justice and Humanity, "<span class="smcap">Inasmuch as ye did
+it not to one of the least of these ye did it not to me</span>."</p>
+
+<p>Massachusetts is "our soil," is it; "sacred to <i>our</i> peace," which is
+to be made sure of by stealing our brother men, and giving to
+Commissioners George T. Curtis and Edward G. Loring ten dollars for
+making a slave, and only five for setting free a man! Peace and the
+fugitive slave bill! No, Gentlemen of the Jury, it is vain to cry
+Peace, Peace&mdash;when there is no peace! Ay, there <i>is</i> no peace to the
+wicked; and though the counsel of the ungodly be carried, it is
+carried headlong!</p>
+
+<p>In that speech, Gentlemen, Mr. Curtis made a special attack upon me:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"There has been made within these walls," said he, "the
+declaration that an article<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">166</a></span> of the Constitution [the
+rendition clause] of the United States 'shall not be
+executed, <i>law or no law</i>.' A gentleman offered a resolve
+... that 'constitution or no constitution, law or no law, we
+will not allow a fugitive slave to be taken from
+Massachusetts.' The chairman of a public meeting [Hon.
+Charles Francis Adams, on October 14th] declared here that
+'the law will be resisted, and if the fugitive resists, and
+if he slay the slave-hunter, or even the Marshal, and if he
+therefor be brought before a Jury of Massachusetts men, that
+Jury will not convict him.' And as if there should be
+nothing wanting to exhibit the madness which has possessed
+men's minds, <i>murder and perjury</i> have been enacted into
+virtues, and in this city preached from the sacred desk. I
+must not be suspected of exaggerating in the least degree. I
+read therefore the following passage from a sermon preached
+and published in this city:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'Let me suppose a case which may happen here and before
+long. A woman flies from South Carolina to Massachusetts to
+escape from bondage. Mr. Greatheart aids her in her escape,
+harbors and conceals her, and is brought to trial for it.
+The punishment is a fine of one thousand dollars and
+imprisonment for six months. I am drawn to serve as a juror
+and pass upon this offence. I may refuse to serve and be
+punished for that, leaving men with no scruples to take my
+place, or I may take the juror's oath to give a verdict
+according to the law and the testimony. The law is plain,
+let us suppose, and the testimony conclusive. Greatheart
+himself confesses that he did the deed alleged, saving one
+ready to perish. The judge charges that if the jurors are
+satisfied of that fact then they must return that he is
+guilty. This is a nice matter. Here are two questions. The
+one put to me in my official capacity as juror, is this:
+"Did Greatheart aid the woman?" The other, put to me in my
+natural character as man, is this: "Will you help punish
+Greatheart with fine and imprisonment for helping a woman
+obtain her unalienable rights?" If I have extinguished my
+manhood by my juror's oath, then I shall do my official
+business and find Greatheart guilty, and I shall seem to be
+a true man; but if I value my manhood I shall answer after
+my natural duty to love man and not hate him, to do him
+justice, not injustice, to allow him the natural rights he
+has not alienated, and shall say, "Not guilty." Then men
+will call me forsworn and a liar, but I think human nature
+will justify the verdict.'"</p></div>
+
+<p>"I should like to ask," he continued, "the reverend gentleman in what
+capacity he expects to be punished for his <i>perjury</i>?" Gentlemen of
+the Jury, I rose and said, "Do you want an answer to your question,
+sir?" He had charged me with preaching murder and perjury; had asked,
+How I expected to be punished for my own "<span class="smcap">perjury</span>?" When I offered to
+answer his question he refused me the opportunity to reply! Thus,
+Gentlemen, he charged me with recommending men to commit perjury! Did
+he think I advised men to take an oath and break it? On the other side
+of the page which he read there stood printed:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Suppose a man has sworn to keep the Constitution of the
+United States, and the Constitution is found to be wrong in
+certain particulars; then his oath is not morally binding,
+for before his oath, by his very existence, he is morally
+bound to keep the law of God as fast as he learns it. No
+oath can absolve him from his natural allegiance to God. Yet
+I see not how a man can knowingly, and with a good
+Conscience, swear to keep what he deems it wrong to keep,
+and will not keep, and does not intend to keep."</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">167</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, when that speech came to be printed&mdash;there was no charge of
+"perjury" at all, but a quite different sentence!<a name="FNanchor_189_189" id="FNanchor_189_189"></a><a href="#Footnote_189_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a></p>
+
+<p>9. In February, 1851, George T. Curtis issued the warrant for the
+seizure of Shadrach, who was "hauled" in to the court house before
+that Commissioner; but "the Lord delivered him out of their hands,"
+and he also escaped out of the United States of America.</p>
+
+<p>10. After the escape or rescue of Shadrach, George T. Curtis
+telegraphed the news to Mr. Webster, at Washington, declaring "it is
+levying war;" thus constructing high treason out of the rescue of a
+prisoner by unarmed men, from the hands of a sub-deputy officer of the
+United States.</p>
+
+<p>11. George T. Curtis also officiated as Commissioner in the kidnapping
+of Thomas Sims, in April, 1851; and under the pretence of
+"extradition," sent him to be scourged in the jail of Savannah, and
+then to suffer eternal bondage. It was rumored at the time that
+Charles P. Curtis and Benjamin R. Curtis, his law-partner and
+son-in-law, were the secret legal advisers and chamber-counsel of the
+Southern slave-hunters in this case. I know not how true the rumor
+was, nor whether it was based on new observation of facts, or was
+merely an inference from their general conduct and character.</p>
+
+<p>12. When Mr. Sims was brought before Judge Woodbury, on <i>habeas
+corpus</i>, Benjamin R. Curtis appeared as counsel for the Marshal, and
+also assisted Judge Woodbury in strengthening his opinion against
+Sims, by a written note transmitted by an officer of the Court to the
+Judge, while he was engaged in delivering his opinion.</p>
+
+<p>13. Gentlemen of the Jury, I have shown you how, in Britain, the
+Government, seeking to oppress the people and to crush down freedom of
+speech, put into judicial offices such men as were ready to go all
+lengths in support of profitable wickedness. You do not forget the men
+whom the Stuarts made judges: surely you remember Twysden, and Kelyng,
+and Finch, and Saunders, and Scroggs. You will not forget Edmund
+Thurlow and John Scott. Well, Gentlemen, in 1851, Judge Woodbury died,
+and on the recommendation of Mr. Webster, Mr. Benjamin R. Curtis was
+raised to the dignity he now holds. Of course, Gentlemen, the country
+will judge of the cause and motive of the selection. No lawyer in New
+England had laid down such southern "Principles" for foundation of
+law; he outwent Mr. Sprague. None had rendered such service to the
+Slave Power. In 1836, he had sought to restore slavery to
+Massachusetts, and to accomplish that had denied the existence of any
+Higher Law,&mdash;the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">168</a></span> written statute was the only standard of judicial
+morals. In 1850, he had most zealously defended the fugitive slave
+bill,&mdash;coming to the rescue of despotism when it seemed doubtful which
+way the money of Boston would turn, and showing most exemplary
+diligence in his attempts to kidnap William and Ellen Craft.
+Gentlemen, if such services were left unpaid, surely "the Union would
+be in danger!" But I must go on with my sad chronicle.</p>
+
+<p>14. As Circuit Judge of the United States, Benjamin R. Curtis, as well
+in the construction of juries, as in the construction of the law,
+exerted all his abilities against the parties indicted for the rescue
+of Shadrach, though Mr. Hale says his conduct was far better than
+Judge Sprague's. He did this especially in the case of Elizur Wright,
+who appeared without counsel, and thus afforded a better opportunity
+to procure a conviction. But it was in vain&mdash;all escaped out of his
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>15. In 1851, George T. Curtis brought an action for libel against
+Benjamin B. Mussey, bookseller, who had just published a volume of
+speeches by the Hon. Horace Mann, one of which was against the
+business of kidnapping in Boston, wherein George T. Curtis found, as
+he alleged, matter libellous of himself. That suit remains yet
+undisposed of; but in it he will doubtless recover the full value of
+his reputation, on which kidnapping has affixed no stain.</p>
+
+<p>16. In May, 1854, Edward G. Loring issued a warrant for the seizure of
+Mr. Burns; decided the case before he heard it, having advised the
+counsel not to oppose his rendition, for he would probably be sent
+back; held him ironed in his "court," and finally delivered him over
+to eternal bondage. But in that case, it is said, Mr. Loring, who has
+no Curtis blood in his veins, did not wish to steal a man; and
+proposed to throw up his commission rather than do such a deed; but he
+consulted his step-brother, Charles P. Curtis, who persuaded him it
+would be dishonorable to decline the office of kidnapping imposed upon
+him as a United States Commissioner by the fugitive slave bill.
+Benjamin R. Curtis, it is said, I know not how truly&mdash;himself can
+answer, aided Mr. Loring in forming the "opinion" by which he
+attempted to justify the "extradition" of Mr. Burns; that is to say,
+the giving him up as a slave without any trial of his right to
+liberty, merely on a presumptive case established by his claimant.</p>
+
+<p>17. After Commissioner Loring had seized Mr. Burns, Mr. George T.
+Curtis, by a communication published in the newspapers, informed the
+public that he still continued the business of man-hunting at the old
+stand, where all orders for kidnapping would be promptly attended to.
+For, he says, there was a statement "that I had declined, or was
+unwilling or afraid to act. I did not choose that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">169</a></span> any one whatever
+should have an excuse for believing that Judge Loring was willing to
+sit in a case that I had declined." "I thought proper to place myself
+as it were by his side." "But I never took a fee [for kidnapping], and
+I never shall take one."<a name="FNanchor_190_190" id="FNanchor_190_190"></a><a href="#Footnote_190_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a> Did he remember the fate of the Hebrew
+Judas, who "betrayed the Innocent Blood," and then cast down the
+thirty pieces?</p>
+
+<p>Hitherto the kidnapping commissioners, though both members of the same
+family, had pursued their game separately, each on his own account.
+After this it appears these two are to hunt in couples: Commissioner
+Loring and Commissioner Curtis "as it were by his side:"&mdash;</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="poem">
+<tr>
+<td>
+"Swift in pursuit, but matched in mouth like bells,<br />
+<i>Each under each</i>."
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, it is a very painful thing for me to deliver
+this very sad chronicle of such wicked deeds. But do not judge these
+men wholly by those acts. I am by no means stingy of commendation, and
+would rather praise than blame. The two elder Messrs. Curtis have many
+estimable and honorable qualities,&mdash;in private relations it is
+said&mdash;and I believe it&mdash;they are uncommonly tender and delicate and
+refined in the elegant courtesies of common life. I know that they
+have often been open-handed and generous in many a charity. In the
+ordinary intercourse of society, where no great moral principle is
+concerned, they appear as decorous and worthy men. Hon. Benj. R.
+Curtis,&mdash;he will allow me to mention his good qualities before his
+face,&mdash;though apparently destitute of any high moral instincts, is yet
+a man of superior powers of understanding, and uncommon industry; as a
+lawyer he was above many of the petty tricks so common in his
+profession. Strange as it may seem, I have twice seen Mr. George T.
+Curtis's name among others who contributed to purchase a slave; Mr.
+Loring's good qualities I have often mentioned, and always with
+delight.</p>
+
+<p>But this family has had its hand in all the kidnapping which has
+recently brought such misery to the colored people and their friends;
+such ineffaceable disgrace upon Boston, and such peril to the natural
+Rights of man. These men have laid down and advocated the principles
+of despotism; they have recommended, enforced, and practised
+kidnapping in Boston, and under circumstances most terribly atrocious.
+Without their efforts we should have had no man-stealing here. They
+cunningly, but perhaps unconsciously, represented the low Selfishness
+of the Money Power at the North, and the Slave Power at the South, and
+persuaded the controlling men of Boston to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">170</a></span> steal Mr. Sims and Mr.
+Burns. In 1836 they sought to enslave a poor little orphan girl, and
+restore bondage to Massachusetts; in 1851 they succeeded in
+enthralling a man. Now, Gentlemen, they are seeking to sew up the
+mouth of New England; there is a sad consistency in their public
+behavior.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, they are not ashamed of this conduct; when "A Citizen of
+Boston," last January, related in the New York Tribune some of the
+facts I have just set forth, "One of the name" published his card in
+that paper and thanked the "Citizen" for collecting abundant evidence
+that the "Curtis Family" "have worked hard to keep the <i>law</i> superior
+to fanaticism, disloyalty, and the <i>mob</i>," and declared that "they
+feel encouraged to continue in the same course and <i>their children
+after them</i>."<a name="FNanchor_191_191" id="FNanchor_191_191"></a><a href="#Footnote_191_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a> Mr. Thomas B. Curtis considers some of the acts I
+have just mentioned "among the most meritorious acts" of his
+life.<a name="FNanchor_192_192" id="FNanchor_192_192"></a><a href="#Footnote_192_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a> Mr. Loring, in his "Remonstrance," justifies Kidnapping!</p>
+
+<p>They may, indeed, speak well of the bridge which carries them safe
+over. Three of the family are fugitive slave bill commissioners; one
+of them intellectually the ablest, perhaps morally the blindest, who
+so charged me with "Perjury," is the Honorable Judge who is to try me
+for a "Misdemeanor." Of course he is perfectly impartial, and has no
+animosity which seeks revenge,&mdash;the history of courts forbids the
+supposition!</p>
+
+<p>Such, Gentlemen, are the antecedents of the Hon. Judge Curtis, such
+his surroundings. You will presently see what effect they have had in
+procuring this indictment. It a sad tale that I have presented. He
+told it, not I; he did the deeds, and they have now found words.</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, I shall next speak of Judge Curtis's charge to
+the grand-jury, delivered in Boston, June 7, 1854&mdash;only five days
+after his kinsman had sent Mr. Burns into Slavery. Here is that part
+of the charge which relates to our case.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"There is another criminal law of the United States to which
+I must call your attention, and give you in charge. It was
+enacted on the 13th of April, 1790, and is in the following
+words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'If any person shall knowingly or wilfully obstruct,
+resist, or oppose any officer of the United States, in
+serving, or attempting to serve, or execute any mesne
+process, or warrant, or any rule or order of any of the
+courts of the United States, or any other legal writ or
+process whatever, or shall assault, beat, or wound any
+officer, or other person duly authorized, in serving or
+executing any writ, rule, order, process, or warrant,
+aforesaid, such person shall, on conviction, be imprisoned
+not exceeding twelve months, and fined not exceeding three
+hundred dollars.'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">171</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You will observe, Gentlemen, that this law makes no
+provision for a case where an officer, or other person duly
+authorized, is killed by those unlawfully resisting him.
+That is a case of murder, and is left to be tried and
+punished under the laws of the State, within whose
+jurisdiction the offence is committed. Over that offence
+against the laws of the State of Massachusetts we have here
+no jurisdiction. It is to be presumed that the duly
+constituted authorities of the State will, in any such case,
+do their duty; and if the crime of murder has been
+committed, will prosecute and punish all who are guilty.</p>
+
+<p>"Our duty is limited to administering the laws of the United
+States; and by one of those laws which I have read to you,
+to obstruct, resist, or oppose, or beat, or wound any
+officer of the United States, or other person duly
+authorized, in serving or executing any legal process
+whatsoever, is an offence against the laws of the United
+States, and is one of the subjects concerning which you are
+bound to inquire.</p>
+
+<p>"It is not material that the same act is an offence both
+against the laws of the United States and of a particular
+State. Under our system of government the United States and
+the several States are distinct sovereignties, each having
+its own system of criminal law, which it administers in its
+own tribunals; and the criminal laws of a State can in no
+way affect those of the United States. The offence,
+therefore, of obstructing legal process of the United States
+is to be inquired of and treated by you as a misdemeanor,
+under the Act of Congress which I have quoted, without any
+regard to the criminal laws of the State, or the nature of
+the crime under these laws.</p>
+
+<p>"This Act of Congress is carefully worded, and its meaning
+is plain. Nevertheless, there are some terms in it, and some
+rules of law connected with it, which should be explained
+for your guidance. And first, as to the process, the
+execution of which is not to be obstructed.</p>
+
+<p>"The language of the Act is very broad. It embraces every
+legal process whatsoever, whether issued by a court in
+session, or by a judge, or magistrate, or commissioner
+acting in the due administration of any law of the United
+States. You will probably experience no difficulty in
+understanding and applying this part of the law.</p>
+
+<p>"As to what constitutes an obstruction&mdash;it was many years
+ago decided, by Justice Washington, that to support an
+indictment under this law, it was not necessary to prove the
+accused used or even threatened active violence. Any
+obstruction to the free action of the officer, or his lawful
+assistants, wilfully placed in his or their way, for the
+purpose of thus obstructing him or them, is sufficient. And
+it is clear that if a multitude of persons should assemble,
+even in a public highway, with the design to stand together,
+and thus prevent the officer from passing freely along the
+way, in the execution of his precept, and the officer should
+thus be hindered or obstructed, this would of itself, and
+without any active violence, be such an obstruction as is
+contemplated by this law. If to this be added use of any
+active violence, then the officer is not only obstructed,
+but he is resisted and opposed, and of course the offence is
+complete, for either of them is sufficient to constitute it.</p>
+
+<p>"If you should be satisfied that an offence against this law
+has been perpetrated, you will then inquire by whom; and
+this renders it necessary for me to instruct you concerning
+the kind and amount of participation which brings
+individuals within the compass of this law.</p>
+
+<p>"And first, all who are present and actually obstruct,
+resist, or oppose, are of course guilty. So are all who are
+present leagued in the common design, and so situated as to
+be able, in case of need, to afford assistance to those
+actually engaged, though they do not actually obstruct,
+resist, or oppose. If they are present for the purpose of
+affording assistance in obstructing, resisting, or opposing
+the officers, and are so situated as to be able in any event
+which may occur, actually to aid in the common design,
+though no overt act is done by them, they are still guilty
+under this law. The offence<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">172</a></span> defined by this act is a
+misdemeanor; and it is rule of law that whatever
+participation, in case of felony, would render a person
+guilty, either as a principal in the second degree, or as an
+accessory before the fact, does, in a case of misdemeanor,
+render him guilty as a principal; in misdemeanors all are
+principals. And, therefore, in pursuance of the same rule,
+not only those who are present, but those who, though absent
+when the offence was committed, did procure, counsel,
+command, or abet others to commit the offence, are
+indictable as principal.</p>
+
+<p>"Such is the law, and it would seem that no just mind could
+doubt its propriety. If persons having influence over others
+use that influence to induce the commission of crime, while
+they themselves remain at a safe distance, that must be
+deemed a very imperfect system of law which allows them to
+escape with impunity. Such is not our law. It treats such
+advice as criminal, and subjects the giver of it to
+punishment according to the nature of the offence to which
+his pernicious counsel has led. If it be a case of felony,
+he is by the common law an accessory before the fact, and by
+the laws of the United States and of this State, is
+punishable to the same extent as the principal felon. If it
+be a case of misdemeanor, the adviser is himself a principal
+offender, and is to be indicted and punished as if he
+himself had done the criminal act. It may be important for
+you to know what, in point of law, amounts to such an
+advising or counselling another as will be sufficient to
+constitute this legal element in the offence. It is laid
+down by high authority, that though a mere tacit
+acquiescence, or words, which amount to a bare permission,
+will not be sufficient, yet such a procurement may be,
+either by direct means, as by hire, counsel, or command, or
+indirect, by evincing an express liking, approbation, or
+assent to another's criminal design. From the nature of the
+case, the law can prescribe only general rules on this
+subject. My instruction to you is, that language addressed
+to persons who immediately afterwards commit an offence,
+actually intended by the speaker to incite those addressed
+to commit it, and adapted thus to incite them, is such a
+counselling or advising to the crime as the law
+contemplates, and the person so inciting others is liable to
+be indicted as a principal.</p>
+
+<p>"In the case of the <i>Commonwealth</i> v. <i>Bowen</i> (13 Mass. R.
+359), which was an indictment for counselling another to
+commit suicide, tried in 1816, Chief Justice Parker
+instructing the jury, and speaking for the Supreme Court of
+Massachusetts, said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'The government is not bound to prove that Jewett would not
+have hung himself, had Bowen's counsel never reached his
+ear. The very act of advising to the commission of a crime
+is of itself unlawful. The presumption of law is that advice
+has the influence and effect intended by the adviser, unless
+it is shown to have been otherwise; as that the counsel was
+received with scoff, or was manifestly rejected and
+ridiculed at the time it was given. It was said in the
+argument that Jewett's abandoned and depraved character
+furnishes ground to believe that he would have committed the
+act without such advice from Bowen. Without doubt he was a
+hardened and depraved wretch; but it is in man's nature to
+revolt at self-destruction. When a person is predetermined
+upon the commission of this crime, the seasonable
+admonitions of a discreet and respected friend would
+probably tend to overthrow his determination. On the other
+hand, the counsel of an unprincipled wretch, stating the
+heroism and courage the self-murderer displays, might
+induce, encourage, and fix the intention, and ultimately
+procure the perpetration of the dreadful deed; and if other
+men would be influenced by such advice, the presumption is
+that Jewett was so influenced. He might have been influenced
+by many powerful motives to destroy himself. Still the
+inducements might have been insufficient to procure the
+actual commission of the act, and one word of additional
+advice might have turned the scale.'</p>
+
+<p>"When applied&mdash;as this ruling seems to have been here
+applied&mdash;to a case in which the advice was nearly connected,
+in point of time, with the criminal act, it is, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">173</a></span> my
+opinion, correct. If the advice was intended by the giver to
+stir or incite to a crime&mdash;if it was of such a nature as to
+be adapted to have this effect, and the persons incited
+immediately afterwards committed that crime&mdash;it is a just
+presumption that they were influenced by the advice or
+incitement to commit it. The circumstances, or direct proof,
+may or may not be sufficient to control this presumption;
+and whether they are so, can duly be determined in each
+case, upon all its evidence.</p>
+
+<p>"One other rule of law on this subject is necessary to be
+borne in mind&mdash;the substantive offence to which the advice
+or incitement applied must have been committed; and it is
+for that alone the adviser or procurer is legally
+accountable. Thus if one should counsel another to rescue
+one prisoner, and he should rescue another, unless by
+mistake; or if the incitement was to rescue a prisoner, and
+he commit a larceny, the inciter is not responsible. But it
+need not appear <i>that the precise time, or place, or means
+advised</i>, were used. Thus if one incite A. to murder B., but
+advise him to wait until B. shall be at a certain place at
+noon, and A. murders B. at a different place in the morning,
+the adviser is guilty. So if the incitement be to poison,
+and the murderer shoots, or stabs. So if the counsel be to
+beat another, and he is beaten to death, the adviser is a
+murderer; for having incited another to commit an unlawful
+act, he is responsible for all that ensues upon its
+execution.</p>
+
+<p>"These illustrations are drawn from cases of felonies,
+because they are the most common in the books and the most
+striking in themselves; but the principles on which they
+depend are equally applicable to cases of misdemeanor. In
+all such cases the real question is, whether the accused did
+procure, counsel, command, or abet the substantive offence
+committed. If he did, it is of no importance that his advice
+or directions were departed from in respect to the time, or
+place, or precise mode or means of committing it.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen: The events which have recently occurred in this
+city, have rendered it my duty to call your attention to
+these rules of law, and to direct you to inquire whether in
+point of fact the offence of obstructing process of the
+United States has been committed; if it has, you will
+present for trial all such persons as have so participated
+therein as to be guilty of that offence. And you will allow
+me to say to you that if you or I were to begin to make
+discriminations between one law and another, and say this we
+will enforce and that we will not enforce, we should not
+only violate our oaths, but so far as in us lies, we should
+destroy the liberties of our country, which rest for their
+basis upon the great principle that our country is governed
+by laws, constitutionally enacted, and not by men.</p>
+
+<p>"In one part of our country the extradition of fugitives
+from labor is odious; in another, if we may judge from some
+transactions, the law concerning the extradition of
+fugitives from justice has been deemed not binding; in
+another still, the tariff laws of the United States were
+considered oppressive, and not fit to be enforced.</p>
+
+<p>"Who can fail to see that the government would cease to be a
+government if it were to yield obedience to those local
+opinions? While it stands, all its laws must be faithfully
+executed, or it becomes the mere tool of the strongest
+faction of the place and the hour. If forcible resistance to
+one law be permitted practically to repeal it, the power of
+the mob would inevitably become one of the constituted
+authorities of the State, to be used against any law or any
+man obnoxious to the interests and passions of the worst or
+most excited part of the community; and the peaceful and the
+weak would be at the mercy of the violent.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the imperative duty of all of us concerned in the
+administration of the laws to see to it that they are
+firmly, impartially, and certainly applied to every offence,
+whether a particular law be by us individually approved or
+disapproved. And it becomes all to remember, that forcible
+and concerted resistance to any law is civil war, which can
+make no progress but through bloodshed, and can have no
+termination but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">174</a></span> the destruction of the government of our
+country, or the ruin of those engaged in such resistance. It
+is not my province to comment on events which have recently
+happened. They are matters of fact which, so far as they are
+connected with the criminal laws of the United States, are
+for your consideration. I feel no doubt that, as good
+citizens and lovers of our country, and as conscientious
+men, you will well and truly observe and keep the oath you
+have taken, diligently to inquire and true presentment make
+of all crimes and offences against the laws of the United
+States given you in charge."<a name="FNanchor_193_193" id="FNanchor_193_193"></a><a href="#Footnote_193_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>Now gentlemen look at some particulars of this charge.</p>
+
+<p>1. "If a multitude of persons shall assemble <i>even in a public
+highway</i>, with the design to <i>stand together, and thus prevent the
+officer from passing freely along that way</i>, in the execution of his
+precept, and the officer should thus be <i>hindered and obstructed</i>,
+this would, of itself, and without any active violence, be such an
+obstruction as is contemplated by this law." Of course, all persons
+thus assembled in the public highway were guilty of that offence, and
+liable to be punished with imprisonment for twelve months and a fine
+of three hundred dollars: "<i>All who are present</i>, and obstruct,
+resist, or oppose, <i>are of course guilty</i>." Their "design" is to be
+inferred from "the fact" that the officer was obstructed.</p>
+
+<p>That is not all, this offence in technical language the Judge calls a
+"misdemeanor," and in "misdemeanors," he says, "all are principals."
+So, accordingly, not only are all guilty who <i>actually obstruct</i> but
+likewise all who are "leagued in the common design, and <i>so situated
+as to be able</i> in case of need <i>to afford assistance to those actually
+engaged</i>, though they do not actually obstruct, resist, or oppose."
+These are obstructors by construction No. 1; they must have been
+several thousands in number.</p>
+
+<p>But even that is not all; the judicial logic of deduction goes further
+still, and he adds, "Not only those who are present, but <i>those who</i>
+though <i>absent</i> when the offence was committed, <i>did procure, counsel,
+command, or abet</i> others to commit the offence are indictable as
+principals." These are obstructors by construction No. 2.</p>
+
+<p>2. Next he determines what it is which "amounts to <i>such advising or
+counselling</i> another as will be sufficient to constitute this legal
+element in the offence." First he constructs the physical act which is
+the misdemeanor, namely, standing in the high road and thereby
+hindering a kidnapper from "passing freely along that way; or being so
+situated as to be able to afford assistance to others thus standing;
+or advising another thus to stand, or be situated:" next he constructs
+the <i>advice</i>, the metaphysical act, which is equally a "misdemeanor."
+This is the square root of construction No. 2. Look at this absurd
+quantity.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">175</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"<i>Such a procurement may be</i>, either by direct means, as by hire,
+counsel, or command, or indirect, <i>by evincing an express liking,
+approbation, or assent</i>." Thus the mere casual expression, "I wish
+Burns would escape, or I wish somebody would let him out," is a
+"Misdemeanor;" it is "evincing an express liking." Nodding to any
+other man's similar wish is a misdemeanor. It is "approbation." Even
+smiling at the nod is a crime&mdash;it is "assent." Such is the threefold
+shadow of this constructive shade. But even that is not all. A man is
+held responsible for what he evinced no <i>express</i> or implied <i>liking</i>
+for: "<i>it need not appear that the precise time, or place, or means
+advised, were used</i>." Accordingly, he that "evinces an express
+liking," "<i>is responsible for all that ensues upon its execution</i>." He
+evinces his assent to the End and is legally responsible for any Means
+which any hearer thereof shall, at any time, or in any place, make use
+of to attain that end!</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, this charge is a <i>quo warranto</i> against all
+Freedom of Speech. But suppose it were good law, and suppose the
+Grand-Jury obedient to it, see how it would apply.</p>
+
+<p>All who evinced an express liking, approbation, or assent to the
+rescue of Mr. Burns are guilty of a misdemeanor; if they "evinced an
+express liking" that he should be rescued by a miracle wrought by
+Almighty God,&mdash;and some did express "approbation" of that
+"means,"&mdash;they are indictable, guilty of a "misdemeanor;" "it need not
+appear that the precise time, or place, or means advised, were used!"
+If any colored woman during the wicked week&mdash;which was ten days
+long&mdash;prayed that God would deliver Anthony, as it is said his angel
+delivered Peter, or said "Amen" to such a prayer, she was "guilty of a
+misdemeanor;" to be indicted as a "principal."</p>
+
+<p>So every man in Boston who, on that bad Friday, stood in the streets
+of Boston between Court Square and T Wharf, was "guilty of a
+misdemeanor," liable to a fine of three hundred dollars, and to
+jailing for twelve months. All who at Faneuil Hall stirred up the
+minds of the people in opposition to the fugitive slave bill; all who
+shouted, who clapped their hands at the words or the countenance of
+their favorites, or who expressed "approbation" by a whisper of
+"assent," are "guilty of a misdemeanor." The very women who stood for
+four days at the street corners, and hissed the infamous Slave-hunters
+and their coadjutors; they, too, ought to be punished by fine of three
+hundred dollars and imprisonment for a year! Well, there were fifteen
+thousand persons "assembled" "in the highway" of the city of Boston
+that day opposed to kidnapping; half the newspapers in the country
+towns of Massachusetts "evinced an express liking" for freedom, and
+opposed the kidnapping; they are all "guilty of a misdemeanor;" they
+are "Principals." Nay, the ministers all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">176</a></span> over the State, who preached
+that kidnapping was a sin; those who read brave words out of the Old
+Testament or the New; those who prayed that the victim might escape;
+they, likewise, were "guilty of a misdemeanor," liable to be fined
+three hundred dollars and jailed for twelve months.<a name="FNanchor_194_194" id="FNanchor_194_194"></a><a href="#Footnote_194_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a></p>
+
+<p>But where did Judge Curtis find his right to levy Ship-money, Tonnage,
+and Poundage on the tongues of men; where did he find his "law?"
+Surely not in the statute. When the bill was pending in 1790, suppose
+his construction of the statute had been declared to Congress&mdash;who
+would have voted for a law so monstrous? The statute lay in the
+Law-book for nearly seventy years, and nobody ever applied it to a
+case like this.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, I have shown you already how British judges in the time of
+the Jameses and Charleses perverted the law to the basest of purposes.
+I mentioned, amongst others, the work of Twysden and Kelyng and Jones.
+This is a case like those. Just now I spoke of the action of Chief
+Justice Parker who said it was not for the jury to judge whether a law
+<i>were harsh or not</i>; I showed how he charged the jury in the case of
+Bowen, and how the jury returned a verdict of "not guilty," thus
+setting his inhuman charge at nought.<a name="FNanchor_195_195" id="FNanchor_195_195"></a><a href="#Footnote_195_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a> But Judge Curtis, for his
+law, relies upon Judge Parker's charge. It is not a Statute made by
+the legislature that Judge Curtis relies on for his law; it is not a
+Custom of the Common law; it is not an Opinion of the Court solemnly
+pronounced after mature deliberation; it is only the charge of a
+single judge to a jury in a special case, and one which the jury
+disregarded even then!</p>
+
+<p>But where did Judge Parker, an estimable man, find his law? Mr. Perez
+Morton, the Attorney-General, found it in Kelyng's Reports. In the
+case of Bowen only one authority is referred to for that odious
+principle on which the judge sought to hang him; that authority is
+taken from "9 Charles I.;" from the year 1634&mdash;the worst age of the
+Stuart tyranny! But even that authority was not a Statute law, not a
+Custom of the People, not the Opinion of a Court solemnly pronounced.
+It was the charge of a single judge&mdash;a charge to a jury, made by an
+inferior judge, of an inferior court, in a barbarous age, under a
+despotic king! Hearken to this,&mdash;from the volume of Kelyng's
+Reports.<a name="FNanchor_196_196" id="FNanchor_196_196"></a><a href="#Footnote_196_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a> "<i>Memorandum</i>, That my Brother Twysden shewed me a
+Report which he had of the Charge given by Justice Jones to the
+grand-jury at the King's Bench Barr, in Michaelmas Term, 9 Carl. I."
+Gentlemen of the Jury, that charge no more settled the law even in
+1634, than Judge Sprague's charge telling the <i>grand-jury to "obey
+both"</i> the law of God and the law of man which is ex<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">177</a></span>actly opposite
+thereto, settled the law of the United States and the morality of the
+People. But yet that is all the law the government had to hang Bowen
+with. The jury made nothing of it.<a name="FNanchor_197_197" id="FNanchor_197_197"></a><a href="#Footnote_197_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a></p>
+
+<p>But Kelyng's Reports are of no value as authority. Here is what Lord
+Campbell, now Chief Justice of the King's Bench, says of them and
+their author. I read it to you long ago. "I ought to mention that
+among his other vanities he had the ambition to be an author; and he
+compiled a folio volume of decisions in criminal laws, <i>which are of
+no value whatever except to make us laugh at some of the silly
+egotisms with which they abound</i>."<a name="FNanchor_198_198" id="FNanchor_198_198"></a><a href="#Footnote_198_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a> Twysden, who showed him the
+Report of the charge, is of little value, and of no authority. I
+mentioned his character before.</p>
+
+<p>Justice Jones, who made the charge, would hardly be an authority in
+the English courts in a nice question of construction. He allowed the
+king to levy ship-money, as I have shown before,<a name="FNanchor_199_199" id="FNanchor_199_199"></a><a href="#Footnote_199_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a> and dared not
+perform the duties of his office and so protect the Liberty of the
+Subject when the king smote thereat. He was brought before the House
+of Commons to answer for his conduct, in 1628. "His memory," says
+Echard, "suffers upon the account of his open judgment for the
+ship-money, the unhappy consequence of which he did not live to
+see."<a name="FNanchor_200_200" id="FNanchor_200_200"></a><a href="#Footnote_200_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a></p>
+
+<p>Judge Kelyng, the great authority in this case, was notorious for
+violating alike Justice and the law. Out of a riot committed by some
+apprentices he constructed the crime of High Treason, and sentenced
+thirteen men to death. He fined and imprisoned jurors because they
+refused to return the wicked, illegal verdict he demanded. With
+language too obscene to utter in this century, he mocked at the Great
+Charter of English Liberty. But at last the scandal was too great even
+for the reign of Charles II., and in 1667 the "Grand Committee of
+Justice" in the House of Commons, after examining witnesses and
+hearing him on his own behalf, reported:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>1. "That the proceedings of the Lord Chief Justice in the
+cases referred to us are innovations in the trial of men for
+their lives and liberties, and that he hath used an
+arbitrary and illegal power which is of dangerous
+consequence to the lives and liberties of the people of
+England."</p>
+
+<p>2. "That in place of Judicature, the Lord Chief Justice hath
+undervalued, vilified, and condemned <span class="smcap">Magna Charta</span>, the great
+preserver of our lives, freedom, and property."</p>
+
+<p>3. "That the Lord Chief Justice be brought to trial, in
+order to condign punishment, in such manner as the House
+shall judge most fit and requisite."<a name="FNanchor_201_201" id="FNanchor_201_201"></a><a href="#Footnote_201_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a></p></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">178</a></span></p>
+<p>Some of the lawyers whom he had browbeaten, generously interceded for
+him. He made an abject submission "with great humility and reverence,"
+and the House desisted from prosecution. "He was abundantly tame for
+the rest of his days," says Lord Campbell, "fell into utter contempt,"
+"and <i>died to the great relief of all who had any regard for the due
+administration of justice</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, I am no lawyer, and may easily be mistaken in this matter,
+but as I studied Judge Curtis's charge and cast about for the sources
+of its doctrines and phraseology, I thought I traced them all back to
+Kelyng's opinions in that famous case, where he made treason out of a
+common riot among apprentices; and to Judge Chase's "opinions" and
+"rulings" in the trial of Mr. Fries,&mdash;opinions and rulings which
+shocked the public at the time, and brought legislative judgment on
+his head. Let any one compare the documents, I think he will find the
+whole of Curtis in those two impeached Judges, in Kelyng and in
+Chase.<a name="FNanchor_202_202" id="FNanchor_202_202"></a><a href="#Footnote_202_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a></p>
+
+<p>Here then is the law,&mdash;derived from the memorandum of the charge to a
+grand-jury made in 1634, by a judge so corrupt that he did not
+hesitate to violate Magna Charta itself; not published till more than
+seventy years after the charge was given; cited as law by a single
+authority, and that authority impeached for unrighteously and
+corruptly violating the laws he was set and sworn to defend, impeached
+even in that age&mdash;of Charles II.;&mdash;that is the law! Once before an
+attempt was made to apply it in Massachusetts, and inflict capital
+punishment on a man for advising a condemned murderer to anticipate
+the hangman and die by his own hand in private&mdash;and the jury refused.
+But to such shifts is this Honorable Court reduced! Gentlemen of the
+Jury, the fugitive slave bill cannot be executed in Massachusetts, not
+in America, without reviving the worst despotism of the worst of the
+Stuarts; not without bringing Twysden and Jones and Kelyng on the
+Bench; no, not without Saunders and Finch, and Jeffreys and Scroggs!</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, such was Judge Curtis's charge. I have been told it was
+what might have been expected from the general character and previous
+conduct of the man; but I confess it did surprise me: it was foolish
+as it was wicked and tyrannical. But it all came to nought.</p>
+
+<p>For, alas! there was a grand-jury, and the Salmonean thunder of the
+fugitive slave bill judge fell harmless&mdash;quenched, conquered,
+disgraced, and brutal,&mdash;to the ground. Poor fugitive slave bill Court!
+It can only gnash its teeth against freedom of speech in Faneuil Hall;
+only bark and yelp against the unalienable rights of man, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">179</a></span> howl
+against the Higher Law of God! it cannot bite! Poor, imbecile,
+malignant Court! What a pity that the fugitive slave bill judge was
+not himself the grand-jury, to order the indictment! what a shame that
+the attorney was not a petty jury to convict! Then New England, like
+Old, might have had her "bloody assizes," and Boston streets might
+have streamed with the heart's gore of noble men and women; and human
+heads might have decked the pinnacles all round the town; and Judge
+Curtis and Attorney Hallett might have had their place with Judge
+Jeffreys and John Boilman of old. What a pity that we have a
+grand-jury and a traverse jury to stand between the malignant arm of
+the Slave-hunter and the heart of you and me!<a name="FNanchor_203_203" id="FNanchor_203_203"></a><a href="#Footnote_203_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a></p>
+
+<p>The grand-jury found no bill and were discharged. In a Fourth of July
+Sermon "Of the Dangers which Threaten the Rights of Man in America," I
+said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Perhaps the Court will try again, and find a more pliant
+Grand-Jury, easier to intimidate. Let me suggest to the
+Court that the next time it should pack its Jury from the
+Marshal's 'Guard.' Then there will be Unity of Idea; of
+action too,&mdash;the Court a figure of equilibrium."</p></div>
+
+<p>The audacious Grand-Jury was discharged. A new one was summoned; this
+time it was constructed out of the right material. Before that,
+Gentlemen, we had had the Judge or his kinsmen writing for the
+fugitive slave bill in the newspapers; getting up public meetings in
+behalf of man-stealing in Boston; writing letters in support of the
+same; procuring opinions in favor of the constitutionality of the
+fugitive slave bill; nay, kidnapping men and sending them into eternal
+bondage, and in the newspapers defending the act; but we had none of
+them in the Jury box. On the new Grand-Jury appeared Mr. William W.
+Greenough, the brother-in-law of Hon. Judge Curtis&mdash;each married a
+daughter of Mr. Charles P. Curtis. Mr. Greenough "was very active in
+his endeavors to procure an indictment" against me; and a bill was
+found.</p>
+
+<p>How came the Brother-in-law of the Judge on the Grand-Jury summoned to
+punish men who spoke against kidnapping? Gentlemen of the Jury, I do
+not know. Of course it was done honestly; nobody suspects the Mayor of
+Boston of double-dealing, of intrigue, or of any indirection! Of
+course there was no improper influence used by the Marshal, or Mr.
+Curtis, or Mr. Hallett, who had all so much at stake; of course Mr.
+Greenough "did not wish to be on the Jury;" of course Judge Curtis
+"was very sorry he was there," and of course "all the family was
+sorry!" Of course "he went and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">180</a></span> asked Judge Sprague to excuse him, and
+the Judge wouldn't let him off!" Well, Gentlemen, I suppose it was a
+"miracle;" such a miracle as delivered the old or the new Shadrach; a
+"singular coincidence;" a "very remarkable fact." You will agree with
+me, Gentlemen, that it was a <i>very remarkable</i> <span class="smcap">fact</span>. In all the
+judicial tyranny I have related, we have not found a case before in
+which the judge had his brother on the Grand-Jury. Even Kelyng affords
+no precedent for that.</p>
+
+<p>Last summer I met Mr. Greenough in a Bookstore and saluted him as
+usual; he made no return to my salutation, but doubled up his face and
+went out of the shop! That was the impartial Grand-Juror, who took the
+oath to "present no man for envy, hatred, or malice."</p>
+
+<p>"After the impanelling of the new Grand-Jury,"&mdash;I am reading from a
+newspaper,<a name="FNanchor_204_204" id="FNanchor_204_204"></a><a href="#Footnote_204_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a> "Judge Curtis charged them in reference to their
+duties at considerable length. In regard to the Burns case he read the
+law of 1790 respecting opposition to the United States Marshals and
+their deputies while in discharge of their duty, enforcing the laws of
+the United States, and referred for further information as to the law
+upon the point to his charge delivered at a previous term of the
+Court, and now in the possession <i>of the District Attorney</i>." Thus he
+delegated the duty of expounding the law to a man who is not a
+judicial officer of the United States.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, look at the facts. I am indicted by a
+Grand-Jury summoned for that purpose after one Grand-Jury&mdash;which had
+been drawn before the kidnapping of Mr. Burns&mdash;had refused to find a
+bill; a member of the family which has been so distinguished for
+kidnapping ever since 1832, the Brother-in-law of the Judge, is made
+one of that Grand-Jury; he is so hostile and malignant as to refuse my
+friendly salutation when offered as usual; and on the jury is "most
+active of all in his efforts to procure an indictment," so that "but
+for his efforts," as one of the Grand-Jury informed me, "no bill would
+have been found that time;" and "it was obvious that an outside
+influence affected him." Out of court Mr. Hallett, it is said,
+jocosely offers to bet ten dollars that he "will get Mr. Parker
+indicted." I am to be tried before two judges deeply committed to the
+Slave Power, now fiercely invading our once free soil; they owe their
+appointment to their hostility against Freedom. Twenty years ago, in
+the Old Cradle of Liberty, Mr. Sprague could find for Washington no
+epithet so endearing as "<span class="smcap">That Slaveholder</span>;" he defended Slavery with
+all his legal learning, all his personal might. Yes, when other
+weapons failed him he extemporized a new gospel, and into the mouth of
+Jesus of Nazareth,&mdash;who said,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">181</a></span> "Thou shalt love thy Neighbor as
+thyself," and pointed out the man who had "fallen among thieves" as
+neighbor to the Samaritan&mdash;he put this most unchristian precept,
+"<span class="smcap">Slaves, obey your masters</span>!" Nay, only four years ago, in this very
+Court, he charged the jury that if they thought there was a
+contradiction between the Law of God and the Statutes of men they must
+"obey both."</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, the other judge, Mr. Curtis, began his career by asking the
+Supreme Court of Massachusetts to restore Slavery to Lexington and
+Bunker Hill; he demanded that our own Supreme Court should grant all
+that wickedness which Toombs and Hangman Foote, and Atchison and
+Stringfellow, and Grier and Kane have since sought to perpetuate! He
+denied the existence of any Law of God to control the Court, there is
+nothing but the Statutes of men; and declared "Slavery is not
+immoral;" Massachusetts may interfere actively to establish it abroad
+as well as at home. In Faneuil Hall, in a meeting which he and his
+kinsmen had gathered and controlled, a meeting to determine upon
+kidnapping the citizens of Boston, he charged me with perjury, asked a
+question, and did not dare listen to my reply! Gentlemen, it is a very
+proper Court to try me. A fugitive slave bill Court&mdash;with a fugitive
+slave bill Attorney, a fugitive slave bill Grand-Jury, two fugitive
+slave bill Judges&mdash;which scoffs at the natural law of the Infinite
+God, is a very suitable tribunal to try a Minister of the Christian
+religion for defending his own parishioners from being kidnapped,
+defending them with a word in Faneuil Hall!</p>
+
+<p>"No tyranny so secure,&mdash;none so intolerable,&mdash;none so dangerous,&mdash;none
+so remediless, as that of Executive Courts." "This is a truth all
+nations bear witness to&mdash;all history confirms." These were the words
+of Josiah Quincy, Jr., in 1772.&mdash;Gentlemen, in 1855 you see how true
+they are! "So sensible are all tyrants of the importance of such
+courts&mdash;that to advance and establish their system of oppression,
+<i>they never rest until they have completely corrupted or bought the
+judges of the land</i>. I could easily show that the most deep laid and
+daring attacks upon the rights of a people might, in some measure, be
+defeated, or evaded by upright judicatories; bad laws with good judges
+make little progress."<a name="FNanchor_205_205" id="FNanchor_205_205"></a><a href="#Footnote_205_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a></p>
+
+<p>But Gentlemen,&mdash;when the fugitive slave bill is "<i>law</i>," when the
+judges are selected for their love of Slavery and their hatred of
+freedom&mdash;men who invent Scripture to justify bondage, or who as
+Lawyers beseech the courts to establish Slavery in Massachusetts; who
+declare it is not immoral, that it may be the duty of Massachusetts to
+interfere actively and establish slavery abroad, nay, that there is no
+morality but only legality, the statute the only standard of right
+and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">182</a></span> wrong&mdash;what are you to expect? What you see in Philadelphia, New
+York; aye, in Boston at this hour. I will add with Mr. Quincy, "Is it
+possible this should not rouse us and drive us not to desperation but
+to our duty! The blind may see; the callous must feel; the spirited
+will act."<a name="FNanchor_206_206" id="FNanchor_206_206"></a><a href="#Footnote_206_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a></p>
+
+<p>It would be just as easy for the Judge to make out divers other crimes
+from my words, as to construct a misdemeanor therefrom. To charge me
+with "treason," he has only to vary a few words and phrases; to cite
+Chase, and not Judge Parker, and to refer to other passages of
+Kelyng's Reports. James II.'s judges declared it was treason in the
+seven Bishops to offer their petition to the King. Mr. Webster said,
+it is only the "clemency of the Government which indicted the Syracuse
+rescuers for misdemeanors and not for a capital crime!" How easy for a
+fugitive slave bill judge to hang men for a word against his brother
+kidnapper&mdash;if there were no jury; if, like the New York sheriff in
+1735, he could order "his own negro" to do it! Here is a remarkable
+case of constructive crime, worthy of this Honorable Court. It is the
+famous case of <i>Dux</i> v. <i>Conrade et Boracio</i>. Honorable Judge Dogberry
+thus delivered his charge to the Grand Inquest, "Masters, I charge you
+accuse these men,"&mdash;one policeman testified that Conrade said "that
+Don John, the prince's Brother, was a <i>villain</i>." Judge Dogberry
+ruled, "This is flat perjury to call a prince's Brother, <i>villain</i>."
+The next member of the Marshal's guard deposed that Boracio had said,
+"That he had received a thousand ducats of Don John for accusing the
+Lady Hero wrongfully." Chief Justice Dogberry decided, "Flat Burglary
+as ever was committed." Sentence accordingly.<a name="FNanchor_207_207" id="FNanchor_207_207"></a><a href="#Footnote_207_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a></p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>Gentlemen, the indictment is so roomy and vague, that before I came
+into court, I did not know what special acts of mine would be brought
+up against me&mdash;for to follow out the Judge's charge, all my life is a
+series of constructive misdemeanors. Nay, I think my mother&mdash;the
+violet has bloomed over that venerable and well-beloved head for more
+than thirty summers now&mdash;I think my mother might be indicted for
+constructive treason, only for bearing me, her youngest son.
+Certainly, it was "obstructing an officer," and in "misdemeanors all
+are principals." I have committed a great many misdemeanors; all my
+teachings evince an express liking for Piety, for Justice, for
+Liberty; all my life is obstructing, opposing, and resisting the
+fugitive slave bill Court, its Commissioners, its Judges, its Marshals
+and its Marshal's guard. Gentlemen of the jury, you are to judge me.
+Look at some of my actions and some of my words.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">183</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In 1850, on the 25th of March, a fortnight after Mr. Webster made his
+speech against Humanity, there was a meeting of the citizens of
+Boston, at Faneuil Hall; Gentlemen, I helped procure the meeting.
+First, I tried to induce the leading Whigs to assemble the people. No,
+that could not be done; "the Bill would not pass, there was no
+danger!" Then I tried the leading Free Soilers; "No, it was not quite
+time, and we are not strong enough." At last the old abolitionists
+came together. Mr. Phillips made a magnificent speech. Here are some
+things which I also said.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"There were three fugitives at my house the other night.
+Ellen Craft was one of them. You all know Ellen Craft is a
+slave; she, with her husband, fled from Georgia to
+Philadelphia, and is here before us now. She is not so dark
+as Mr. Webster himself, if any of you think freedom is to be
+dealt out in proportion to the whiteness of the skin. If
+Mason's bill passes, I might have some miserable postmaster
+from Texas or the District of Columbia, some purchased agent
+of Messrs. Bruin &amp; Hill, the great slave-dealers of the
+Capital, have him here in Boston, take Ellen Craft before
+the caitiff, and on his decision hurry her off to bondage as
+cheerless, as hopeless, and as irremediable as the grave!</p>
+
+<p>"Let me interest you in a scene which might happen. Suppose
+a poor fugitive, wrongfully held as a slave&mdash;let it be Ellen
+Craft&mdash;has escaped from Savannah in some northern ship. No
+one knows of her presence on board; she has lain with the
+cargo in the hold of the vessel. Harder things have
+happened. Men have journeyed hundreds of miles bent double
+in a box half the size of a coffin, journeying towards
+freedom. Suppose the ship comes up to Long Wharf, at the
+foot of State Street. Bulk is broken to remove the cargo;
+the woman escapes, emaciated with hunger, feeble from long
+confinement in a ship's hold, sick with the tossing of the
+heedless sea, and still further etiolated and blanched with
+the mingling emotions of hope and fear. She escapes to land.
+But her pursuer, more remorseless than the sea, has been
+here beforehand; laid his case before the official he has
+brought with him, or purchased here, and claims his slave.
+She runs for her life, fear adding wings. Imagine the
+scene&mdash;the flight, the hot pursuit through State Street,
+Merchants' Row&mdash;your magistrates in hot pursuit. To make the
+irony of nature still more complete, let us suppose this
+shall take place on some of the memorable days in the
+history of America&mdash;on the 19th of April, when our fathers
+first laid down their lives 'in the sacred cause of God and
+their country;' on the 17th of June, the 22d of December, or
+on any of the sacramental days in the long sad history of
+our struggle for our own freedom! Suppose the weary fugitive
+takes refuge in Faneuil Hall, and here, in the old Cradle of
+Liberty, in the midst of its associations, under the eye of
+Samuel Adams, the bloodhounds seize their prey! Imagine Mr.
+Webster and Mr. Winthrop looking on, cheering the
+slave-hunter, intercepting the fugitive fleeing for her
+life. Would not that be a pretty spectacle?</p>
+
+<p>"Propose to support that bill to the fullest extent, with
+all its provisions! Ridiculous talk! Does Mr. Webster
+suppose that such a law could be executed in Boston? that
+the people of Massachusetts will ever return a single
+fugitive slave, under such an act as that? Then he knows his
+constituents very little, and proves that he needs
+'Instruction.'</p>
+
+<p>"Perpetuate Slavery, we cannot do it. Nothing will save it.
+It is girt about by a ring of fire which daily grows
+narrower, and sends terrible sparkles into the very centre
+of the shameful thing. 'Joint resolutions' cannot save it;
+annexations cannot save it&mdash;not if we reannex all the West
+Indies; delinquent representatives cannot<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">184</a></span> save it;
+uninstructed senators, refusing instructions, cannot save
+it, no, not with all their logic, all their eloquence, which
+smites as an earthquake smites the sea. No, slavery cannot
+be saved; by no compromise, no non-intervention, no Mason's
+Bill in the Senate. It cannot be saved in this age of the
+world until you nullify every ordinance of nature, until you
+repeal the will of God, and dissolve the union He has made
+between righteousness and the welfare of a people. Then,
+when you displace God from the throne of the world, and
+instead of His eternal justice, reënact the will of the
+Devil, then you may keep Slavery; keep it for ever, keep it
+in peace. Not till then.</p>
+
+<p>"The question is, not if slavery is to cease, and soon to
+cease, but shall it end as it ended in Massachusetts, in New
+Hampshire, in Pennsylvania, in New York; or shall it end as
+in St. Domingo? Follow the counsel of Mr. Webster&mdash;it will
+end in fire and blood. God forgive us for our cowardice, if
+we let it come to this, that three millions or thirty
+millions of degraded human beings, degraded by us, must wade
+through slaughter to their unalienable rights."<a name="FNanchor_208_208" id="FNanchor_208_208"></a><a href="#Footnote_208_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, that speech was a "seditious libel" by construction!</p>
+
+<p>On the 29th of May, I spoke at the New England Anti-Slavery
+Convention, and said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Let us not be deceived about the real question at issue. It
+is not merely whether we shall return fugitive slaves
+without trial by jury. We will not return them with trial by
+jury! neither 'with alacrity,' nor with the 'solemnity of
+judicial proceedings!' It is not merely whether slavery
+shall be extended or not. By and by there will be a
+political party with a wider basis than the free soil party,
+who will declare that the nation itself must put an end to
+slavery in the nation; and if the Constitution of the United
+States will not allow it, there is another Constitution that
+will. Then the title, Defender and expounder of the
+Constitution of the United States, will give way to
+this,&mdash;'Defender and expounder of the Constitution of the
+Universe,' and we shall reaffirm the ordinance of nature,
+and reënact the will of God. You may not live to see it, Mr.
+President, nor I live to see it; but it is written on the
+iron leaf that it must come; come, too, before long. Then
+the speech of Mr. Webster, and the defence thereof by Mr.
+Stuart, the letter of the retainers and the letters of the
+retained, will be a curiosity; the conduct of the whigs and
+democrats an amazement, and the peculiar institution a
+proverb amongst all the nations of the earth. In the turmoil
+of party politics, and of personal controversy, let us not
+forget continually to move the previous question, whether
+Freedom or Slavery is to prevail in America. There is no
+attribute of God which is not on our side; because, in this
+matter, we are on the side of God."<a name="FNanchor_209_209" id="FNanchor_209_209"></a><a href="#Footnote_209_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>After the death of General Taylor on the 14th of July, I lifted up my
+voice in a funeral sermon thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"If he could speak to us from his present position, methinks
+he would say: Countrymen and friends! You see how little it
+availed you to agitate the land and put a little man in a
+great place. It is not the hurrah of parties that will 'save
+the Union,' it is not 'great men.' It is only Justice.
+Remember that Atheism is not the first principle of a
+Republic; remember there is a law of God, the higher law of
+the universe, the Everlasting Right: I thought so once, and
+now I know it. Remember that you are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">185</a></span> accountable to God for
+all things; that you owe justice to all men, the black not
+less than the white; that God will demand it of you, proud,
+wicked nation, careful only of your gold, forgetful of God's
+high law! Before long each of you shall also come up before
+the Eternal. Then and there it will not avail you to have
+compromised truth, justice, love, but to have kept them.
+Righteousness only is the salvation of a State; that only of
+a man."<a name="FNanchor_210_210" id="FNanchor_210_210"></a><a href="#Footnote_210_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>All that was before the bill passed, but how easy it would be for
+Judge Jeffreys or Judge Curtis, Judge Sprague or Judge Scroggs, to
+construct it into a "misdemeanor," "resisting an officer!"</p>
+
+<p>After the fugitive slave bill passed, on the 22d of September, 1850,
+not forty-eight hours after the Judge's friends had fired their
+jubilant cannon at the prospect of kidnapping the men who wait upon
+their tables, I preached a "Sermon of the Function and Place of
+Conscience in relation to the Laws of Man, a sermon for the times." I
+said this:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"If a man falls into the water and is in danger of drowning,
+it is the natural duty of the bystanders to aid in pulling
+him out, even at the risk of wetting their garments. We
+should think a man a coward who could swim, and would not
+save a drowning girl for fear of spoiling his coat. He would
+be indictable at common law. If a troop of wolves or tigers
+were about to seize a man, and devour him, and you and I
+could help him, it would be our duty to do so, even to peril
+our own limbs and life for that purpose. If a man undertakes
+to murder or steal a man, it is the duty of the bystanders
+to help their brother, who is in peril, against wrong from
+the two-legged man, as much as against the four-legged
+beast. But suppose the invader who seizes the man is an
+officer of the United States, has a commission in his
+pocket, a warrant for his deed in his hand, and seizes as a
+slave a man who has done nothing to alienate his natural
+rights&mdash;does that give him any more natural right to enslave
+a man than he had before? Can any piece of parchment make
+right wrong, and wrong right?</p>
+
+<p>"The fugitive has been a slave before: does the wrong you
+committed yesterday, give you a natural right to commit
+wrong afresh and continually? Because you enslaved this
+man's father, have you a natural right to enslave his child?
+The same right you would have to murder a man because you
+butchered his father first. The right to murder is as much
+transmissible by inheritance as the right to enslave! It is
+plain to me that it is the natural duty of citizens to
+rescue every fugitive slave from the hands of the marshal
+who essays to return him to bondage; to do it peaceably if
+they can, forcibly if they must, but by all means to do it.
+Will you stand by and see your countrymen, your
+fellow-citizens of Boston, sent off to slavery by some
+commissioner? Shall I see my own parishioners taken from
+under my eyes and carried back to bondage, by a man whose
+constitutional business it is to work wickedness by statute?
+Shall I never lift an arm to protect him? When I consent to
+that, you may call me a hireling shepherd, an infidel, a
+wolf in sheep's clothing, even a defender of slave-catching
+if you will; and I will confess I was a poor dumb dog,
+barking always at the moon, but silent as the moon when the
+murderer comes near.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not a man who loves violence. I respect the sacredness
+of human life. But this I say, solemnly, that I will do all
+in my power to rescue any fugitive slave from the hands of
+any officer who attempts to return him to bondage. I will
+resist him as gently as I know how, but with such strength
+as I can command; I will ring the bells,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">186</a></span> and alarm the
+town; I will serve as head, as foot, or as hand to any body
+of serious and earnest men, who will go with me, with no
+weapons but their hands, in this work. I will do it as
+readily as I would lift a man out of the water, or pluck him
+from the teeth of a wolf, or snatch him from the hands of a
+murderer. What is a fine of a thousand dollars, and jailing
+for six months, to the liberty of a man? My money perish
+with me, if it stand between me and the eternal law of God.
+I trust there are manly men enough in this house to secure
+the freedom of every fugitive slave in Boston, without
+breaking a limb or rending a garment.</p>
+
+<p>"One thing more I think is very plain, that the fugitive has
+the same natural right to defend himself against the
+slave-catcher, or his constitutional tool, that he has
+against a murderer or a wolf. The man who attacks me to
+reduce me to slavery, in that moment of attack alienates his
+right to life, and if I were the fugitive, and could escape
+in no other way, I would kill him with as little compunction
+as I would drive a mosquito from my face. It is high time
+this was said. What grasshoppers we are before the statute
+of men! what Goliaths against the law of God! What
+capitalist heeds your statute of usury when he can get
+illegal interest? How many banks are content with <i>six per
+cent.</i> when money is scarce? Did you never hear of a
+merchant evading the duties of the custom-house? When a
+man's liberty is concerned, we must keep the law, must we?
+betray the wanderer, and expose the outcast?"<a name="FNanchor_211_211" id="FNanchor_211_211"></a><a href="#Footnote_211_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, you know what Mr. Commissioner Hallett said of such
+language, said at the Union Meeting in Faneuil Hall.<a name="FNanchor_212_212" id="FNanchor_212_212"></a><a href="#Footnote_212_212" class="fnanchor">[212]</a> He was only
+fugitive slave bill commissioner then; in consequence of his denial of
+the Higher Law of God he is now fugitive slave bill Attorney. You know
+what Mr. Curtis said of the Sermon; now, in consequence he is Judge
+Curtis&mdash;the fugitive slave bill Judge.</p>
+
+<p>On the 14th of October there was another meeting at Faneuil Hall&mdash;the
+Freesoilers came that time. The old flame of Liberty burnt anew in
+Charles Francis Adams, who presided. Perhaps some of you remember the
+prayer of the venerable Dr. Lowell which lifted up our souls to the
+"Father of all men!" I proposed the appointment of a "Committee of
+Vigilance and Safety to take such measures as they shall deem just and
+expedient to protect the colored people of this city in the enjoyment
+of their lives and liberties." I was appointed one of the Committee,
+and subsequently Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Vigilance
+Committee; a very responsible office, Gentlemen. At that meeting I
+told of a fugitive from Boston, who that day had telegraphed to his
+wife here, asking if it was safe for him to come back from Canada. I
+asked the meeting, "Will you let him come back; how many will defend
+him to the worst?" "Here a hand vote was taken," said the newspapers,
+"a forest of hands was held up." Surely that was "evincing an express
+liking" for an obstruction of the kidnappers. But did it violate the
+law of 1790?</p>
+
+<p>All this you might easily have known before. Here is something you did
+not know. That Meeting, its Resolutions, its Speeches, its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">187</a></span> Action,
+were brought up in the cabinet of the United States and discussed.
+<i>Mr. Webster</i>, then Secretary of State, <i>wished to have Mr. Adams,
+president of the meeting, presented to the grand-jury and indicted for
+treason</i>! But the majority thought otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, when the kidnappers came to Boston I did some things of
+which this court has not taken notice, and so I will not speak of them
+now, but only tell your grandchildren of, if I live long enough.
+Others did more and better than I could do, however. In due time they
+will have their reward. One thing let me say now. When the two
+brothers Curtis, with their kinsfolk and coadjutors, were seeking to
+kidnap the Crafts, I took Ellen to my own house, and kept her there so
+long as the (Southern) kidnappers remained in the city. For the first
+time I armed myself, and put my house in a state of defence. For two
+weeks I wrote my sermons with a sword in the open drawer under my
+inkstand, and a pistol in the flap of the desk, loaded, ready, with a
+cap on the nipple. Commissioner Curtis said "a process was in the
+hands of the marshal ..." in the execution of which, he <i>might be
+called upon to break open dwelling-houses, and perhaps to take life</i>,
+by quelling resistance actual or "<i>threatened</i>." I was ready for him.
+I knew my rights.</p>
+
+<p>I went also and looked after William Craft. I inspected his weapons;
+"his powder had a good kernel, and he kept it dry; his pistols were of
+excellent proof; the barrels true, and clean, the trigger went easy,
+the caps would not hang fire at the snap. I tested his poignard; the
+blade had a good temper, stiff enough and yet springy withal; the
+point was sharp."<a name="FNanchor_213_213" id="FNanchor_213_213"></a><a href="#Footnote_213_213" class="fnanchor">[213]</a> After the immediate danger was over and Knight
+and Hughes had avoided the city, where they had received such welcome
+from the friends of this Court, such was the tone of the political
+newspapers and the commercial pulpit that William and Ellen must needs
+flee from America. Long made one by the wedlock of mutual and plighted
+faith, their marriage in Georgia was yet "null and void" by the laws
+of that "Christian State." I married them according to the law of
+Massachusetts. As a symbol of the husband's peculiar responsibility
+under such circumstances, I gave William a Sword&mdash;it lay on the table
+in the house of another fugitive, where the wedding took place&mdash;and
+told him of his manly duty therewith, if need were, to defend the life
+and liberty of Ellen. I gave them both a Bible, which I had bought for
+the purpose, to be a symbol of their spiritual culture and a help for
+their soul, as the sword was for their bodily life. "With this sword I
+thee wed," suited the circumstances of that bridal.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. and Mrs. Craft were parishioners of mine, and besides I have been
+appointed "minister at large in behalf of all fugitive slaves in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">188</a></span>
+Boston." I have helped join men and women in wedlock according to the
+customs of various sects and nations. There is one wedlock, a
+sacrament, but many forms. Never before did I marry two lovers with
+the Sword and the Bible&mdash;the form of matrimony for fugitive slaves:
+out of that fact perhaps Mr. Attorney can frame an indictment that
+will hold water. "If it only resists law and obstructs its officers,"
+quoth he, "it is treason, and he who risks it must risk hanging for
+it!"</p>
+
+<p>At the great Union meeting, November 26, when Mr. Curtis said "I
+should like to ask the Reverend Gentleman in what capacity he expects
+to be punished for his <i>perjury</i>," I said, "Do you want an answer to
+your question, Sir?" No doubt that was obstructing a (prospective)
+"officer," then preparing for process. How easily could Scroggs make a
+"misdemeanor," or "a seditious libel," out of that question! Allybone
+would call it "treason," "levying war."</p>
+
+<p>Thirty-six hours after the Union meeting, on Thanksgiving day, 28th
+November, 1850, in a "Sermon of the State of the Nation," I said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"I have sometimes been amazed at the talk of men who call on
+us to keep the fugitive slave law, one of the most odious
+laws in a world of odious laws&mdash;a law not fit to be made or
+kept. I have been amazed that they should dare to tell us
+the law of God, writ on the heavens and our hearts, never
+demanded we should disobey the laws of men! Well, suppose it
+were so. Then it was old Daniel's duty at Darius' command to
+give up his prayer; but he prayed three times a day, with
+his windows up. Then it was John's and Peter's duty to
+forbear to preach of Christianity; but they said, 'Whether
+it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more
+than unto God, judge ye.' Then it was the duty of Amram and
+Jochebed to take up their new-born Moses and cast him into
+the Nile, for the law of king Pharaoh, commanding it, was
+'constitutional,' and 'political agitation' was
+discountenanced as much in Goshen as in Boston. But Daniel
+did not obey; John and Peter did not fail to preach
+Christianity; and Amram and Jochebed refused 'passive
+obedience' to the king's decree! I think it will take a
+strong man all this winter to reverse the judgment which the
+world has passed on these three cases. But it is 'innocent'
+to try.</p>
+
+<p>"However, there is another ancient case, mentioned in the
+Bible, in which the laws commanded one thing and conscience
+just the opposite. Here the record of the law:&mdash;'Now both
+the chief priests and the Pharisees had given a commandment,
+that if any one knew where he [Jesus] were, he should show
+it, that they might take him.' Of course, it became the
+official and legal business of each disciple who knew where
+Christ was, to make it known to the authorities. No doubt
+James and John could leave all and follow him, with others
+of the people who knew not the law of Moses, and were
+accursed; nay, the women, Martha and Mary, could minister
+unto him of their substance, could wash his feet with their
+tears, and wipe them with the hairs of their head. They did
+it gladly, of their own free will, and took pleasure
+therein, I make no doubt. There was no merit in that&mdash;'Any
+man can perform an agreeable duty.' But there was found one
+disciple who could 'perform a disagreeable duty.' He went,
+perhaps 'with alacrity,' and betrayed his Saviour to the
+marshal of the district of Jerusalem, who was called a
+centurion. Had he no affection for Jesus? No doubt; but he
+could conquer his prejudices, while Mary and John could
+not.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">189</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Judas Iscariot has rather a bad name in the Christian
+world: he is called 'The son of perdition,' in the New
+Testament, and his conduct is reckoned a 'transgression;'
+nay, it is said the devil 'entered into him,' to cause this
+hideous sin. But all this it seems was a mistake; certainly,
+if we are to believe our 'republican' lawyers and statesmen,
+Iscariot only fulfilled his 'constitutional obligations.' It
+was only 'on that point,' of betraying his Saviour, that the
+constitutional law required him to have any thing to do with
+Jesus. He took his 'thirty pieces of silver'&mdash;about fifteen
+dollars; a Yankee is to do it for ten, having fewer
+prejudices to conquer&mdash;it was his legal fee, for value
+received. True, the Christians thought it was 'The wages of
+iniquity,' and even the Pharisees&mdash;who commonly made the
+commandment of God of none effect by their traditions&mdash;dared
+not defile the temple with this 'price of blood;' but it was
+honest money. Yes, it was as honest a fee as any American
+commissioner or deputy will ever get for a similar service.
+How mistaken we are! Judas Iscariot is not a traitor! he was
+a great patriot; he conquered his 'prejudices,' performed 'a
+disagreeable duty,' as an office of 'high morals and high
+principle;' he kept the 'law' and the 'Constitution,' and
+did all he could to 'save the Union;' nay, he was a saint,
+'not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles.' 'The law of
+God never commands us to disobey the law of man.' <i>Sancte
+Iscariote ora pro nobis.</i></p>
+
+<p>"Talk of keeping the fugitive slave law! Come, come, we know
+better. Men in New England know better than this. We know
+that we ought not to keep a wicked law, and that it must not
+be kept when the law of God forbids!</p>
+
+<p>"One of the most awful spectacles I ever saw, was this: A
+vast multitude attempting, at an orator's suggestion [Hon.
+Mr. Hallett], to howl down the 'Higher law,' and when he
+said, Will you have this to rule over you? they answered,
+'Never!' and treated the 'Higher law' to a laugh and a howl!
+It was done in Faneuil Hall; under the eyes of the three
+Adamses, Hancock, and Washington; and the howl rung round
+the venerable arches of that hall! I could not but ask, 'Why
+do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?
+the rulers of the earth set themselves, and kings take
+counsel against the Lord and say, Let us break his bands
+asunder, and cast off his yoke from us.' Then I could not
+but remember that it was written, 'He that sitteth in the
+heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision.'
+'He taketh up the isles as a very little thing, and the
+inhabitants of the earth are as grasshoppers before Him.'
+Howl down the law of God at a magistrate's command! Do this
+in Boston! Let us remember this&mdash;but with charity."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not believe there is more than one of the New England
+men who publicly helped the law into being, but would
+violate its provisions; conceal a fugitive; share his loaf
+with a runaway; furnish him golden wings to fly with. Nay, I
+think it would be difficult to find a magistrate in New
+England, willing to take the public odium of doing the
+official duty. I believe it is not possible to find a
+regular jury, who will punish a man for harboring a slave,
+for helping his escape, or fine a marshal or commissioner
+for being a little slow to catch a slave. Men will talk loud
+in public meetings, but they have some conscience after all,
+at home. And though they howl down the 'Higher law' in a
+crowd, yet conscience will make cowards of them all, when
+they come to lay hands on a Christian man, more innocent
+than they, and send him into slavery for ever! One of the
+commissioners of Boston talked loud and long, last Tuesday,
+in favor of keeping the law. When he read his litany against
+the law of God, and asked if men would keep the 'Higher
+law,' and got 'Never' as the welcome, and amen for
+response&mdash;it seemed as if the law might be kept, at least by
+that commissioner, and such as gave the responses to his
+creed. But slave-hunting Mr. Hughes, who came here for two
+of our fellow-worshippers, in his Georgia newspaper, tells a
+different story. Here it is from the 'Georgia Telegraph,' of
+last Friday. 'I called at eleven o'clock at night, at his
+[the commissioner's] residence, and stated to him my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">190</a></span>
+business, and asked him for a warrant, saying that if I
+could get a warrant, I could have the negroes [William and
+Ellen Craft] arrested. He said the law did not authorize a
+warrant to be issued: that it was my duty to go and arrest
+the negro without a warrant, and bring him before him!' This
+is more than I expected. 'Is Saul among the prophets?' The
+men who tell us that the law must be kept, God willing, or
+against His will&mdash;there are Puritan fathers behind them
+also; Bibles in their houses; a Christ crucified, whom they
+think of; and a God even in their world, who slumbers not,
+neither is weary, and is as little a respecter of parchments
+as of persons! They know there is a people, as well as
+politicians, a posterity not yet assembled, and they would
+not like to have certain words writ on their tomb-stone.
+'Traitor to the rights of mankind,' is no pleasant epitaph.
+They, too, remember there is a day after to-day; aye, a
+forever; and 'Inasmuch as ye have not done it unto one of
+the least of these my brethren, ye have not done it unto
+me,' is a sentence they would not like to hear at the day of
+judgment."<a name="FNanchor_214_214" id="FNanchor_214_214"></a><a href="#Footnote_214_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, you see by the faces of this Honorable Court, and you know
+by what these honorable functionaries and their coadjutors have done
+out of its limit, how much I was mistaken in the notion that no Boston
+Commissioner would ever kidnap a man! Perhaps you will pardon me for
+the mistake. I will soon explain it by a quotation.</p>
+
+<p>After the rescue of Shadrach, in my Sunday prayer I publicly gave God
+the thanks of the congregation for the noble deed. Perhaps that was a
+crime. I think Judge Saunders could make it appear that I was an
+"accessory after the fact," and then Judge Curtis could call the
+offence not a felony but a "misdemeanor," and "in misdemeanors all are
+principals." Nay, it might be "levying war" "with force and arms."</p>
+
+<p>After the Hon. Judge Sprague had made himself glorious by charging the
+jury "to obey both" the will of God and the laws of men, which forbid
+that will; and after Commissioner Curtis had kidnapped Mr. Sims, while
+he still had him in his unlawful jail, on Fast-day, April 10, 1851, I
+preached a sermon "of the Chief Sins of the People," and said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"He [Judge Sprague] supposes a case: that the people ask
+him, 'Which shall we obey, the law of man or the will of
+God?' He says, 'I answer, obey both. The incompatibility
+which the question assumes does not exist.'</p>
+
+<p>"So, then, here is a great general rule, that between the
+'law of man' and the 'will of God' there is no
+incompatibility, and we must 'obey both.' Now let us see how
+this rule will work.</p>
+
+<p>"If I am rightly informed, King Ahab made a law that all the
+Hebrews should serve Baal, and it was the will of God that
+they should serve the Lord. According to this rule of the
+judge, they must 'obey both.' But if they served Baal, they
+could not serve the Lord. In such a case, 'what is to be
+done?' We are told that Elijah gathered the prophets
+together: 'and he came unto all the people, and said, How
+long halt ye? If the Lord be God, follow him; but if Baal,
+then follow him.' Our modern<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">191</a></span> prophet says, 'Obey both. The
+incompatibility which the question assumes does not exist.'
+Such is the difference between Judge Elijah and Judge Peleg.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us see how this rule will work in other cases; how you
+can make a compromise between two opposite doctrines. The
+king of Egypt commanded the Hebrew nurses, 'When you do the
+office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, if it be a son ye
+shall kill him.' I suppose it is plain to the Judge of the
+Circuit Court that this kind of murder, killing the new-born
+infants, is against 'the will of God;' but it is a matter of
+record that it was according to 'the law of man.' Suppose
+the Hebrew nurses had come to ask Judge Sprague for his
+advice. He must have said, 'Obey both!' His rule is a
+universal one.</p>
+
+<p>"Another decree was once made, as it is said in the Old
+Testament, that no man should ask any petition of any God
+for thirty days, save of the king, on penalty of being cast
+into the den of lions. Suppose Daniel&mdash;I mean the old
+Daniel, the prophet&mdash;should have asked him, What is to be
+done? Should he pray to Darius or pray to God? 'Obey both!'
+would be the answer. But he cannot, for he is forbid to pray
+to God. We know what Daniel did do.</p>
+
+<p>"The elders and scribes of Jerusalem commanded the
+Christians not to speak or to teach at all in the name of
+Jesus; but Peter and John asked those functionaries,
+'Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you
+more than unto God, judge ye.' Our judge must have said,
+There is no 'incompatibility;' 'obey both!' What 'a
+comfortable Scripture' this would have been to poor John
+Bunyan! What a great ethical doctrine to St. Paul! He did
+not know such Christianity as that. Before his time a
+certain man had said, 'No man can serve two masters.' But
+there was one person who made the attempt, and he also is
+eminent in history. Here was 'the will of God,' to do to
+others as you would have others do to you: 'Love thy
+neighbor as thyself.' Here is the record of 'the law of
+man:' 'Now both the chief priests and the Pharisees had
+given a commandment, that, if any man knew where he [Jesus]
+were, he should show it that they might take him.' Judas, it
+seems, determined to 'obey both,'&mdash;'the law of man' and 'the
+will of God.' So he sat with Jesus at the Last Supper,
+dipped his hand in the same dish, and took a morsel from the
+hand of Christ, given him in token of love. All this he did
+to obey 'the will of God.' Then he went and informed the
+Commissioner or Marshal where Jesus was. This he did to obey
+'the law of man.' Then he came back, and found Christ,&mdash;the
+agony all over, the bloody sweat wiped off from his brow
+presently to bleed again,&mdash;the Angel of Strength there with
+him to comfort him. He was arousing his sleeping disciples
+for the last time, and was telling them, 'Pray, lest ye
+enter into temptation.' Judas came and gave him a kiss. To
+the eleven it seemed the friendly kiss, obeying 'the will of
+God.' To the Marshal it also seemed a friendly
+kiss,&mdash;obeying 'the law of man.' So, in the same act, he
+obeys 'the law of God' and 'the will of man,' and there is
+no 'incompatibility!'</p>
+
+<p>"Of old it was said, 'Thou canst not serve God and mammon.'
+He that said it, has been thought to know something of
+morals,&mdash;something of religion.</p>
+
+<p>"Till the fugitive slave law was passed, we did not know
+what a great saint Iscariot was. I think there ought to be a
+chapel for him, and a day set apart in the calendar. Let him
+have his chapel in the navy yard at Washington. He has got a
+priest there already. And for a day in the calendar&mdash;set
+apart for all time the seventh of March!"</p>
+
+<p>"Last Thanksgiving day, I said it would be difficult to find
+a magistrate in Boston to take the odium of sending a
+fugitive back to slavery. I believed, after all, men had
+some conscience, although they talked about its being a duty
+to deliver up a man to bondage. Pardon me, my country, that
+I rated you too high! Pardon me, town of Boston, that I
+thought your citizens all men! Pardon me, lawyers, that I
+thought you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">192</a></span> had been all born of mothers! Pardon me,
+ruffians, who kill for hire! I thought you had some animal
+mercy left, even in your bosom! Pardon me, United States'
+commissioners, marshals, and the like, I thought you all had
+some shame! Pardon me, my hearers, for such mistakes. One
+commissioner was found to furnish the warrant [Mr. George T.
+Curtis]! Pardon me, I did not know he was a commissioner; if
+I had, I never would have said it!</p>
+
+<p>"Spirits of tyrants, I look down to you! Shade of Cain, you
+great first murderer, forgive me that I forgot your power,
+and did not remember that you were parent of so long a line!
+And you, my brethren, if hereafter I tell you that there is
+any limit of meanness or wickedness which a Yankee will not
+jump over, distrust me, and remind me of this day, and I
+will take it back!</p>
+
+<p>"Let us look at the public conduct of any commissioner who
+will send an innocent man from Boston into slavery. I would
+speak of all men charitably; for I know how easy it is to
+err, yea, to sin. I can look charitably on thieves, prowling
+about in darkness; on rum-sellers, whom poverty compels to
+crime; on harlots, who do the deed of shame that holy
+woman's soul abhors and revolts at; I can pity the pirate,
+who scours the seas doing his fiendish crimes&mdash;he is
+tempted, made desperate by a gradual training in wickedness.
+The man, born at the South, owning slaves, who goes to
+Africa and sells adulterated rum in exchange for men to
+retail at Cuba,&mdash;I cannot understand the consciousness of
+such a man; yet I can admit that by birth and by breeding he
+has become so imbruted he knows no better. Nay, even that he
+may perhaps justify his conduct to himself. I say I think
+his sin is not so dreadful as that of a commissioner in
+Boston who sends a man into slavery. A man commits a murder,
+inflamed by jealousy, goaded by desire of great gain,
+excited by fear, stung by malice, or poisoned by revenge,
+and it is a horrid thing. But to send a man into slavery is
+worse than to murder him. I should rather be slain than
+enslaved. To do this, inflamed by no jealousy, goaded by no
+desire of great gain,&mdash;only ten dollars!&mdash;excited by no
+fear, stung by no special malice, poisoned by no revenge,&mdash;I
+cannot comprehend that in any man, not even in a hyena.
+Beasts that raven for blood do not kill for killing's sake,
+but to feed their flesh. Forgive me, O ye wolves and hyenas!
+that I bring you into such company. I can only understand it
+in a devil!</p>
+
+<p>"When a man bred in Massachusetts, whose Constitution
+declares that 'All men are born free and equal;' within
+sight of Faneuil Hall, with all its sacred memories; within
+two hours of Plymouth Rock; within a single hour of Concord
+and Lexington; in sight of Bunker Hill,&mdash;when he will do
+such a deed, it seems to me that there is no life of crime
+long enough to prepare a man for such a pitch of depravity;
+I should think he must have been begotten in sin, and
+conceived in iniquity, and been born 'with a dog's head on
+his shoulders;' that the concentration of the villany of
+whole generations of scoundrels would hardly be enough to
+fit a man for a deed like this!"</p>
+
+<p>"Last Thursday night,&mdash;when odious beasts of prey, that dare
+not face the light of heaven, prowl through the
+woods,&mdash;those ruffians of the law seized on their brother
+man. They lie to the bystanders, and seize him on a false
+pretence. There is their victim&mdash;they hold him fast. His
+faithless knife breaks in his hand; his coat is rent to
+pieces. He is the slave of Boston. Can you understand his
+feelings? Let us pass by that. His 'trial!' Shall I speak of
+that? He has been five days on trial for more than life, and
+has not seen a judge! A jury? No,&mdash;only a commissioner! O
+justice! O republican America! Is this the liberty of
+Massachusetts?</p>
+
+<p>"Where shall I find a parallel with men who will do such a
+deed,&mdash;do it in Boston? I will open the tombs, and bring up
+most hideous tyrants from the dead. Come, brood of monsters,
+let me bring you up from the deep damnation of the graves
+wherein your hated memories continue for all time their
+never-ending rot. Come, birds of evil<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">193</a></span> omen! come, ravens,
+vultures, carrion-crows, and see the spectacle! come, see
+the meeting of congenial souls! I will disturb, disquiet,
+and bring up the greatest monsters of the human race!
+Tremble not, women; tremble not, children; tremble not, men!
+They are all dead! They cannot harm you now! Fear the
+living, not the dead!</p>
+
+<p>"Come hither, Herod the wicked! Thou that didst seek after
+that young child's life, and destroyed the Innocents! Let me
+look on thy face! No; go! Thou wert a heathen! Go, lie with
+the Innocents thou hast massacred. Thou art too good for
+this company!</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Nero! Thou awful Roman Emperor! Come up! No; thou
+wast drunk with power! schooled in Roman depravity. Thou
+hadst, besides, the example of thy fancied gods! Go, wait
+another day. I will seek a worser man.</p>
+
+<p>"Come hither, St. Dominic! come, Torquemada!&mdash;Fathers of the
+Inquisition! Merciless monsters, seek your equal here! No;
+pass by! You are no companions for such men as these! You
+were the servants of atheistic popes, of cruel kings. Go to,
+and get you gone. Another time I may have work for you,&mdash;not
+now; lie there and persevere to rot. You are not yet quite
+wicked and corrupt enough for this comparison. Go, get ye
+gone, lest the sun turn back at sight of ye!</p>
+
+<p>"Come up, thou heap of wickedness, George Jeffreys!&mdash;thy
+hands deep purple with the blood of thy murdered fellow men!
+Ah, I know thee! awful and accursed shade! Two hundred years
+after thy death, men hate thee still, not without cause! Let
+me look upon thee! I know thy history. Pause and be still,
+while I tell it to these men.</p>
+
+<p>"Brothers, George Jeffreys 'began in the sedition line.'
+'There was no act, however bad, that he would not resort to
+to get on.' 'He was of a bold aspect, and cared not for the
+countenance of any man.' 'He became the avowed, unblushing
+slave of the court, and the bitter persecutor and
+unappeasable enemy of the principles he had before
+supported.' 'He was universally insolent and overbearing.'
+'As a judge, he did not consider the decencies of his post,
+nor did he so much as affect to be impartial, as became a
+judge.' His face and voice were always unamiable. 'All
+tenderness for the feelings of others, all self-respect were
+obliterated from his mind.' He had 'a delight in misery,
+merely as misery,' and 'that temper which tyrants require in
+their worst instruments.' 'He made haste to sell his
+forehead of brass and his tongue of venom to the court.' He
+had 'more impudence than ten carted street-walkers;' and was
+appropriately set to a work 'which could be trusted to no
+man who reverenced law, or who was sensible of shame.' He
+was a 'Commissioner' in 1685. You know of the 'Bloody
+assizes' which he held, and how he sent to execution three
+hundred and twenty persons in a single circuit. 'The whole
+country was strewed with the heads and limbs of his
+victims.' Yet a man wrote that 'A little more hemp might
+have been usefully employed.' He was the worst of the
+English judges. 'There was no measure, however illegal, to
+the execution of which he did not devotedly and recklessly
+abandon himself.' 'During the Stuart reigns, England was
+cursed by a succession of ruffians in ermine, who, for the
+sake of court favor, wrested the principles of law, the
+precepts of religion, and the duties of humanity; but they
+were all greatly outstripped by Jeffreys.' Such is his
+history.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, shade of a judicial butcher! Two hundred years thy
+name has been pilloried in face of the world, and thy memory
+gibbeted before mankind. Let us see how thou wilt compare
+with those who kidnap men in Boston! Go seek companionship
+with them! Go claim thy kindred, if such they be! Go tell
+them that the memory of the wicked shall rot,&mdash;that there is
+a God; an Eternity; ay! and a Judgment too! where the slave
+may appeal against him that made him a slave, to Him that
+made him a man.</p>
+
+<p>"What! Dost thou shudder? Thou turn back! These not thy
+kindred! Why<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">194</a></span> dost thou turn pale, as when the crowd
+clutched at thy life in London Street? It is true, George
+Jeffreys, and these are not thy kin. Forgive me that I
+should send thee on such an errand, or bid thee seek
+companionship with such&mdash;with Boston hunters of the slave!
+Thou wert not base enough! It was a great bribe that tempted
+thee! Again I say, pardon me for sending thee to keep
+company with such men! Thou only struckst at men accused of
+crime; not at men accused only of their birth! Thou wouldst
+not send a man into bondage for two pounds! I will not rank
+thee with men who, in Boston, for ten dollars, would enslave
+a negro now! Rest still, Herod! Be quiet, Nero! Sleep, St.
+Dominic, and sleep, O Torquemada! in your fiery jail! Sleep,
+Jeffreys, underneath 'the altar of the church' which seeks
+with Christian charity to hide your hated bones."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my brethren, these are only the beginning of sorrows.
+There will be other victims yet; this will not settle the
+question. What shall we do? I think I am a calm man and a
+cool man, and I have a word or two to say as to what we
+shall do. Never obey the law. Keep the law of God. Next I
+say, resist not evil with evil; resist not now with
+violence. Why do I say this? Will you tell me that I am a
+coward? Perhaps I am; at least I am not afraid to be called
+one. Why do I say, then, do not now resist with violence?
+Because it is not time just yet; it would not succeed. If I
+had the eloquence that I sometimes dream of, which goes into
+a crowd of men, and gathers them in its mighty arm, and
+sways them as the pendent boughs of yonder elm shall be
+shaken by the summer breeze next June, I would not give that
+counsel. I would call on men, and lift up my voice like a
+trumpet through the whole land, until I had gathered
+millions out of the North and the South, and they should
+crush slavery for ever, as the ox crushes the spider
+underneath his feet. But such eloquence is given to no man.
+It was not given to the ancient Greek who 'shook the arsenal
+and fulmined over Greece.' He that so often held the nobles
+and the mob of Rome within his hand, had it not. He that
+spoke as never man spake, and who has since gathered two
+hundred millions to his name, had it not. No man has it. The
+ablest must wait for time! It is idle to resist here and
+now. It is not the hour. If in 1765 they had attempted to
+carry out the Revolution by force, they would have failed.
+Had it failed, we had not been here to-day. There would have
+been no little monument at Lexington 'sacred to liberty and
+the rights of mankind' honoring the men who 'fell in the
+cause of God and their country.' No little monument at
+Concord; nor that tall pile of eloquent stone at Bunker
+Hill, to proclaim that 'Resistance to tyrants is obedience
+to God.' Success is due to the discretion, heroism,
+calmness, and forbearance of our fathers: let us wait our
+time. It will come&mdash;perhaps will need no sacrifice of
+blood."<a name="FNanchor_215_215" id="FNanchor_215_215"></a><a href="#Footnote_215_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, I think Judge Finch could construct a misdemeanor out of
+these words; you will find in them nothing but the plain speech of a
+minister of the Christian religion.</p>
+
+<p>On the 6th of July, 1851, I preached "Of the three chief Safeguards of
+Society," and said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Nowhere in the world is there a people so orderly, so much
+attached to law, as the people of these Northern States. But
+one law is an exception. The people of the North hate the
+fugitive slave law, as they have never hated any law since
+the stamp act. I know there are men in the Northern States
+who like it,&mdash;who would have invented slavery, had it not
+existed long before. But the mass of the Northern people
+hate this law, because it is hostile to the purpose of all
+just human law, hostile to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">195</a></span> purpose of society, hostile
+to the purpose of individual life; because it is hostile to
+the law of God,&mdash;bids the wrong, forbids the right. We
+disobey that, for the same reason that we keep other laws:
+because we reverence the law of God. Why should we keep that
+odious law which makes us hated wherever justice is loved?
+Because we must sometimes do a disagreeable deed to
+accomplish an agreeable purpose? The purpose of that law is
+to enable three hundred thousand slaveholders to retake on
+our soil the men they once stole on other soil! Most of the
+city churches of the North seem to think that is a good
+thing. Very well; is it worth while for fifteen million
+freemen to transgress the plainest of natural laws, the most
+obvious instincts of the human heart, and the plainest
+duties of Christianity, for that purpose? The price to pay
+is the religious integrity of fifteen million men; the thing
+to buy is a privilege for three hundred thousand
+slaveholders to use the North as a hunting field whereon to
+kidnap men at our cost. Judge you of that bargain."</p>
+
+<p>"I adjure you to reverence a government that is right,
+statutes that are right, officers that are right; but to
+disobey every thing that is wrong. I intreat you by your
+love for your country, by the memory of your fathers, by
+your reverence for Jesus Christ, yea, by the deep and holy
+love of God which Jesus taught, and you now feel."<a name="FNanchor_216_216" id="FNanchor_216_216"></a><a href="#Footnote_216_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>You will say all this is but indispensable duty; but the judge who
+hanged a man for treason because he promised to make his son "heir to
+the Crown"&mdash;meaning the "Crown Tavern" that he lived in&mdash;would
+doubtless find treason in my words also.</p>
+
+<p>On the 12th of April, 1852, I delivered an address to commemorate the
+first anniversary of the Kidnapping of Thomas Sims, and said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"But when the rulers have inverted their function, and
+enacted wickedness into a law which treads down the
+unalienable rights of man to such a degree as this, then I
+know no ruler but God, no law but natural Justice. I tear
+the hateful statute of kidnappers to shivers; I trample it
+underneath my feet. I do it in the name of all law; in the
+name of Justice and of Man; in the name of the dear God."</p>
+
+<p>"You remember the decision of the Circuit judge,&mdash;himself
+soon to be summoned by death before the Judge who is no
+respecter of persons,&mdash;not allowing the destined victim his
+last hope, 'the great writ of right.' The decision left him
+entirely at the mercy of the other kidnappers. The
+Court-room was crowded with 'respectable people,' 'gentlemen
+of property and standing:' they received the decision with
+'applause and the clapping of hands.' Seize a lamb out of a
+flock, a wolf from a pack of wolves, the lambs bleat with
+sympathy, the wolves howl with fellowship and fear; but when
+a competitor for the Presidency sends back to eternal
+bondage a poor, friendless negro, asking only his limbs,
+wealthy gentlemen of Boston applaud the outrage.</p></div>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="poem">
+<tr>
+<td>
+'O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,<br />
+And men have lost their reason!'"
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"When the Fugitive Slave Bill passed, the six New England
+States lay fast asleep: Massachusetts slept soundly, her
+head pillowed on her unsold bales of cotton and of woollen
+goods, dreaming of 'orders from the South.' Justice came to
+waken her, and whisper of the peril of nine thousand
+citizens; and she started in her sleep, and, being frighted,
+swore a prayer or two, then slept again. But Boston
+woke,&mdash;sleeping, in her shop, with ears open, and her eye on
+the market, her hand on her purse, dreaming<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">196</a></span> of goods for
+sale,&mdash;Boston woke broadly up, and fired a hundred guns for
+joy. O Boston, Boston! if thou couldst have known, in that
+thine hour, the things which belong unto thy peace! But no:
+they were hidden from her eyes. She had prayed to her god,
+to Money; he granted her the request, but sent leanness into
+her soul."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet one charge has been made against the Government, which
+seems to me a little harsh and unjust. It has been said the
+administration preferred low and contemptible men as their
+tools; judges who blink at law, advocates of infamy, and men
+cast off from society for perjury, for nameless crimes, and
+sins not mentionable in English speech; creatures 'not so
+good as the dogs that licked Lazarus's sores; but, like
+flies, still buzzing upon any thing that is raw.' There is a
+semblance of justice in the charge: witness Philadelphia,
+Buffalo, Boston; witness New York. It is true, for
+kidnappers the Government did take men that looked 'like a
+bull-dog just come to man's estate;' men whose face declared
+them, 'if not the devil, at least his twin-brother.' There
+are kennels of the courts wherein there settles down all
+that the law breeds most foul, loathsome, and hideous and
+abhorrent to the eye of day; there this contaminating puddle
+gathers its noisome ooze, slowly, stealthily, continually,
+agglomerating its fetid mass by spontaneous cohesion, and
+sinking by the irresistible gravity of rottenness into that
+abhorred deep, the lowest, ghastliest pit in all the
+subterranean vaults of human sin. It is true the Government
+has skimmed the top and dredged the bottom of these kennels
+of the courts, taking for its purpose the scum and sediment
+thereof, the Squeers, the Fagins, and the Quilps of the law,
+the monsters of the court. Blame not the Government; it took
+the best it could get. It was necessity, not will, which
+made the selection. Such is the stuff that kidnappers must
+be made of. If you wish to kill a man, it is not bread you
+buy: it is poison. Some of the instruments of Government
+were such as one does not often look upon. But, of old time,
+an inquisitor was always 'a horrid-looking fellow, as
+beseemed his trade.' It is only justice that a kidnapper
+should bear 'his great commission in his look.'"</p>
+
+<p>"I pity the kidnappers, the poor tools of men almost as
+base. I would not hurt a hair of their heads; but I would
+take the thunder of the moral world, and dash its bolted
+lightning on this crime of stealing men, till the name of
+kidnapping should be like Sodom and Gomorrah. It is piracy
+to steal a man in Guinea; what is it to do this in Boston?</p>
+
+<p>"I pity the merchants who, for their trade, were glad to
+steal their countrymen; I wish them only good. Debate in
+yonder hall has shown how little of humanity there is in the
+trade of Boston. She looks on all the horrors which
+intemperance has wrought, and daily deals in every street;
+she scrutinizes the jails,&mdash;they are filled by rum; she
+looks into the alms-houses, crowded full by rum; she walks
+her streets, and sees the perishing classes fall, mowed down
+by rum; she enters the parlors of wealthy men, looks into
+the bridal chamber, and meets death: the ghosts of the slain
+are there,&mdash;men slain by rum. She knows it all, yet says,
+'There is an interest at stake!'&mdash;the interest of rum; let
+man give way! Boston does this to-day. Last year she stole a
+man; her merchants stole a man! The sacrifice of man to
+money, when shall it have an end? I pity those merchants who
+honor money more than man. Their gold is cankered, and their
+soul is brass,&mdash;is rusted brass. They must come up before
+the posterity which they affect to scorn. What voice can
+plead for them before their own children? The eye that
+mocketh at the justice of its son, and scorneth to obey the
+mercy of its daughter, the ravens of posterity shall pick it
+out, and the young eagles eat it up!</p>
+
+<p>"But there is yet another tribunal: 'After the death the
+judgment!' When he maketh inquisition for the blood of the
+innocent, what shall the stealers of men reply? Boston
+merchants, where is your brother, Thomas Sims? Let Cain
+reply to Christ."<a name="FNanchor_217_217" id="FNanchor_217_217"></a><a href="#Footnote_217_217" class="fnanchor">[217]</a></p></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">197</a></span></p>
+<p>The Sunday after Mr. Webster's death, Oct. 31, 1852, I spoke of that
+powerful man; listen to this:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Mr. Webster stamped his foot, and broke through into the
+great hollow of practical atheism, which undergulfs the
+State and Church. Then what a caving in was there! The
+firm-set base of northern cities quaked and yawned with
+gaping rents. 'Penn's sandy foundation' shook again, and
+black men fled from the city of brotherly love, as doves,
+with plaintive cry, flee from a farmer's barn when summer
+lightning stabs the roof. There was a twist in Faneuil Hall,
+and the doors could not open wide enough for Liberty to
+regain her ancient Cradle; only soldiers, greedy to steal a
+man, themselves stole out and in. Ecclesiastic quicksand ran
+down the hole amain. Metropolitan churches toppled, and
+pitched, and canted, and cracked, their bowing walls all out
+of plumb. Colleges, broken from the chain which held them in
+the stream of time, rushed towards the abysmal rent. Harvard
+led the way, '<i>Christo et Ecclesiæ</i>' in her hand. Down
+plunged Andover, 'Conscience and the Constitution' clutched
+in its ancient, failing arm. New Haven began to cave in.
+Doctors of Divinity, orthodox, heterodox, with only a doxy
+of doubt, 'no settled opinion,' had great alacrity in
+sinking, and went down quick, as live as ever, into the pit
+of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, the bottomless pit of lower
+law,&mdash;one with his mother, cloaked by a surplice, hid
+beneath his sinister arm, and an acknowledged brother
+grasped by his remaining limb. Fossils of theology, dead as
+Ezekiel's bones, took to their feet again, and stood up for
+most arrant wrong. 'There is no higher law of God,' quoth
+they, as they went down; 'no golden rule, only the statutes
+of men.' A man with mythologic ear might fancy that he heard
+a snickering laugh run round the world below, snorting,
+whinnying, and neighing, as it echoed from the infernal spot
+pressed by the fallen monsters of ill-fame, who, thousands
+of years ago, on the same errand, had plunged down the
+self-same way. What tidings the echo bore, Dante nor Milton
+could not tell. Let us leave that to darkness, and to
+silence, and to death.</p>
+
+<p>"But spite of all this, in every city, in every town, in
+every college, and in each capsizing church, there were
+found Faithful Men, who feared not the monster, heeded not
+the stamping;&mdash;nay, some doctors of divinity were found
+living. In all their houses there was light, and the
+destroying angel shook them not. The word of the Lord came
+in open vision to their eye; they had their lamps trimmed
+and burning, their loins girt; they stood road-ready.
+Liberty and Religion turned in thither, and the slave found
+bread and wings. 'When my father and my mother forsake me,
+then the Lord will hold me up!'</p>
+
+<p>"After the 7th of March, Mr. Webster became the ally of the
+worst of men, the forefront of kidnapping. The orator of
+Plymouth Rock was the advocate of slavery; the hero of
+Bunker Hill put chains round Boston Court House; the
+applauder of Adams and Jefferson was a tool of the
+slaveholder, and a keeper of slavery's dogs, the associate
+of the kidnapper, and the mocker of men who loved the right.
+Two years he lived with that rabble rout for company, his
+name the boast of every vilest thing.</p>
+
+<p class="center">'Oh, how unlike the place from whence he fell!'"</p>
+
+<p>"Do men mourn for him? See how they mourn! The streets are
+hung with black. The newspapers are sad colored. The shops
+are put in mourning. The Mayor and Aldermen wear crape.
+Wherever his death is made known, the public business stops,
+and flags drop half-mast down. The courts adjourn. The
+courts of Massachusetts&mdash;at Boston, at Dedham, at Lowell,
+all adjourn; the courts of New Hampshire, of Maine, of New
+York; even at Baltimore and Washington, the courts adjourn;
+for the great lawyer is dead, and Justice must wait another
+day. Only the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">198</a></span> United States Court, in Boston, trying a man
+for helping Shadrach out of the furnace of the
+kidnappers,&mdash;the court which executes the Fugitive Slave
+Bill,&mdash;that does not adjourn; that keeps on; its worm dies
+not, and the fire of its persecution is not quenched, when
+death puts out the lamp of life! Injustice is hungry for its
+prey, and must not be balked. It was very proper! Symbolical
+court of the Fugitive Slave Bill&mdash;it does not respect life,
+why should it death? and, scorning liberty, why should it
+heed decorum?"<a name="FNanchor_218_218" id="FNanchor_218_218"></a><a href="#Footnote_218_218" class="fnanchor">[218]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>On the 12th of February, 1854, I preached "Some Thoughts on the new
+Assault upon Freedom in America."</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Who put Slavery in the Constitution; made it Federal? who
+put it in the new States? who got new soil to plant it in?
+who carried it across the Mississippi&mdash;into Louisiana,
+Florida, Texas, Utah, New Mexico? who established it in the
+Capital of the United States? who adopted Slavery and
+volunteered to catch a runaway, in 1793, and repeated the
+act in 1850,&mdash;in defiance of all law, all precedent, all
+right? Why, it was the North. 'Spain armed herself with
+bloodhounds,' said Mr. Pitt, 'to extirpate the wretched
+natives of America.' In 1850, the Christian Democracy set
+worse bloodhounds afoot to pursue Ellen Craft; offered them
+five dollars for the run, if they did not take her; ten if
+they did! The price of blood was Northern money; the
+bloodhounds&mdash;they were Kidnappers born at the North, bred
+there, kennelled in her church, fed on her sacraments,
+blessed by her priests! In 1778, Mr. Pitt had a yet harsher
+name for the beasts wherewith despotic Spain hunted the red
+man in the woods&mdash;he called them '<i>Hell Hounds</i>.' But they
+only hunted 'savages, heathens, men born in barbarous
+lands.' What would he say of the pack which in 1851 hunted
+American Christians, in the 'Athens of America,' and stole a
+man on the grave of Hancock and Adams&mdash;all Boston looking
+on, and its priests blessing the deed!"</p>
+
+<p>"See what encourages the South to make new encroachments.
+She has been eminently successful in her former demands,
+especially with the last. The authors of the fugitive slave
+bill did not think that enormity could be got through
+Congress: it was too atrocious in itself, too insulting to
+the North. But Northern men sprang forward to defend
+it&mdash;powerful politicians supported it to the fullest extent.
+The worse it was, the better they liked it. Northern
+merchants were in favor of it&mdash;it 'would conciliate the
+South.' Northern ministers in all the churches of commerce
+baptized it, defended it out of the Old Testament, or the
+New Testament. The Senator of Boston gave it his mighty
+aid,&mdash;he went through the land a huckster of Slavery,
+peddling Atheism: the Representative of Boston gave it his
+vote. Their constituents sustained both! All the great
+cities of the North executed the bill. The leading Journals
+of Boston advised the merchants to withhold all commercial
+intercourse from Towns which opposed Kidnapping. There was a
+'Union Meeting' at Faneuil Hall. You remember the men on the
+platform: the speeches are not forgotten. The doctrine that
+there is a Law of God above the passions of the multitude
+and the ambition of their leaders, was treated with scorn
+and hooting: a loud guffaw of vulgar ribaldry went up
+against the Justice of the Infinite God! All the great
+cities did the same. Atheism was inaugurated as the first
+principle of Republican government; in politics, religion
+makes men mad! Mr. Clay declared that 'no Northern gentleman
+will ever help return a fugitive Slave!' What took place at
+Philadelphia? New York? Cincinnati?&mdash;nay, at Boston? The
+Northern churches of commerce thought Slavery was a
+blessing, Kidnapping a 'grace.' The Democrats and Whigs vie
+with each other in devotion to the fugitive slave bill. The
+'Compromises' are the golden rule. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">199</a></span> North conquered her
+prejudices. The South sees this, and makes another demand.
+Why not? I am glad of it. She serves us right."</p>
+
+<p>"In 1775, what if it had been told the men all red with
+battle at Lexington and Bunker Hill,&mdash;'your sons will gird
+the Court House with chains to kidnap a man; Boston will
+vote for a Bill which puts the liberty of any man in the
+hands of a Commissioner, to be paid twice as much for making
+a Slave as for declaring a freeman; and Boston will call out
+its soldiers to hunt a man through its streets!' What if on
+the 19th of April, 1775, when Samuel Adams said, 'Oh! what a
+glorious morning is this!' as he heard the tidings of war in
+the little village where he passed the night,&mdash;what if it
+had been told him,&mdash;'On the 19th of April, seventy-six years
+from this day, will your City of Boston land a poor youth at
+Savannah, having violated her own laws, and stained her
+Magistrates' hands, in order to put an innocent man in a
+Slave-master's jail?' What if it had been told him that
+Ellen Craft must fly out of Democratic Boston, to Monarchic,
+Theocratic, Aristocratic England, to find shelter for her
+limbs, her connubial innocence, and the virtue of her
+woman's heart? I think Samuel would have cursed the day in
+which it was said a man-child was born, and America was
+free! What if it had been told Mayhew and Belknap, that in
+the pulpits of Boston, to defend kidnapping should be
+counted to a man as righteousness? They could not have
+believed it. They did not know what baseness could suck the
+Northern breast, and still be base."<a name="FNanchor_219_219" id="FNanchor_219_219"></a><a href="#Footnote_219_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>You will think all this is good morality; but Mr. Curtis in 1836,
+maintained that kidnapping in Massachusetts, would "promote harmony
+and good-will where it is extremely desirable to promote it, encourage
+frequent intercourse, and soften prejudice by increasing acquaintance,
+and tend to peace and good-will." Nay, that it may be "perfectly
+consistent with our policy ... <i>to interfere actively to enable the
+citizens of those States</i> [the slave States] <i>to enjoy those
+institutions at home</i>." "Slavery is not immoral;" "By the law of this
+Commonwealth slavery is not immoral."<a name="FNanchor_220_220" id="FNanchor_220_220"></a><a href="#Footnote_220_220" class="fnanchor">[220]</a></p>
+
+<p>After Commissioner Loring had kidnapped Anthony Burns, I attended the
+meeting at Faneuil Hall, and spoke. Gentlemen, I did not finish the
+speech I had begun, for news came that an attack was made on the Court
+House, and the meeting was thrown into confusion. I did not speak in a
+corner, but in the old Cradle of Liberty. Here is the report of the
+speech which was made by a phonographer, and published in the
+newspapers of the time&mdash;I have no other notes of it. You shall see if
+there be a misdemeanor in it. Here is the speech:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Fellow-subjects of Virginia</span>&mdash;[Loud cries of 'No,' 'no,' and 'you must
+take that back!'] <span class="smcap">Fellow-citizens of Boston</span>, then&mdash;['Yes,' 'yes,']&mdash;I
+come to condole with you at this second disgrace which is heaped on
+the city made illustrious by <i>some</i> of those faces that were once so
+familiar to our eyes. [Alluding to the portraits which <i>once hung</i>
+conspicuously in Faneuil Hall, but which had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">200</a></span> removed to obscure
+and out-of-the-way locations.] Fellow-citizens&mdash;A deed which Virginia
+commands has been done in the city of John Hancock and the 'brace of
+Adamses.' It was done by a Boston hand. It was a Boston man who issued
+the warrant; it was a Boston Marshal who put it in execution; they are
+Boston men who are seeking to kidnap a citizen of Massachusetts, and
+send him into slavery for ever and ever. It is our fault that it is
+so. Eight years ago, a merchant of Boston 'kidnapped a man on the high
+road between Faneuil Hall and Old Quincy,' at 12 o'clock,&mdash;at the noon
+of day,&mdash;and the next day, mechanics of this city exhibited the
+half-eagles they had received for their share of the spoils in
+enslaving a brother man. You called a meeting in this hall. It was as
+crowded as it is now. I stood side by side with my friend and former
+neighbor, your honorable and noble Chairman to-night [George R.
+Russell, of West Roxbury], [Loud Cheers,] while this man who had
+fought for liberty in Greece, and been imprisoned for that sacred
+cause in the dungeons of Poland, [Dr. Samuel G. Howe,] stood here and
+introduced to the audience that 'old man eloquent,' John Quincy Adams.
+[Loud Cheers.]</p>
+
+<p>"It was the last time he ever stood in Faneuil Hall. He came to defend
+the unalienable rights of a friendless negro slave, kidnapped in
+Boston. There is even no picture of John Quincy Adams to-night.</p>
+
+<p>"A Suffolk Grand-Jury would find no indictment against the Boston
+merchant for kidnapping that man. ['Shame,' 'shame.'] If Boston had
+spoken then, we should not have been here to-night. We should have had
+no fugitive slave bill. When that bill passed, we fired a hundred
+guns.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you remember the Union meeting held in this very hall? A man
+stood on this platform,&mdash;he is a Judge of the Supreme Court now,&mdash;and
+he said&mdash;When a certain 'Reverend gentleman' is indicted for perjury,
+I should like to ask him how he will answer the charge? And when that
+'Reverend gentleman' rose, and asked, 'Do you want an answer to your
+question?' Faneuil Hall cried out,&mdash;'No,' 'no,'&mdash;'Throw him over!' Had
+Faneuil Hall spoken then on the side of Truth and Freedom, we should
+not now be the subjects of Virginia.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we are the vassals of Virginia. She reaches her arm over the
+graves of our mothers, and kidnaps men in the city of the Puritans;
+over the graves of Samuel Adams and John Hancock. [Cries of 'Shame!']
+'Shame!' so I say; but who is to blame? 'There is no north,' said Mr.
+Webster. There is none. The South goes clear up to the Canada line.
+No, gentlemen, there is no Boston to-day. There <i>was</i> a Boston once.
+Now, there is a North sub<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">201</a></span>urb to the city of Alexandria,&mdash;that is what
+Boston is. [Laughter.] And you and I, fellow-subjects of the State of
+Virginia&mdash;[Cries of 'no,' 'no.' 'Take that back again.']&mdash;I will take
+it back when you show me the fact is not so.&mdash;Men and brothers,
+(brothers, at any rate,) I am not a young man; I have heard hurrahs
+and cheers for liberty many times; I have not seen a great many deeds
+done for liberty. I ask you, are we to have deeds as well as words?
+['Yes,' 'yes,' and loud cheers.]</p>
+
+<p>"Now, brethren, you are brothers at any rate, whether citizens of
+Massachusetts or subjects of Virginia&mdash;I am a minister&mdash;and,
+fellow-citizens of Boston, there are two great laws in this country;
+one of them is the <span class="smcap">Law of Slavery</span>; that law is declared to be a
+'finality.' Once the Constitution was formed 'to establish justice,
+promote tranquillity, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves
+and our posterity.' <i>Now</i>, the Constitution is not to secure liberty;
+it is to extend slavery into Nebraska. And when slavery is established
+there, in order to show what it is, there comes a sheriff from
+Alexandria, to kidnap a man in the city of Boston, and he gets a Judge
+of Probate, in the county of Suffolk, to issue a writ, and another
+Boston man to execute that writ! [Cries of 'shame,' 'shame.']</p>
+
+<p>"Slavery tramples on the Constitution; it treads down State Rights.
+Where are the Rights of Massachusetts? A fugitive slave bill
+Commissioner has got them all in his pocket. Where is the trial by
+jury? Watson Freeman has it under his Marshal's staff. Where is the
+great writ of personal replevin, which our fathers wrested, several
+hundred years ago, from the tyrants who once lorded it over Great
+Britain? Judge Sprague trod it under his feet! Where is the sacred
+right of <i>habeas corpus</i>? Deputy Marshal Riley can crush it in his
+hands, and Boston does not say any thing against it. Where are the
+laws of Massachusetts forbidding State edifices to be used as prisons
+for the incarceration of fugitives? They, too, are trampled underfoot.
+'Slavery is a finality.'</p>
+
+<p>"These men come from Virginia, to kidnap a man here. Once, this was
+Boston; now, it is a Northern suburb of Alexandria. At first, when
+they carried a fugitive slave from Boston, they thought it was a
+difficult thing to do it. They had to get a Mayor to help them; they
+had to put chains round the Court House; they had to call out the
+'Sims Brigade'; it took nine days to do it. Now, they are so confident
+that we are subjects of Virginia, that they do not even put chains
+round the Court House; the police have nothing to do with it. I was
+told to-day that one of the officers of the city said to twenty-eight
+police-men, 'If any man in the employment of the city meddles in this
+business, he will be discharged from service, without a hearing.'
+[Great applause.] Well, gentlemen, how do<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">202</a></span> you think they received
+that declaration? They shouted, and hurrahed, and gave three cheers.
+[Renewed applause.] My friend here would not have had the honor of
+presiding over you to-night, if application had been made a little
+sooner to the Mayor. Another gentleman told me that, when that man
+(the Mayor) was asked to preside at this meeting, he said that he
+regretted that all his time to-night was previously engaged. If he had
+known it earlier, he said, he might have been able to make
+arrangements to preside. When the man was arrested, he told the
+Marshal he regretted it, and that his sympathies were wholly with the
+slave. [Loud applause.] Fellow-citizens, remember that word. Hold your
+Mayor to it, and let it be seen that he has got a background and a
+foreground, which will authorize him to repeat that word in public,
+and act it out in Faneuil Hall. I say, so confident are the slave
+agents now, that they can carry off their slave in the daytime, that
+they do not put chains round the Court House; they have got no
+soldiers billeted in Faneuil Hall, as in 1851. They think they can
+carry this man off to-morrow morning in a cab. [Voices&mdash;'They can't do
+it.' 'Let's see them try.']</p>
+
+<p>"I say, there are two great laws in this country. One is the slave
+law. That is the law of the President of the United States; it is the
+law of the Commissioner; it is the law of every Marshal, and of every
+meanest ruffian whom the Marshal hires to execute his behests.</p>
+
+<p>"There is another law, which my friend, Mr. Phillips, has described in
+language such as I cannot equal, and therefore shall not try; I only
+state it in its plainest terms. It is the Law of the People when they
+are sure they are right and determined to go ahead. [Cheers and much
+confusion.]</p>
+
+<p>"Now, gentlemen, there was a Boston once, and you and I had
+fathers&mdash;brave fathers; and mothers who stirred up those fathers to
+manly deeds. Well, gentlemen, once it came to pass that the British
+Parliament enacted a 'law'&mdash;<i>they</i> called it law&mdash;issuing stamps here.
+What did your fathers do on that occasion? They said, in the language
+of Algernon Sydney, quoted in your resolutions, 'that which is not
+just is not law, and that which is not law ought not to be
+obeyed.'&mdash;[Cheers.] They did not obey the stamp act. They did not call
+it law, and the man that did call it a law, here, eighty years ago,
+would have had a very warm coat of tar and feathers on him. They
+called it an 'act,' and they took the Commissioner who was here to
+execute it, took him solemnly, manfully,&mdash;<i>they didn't hurt a hair of
+his head</i>; they were non-resistants, of a very potent sort,
+[Cheers,]&mdash;and made him take a solemn oath that he would not issue a
+single stamp. He was brother-in-law of the Governor of the State, the
+servant of a royal master, 'exceedingly respectable,' of great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">203</a></span>
+wealth, and once very popular; but they took him, and made him swear
+not to execute his commission; and he kept his oath, and the stamp act
+went to its own place, and you know what that was. [Cheers.] That was
+an instance of the people going behind a wicked law to enact Absolute
+Justice into their statute, and making it Common Law. You know what
+they did with the tea.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, gentlemen, in the South there is a public opinion, it is a very
+wicked public opinion, which is stronger than law. When a colored
+seaman goes to Charleston from Boston, he is clapped instantly into
+jail, and kept there until the vessel is ready to sail, and the Boston
+merchant or master must pay the bill, and the Boston black man must
+feel the smart. That is a wicked example, set by the State of South
+Carolina. When Mr. Hoar, one of our most honored and respected
+fellow-citizens, was sent to Charleston to test the legality of this
+iniquitous law, the citizens of Charleston ordered him off the
+premises, and he was glad to escape to save himself from further
+outrage. There was no violence, no guns fired. That was an instance of
+the strength of public opinion&mdash;of a most unjust and iniquitous public
+opinion."</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>"Well, gentlemen, I say there is one law&mdash;slave law; it is everywhere.
+There is another law, which also is a finality; and that law, it is in
+your hands and your arms, and you can put it in execution, just when
+you see fit.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen, I am a clergyman and a man of peace; I love peace. But
+there is a means, and there is an end; Liberty is the end, and
+sometimes peace is not the means towards it. [Applause.] Now, I want
+to ask you what you are going to do. [A voice&mdash;'shoot, shoot.'] There
+are ways of managing this matter without shooting anybody. Be sure
+that these men who have kidnapped a man in Boston, are cowards, every
+mother's son of them; and if we stand up there resolutely, and declare
+that this man shall not go out of the city of Boston, <i>without
+shooting a gun</i>&mdash;[cries of 'that's it,' and great applause,]&mdash;then he
+won't go back. Now, I am going to propose that when you adjourn, it be
+to meet at <i>Court Square, to-morrow morning at nine o'clock</i>. As many
+as are in favor of that motion will raise their hands. [A large number
+of hands were raised, but many voices cried out, 'Let's go to-night,'
+'let's pay a visit to the slave-catchers at the Revere House,' etc.
+'Put that question.'] Do you propose to go to the Revere House
+to-night, then show your hands. [Some hands were held up.] It is not a
+vote. We shall meet at <i>Court Square, at nine o'clock to-morrow
+morning</i>."</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>On the following Sunday, May 28, in place of the usual Scripture<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">204</a></span>
+passages, I extemporized the following "Lesson for the Day," which on
+Monday appeared in the newspapers:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Since last we came together, there has been a man stolen in the city
+of our fathers. It is not the first; it may not be the last. He is now
+in the great slave-pen in the city of Boston. He is there against the
+law of the Commonwealth, which, if I am rightly informed, in such
+cases prohibits the use of State edifices as United States jails."</p>
+
+<p>"A man has been killed by violence. Some say he was killed by his own
+coadjutors: I can easily believe it; there is evidence enough that
+they were greatly frightened. They were not United States soldiers,
+but volunteers from the streets of Boston, who, for their pay, went
+into the Court House to assist in kidnapping a brother man. They were
+so cowardly that they could not use the simple cutlasses they had in
+their hands, but smote right and left, like ignorant and frightened
+ruffians as they are. They may have slain their brother or not&mdash;I
+cannot tell."</p>
+
+<p>"Why is Boston in this confusion to-day? The fugitive slave bill
+Commissioner has just now been sowing the wind, that we may reap the
+whirlwind. The old fugitive slave bill Commissioner stands back; he
+has gone to look after his 'personal popularity.' But when
+Commissioner Curtis does not dare appear in this matter, another man
+comes forward, and for the first time seeks to kidnap his man also in
+the city of Boston."</p>
+
+<p>"But he has sown the wind, and we are reaping the whirlwind. All this
+confusion is his work. He knew he was stealing a Man born with the
+same unalienable right to 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of
+happiness,' as himself. He knew the slaveholders had no more right to
+Anthony Burns than to his own daughter. He knew the consequences of
+stealing a man. He knew that there are men in Boston who have not yet
+conquered their prejudices&mdash;men who respect the Higher Law of God. He
+knew there would be a meeting at Faneuil Hall, gatherings in the
+streets. He knew there would be violence."</p>
+
+<p>"Edward Greeley Loring, Judge of Probate for the County of Suffolk, in
+the State of Massachusetts, fugitive slave bill Commissioner of the
+United States, before these citizens of Boston, on Ascension Sunday,
+assembled to worship God, I charge you with the death of that man who
+was killed on last Friday night. He was your fellow-servant in
+kidnapping. He dies at your hand. You fired the shot which makes his
+wife a widow, his child an orphan. I charge you with the peril of
+twelve men, arrested for murder, and on trial for their lives. I
+charge you with filling the Court House with one hundred and
+eighty-four hired ruffians of the United States, and alarming not only
+this city for her liberties that are in peril, but stir<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">205</a></span>ring up the
+whole Commonwealth of Massachusetts with indignation, which no man
+knows how to stop&mdash;which no man can stop. You have done it all!"<a name="FNanchor_221_221" id="FNanchor_221_221"></a><a href="#Footnote_221_221" class="fnanchor">[221]</a></p>
+
+<p>June 4th, I preached "of the New Crime against Humanity," and said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Wednesday, the 24th of May, the city was all calm and still. The poor
+black man was at work with one of his own nation, earning an honest
+livelihood. A Judge of Probate, Boston born and Boston bred, a man in
+easy circumstances, a Professor in Harvard College, was sitting in his
+office, and with a single spurt of his pen he dashes off the liberty
+of a man&mdash;a citizen of Massachusetts. He kidnaps a man endowed by his
+Creator with the unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit
+of happiness. He leaves the writ with the Marshal, and goes home to
+his family, caresses his children, and enjoys his cigar. The frivolous
+smoke curls round his frivolous head, and at length he lays him down
+to sleep, and, I suppose, such dreams as haunt such heads. But when he
+wakes next morn, all the winds of indignation, wrath, and honest
+scorn, are let loose. Before night, they are blowing all over this
+commonwealth&mdash;ay, before another night they have gone to the
+Mississippi, and wherever the lightning messenger can tell the tale.
+So have I read in an old mediæval legend that one summer afternoon,
+there came up a 'shape, all hot from Tartarus,' from hell below, but
+garmented and garbed to represent a civil-suited man, masked with
+humanity. He walked quiet and decorous through Milan's stately
+streets, and scattered from his hand an invisible dust. It touched the
+walls; it lay on the streets; it ascended to the cross on the
+minster's utmost top. It went down to the beggar's den. Peacefully he
+walked through the streets, vanished and went home. But the next
+morning, the pestilence was in Milan, and ere a week had sped half her
+population were in their graves; and half the other half, crying that
+hell was clutching at their hearts, fled from the reeking City of the
+Plague!"</p>
+
+<p>"I have studied the records of crime&mdash;it is a part of my ministry. I
+do not find that any College Professor has ever been hanged for murder
+in all the Anglo-Saxon family of men, till Harvard College had that
+solitary shame. Is not that enough? Now she is the first to have a
+Professor that kidnaps men. 'The Athens of America' furnished both!</p>
+
+<p>"I can understand how a man commits a crime of passion, or
+covetousness, or rage, nay, of revenge, or of ambition. But for a man
+in Boston, with no passion, no covetousness, no rage, with no ambition
+nor revenge, to steal a poor negro, to send him into bondage,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">206</a></span>&mdash;I
+cannot comprehend the fact. I can understand the consciousness of a
+lion, not a kidnapper's heart."</p>
+
+<p>"But there is another court. The Empsons and the Dudleys have been
+summoned there before: Jeffreys and Scroggs, the Kanes, and the
+Curtises, and the Lorings, must one day travel the same unwelcome
+road. Imagine the scene after man's mythological way. 'Edward, where
+is thy brother, Anthony?' 'I know not; am I my brother's keeper,
+Lord?' 'Edward, where is thy brother, Anthony?' 'Oh, Lord, he was
+friendless, and so I smote him; he was poor, and I starved him of more
+than life. He owned nothing but his African body. I took that away
+from him, and gave it to another man!'</p>
+
+<p>"Then listen to the voice of the Crucified&mdash;'Did I not tell thee, when
+on earth, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy understanding
+and thy heart?"' 'But I thought thy kingdom was not of this world.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Did I not tell thee that thou shouldst love thy neighbor as thyself?
+Where is Anthony, thy brother? I was a stranger, and you sought my
+life; naked, and you rent away my skin; in prison, and you delivered
+me to the tormentors&mdash;fate far worse than death. Inasmuch as you did
+it to Anthony Burns, you did it unto me.'"<a name="FNanchor_222_222" id="FNanchor_222_222"></a><a href="#Footnote_222_222" class="fnanchor">[222]</a></p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>Gentlemen, I suppose the honorable Judge had the last three addresses
+in his mind while concocting his charge to the Grand-Jury which
+refused to find a bill. I infer this partly from what took place in
+the room of the next Grand-Jury which found this indictment, and
+partly also from another source which you will look at for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>I preach on Sundays in the Music Hall, which is owned by a Corporation
+who rent it to the 28th Congregational Society for their religious
+meetings. Mr. Charles P. Curtis, father-in-law of the Hon. Judge
+Curtis, and step-brother of Commissioner Loring, and a more distant
+relation but intimate friend of George T. Curtis, was then president
+of that Corporation, and one of its directors. At a meeting of the
+corporation, held presently after the kidnapping of Mr. Burns, Mr.
+Charles P. Curtis and his family endeavored to procure a vote of the
+Corporation to instruct the directors "to terminate the lease of the
+28th Congregational Society as soon as it can be legally done, and not
+to renew it." Mr. Charles P. Curtis managed this matter clandestinely,
+but not with his usual adroitness, for at the meeting he disclosed the
+cause of his act,&mdash;that <i>Mr. Parker had called his brother a
+murderer</i>, probably referring to the passage just read from the
+"Lesson for the Day." But he took nothing by that motion.<a name="FNanchor_223_223" id="FNanchor_223_223"></a><a href="#Footnote_223_223" class="fnanchor">[223]</a></p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">207</a></span></p>
+<p>What influence this private and familistic disposition had in framing
+the Judge's charge, I leave it for you and the People of America to
+determine. You also can conjecture whether it had any effect on Mr.
+Greenough, the other son-in-law of Mr. Charles P. Curtis, who refused
+to return my salutation, and who, "by a miracle," was put on the new
+Grand-Jury after the old one was discharged, and then was so "very
+anxious to procure an indictment" against me. I leave all that with
+you. You can easily appreciate the efforts made to silence not only my
+Sunday preaching, but also the magnificent eloquence of Wendell
+Phillips; yes, to choke all generous speech, in order that kidnappers
+might pursue their vocation with none to molest or make them afraid.</p>
+
+<p>But, Gentlemen, I fear you do not yet quite understand the arrogance
+of our Southern masters, and the fear and hatred they bear towards all
+who dare speak a word in behalf of the Rights of outraged Humanity.
+The gag-law of Congress which silenced the House of Representatives
+till John Quincy Adams, that noble son of a noble sire, burst through
+the Southern chain; the violation of the United States mails to detect
+"incendiary publications;" the torturing of men and women for an
+opinion against Slavery&mdash;all these are notorious; but they and all
+that I have yet stated of the action of the Federal Courts in the
+fugitive slave bill cases, with the "opinions" of Northern Judges
+already mentioned, do not fill up the cup of bitterness and poison
+which is to be poured down our throats. Let me, therefore, here give
+you one supplementary piece of evidence to prove how intensely the
+South hates the Northern Freedom of Speech. I purposely select this
+case from a period when Southern arrogance and Northern servility were
+far less infamous than now.</p>
+
+<p>About twenty years ago Mr. R.G. Williams of New York published this
+sentence in a newspaper called the Emancipator,&mdash;"God commands and all
+nature cries out, that man should not be held as property. The system
+of making men property has plunged 2,250,000 of our fellow countrymen
+into the deepest physical and moral degradation, and they are every
+moment sinking deeper."</p>
+
+<p>For this he was indicted by a Grand-Jury of the State of Alabama, and
+the Governor of that State made a demand on the Executive of New York
+insisting that Mr. Williams should be delivered up to take his trial
+in Alabama&mdash;a State where he had never been! But the New York
+Governor, after consulting with his law-advisers, did not come to the
+conclusion that it was consistent with the public policy of New York
+to "interfere actively" and promote Slavery in Alabama. <i>So he refused
+to deliver up Mr. Williams!</i><a name="FNanchor_224_224" id="FNanchor_224_224"></a><a href="#Footnote_224_224" class="fnanchor">[224]</a></p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">208</a></span></p>
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, before you can convict me of the crime charged,
+you must ask three several sets of questions, and be satisfied of all
+these things which I will now set forth.</p>
+
+<p>I. <span class="smcap">The Question of Fact</span>. Did I do the deed charged, and obstruct
+Marshal Freeman while in the peace of the United States, and
+discharging his official duty? This is a quite complicated question.
+Here are the several parts of it:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>1. Was there any illegal obstruction or opposition at all made to the
+Marshal? This is not clear. True, an attack was made on the doors and
+windows of the Court House, but that is not necessarily an attack on
+the Marshal or his premises. He has a right in certain rooms of the
+Court House, and this he has in virtue of a lease. He has also a right
+to use the passage-ways of the house, in common with other persons and
+the People in general. His rights as Tenant are subject to the terms
+of his lease and to the law which determines the relation of Tenant
+and Landlord. Marshal Freeman as tenant has no more rights than
+Freeman Marshal, or John Doe, or Rachel Roe would have under the same
+circumstances. Of course he had a legal right to defend himself if
+attacked, and to close his own doors, bar and fortify the premises he
+rented against the illegal violence of others. But neither his lease
+nor the laws of the land authorized him to close the other doors, or
+to obstruct the passages, no more than to obstruct the Square or the
+Street. No lease, no law gave him that right.</p>
+
+<p>Now there have been three secret examinations of witnesses relative to
+this assault, before three Grand-Juries. No evidence has been offered
+which shows <i>that any attack was made on the premises of the Marshal</i>.
+The Supreme Court of Massachusetts was in session at the moment the
+attack was made on the Court House; the venerable Chief Justice was on
+the Bench; the jury had retired to consider the capital case then
+pending, and were expected to return with their verdict. The People
+had a right in the court-room, a right in the passage-ways and doors
+which lead thither. That court had not ordered the room to be cleared
+or the doors to be shut. Marshal Freeman closed the outer doors of the
+Court House, and thus debarred men of their right to enter a
+Massachusetts Court of Justice solemnly deciding a capital case. You
+are to consider whether an attack on the outer doors of the Court
+House, is an illegal attack on the Marshal who had shut those doors
+without any legal authority. If you decide this point as the
+government wishes, then you will proceed to the next question.</p>
+
+<p>2. Did I actually obstruct him? If not, then the inquiry stops here.
+You answer "not guilty." But if I did, then it is worth while to
+consider how I obstructed him. (1.) Was it by a physical act, by
+material force; or, (2.) by a metaphysical act, immaterial or
+spiritual<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">209</a></span> force&mdash;a word, thought, a feeling, a wish, approbation,
+assent, consent, "evincing an express liking."</p>
+
+<p>3. Was Marshal Freeman, at the time of the obstruction, in the peace
+of the United States, or was he himself violating the law thereof? For
+if he were violating the law and thereby injuring some other man, and
+I obstructed him in that injury, then I am free from all legal guilt,
+and did a citizen's duty in obstructing his illegal conduct. Now it
+appears that he was kidnapping and stealing Anthony Burns for the
+purpose of making him the slave of one Suttle of Virginia, who wished
+to sell him and acquire money thereby; and that Mr. Freeman did this
+at the instigation of Commissioner Loring who was entitled to receive
+ten dollars if he enslaved Mr. Burns, and five only for setting him
+free. It appears also that Marshal Freeman was to receive large,
+official money for this kidnapping, and such honor as this
+Administration, and the Hunker newspapers, and lower law divines can
+bestow.</p>
+
+<p>Now you are to consider whether a man so doing was in the peace of the
+United States. He professes to have acted under the fugitive slave
+bill which authorizes him to seize, kidnap, steal, imprison, and carry
+off any person whatsoever, on the oath of any slaveholder who has
+fortified himself with a piece of paper of a certain form and tenor
+from any court of slaveholders in the slave States. Is that bill
+Constitutional? The Constitution of the United States is the People's
+Power of Attorney by which they authorize certain servants, called
+Legislative, Judicial, and Executive officers, to do certain matters
+and things in a certain way, but prohibit them from doing in the name
+of the People, any thing except those things specified, or those in
+any but the way pointed out. Does the fugitive slave bill attempt
+those things and only those, in the way provided for in that Power of
+Attorney; or other things, or in a different way?</p>
+
+<p>To determine this compound question you will look (1.) at the ultimate
+Purpose of the Constitution, the End which the People wanted to
+attain; and (2.) at the provisional Means, the method by which they
+proposed to reach it. Here of course the Purpose is more important
+than the Means. The Preamble to this Power of Attorney clearly sets
+forth this Purpose aimed at: here it is, "to form a more perfect
+Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for
+the Common Defence, promote the General Welfare, and secure the
+Blessings of Liberty." Is the fugitive slave bill a Measure tending to
+that End?</p>
+
+<p>To answer that question you are to consult your own mind and
+conscience. You are not to take the opinion of the Court. For (1.) it
+would probably be their purchased <i>official</i> opinion which the
+government pays for, and so is of no value whatever; or (2.) if it be
+their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">210</a></span> <i>personal</i> opinion, from what Mr. Sprague and Mr. Curtis have
+said and done before, you know that their personal opinion in the
+matter would be of no value whatsoever. To me it is very plain that
+kidnapping a man in Boston and making him a slave, is not the way to
+form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic
+Tranquillity, provide for the Common Defence, promote the General
+Welfare, or secure the Blessings of Liberty. But you are to judge for
+yourselves. If you think the fugitive slave bill not a Means towards
+that End, which this national Power of Attorney proposes, then you
+will think it is unconstitutional, that Mr. Freeman was not in the
+peace of the United States, but acting against it; and then it was the
+Right of every citizen to obstruct his illegal wickedness and might be
+the Duty of some.</p>
+
+<p>But not only does the fugitive slave bill contravene and oppose the
+Purpose of the Constitution, it also transcends the Means which that
+Power of Attorney declares the People's agents shall make use of, and
+whereto it absolutely restricts them. The Constitution prescribes that
+"the Judicial power shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such
+inferior courts the Congress may ordain and establish." "The Judges
+... shall hold their offices during good behavior, and shall ...
+receive a compensation which shall not be diminished during their
+continuance in office." Now the Commissioner who kidnaps a man and
+declares him a slave, exercises <i>judicial power</i>. Commissioner Loring
+himself confesses it, in his Remonstrance against being removed from
+the office of Judge of Probate. You are to consider whether a
+Commissioner appointed by the Judge of the Court as a ministerial
+officer to take "bail and affidavits," and paid twice as much for
+stealing a victim as for setting free a man, is either such a
+"supreme" or such an "inferior court" as the Constitution vests the
+"judicial powers" in. If not, then the fugitive slave bill is
+unconstitutional because it does not use the Means which the People's
+Power of Attorney points out. Of course the inquiry stops at this
+point, and you return "not guilty."</p>
+
+<p>4. It is claimed that the fugitive slave bill is sustained by this
+clause in the Constitution, "No person held to service or labor in one
+State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in
+consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such
+service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to
+whom such service or labor may be due."<a name="FNanchor_225_225" id="FNanchor_225_225"></a><a href="#Footnote_225_225" class="fnanchor">[225]</a> But if you try the
+fugitive slave bill by this rule, you must settle two questions. (1.)
+Who is meant by persons "held to service or labor?" and (2.) by whom
+shall they "be delivered up on claim?" Let us begin with the first.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">211</a></span></p>
+<p>(1.) Who are the persons "held to service or labor?" The preamble to
+this People's Power of Attorney, sets forth the matters and things
+which the People's agents are empowered to achieve. "They are to form
+a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity,
+provide for the common Defence, promote the General Welfare and secure
+the Blessings of Liberty." Now the fugitive-from-labor clause must be
+interpreted in part by the light of the Purpose of the Constitution.
+So it would appear that this Power of Attorney, requires the delivery
+of only such as are <i>justly</i> "held to service or labor;" and only to
+those men to whom this "service" is <i>justly</i> "due." Surely, it would
+be a monstrous act to deliver up to his master a person <i>unjustly</i>
+"held to service or labor," or one justly held to those to whom his
+service was not <i>justly</i> due: it would be as bad to deliver up the
+<i>wrong fugitive</i>, as to deliver the right fugitive to the <i>wrong
+claimant</i>: it would be also monstrous to suppose that the People of
+the United States, with the Declaration of Independence in their
+memory, should empower their attorneys to deliver up a man <i>unjustly</i>
+held to service or labor, and that too by the very instrument which
+directs them to "establish Justice" and "secure the Blessings of
+Liberty." Whatsoever interpretation was at the time put on the
+Constitution, whatsoever the People thereby intended, two things are
+plain&mdash;namely, (1.) that the language implies only such as are
+<i>justly</i> held to service, or labor, and (2.) that the People had no
+moral right to deliver up any except such as were <i>justly</i> held, and
+had <i>unjustly</i> escaped.</p>
+
+<p>If the opposite interpretation be accepted, and that clause be taken
+without restrictions, then see what will follow. South Carolina has
+already made a law by which she imprisons all <i>colored</i> citizens of
+the free States who are found on her soil. Let us suppose she makes a
+new law for reducing to perpetual slavery all the white citizens of
+Massachusetts whom she finds on her soil; that a Boston vessel with
+500 Boston men and women&mdash;sailing for California,&mdash;is wrecked on her
+inhospitable coast, and those persons are all seized and reduced to
+slavery; but some ten or twenty of the most resolute escape from the
+"service or labor" to which they are held, and return to their
+business in Boston. But their "owners" come in pursuit; the kidnapping
+Commissioners, Curtis and Loring, with the help of the rest of the
+family of men-stealers, arrest them under the fugitive slave bill. On
+the mock trial, it is shown by the kidnapper that they were legally
+"held to service or labor," and according to the constitution "shall
+be delivered up;" that this enslavement is perfectly "legal" in South
+Carolina; and the constitution says that no "law or regulation" of
+Massachusetts shall set them free. They must go with Sims and Burns.
+Gentlemen, you see where you are going, if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">212</a></span> you allow the Constitution
+of parchment to override the Constitution of Justice.</p>
+
+<p>(2.) By whom shall they "be delivered up?" Either by the Federal
+Government, or else by the Government of the State into which they
+have escaped. Now the Federal Government has no constitutional power,
+except what the Constitution gives it. Gentlemen, there is not a line
+in that Power of Attorney by which the People authorize the Federal
+Government to make a man a slave in Massachusetts or anywhere else. I
+know the Government has done it, as the British Government levied
+ship-money, and put men to the rack, but it is against the
+Constitution of the land.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, you will settle these constitutional questions according to
+your conscience, not mine. But if the fugitive slave bill demands the
+rendition of men from whom service is not <i>justly</i> due&mdash;due by the Law
+of God, or if the Government unconstitutionally aims to do what the
+Constitution gave it no right to do&mdash;then the Marshal was not "in the
+peace of the United States." Your inquiry stops at this point.</p>
+
+<p>5. But, if satisfied on all which relates to this question of his
+being in the peace of the United States, you are next to inquire if
+Mr. Freeman, at the time of the obstruction was "Marshal of the United
+States," and "in the due and lawful discharge of his duties as such
+officer." There is no doubt that he was Marshal; but there may be a
+doubt that he was in the "lawful discharge of his duties as such
+officer." Omitting what I first said, (I. 1.) see what you must
+determine in order to make this clear.</p>
+
+<p>(1.) Was Commissioner Loring, who issued the warrant to kidnap Mr.
+Burns, legally qualified to do that act. Gentlemen, there is no record
+of his appointment and qualification by the form of an oath. No
+evidence has been adduced to this point. Mr. Loring says he was duly
+appointed and qualified. There is no written line, no other word of
+mouth to prove it.</p>
+
+<p>(2.) Admitting that Mr. Loring had the legal authority to command Mr.
+Freeman to steal Mr. Burns, it appears that stealing was done
+feloniously. The Marshal's guard seized him on the charge of
+Burglary&mdash;a false charge. You are to consider whether Mr. Freeman had
+legally taken possession of his victim.</p>
+
+<p>(3.) If satisfied thus far, you are to inquire if he held him legally.
+It seems he was imprisoned in a public building of Massachusetts,
+which was by him used as a jail for the purpose of keeping a man
+claimed as a fugitive slave, contrary to the express words of a
+regular and constitutional statute of Massachusetts.</p>
+
+<p>If you find that Mr. Freeman was not in the lawful discharge of his
+duties as Marshal, then the inquiry stops here, and you return a
+verdict of "not guilty."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">213</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But if you are convinced that an obstruction was made against a
+Marshal in the peace of the United States, and in the legal discharge
+of a legal, constitutional duty, then you settle the question of Fact
+against me, and proceed to the next point.</p>
+
+<p>II. <i>The Question of Law.</i></p>
+
+<p>1. Is there a law of the United States punishing this deed of mine?
+The answer will depend partly on the kind of opposition or obstruction
+which I made. If you find (1.) that I obstructed him, while in the
+legal discharge of his legal duties, with physical force, violence,
+then there is a law, clear and unmistakable, forbidding and punishing
+that offence. But if you find (2.) that I obstructed him with only
+metaphysical force,&mdash;"words," "thoughts," "feelings," "wishes,"
+"consent," "assent," "evincing an express liking," "or approbation,"
+then it may be doubtful to you whether the law of 1790, or any other
+law of the United States forbids that.</p>
+
+<p>2. But if you find there is such a law, punishing such metaphysical
+resistance&mdash;and the court by the charge to the Grand-Jury seems
+plainly of that opinion, which is fortified by the authority of Chief
+Justice Kelyng and Judge Chase, two impeached judges&mdash;then you will
+consider whether that law is constitutional. And here you will look at
+two things, (1.) The Purpose of the Constitution already set forth;
+and (2.) at the Means provided for by that Power of Attorney. For if
+the agents of the People&mdash;legislative, judiciary, or executive&mdash;have
+exceeded their delegated authority, then their act is invalid and
+binding on no man. If I, in writing, authorize my special agent to
+sell my Ink-stand for a dollar, I am bound by his act in obedience
+thereto. But if on that warrant he sells my Writing-Desk for that sum,
+I am not bound by his unauthorized act. Now I think there will be
+grave doubts, whether any law, which with fine and imprisonment
+punishes such words, thoughts, feelings, consent, assent, "express
+liking," approbation, is warranted by the People's Power of Attorney
+to their agents. The opinion of the Court on such a matter, Gentlemen,
+I think is worth as much as Bacon's opinion in favor of the rack; or
+Jones's opinion that Charles I. had the right to imprison members of
+Parliament for words spoken in the Commons' Debate; or the opinion of
+the ten judges that Ship-money was lawful; or of the two chief
+justices that the Seven Bishops' Petition to James II. was high
+treason; or Thurlow's opinion that a jury is the natural enemy of the
+King. Gentlemen, I think it is worth nothing at all. But if you think
+otherwise, you have still to ask:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>3. Is this law just? That is does it coincide with the Law of God, the
+Constitution of the Universe? There your own conscience must decide.
+Mr. Curtis has told you there is no Morality but Legality, no standard
+of Right and Wrong but the Statute, your only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">214</a></span> light comes from this
+printed page, "Statutes of the United States," and through these
+sheepskin covers. Gentlemen, if your conscience is also bound in
+sheepskin you will think as these Honorable Judges, and recognize only
+Judge Curtis's "Standard of Morality,"&mdash;no Higher Law. But even if you
+thus dispose of the Question of Law, there will yet remain the last
+part of your function.</p>
+
+<p>III. <i>The Question of the Application of the Law to the Fact.</i> To
+determine this Question you are to ask:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>1. Does the law itself, the act of 1790, apply to such acts, that is,
+to such words, thoughts, wishes, feelings, consent, assent,
+approbation, express liking, and punish them with fine and
+imprisonment? If not, the consideration ends: but if it does, you will
+next ask:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>2. Is it according to the Constitution of the United States&mdash;its
+Purpose, its Means&mdash;thus to punish such acts? If not satisfied
+thereof, you stop there; but if you accept Judge Curtis's opinion then
+you will next inquire:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>3. Is it expedient in this particular case to apply this law, under
+the circumstances, to this man, and punish him with fine and
+imprisonment? If you say "yes" you will then proceed to the last part
+of the whole investigation, and will ask:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>4. Is it just and right; that is according to the Natural Law of God,
+the Constitution of the Universe? Here you will consider several
+things.</p>
+
+<p>(1.) What was the Marshal legally, constitutionally, and justly doing
+at the time he was obstructed? He was stealing, kidnapping, and
+detaining an innocent man, Anthony Burns, with the intention of
+depriving him of what the Declaration of Independence calls his
+natural and unalienable Right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
+Mr. Burns had done no wrong or injury to any one&mdash;but simply came to
+Massachusetts, to possess and enjoy these natural rights. Marshal
+Freeman had seized him on the false charge of burglary, had chained
+him in a dungeon contrary to Massachusetts law,&mdash;there were irons on
+his hands.</p>
+
+<p>It is said he was a slave: now a slave is a person whom some one has
+stolen from himself, and by force keeps from his natural rights. Mr.
+Burns sought to rescue himself from the thieves who held him; Marshal
+Freeman took the thieves' part.</p>
+
+<p>(2.) Was there any effectual mode of securing to Mr. Burns his natural
+and unalienable Right except the mode of forcible rescue? Gentlemen of
+the Jury, it is very clear there was none at all. The laws of
+Massachusetts were of no avail. Your own Supreme Court, which in 1832,
+at the instigation of Mr. Charles P. Curtis, sent a little boy not
+fourteen years old into Cuban Slavery to gratify a slave-hunting West
+Indian, in 1851, had voluntarily put its neck under the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">215</a></span> Southern
+chain. Your Chief Justice, who acquired such honorable distinction in
+1836 by setting free the little girl Med from the hands of the
+Curtises, in 1851 spit in the face of Massachusetts, and spurned her
+laws with his judicial foot. It was plain that Commissioner Loring did
+not design to allow his victim a fair trial&mdash;for he had already
+prejudged the case; he advised Mr. Phillips "to make no defence, put
+no 'obstruction' in the way of the man's going back, as he probably
+will," and, before hearing the defence sought to settle the matter by
+a sale of Mr. Burns.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, the result showed there was no chance of what the United
+States law reckons justice being done in the case&mdash;for Commissioner
+Loring not only decided the fate of Mr. Burns against law, and against
+evidence, but communicated his decision to the slave-hunters nearly
+twenty-four hours before he announced it in open court! No, Gentlemen,
+when a man claimed as a fugitive is brought before either of these two
+members of this family of kidnappers&mdash;who run now in couples, hunting
+men and seeking whom they may devour&mdash;there is no hope for him: it is
+only a mock-trial, worse than the Star-chamber inquisition of the
+Stuart kings. Place no "obstructions in the way of the man's going
+back," said the mildest of the two, "as he probably will." Over that
+door, historic and actual, as over that other, but fabulous, gate of
+Hell should be written:&mdash;</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="poem">
+<tr>
+<td>
+"Through me they go to the city of sorrow;<br />
+Through me they go to endless agony;<br />
+Through me they go among the nations lost:<br />
+Leave every hope, all ye that enter here!"<br />
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The only hope of freedom for Mr. Burns lay in the limbs of the People!
+Anarchy afforded him the only chance of Justice.</p>
+
+<p>(3.) Did they who it is alleged made the attack on the Marshal, or
+they who it is said instigated them to the attack, do it from any
+wicked, unjust, or selfish motive? Nobody pretends it&mdash;Gentlemen, we
+had much to lose&mdash;ease, honor&mdash;for with many persons in Boston it is a
+disgrace to favor the unalienable Rights of man, as at Rome to read
+the Bible, or at Damascus to be a Christian&mdash;ease, honor, money,
+liberty&mdash;if this Court have its way,&mdash;nay, life itself; for one of the
+family which preserves the Union by kidnapping men, counts it a
+capital crime to rescue a victim from their hands, and Mr. Hallett,
+when only a democratic expectant of office, declared "if it only
+resists law and obstructs its officers ... it is treason ... and he
+who risks it must risk hanging for it." No, Gentlemen, I had much to
+lose by my words. I had nothing to gain. Nothing I mean but the
+satisfaction of doing my duty to Myself, my Brother, and my God.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">216</a></span> And
+tried by Judge Sprague's precept, "Obey both," that is nothing; or by
+Judge Curtis's "Standard of Morality" it is a crime; and according to
+his brother it is "Treason;" and according to, I know not how many
+ministers of commerce, it is "infidelity"&mdash;"treasonable, damnable
+doctrine."</p>
+
+<p>No, Gentlemen, no selfish motive could move me to such conduct. The
+voice of Duty was terribly clear: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto
+the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."</p>
+
+<p>Put all these things together, Gentlemen. Remember there is a duty of
+the strong to help the weak: that all men have a common interest in
+the common duty to keep the Eternal Law of Justice; remember we are
+all of us to appear one day before the Court which is of purer eyes
+than to love iniquity. Ask what says Conscience&mdash;what says God. Then
+decide as you must decide.</p>
+
+<p>The eyes of the nation are upon you. The Judges of this Honorable
+Court hold their office in Petty Serjeantry on condition of wresting
+the Laws and Constitution to the support of the fugitive slave bill,
+and of preventing, as far as possible, all noble thought which opposes
+the establishment of Despotism, now so rapidly encroaching upon our
+once Free Soil: they hold by this Petty Serjeantry&mdash;a menial service
+not mentioned in any book even of "Jocular Tenures."</p>
+
+<p>If you could find me guilty&mdash;it is not possible, only conceivable with
+a contradiction,&mdash;you would delight the Slave Power&mdash;Atchison,
+Cushing, Stringfellow, and their Northern and Southern crew&mdash;for to
+them I seem identified with New England Freedom of Speech. "Aha," they
+will neigh and snicker out, "Judge Curtis has got the North under his
+feet! Mr. Webster knew what he was about when putting him in place!"</p>
+
+<p>English is the only tongue in which Freedom can speak her political or
+religious word. Shall that tongue be silenced; tied in Faneuil Hall;
+torn out by a Slave-hunter? The Stamp Act only taxed commercial and
+legal documents; the fugitive slave bill makes our words misdemeanors.
+The Revenue Act did but lay a tax on tea, three-pence only on a pound:
+the Slave-hunters' act taxes our thoughts as a crime. The Boston Port
+Bill but closed our harbor, we could get in at Salem; but the Judge's
+Charge shuts up the mouth of all New England, not a word against
+man-hunting but is a "crime,"&mdash;the New Testament is full of
+"misdemeanors." Andros only took away the Charter of Massachusetts;
+Judge Curtis's "law" is a <i>quo warranto</i> against Humanity itself.
+"Perfidious General Gage" took away the arms of Boston; Judge Curtis
+<i>charges</i> upon our Soul; he would wring all religion out of you,&mdash;no
+"Standard of Morality" above the fugitive slave bill; you must not,
+even to God in your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">217</a></span> prayers, evince "an express liking" for the
+deliverance of an innocent man whom his family seek to transform to a
+beast of burthen and then sacrifice to the American Moloch.</p>
+
+<p>Decide according to your own Conscience, Gentlemen, not after mine.</p>
+
+<hr class="med" />
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, I must bring this defence to a close. Already
+it is too long for your patience, though far too short for the mighty
+interest at stake, for it is the Freedom of a Nation which you are to
+decide upon. I have shown you the aim and purposes of the Slave
+Power&mdash;to make this vast Continent one huge Despotism, a House of
+Bondage for African Americans, a House of Bondage also for Saxon
+Americans. I have pointed out the course of Despotism in Monarchic
+England; you have seen how there the Tyrants directly made wicked
+laws, or when that resource failed, how they reached indirectly after
+their End, and appointed officers to pervert the law, to ruin the
+people. You remember how the King appointed base men as Attorneys and
+Judges, and how wickedly they used their position and their power,
+scorning alike the law of God and the welfare of Man. "The Judges in
+their itinerant Circuits," says an old historian,<a name="FNanchor_226_226" id="FNanchor_226_226"></a><a href="#Footnote_226_226" class="fnanchor">[226]</a> "the more to
+enslave the people to obedience, being to speak of the king, would
+give him sacred titles as if their advancement to high places must
+necessarily be laid upon the foundation of the People's debasement."
+You have not forgotten Saunders, Kelyng, and Jeffreys and Scroggs;
+Sibthorpe and Mainwaring you will remember for ever,&mdash;denouncing
+"eternal damnation" on such as refused the illegal tax of Charles I.
+or evinced an express disapprobation of his tyranny.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, you recollect how the rights of the jury were broken
+down,&mdash;how jurors were threatened with trial for perjury, insulted,
+fined, and imprisoned, because they would be faithful to the Law and
+their Conscience. You remember how the tyrannical king clutched at the
+People's purse and their person too, and smote at all freedom of
+speech, while the purchased Judges were always ready, the tools of
+Despotism. But you know what it all came to&mdash;Justice could not enter
+upon the law through the doors of Westminster Hall; so she tried it at
+Naseby and Worcester and with her "Invincible Ironsides" took
+possession by means of pike and gun. Charles I. laid his guilty head
+on the block; James II. only escaped the same fate by timely flight.
+If Courts will not decree Justice, then Civil War will, for it must be
+done, and a battle becomes a "Crowning Mercy."</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, I have shown you what the Slave Power of America<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">218</a></span> aims
+at,&mdash;a Despotism which is worse for this age than the Stuarts' tyranny
+for that time. You see its successive steps of encroachment. Behold
+what it has done within ten years. It has made Slavery perpetual in
+Florida; has annexed Texas, a Slave State as big as the kingdom of
+France; has fought the Mexican War, with Northern money, and spread
+bondage over Utah, New Mexico, and California; it has given Texas ten
+millions of Northern dollars to help Slavery withal; it has passed the
+fugitive slave bill and kidnapped men in the West, in the Middle
+States, and even in our own New England; it has given ten millions of
+dollars for a little strip of worthless land, the Mesilla valley,
+whereon to make a Slave Railroad and carry bondage from the Atlantic
+to the Pacific; it has repealed the Prohibition of Slavery, and spread
+the mildew of the South all over Kansas and Nebraska. Ask your
+capitalists, who have bought Missouri lands and railroads, how their
+stock looks just now; not only your Liberty but even their Money is in
+peril. You know the boast of Mr. Toombs. Gentlemen, you know what the
+United States Courts have done&mdash;with poisoned weapons they have struck
+deadly blows at Freedom. You know Sharkey and Grier and Kane. You
+recollect the conduct of Kidnappers' Courts at Milwaukie, Sandusky,
+Cincinnati, Philadelphia&mdash;in the Hall of Independence. But why need I
+wander so far? Alas! you know too well what has been done in Boston,
+our own Boston, the grave of Puritan piety. You remember the Union
+Meeting, Ellen Craft, Sims, chains around the Court House, the Judges
+crawling under, soldiers in the street, drunk, smiting at the
+citizens; you do not forget Anthony Burns, the Marshal's guard, the
+loaded cannon in place of Justice, soldiers again in the streets
+smiting at and wounding the citizens. You recollect all this&mdash;the 19th
+of April, 1851, Boston delivering an innocent man at Savannah to be a
+slave for ever, and that day scourged in his jail while the hirelings
+who enthralled him were feasted at their Inn;&mdash;Anniversary week last
+year&mdash;a Boston Judge of Probate, the appointed guardian of orphans,
+kidnapping a poor and friendless man! You cannot forget these things,
+no, never!</p>
+
+<p>You know who did all this: a single family&mdash;the Honorable Judge
+Curtis, with his kinsfolk and friends, himself most subtly active with
+all his force throughout this work. When Mr. Webster prostituted
+himself to the Slave Power this family went out and pimped for him in
+the streets; they paraded in the newspapers, at the Revere House, and
+in public letters; they beckoned and made signs at Faneuil Hall. That
+crime of Sodom brought Daniel Webster to his grave at Marshfield, a
+mighty warning not to despise the Law of the Infinite God; but that
+sin of Gomorrah, it put the Hon. Benj. R. Curtis on this Bench; gave
+him his judicial power to construct his "law," construct<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">219</a></span> his "jury,"
+to indict and try me. Try me! No, Gentlemen, it is you, your wives and
+your children, who are up for swift condemnation this day. Will you
+wait, will you add sin to sin, till God shall rain fire and brimstone
+on your heads, and a Dead Sea shall cover the place once so green and
+blossoming with American Liberty? Decide your own fate. When the
+Judges are false let the Juries be faithful, and we have "a crowning
+mercy" without cannon, and the cause of Justice is secure. For "when
+wicked men seem nearest to their hopes, the godly man is furthest from
+his fears."</p>
+
+<p>You know my "offence," Gentlemen. I have confessed more than the
+government could prove. You are the "Country:" the Nation by twelve
+Delegates is present here to-day. In the name of America, of mankind,
+you are to judge of the Law, the Fact, and the Application of the Law
+to the Fact. You are to decide whether you will spread Slavery and the
+Consequences of Slavery all over the North; whether Boston, New
+England, all the North, shall kidnap other Ellen Crafts, other Thomas
+Sims, other Anthony Burns,&mdash;whether Sharkey and Grier, and Kane and
+Curtis, shall be Tyrants over you&mdash;forbidding all Freedom of Speech:
+or whether Right and Justice, the Christian Religion, the natural
+service of the Infinite God shall bless our wide land with the
+numberless Beatitudes of Humanity. Should you command me to be fined
+and go to jail, I should take it very cheerfully, counting it more
+honor to be inside of a jail in the austere silence of my dungeon,
+rather than outside of it, with a faithless Jury, guilty of such
+treason to their Country and their God. But, forgive me! you cannot
+commit such a crime against Humanity. Pardon the monstrous figure of
+my speech,&mdash;it is only conceivable, not also possible. These Judges
+could do it&mdash;their speeches, their actions, that Charge, this
+Indictment, proves all that&mdash;but you cannot;&mdash;not you. You are the
+Representatives of the People, the Country, not idiotic in Conscience
+and the Affections.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, I am a minister of Religion. It is my function to teach
+what is absolutely true and absolutely right. I am the servant of no
+sect,&mdash;how old soever, venerable and widely spread. I claim the same
+religious Rights with Luther and Calvin, with Budha and Mohammed; yes,
+with Moses and Jesus,&mdash;the unalienable Right to serve the God of
+Nature in my own way. I preach the Religion which belongs to Human
+Nature, as I understand it, which the Infinite God imperishably writes
+thereon,&mdash;Natural Piety, love of the infinitely perfect God, Natural
+Morality, the keeping of every law He has written on the body and in
+the soul of man, especially by loving and serving his creatures. Many
+wrong things I doubtless do, for which I must ask the forgiveness of
+mankind. But do you suppose I can keep the fugitive slave bill, obey
+these Judges, and kidnap my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">220</a></span> own Parishioners? It is no part of my
+"Christianity" to "send the mother that bore me into eternal bondage."
+Do you think I can suffer Commissioner Curtis and Commissioner Loring
+to steal my friends,&mdash;out of my meeting-house? Gentlemen, when God
+bids me do right and this Court bids me do wrong, I shall not pretend
+to "obey both." I am willing enough to suffer all that you will ever
+lay on me. But I will not do such a wrong, nor allow such wickedness
+to be done&mdash;so help me God! How could I teach Truth, Justice, Piety,
+if I stole men; if I allowed Saunders, Jeffreys, Scroggs, or Sharkey,
+Grier, Kane, or in one word, Curtis, to steal them? I love my Country,
+my kindred of Humanity; I love my God, Father and Mother of the white
+man and the black; and am I to suffer the Liberty of America to be
+trod under the hoof of Slaveholders, Slave-drivers; yes, of the
+judicial slaves of slaveholders' slave-drivers? I was neither born nor
+bred for that. I drew my first breath in a little town not far off, a
+poor little town where the farmers and mechanics first unsheathed that
+Revolutionary sword which, after eight years of hewing, clove asunder
+the Gordian knot that bound America to the British yoke. One raw
+morning in spring&mdash;it will be eighty years the 19th of this
+month&mdash;Hancock and Adams, the Moses and Aaron of that Great
+Deliverance, were both at Lexington; they also had "obstructed an
+officer" with brave words. British soldiers, a thousand strong, came
+to seize them and carry them over sea for trial, and so nip the bud of
+Freedom auspiciously opening in that early spring. The town militia
+came together before daylight "for training." A great, tall man, with
+a large head and a high, wide brow, their Captain,&mdash;one who "had seen
+service,"&mdash;marshalled them into line, numbering but seventy, and bad
+"every man load his piece with powder and ball." "I will order the
+first man shot that runs away," said he, when some faltered; "Don't
+fire unless fired upon, but if they want to have a war,&mdash;let it begin
+here." Gentlemen, you know what followed: those farmers and mechanics
+"fired the shot heard round the world." A little monument covers the
+bones of such as before had pledged their fortune and their sacred
+honor to the Freedom of America, and that day gave it also their
+lives. I was born in that little town, and bred up amid the memories
+of that day. When a boy my mother lifted me up, one Sunday, in her
+religious, patriotic arms, and held me while I read the first
+monumental line I ever saw:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">"<span class="smcap">Sacred to Liberty and the Rights of Mankind</span>."</p>
+
+<p>Since then I have studied the memorial marbles of Greece and Rome in
+many an ancient town; nay, on Egyptian Obelisks have read what was
+written before the Eternal roused up Moses to lead<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">221</a></span> Israel out of
+Egypt, but no chiselled stone has ever stirred me to such emotions as
+those rustic names of men who fell</p>
+
+<p class="center">"<span class="smcap">In the Sacred Cause of God and their Country</span>."</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, the Spirit of Liberty, the Love of Justice, was early
+fanned into a flame in my boyish heart. That monument covers the bones
+of my own kinsfolk; it was their blood which reddened the long, green
+grass at Lexington. It is my own name which stands chiselled on that
+stone; the tall Captain who marshalled his fellow farmers and
+mechanics into stern array and spoke such brave and dangerous words as
+opened the War of American Independence,&mdash;the last to leave the
+field,&mdash;was my father's father. I learned to read out of his Bible,
+and with a musket he that day captured from the foe, I learned also
+another religious lesson, that</p>
+
+<p class="center">"<span class="smcap">Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God</span>."</p>
+
+<p>I keep them both, "Sacred to Liberty and the Rights of Mankind," to
+use them both "In the Sacred Cause of God and my Country."</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen of the Jury, and you my fellow-countrymen of the North, I
+leave the matter with you. Say "Guilty!" You cannot do it. "Not
+Guilty." I know you will, for you remember there is another Court, not
+of fugitive slave bill law, where we shall all be tried by the Justice
+of the Infinite God. Hearken to the last verdict, "<span class="smcap">Inasmuch as ye have
+done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it
+unto me</span>."</p>
+
+<p class="centertp"><span class="gesperrt">END</span>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="ERRATA" id="ERRATA"></a><span class="gesperrt">ERRATA</span>.</h2>
+
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="errata">
+<tr><td class="center">Page</td><td>19,</td><td class="center">line</td><td class="right">16</td><td class="center">from</td><td class="center">top,</td><td class="center">instead</td><td class="center">of</td><td><i>rest</i>, read <i>government</i>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="center">"</td><td>23</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="right">10</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="center">"</td><td>1618, read 1215.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="center">"</td><td>76</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="right">2</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="center">"</td><td><i>Aoncilia</i>, read <i>Ancilia</i>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="center">"</td><td>78</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="right">3</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="center">bottom,</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="center">"</td><td><i>not</i>, read <i>or</i>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="center">"</td><td>84</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="right">11</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="center">"</td><td><i>promoting</i>, read <i>perverting</i>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="center">"</td><td>89</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="right">18</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="center">&nbsp;</td><td class="center">omit</td><td><i>his</i>, before <i>vengeance</i>.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="OTHER_WORKS_BY_THE_SAME_AUTHOR" id="OTHER_WORKS_BY_THE_SAME_AUTHOR"></a>OTHER WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.</h2>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<table style="width: 100%" border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="other works">
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">A Discourse of Matters Pertaining to Religion.</span> 1 Vol. 12mo. New Edition will appear in December.</td><td align="right" style="vertical-align: bottom">$1.25</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">An Introduction to the Old Testament.</span> From the German of De Wette. 2d edition. 2 Vols. 8vo.</td><td align="right">3.75</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Critical and Miscellaneous Writings.</span> 1 Vol. 12mo. New Edition will soon appear.</td><td align="right">1.25</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Occasional Sermons and Speeches.</span> 2 Vols. 12mo.</td><td align="right">2.50</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Ten Sermons of Religion.</span> 1 Vol. 12mo.</td><td align="right">1.00</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Sermons of Theism, Atheism, and the Popular Theology.</span> 1 Vol. 12mo.</td><td align="right">1.25</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Additional Sermons and Speeches.</span> 2 Vols. 12mo.</td><td align="right">2.50</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<h3><span class="gesperrt">PAMPHLETS</span>.</h3>
+
+<table style="width: 100%" border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="pamphlets">
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Two Sermons on leaving the Old and entering the New place of Worship.</span> (1852.)</td><td align="right">20</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Discourse of Daniel Webster.</span> (1853.) Cloth.</td><td align="right">50</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">A Sermon of Old Age.</span> (1854.)</td><td align="right">15</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The New Crime against Humanity.</span> (1854.)</td><td align="right">20</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Laws of God and the Statutes of Man.</span> (1854.)</td><td align="right">15</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Dangers which Threaten the Rights of Man in America.</span> (1854.)</td><td align="right">20</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Moral Dangers Incident to Prosperity.</span> (1855.)</td><td align="right">15</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Consequences of an Immoral Principle.</span> (1855.)</td><td align="right">15</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Function of a Minister.</span> (1855.)</td><td align="right">20</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Two Sermons in Proceedings of Progressive Friends.</span> (1855.)</td><td align="right">15</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2>
+
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> 2 Parker's Additional Speeches, 178-283.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> The charge is printed below, at <a href="#Page_170">page 170</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> See Law Reporter for June, 1855.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> See this statement in Mr. Parker's Additional Speeches,
+Addresses, and Occasional Sermons. Boston, 1855, vol. ii. p. 250, <i>et
+seq.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> 2 Campbell, 372, 374.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> 2 Campbell, 368, 374; 3 Howell State Trials, 824.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Speache in the Starre-Chamber, London, 1616.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Ludlow, quoted in 2 Campbell, 470.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> 4 Parl. Hist. 162.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> 3 Campbell, 394.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> 2 Campbell Chief Justices, 86.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> 3 Campbell, 473.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> 3 Hallam, 142.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> 8 St. Tr. 195, note.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Account of him in Preface to his Reports, (1675); 3 St.
+Tr. 162, 293, 844, 1181; 2 Parl. Hist. 869; 1 Rushworth, 661, <i>et
+al.</i>; Whitlocke, 14, <i>et al.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> 6 St. Tr. 634; 1 Campbell Justices, 442.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> 6 St. Tr. 161.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> 1 Campbell Justices, 401.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> 16 Parl. Hist. 1291, 1292, 1293.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> 5 Campbell, 398.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> 5 Campbell, 410.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> 17 Parl. Hist. 1313.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> 18 St. Tr. 999.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Peirce's Vindication, (1717,) 174.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> 2 St. Tr. 869; 16 Montagu's Bacon, clxvi.; 2 Campbell,
+291.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> 2 St. Tr. 879.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> 3 St. Tr. 769; 2 Campbell, 400.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> 3 St. Tr. 373; Franklyn, 361; 2 Hallam (Paris, 1841), 6
+<i>ac etiam</i> 13; 2 Mrs. Macaulay, 16, 45, 65.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> 3 St. Tr. 293; 1 Rushworth; 2 Hallam, 2; 2 Parl. Hist.
+488, 504; Foster's Eliot, 100; 2 Mrs. Macaulay, ch. i. ii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> 3 St. Tr. 383; Laud's Diary, 4th November; 2 Hallam,
+28.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> 3 St. Tr. 561; 2 Hallam, 28, and his authorities. See
+also 2 Echard, 109, <i>et seq.</i>, 124, <i>et seq.</i>, 202, 368, 510; the
+remarks of Hume, Hist. ch. lii., remind me of the tone of the fugitive
+slave bill Journals of Boston in 1850-54.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> 1 Macaulay, (Harper's Ed.) 456-8.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> 1 Macaulay, 456; 11 St. Tr. 493.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> 2 Campbell's Justices, 87.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> See 2 Brewster's Newton, 108.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> 12 St. Tr. 239.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> 12 St. Tr. 427, 428, 429.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> 12 St. Tr. 281.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> 12 St. Tr. 415, 416, 417.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> See 2 Campbell's Justices, 95.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> 20 St. Tr. 780-783.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> 20 St. Tr. 651; 5 Campbell, 415.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> Statesmen, 2 Series, 109.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> 5 Campbell, 460; 27 Parl. Hist. 638.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> 1 Campbell's Justices, 404-5; Kelyng's Reports, 70.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> 6 St. Tr. 879, note 911.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> Kelyng's Reports, 12.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> Ibid. 22.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> Kelyng's Reports, 13.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> See his Defence of Hardy, 24 St. Tr. 877.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> See 2 St. Tr. 774, note.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> 1 Jardine, Crim. Tr. 16.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> 2 St. Tr. 871.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> 1 Jardine, 19.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> Ibid.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> 3 St. Tr. 371. See 30 St. Tr. 892.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> 1 Jardine, 20. See Emlyn, Preface to St. Tr. in 1
+Hargrave, p. iii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> 30 St. Tr. 225.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> See case of Huggins in 17 St. Tr. 297, 309.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> 1 Hargrave's St. Tr. 6.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> 2 St. Tr. 371, and 11 Hargrave, 29; 1 Campbell's
+Justices, 204.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> 1 Hallam, 231. See 1 Parl. Hist. 1030, 1132, 1150;
+Baker's Chronicle, 430.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> 2 St. Tr. 899; 1 Hallam, 251; 2 Campbell, 291.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> 1 Parl. Hist. 1156.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> 3 St. Tr. 1. See also 2 Parl. Hist. 288; 1 Rushworth and
+1 Mrs. Macaulay, 341.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> 1 Campbell, Justices, 311; 2 Parl. Hist. 245, 350, 373,
+408, <i>et al.</i>; 3 St. Tr. 59.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> See above, <a href="#Page_29">p. 29</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> 1 Campbell's Justices, 315.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> 3 St. Tr. 825. See the opinion of the Judges with their
+twelve names, 844, and note &#8224;.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> Whitelocke, Memor. 25.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> 2 Hallam, 16.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> 2 Hallam, 18.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> Cited in Franklyn, 208; 1 Rushworth, 422, 436, 444.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> Franklyn, 208, 592. These two Sermons were published in
+a volume with the title "Religion and Allegiance."... "Published by
+his Majesty's special command." (London, 1628.) Prof. Stuart seems
+inspired by this title in giving a name to his remarkable
+publication&mdash;written with the same spirit as Dr.
+Mainwaring's&mdash;"Conscience and the Constitution." (Andover, 1851.) See
+3 St. Tr. 335; 1 Rushworth, 422, 436, 585, <i>et al.</i>; 1 Hallam, 307; 2
+Parl. Hist. 388, 410.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> 2 Campbell, 460; 1 Rushworth, 1205.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> Carroll's Counter Revolution (Lond. 1846), 99, <i>et
+seq.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> 8 St. Tr. 1038, and the quotations from North (Examen.)
+Sprat, and Roger Coke, in note on p. 1041, <i>et seq.</i> See, too, Fox,
+James II. p. 48, 54, and Appendix, Barillon's Letter of Dec. 7th,
+1684.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> 2 Hallam, 333; Burnet, Own Times (London, 1838), 350; 8
+St. Tr. 1039, 1081 note, 1267, <i>et seq.</i>; 2 Campbell, Justices, 63;
+North's Examen. 626; Fox, 54.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> 11 St. Tr. 1165; 12 Ibid. 358.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> This last name is thought to be extinct in Great
+Britain, but I find one Thomas Scruggs <i>in Massachusetts</i> in 1635 <i>et
+post</i>, 1 Mass. Records (1628-1641), index.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> 1 St. Tr. 252.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> 1 St. Tr. 1271; 1 Neal's Puritans (N.Y. 1844), 190. See
+16 Parl. Hist. 1276, where Mr. Dunning says this is the first example
+of such a charge to a jury.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> 2 St. Tr. 1085.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> 7 St. Tr. 687.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> 6 St. Tr. 701; see Dunning in 16 Parl. Hist. 1276, <i>et
+seq.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> 7 St. Tr. 701.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> In 2 Collectanea Juridica, 228.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> 7 St. Tr. 925.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> 7 St. Tr. 1111, 959; 4 Parl. Hist. 1274.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> 7 St. Tr. 1333.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> 7 St. Tr. 1127.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> 17 St. Tr. 674; 5 Campbell, 57; Hildreth's Despotism,
+199.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> 20 St. Tr. 900. But see 28 St. Tr. 595, and 16 Parl.
+Hist. 1211.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> For the frequency of trials for words spoken in Charles
+II.'s reign of terror, see the extracts from Narcissus Luttrel's Brief
+Historical Relation, 10 St. Tr. 125.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> 1 Rushworth, 502.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> 2 Parl. Hist. 232. See also 441, 471. He had been thrown
+into the Tower by James in 1624. Cabbala (3d Ed.), 311.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> Parl. Hist. 867.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> 1 Rushworth, 502.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> See the steps of the process in 1 Hutchinson, (Salem,
+1795,) 297; 8 St. Tr. 1068, note.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> Barillon to Louis XIV. in Fox's Appendix, p. vii., <i>et
+seq.</i> In 1685 Halifax, who had been friendly to the rights of the
+colonies, was dismissed from his office; Sunderland, their enemy, had
+a pension from Louis XIV. of £5,000 or £6,000 a year; p. cxxvii.,
+cxxx. <i>et seq.</i>, cxliii., cxlviii. Not the last instance of a high
+functionary pensioned by a foreign hand!</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> 1 Hutch. 316; 2 Hildreth, Hist. 108; 2 Bancroft, 425;
+Washburn, Judicial Hist. of Mass. 105; Drake's Boston, ch. L.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> 1 Felt's Salem, 24; 2 Ib. 542; Felt's Ipswich, 123, <i>et
+seq.</i>; Gage's Rowley, 157, <i>et seq.</i>; Sullivan's Land Titles, 54.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> Hutch. 327; Washburn, ibid.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> 5 Bancroft, 358.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> 6 Bancroft, 213.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> 6 Bancroft, 250, 251, 291; Sabine's Loyalists, 207, <i>et
+al.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_107_107" id="Footnote_107_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a> 6 Bancroft, 250, 251, 291; Sabine's Loyalists, 207, <i>et
+al.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_108_108" id="Footnote_108_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a> 16 Parl. Hist. 168, 195, 658.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_109_109" id="Footnote_109_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a> Debates in New York Convention, 371, <i>et al.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_110_110" id="Footnote_110_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a> Jordan's Speech, <i>ibid.</i>, 447, <i>et al.</i> See also Mr.
+Stow's Remarks, 473, and Mr. Stephens', 474, <i>et al.</i> Yet all these
+four speakers were lawyers.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_111_111" id="Footnote_111_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a> Hildreth's Despotism in America (1854), 263, <i>et al.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_112_112" id="Footnote_112_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a> By this term I mean all the nations with language akin
+to the German.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_113_113" id="Footnote_113_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a> In this brief sketch I do not refer to the authorities,
+but see, who will, the classic passages and proof-texts in the
+well-known works of Grimm, Rogge, Biener, Michelsen, Möser, Phillips,
+Eichhorn, Maurer, and others.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_114_114" id="Footnote_114_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a> See other forms of Oath in 8 St. Tr. 759, 772.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_115_115" id="Footnote_115_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a> The above extracts are from Judge Woodbury's charge to
+the Grand-Jury, in Circuit Court of United States, at Boston, taken
+from the <i>Evening Traveller</i>, copying the reprint of Boston Daily
+Advertiser, of October 25, 1850.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_116_116" id="Footnote_116_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a> Words of Chief Justice Parker, in <i>Commonwealth</i> vs.
+<i>Griffith</i>, 2 Pickering's Reports, 19, cited with approbation by Chief
+Justice Shaw, in the Sims case, 7 Cushing's Reports, 705, and also
+cited from him and acted on by fugitive slave bill Commissioner
+Loring, in the Burns case.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_117_117" id="Footnote_117_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117_117"><span class="label">[117]</span></a> See <i>Boston Daily Advertiser</i> of March 19, 1851.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_118_118" id="Footnote_118_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118_118"><span class="label">[118]</span></a> See above, p. <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <i>et al.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_119_119" id="Footnote_119_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119_119"><span class="label">[119]</span></a> See 1 Jardine, Criminal Trials, 110. 2 Parker's
+Sermons, 266 and note.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_120_120" id="Footnote_120_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120_120"><span class="label">[120]</span></a> See Hon. Judge Curtis's Speech at the Union Meeting in
+Faneuil Hall, November 26, 1850.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_121_121" id="Footnote_121_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121_121"><span class="label">[121]</span></a> See the case in 1 St. Tr. 869, and 1 Jardine, 40, also
+115. The great juridical attacks upon English Liberty were directed
+against the Person of the Subject, and appear in the trials for
+Treason, but as in such trials the defendant had no counsel, the great
+legal battle for English Liberty was fought over the less important
+cases where only property was directly concerned. Hence the chief
+questions seem only to relate to money.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_122_122" id="Footnote_122_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_122_122"><span class="label">[122]</span></a> 6 St. Tr. 951; Dixon's Life of Penn; 22 St. Tr. 925.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_123_123" id="Footnote_123_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_123_123"><span class="label">[123]</span></a> 8 St. Tr. 759, see the valuable matter in the notes,
+also 2 Hallam, 330 and notes.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_124_124" id="Footnote_124_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124_124"><span class="label">[124]</span></a> See above, <a href="#Page_32">p. 32</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_125_125" id="Footnote_125_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125_125"><span class="label">[125]</span></a> 12 St. Tr. 430.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_126_126" id="Footnote_126_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126_126"><span class="label">[126]</span></a> Burnet's Own Times, 470. See also 2 Campbell, Justices,
+89, <i>et seq.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_127_127" id="Footnote_127_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127_127"><span class="label">[127]</span></a> 18 St. Tr. 1203; 14 Parl. Hist. 888, 1063; 3 Hallam,
+200; 2 Campbell, Justices, 198.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_128_128" id="Footnote_128_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128_128"><span class="label">[128]</span></a> 20 St. Tr. 803, 895, 869; Woodfall's Junius (Bohn,
+1850), Preface, p. 94, Appendix, p. 471; 2 Campbell, Justices, 363; 5
+Mahon.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_129_129" id="Footnote_129_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129_129"><span class="label">[129]</span></a> 22 St. Tr. 923.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_130_130" id="Footnote_130_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130_130"><span class="label">[130]</span></a> 2 St. Tr. 1793.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_131_131" id="Footnote_131_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131_131"><span class="label">[131]</span></a> 22 St. Tr. 523.&mdash;So late as 1820, the chief justice
+punished an editor with a fine of £500, for publishing an account of a
+trial for high treason. See 33 St. Tr. 1564, also 22 St. Tr. 298; 2
+Campbell, Justices, 363, 371 <i>et al.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_132_132" id="Footnote_132_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132_132"><span class="label">[132]</span></a> 22 St. Tr. 471.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_133_133" id="Footnote_133_133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133_133"><span class="label">[133]</span></a> Ibid. 823.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_134_134" id="Footnote_134_134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134_134"><span class="label">[134]</span></a> Ib. 909.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_135_135" id="Footnote_135_135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135_135"><span class="label">[135]</span></a> Ibid. 471. Wade, Brit. Hist. (1847), 582, <i>et seq.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_136_136" id="Footnote_136_136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136_136"><span class="label">[136]</span></a> 23 St. Tr. 237; Belsham's History of George III.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_137_137" id="Footnote_137_137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_137_137"><span class="label">[137]</span></a> 23 St. Tr. 117; 30 Parl. Hist. 1486, for Adams' Speech
+in Commons.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_138_138" id="Footnote_138_138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138_138"><span class="label">[138]</span></a> 30 Parl. Hist. 581; 31 Parl. Hist. 520, 929, 1153, <i>et
+al.</i>; 32 Parl. Hist. 370.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_139_139" id="Footnote_139_139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139_139"><span class="label">[139]</span></a> 7 Campbell, 119; 1 Townsend's Judges; Life of Vic.
+Gibbs.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_140_140" id="Footnote_140_140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140_140"><span class="label">[140]</span></a> 6 Campbell, 366.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_141_141" id="Footnote_141_141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141_141"><span class="label">[141]</span></a> 34 George III. c. 54.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_142_142" id="Footnote_142_142"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142_142"><span class="label">[142]</span></a> 24 St. Tr. 199; Annual Register, 1794, p. 274; 31 Parl.
+Hist. 1062, <i>et al.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_143_143" id="Footnote_143_143"></a><a href="#FNanchor_143_143"><span class="label">[143]</span></a> 24 St. Tr.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_144_144" id="Footnote_144_144"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144_144"><span class="label">[144]</span></a> See above, <a href="#Page_35">p. 35</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_145_145" id="Footnote_145_145"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145_145"><span class="label">[145]</span></a> 25 St. Tr. 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_146_146" id="Footnote_146_146"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146_146"><span class="label">[146]</span></a> 5 Campbell, 367.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_147_147" id="Footnote_147_147"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147_147"><span class="label">[147]</span></a> 3 Doc. Hist. N.Y. p. 340, 341.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_148_148" id="Footnote_148_148"></a><a href="#FNanchor_148_148"><span class="label">[148]</span></a> 17 St. Tr. 675.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_149_149" id="Footnote_149_149"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149_149"><span class="label">[149]</span></a> See the case in Kelyng's Reports (London, 1708), p. 52.
+The opinion of Justice <i>Jones</i> was only the charge of an inferior
+judge given to the grand-jury in 1634.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_150_150" id="Footnote_150_150"></a><a href="#FNanchor_150_150"><span class="label">[150]</span></a> 13 Mass. Rep. 356.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_151_151" id="Footnote_151_151"></a><a href="#FNanchor_151_151"><span class="label">[151]</span></a> 2 Campbell, Judges, 406.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_152_152" id="Footnote_152_152"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152_152"><span class="label">[152]</span></a> Wharton, State Trials, 653. See too Virginia
+Resolutions (Richmond, 1850), Preface, xiii. <i>et seq.</i>; Virginia
+Resolutions by Madison, and his Report thereon; Kentucky Resolutions
+by Jefferson, in 4 Eliot's Debates (1836).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_153_153" id="Footnote_153_153"></a><a href="#FNanchor_153_153"><span class="label">[153]</span></a> Wharton, 197; 3 Dallas, 384; see 5 Hildreth, 230.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_154_154" id="Footnote_154_154"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154_154"><span class="label">[154]</span></a> See a defence of them in 2 Gibbs's Administration, 74,
+78; also 162.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_155_155" id="Footnote_155_155"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155_155"><span class="label">[155]</span></a> Wharton, 539; Kelyng, R. 70, 75.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_156_156" id="Footnote_156_156"></a><a href="#FNanchor_156_156"><span class="label">[156]</span></a> 4 Hildreth, 571; 1 Gibbs, 300; 2 Gibbs, 419.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_157_157" id="Footnote_157_157"></a><a href="#FNanchor_157_157"><span class="label">[157]</span></a> Wheaton, 458; 9 Adams's Works, 57; 2 Gibbs, 360; 5
+Hildreth, 366; Chase's Trial, 18.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_158_158" id="Footnote_158_158"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158_158"><span class="label">[158]</span></a> Wharton, 333; 4 Jefferson's Works (1853), 262.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_159_159" id="Footnote_159_159"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159_159"><span class="label">[159]</span></a> Wharton, 659.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_160_160" id="Footnote_160_160"></a><a href="#FNanchor_160_160"><span class="label">[160]</span></a> Wharton, 45, 688; Chase's Trial, 33; 4 Jefferson, 445,
+447.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_161_161" id="Footnote_161_161"></a><a href="#FNanchor_161_161"><span class="label">[161]</span></a> 4 Jefferson, Correspondence in Wharton, 721.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_162_162" id="Footnote_162_162"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162_162"><span class="label">[162]</span></a> 2 Sess. 26th, Cong. Doc. 86, Ho. Rep.; Wharton, 344,
+679. See also Virginia Resolutions (1850), and the remarks in the
+Debates. Then Virginia was faithful to State Rights, and did a service
+to the cause of Liberty which no subsequent misconduct should make us
+forget.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_163_163" id="Footnote_163_163"></a><a href="#FNanchor_163_163"><span class="label">[163]</span></a> 2 Einleitung in die Geschichte des neunzehnten
+Jahrhunderts; Leipzig, 1853. 8vo. pp. 181.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_164_164" id="Footnote_164_164"></a><a href="#FNanchor_164_164"><span class="label">[164]</span></a> See Preface to English Translation of Gervinus (London,
+1853); and Allg. Lit. Zeitung für 1853, pp. 867, 883, 931, 946, 994,
+1131.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_165_165" id="Footnote_165_165"></a><a href="#FNanchor_165_165"><span class="label">[165]</span></a> 16 Examiner, 321; 17 ibid. 127; Boston Atlas, July 8th
+and 9th, 1834.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_166_166" id="Footnote_166_166"></a><a href="#FNanchor_166_166"><span class="label">[166]</span></a> See several cases of this kind in Sullivan on Abolition
+of Punishment of Death, (N.Y. 1841), 73. Rantoul's Works, 459.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_167_167" id="Footnote_167_167"></a><a href="#FNanchor_167_167"><span class="label">[167]</span></a> Forsyth, 241, 243.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_168_168" id="Footnote_168_168"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168_168"><span class="label">[168]</span></a> Thomas Smith, Commonwealth, (London, 1589,) b. iii. c.
+1. Hargrave, in 6 St. Tr. 1019.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_169_169" id="Footnote_169_169"></a><a href="#FNanchor_169_169"><span class="label">[169]</span></a> See above, <a href="#Page_95">p. 95</a>. 1 St. Tr. 901; 6 St. Tr. 967, 969,
+999; 21 St. Tr. 925.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_170_170" id="Footnote_170_170"></a><a href="#FNanchor_170_170"><span class="label">[170]</span></a> 1 St. Tr. 445.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_171_171" id="Footnote_171_171"></a><a href="#FNanchor_171_171"><span class="label">[171]</span></a> 6 St. Tr. 967, note; Bushell's Case, Ibid. 999, and
+Hargrave's note, 1013.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_172_172" id="Footnote_172_172"></a><a href="#FNanchor_172_172"><span class="label">[172]</span></a> 2 Campbell, Justices, 405; 6 St. Tr. 910; Kelyng, 50; 3
+Hallam, 6, note; Commons Journals, 16 Oct. 1667.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_173_173" id="Footnote_173_173"></a><a href="#FNanchor_173_173"><span class="label">[173]</span></a> 4 Parl. Hist. 1224.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_174_174" id="Footnote_174_174"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174_174"><span class="label">[174]</span></a> 16 Peters, 616.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_175_175" id="Footnote_175_175"></a><a href="#FNanchor_175_175"><span class="label">[175]</span></a> 20 Anti-Slavery Report, 28 and 21; Ibid. 34.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_176_176" id="Footnote_176_176"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176_176"><span class="label">[176]</span></a> History of the Trial of Castner Hanway and others for
+Treason (Philadelphia, 1852), 35.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_177_177" id="Footnote_177_177"></a><a href="#FNanchor_177_177"><span class="label">[177]</span></a> 20 Anti-Slavery Report, pp. 30, 31.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_178_178" id="Footnote_178_178"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178_178"><span class="label">[178]</span></a> History, 55, 57; Report, 19; 2 Wallace.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_179_179" id="Footnote_179_179"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179_179"><span class="label">[179]</span></a> 16 Peters, Prigg <i>v.</i> Penn.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_180_180" id="Footnote_180_180"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180_180"><span class="label">[180]</span></a> See Report of Trial of Castner Hanway, Phil. 1852.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_181_181" id="Footnote_181_181"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181_181"><span class="label">[181]</span></a> The learned counsel for the fugitive slave bill
+confounds two events. The Stamp Act was passed March 22d, 1765, and
+repealed the 28th of the next March. The tea was destroyed December
+16th, 1773.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_182_182" id="Footnote_182_182"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182_182"><span class="label">[182]</span></a> Report in Boston Courier of November 27th, 1850.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_183_183" id="Footnote_183_183"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183_183"><span class="label">[183]</span></a> The learned counsel for the slaveholders probably
+referred to Eph. vi. 5; or Coloss. iii. 22; or Tit. ii. 9; or 1 Pet.
+ii. 18.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_184_184" id="Footnote_184_184"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184_184"><span class="label">[184]</span></a> Daily Advertiser, Dec. 7th, 1832. Mr. Sewall, the early
+and indefatigable friend of the slave, asked the Court to appoint a
+guardian <i>ad litem</i> for the child, who was not 14, who should see that
+he was not enslaved. But the slaveholder's counsel objected, and the
+Judge (Shaw) refused; yet to his honor be it said in a similar case in
+1841, when Mr. Sewall was counsel for a slave child under the same
+circumstances, he delivered him to a guardian appointed by the Probate
+Court. 3 Metcalf, 72.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_185_185" id="Footnote_185_185"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185_185"><span class="label">[185]</span></a> Med. Case, 1836.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_186_186" id="Footnote_186_186"></a><a href="#FNanchor_186_186"><span class="label">[186]</span></a> On this see Hildreth's Despotism, 262, 280.
+Commissioner Loring considers that the fugitive slave bill
+commissioners have "<i>judicial</i> duties." Remonstrance to General Court,
+2.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_187_187" id="Footnote_187_187"></a><a href="#FNanchor_187_187"><span class="label">[187]</span></a> See Mr. Curtis's letter in Daily Advertiser of February
+7, 1855.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_188_188" id="Footnote_188_188"></a><a href="#FNanchor_188_188"><span class="label">[188]</span></a> See above, p. <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_189_189" id="Footnote_189_189"></a><a href="#FNanchor_189_189"><span class="label">[189]</span></a> See the speech in Boston Courier of November 27th, with
+the editorial comment, and in Daily Advertiser of 28th, <i>Thanksgiving
+Day</i>. See also the Atlas of November 27th. The Sermon is in 2 Parker's
+Speeches, 241.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_190_190" id="Footnote_190_190"></a><a href="#FNanchor_190_190"><span class="label">[190]</span></a> See Boston Journal of May 29, and Boston Courier of
+June 7, 1854.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_191_191" id="Footnote_191_191"></a><a href="#FNanchor_191_191"><span class="label">[191]</span></a> New York Tribune, January 15, 1855.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_192_192" id="Footnote_192_192"></a><a href="#FNanchor_192_192"><span class="label">[192]</span></a> Daily Advertiser, February 7, 1855.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_193_193" id="Footnote_193_193"></a><a href="#FNanchor_193_193"><span class="label">[193]</span></a> Law Reporter, August, 1854.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_194_194" id="Footnote_194_194"></a><a href="#FNanchor_194_194"><span class="label">[194]</span></a> 2 Parker's Additional, 280.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_195_195" id="Footnote_195_195"></a><a href="#FNanchor_195_195"><span class="label">[195]</span></a> See above, <a href="#Page_112">p. 112</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_196_196" id="Footnote_196_196"></a><a href="#FNanchor_196_196"><span class="label">[196]</span></a> Page 52. See above, <a href="#Page_112">p. 112</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_197_197" id="Footnote_197_197"></a><a href="#FNanchor_197_197"><span class="label">[197]</span></a> Jones's "opinion" relates to a case of <i>murder</i> by the
+advice of an absent person, not at all to <i>suicide by the advice of
+another</i>, so it could not apply to the case of Bowen.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_198_198" id="Footnote_198_198"></a><a href="#FNanchor_198_198"><span class="label">[198]</span></a> 2 Campbell's Justices, 406.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_199_199" id="Footnote_199_199"></a><a href="#FNanchor_199_199"><span class="label">[199]</span></a> Above, <a href="#Page_23">p. 23</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_200_200" id="Footnote_200_200"></a><a href="#FNanchor_200_200"><span class="label">[200]</span></a> Parl. Hist. 290; 3 St. Tr. 844, 1181, 162; 2 Echard,
+186.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_201_201" id="Footnote_201_201"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201_201"><span class="label">[201]</span></a> See above, p. <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>; 1 Campbell, <i>Ibid.</i>
+406; 6 St. Tr. 76, 229, 171, 532, 769, 879, 992; Pepys' Diary, 17
+Oct., 1667; Commons Journal, 16th Oct., 1667.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_202_202" id="Footnote_202_202"></a><a href="#FNanchor_202_202"><span class="label">[202]</span></a> 1 Wharton, 636; Kelyng, 1-24, 70-77; 6 St. Tr. 879.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_203_203" id="Footnote_203_203"></a><a href="#FNanchor_203_203"><span class="label">[203]</span></a> 2 Parker's Additional, p. 281.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_204_204" id="Footnote_204_204"></a><a href="#FNanchor_204_204"><span class="label">[204]</span></a> Evening Traveller, Oct. 16.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_205_205" id="Footnote_205_205"></a><a href="#FNanchor_205_205"><span class="label">[205]</span></a> Quincy's Quincy, 68.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_206_206" id="Footnote_206_206"></a><a href="#FNanchor_206_206"><span class="label">[206]</span></a> Gazette, Feb. 10, 1772.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_207_207" id="Footnote_207_207"></a><a href="#FNanchor_207_207"><span class="label">[207]</span></a> 2 Singer's Shakspeare, 192.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_208_208" id="Footnote_208_208"></a><a href="#FNanchor_208_208"><span class="label">[208]</span></a> 2 Occasional Speeches, 164, 165, and 172.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_209_209" id="Footnote_209_209"></a><a href="#FNanchor_209_209"><span class="label">[209]</span></a> Ibid., 207, 208.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_210_210" id="Footnote_210_210"></a><a href="#FNanchor_210_210"><span class="label">[210]</span></a> 2 Occasional Sermons, 239, 240.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_211_211" id="Footnote_211_211"></a><a href="#FNanchor_211_211"><span class="label">[211]</span></a> 2 Occasional Sermons, 256, 257, 258.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_212_212" id="Footnote_212_212"></a><a href="#FNanchor_212_212"><span class="label">[212]</span></a> See above, <a href="#Page_149">p. 149</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_213_213" id="Footnote_213_213"></a><a href="#FNanchor_213_213"><span class="label">[213]</span></a> 1 Parker's Additional Speeches, 55.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_214_214" id="Footnote_214_214"></a><a href="#FNanchor_214_214"><span class="label">[214]</span></a> 2 Parker's Occasional Sermons, pp. 298-300, 301, 302,
+304, 305.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_215_215" id="Footnote_215_215"></a><a href="#FNanchor_215_215"><span class="label">[215]</span></a> 2 Parker's Occasional Sermons, p. 334-337, 343-348,
+351, 352.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_216_216" id="Footnote_216_216"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216_216"><span class="label">[216]</span></a> 2 Parker's Occasional Sermons, p. 392-394.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_217_217" id="Footnote_217_217"></a><a href="#FNanchor_217_217"><span class="label">[217]</span></a> 1 Parker's Additional Speeches, p. 50, 70, 88, 89, 92,
+93, 100, 101.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_218_218" id="Footnote_218_218"></a><a href="#FNanchor_218_218"><span class="label">[218]</span></a> 1 Parker's Additional Speeches, 235-37, 246-47.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_219_219" id="Footnote_219_219"></a><a href="#FNanchor_219_219"><span class="label">[219]</span></a> 1 Parker's Additional Speeches, p. 351, 352, 357-359,
+368, 369.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_220_220" id="Footnote_220_220"></a><a href="#FNanchor_220_220"><span class="label">[220]</span></a> Med Case, p. 9, 11.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_221_221" id="Footnote_221_221"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221_221"><span class="label">[221]</span></a> 2 Parker's Additional, 74, 75, 81, 83.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_222_222" id="Footnote_222_222"></a><a href="#FNanchor_222_222"><span class="label">[222]</span></a> Parker's Additional, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_223_223" id="Footnote_223_223"></a><a href="#FNanchor_223_223"><span class="label">[223]</span></a> See the communications of Messrs. Chas. P. Curtis and
+Thomas B. Curtis, in the Boston Daily Advertiser of June, 1854; and
+the other articles setting forth the facts of the case.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_224_224" id="Footnote_224_224"></a><a href="#FNanchor_224_224"><span class="label">[224]</span></a> Med Case, p. 25.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_225_225" id="Footnote_225_225"></a><a href="#FNanchor_225_225"><span class="label">[225]</span></a> Art. iv. § 2, ¶ 2.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_226_226" id="Footnote_226_226"></a><a href="#FNanchor_226_226"><span class="label">[226]</span></a> In 2 Kennett, 753.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Trial of Theodore Parker, by Theodore Parker
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+Project Gutenberg's The Trial of Theodore Parker, by Theodore Parker
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Trial of Theodore Parker
+       For the "Misdemeanor" of a Speech in Faneuil Hall against
+       Kidnapping, before the Circuit Court of the United States,
+       at Boston, April 3, 1855, with the Defence
+
+Author: Theodore Parker
+
+Release Date: February 17, 2010 [EBook #31298]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRIAL OF THEODORE PARKER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Meredith Bach, Linda Cantoni, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's Note: A table of contents has been added for the
+reader's convenience. Errors listed in the Errata section have been
+noted with a [Transcriber's Note]; other obvious printer errors have
+been corrected without note.]
+
+
+
+
+THE TRIAL
+
+OF
+
+THEODORE PARKER,
+
+FOR THE
+
+"MISDEMEANOR"
+
+OF
+
+A Speech in Faneuil Hall against Kidnapping,
+
+BEFORE THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES,
+
+AT BOSTON, APRIL 3, 1855.
+
+WITH
+
+THE DEFENCE,
+
+
+BY
+
+THEODORE PARKER,
+
+MINISTER OF THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGREGATIONAL SOCIETY IN BOSTON.
+
+
+BOSTON:
+PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR.
+1855.
+
+Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by
+
+THEODORE PARKER,
+
+In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
+  Massachusetts.
+
+CAMBRIDGE:
+ALLEN AND FARNHAM, PRINTERS.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+PREFACE
+INTRODUCTION
+DEFENCE
+ERRATA
+OTHER WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+JOHN PARKER HALE
+
+AND
+
+CHARLES MAYO ELLIS,
+
+MAGNANIMOUS LAWYERS,
+
+FOR THEIR LABORS IN A NOBLE PROFESSION,
+
+WHICH HAVING ONCE IN ENGLAND ITS KELYNG, ITS SAUNDERS, ITS JEFFREYS,
+AND ITS SCROGGS, AS NOW IN AMERICA ITS SHARKEY, ITS GRIER, ITS CURTIS,
+AND ITS KANE, HAS YET ALSO SUCH GENEROUS ADVOCATES OF HUMANITY AS
+EQUAL THE GLORIES OF HOLT AND ERSKINE, OF MACKINTOSH AND ROMILLY,
+
+FOR THEIR ELOQUENT AND FEARLESS DEFENCE OF TRUTH, RIGHT, AND LOVE,
+
+THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED,
+
+BY THEIR CLIENT AND FRIEND,
+
+THEODORE PARKER.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+TO THE PEOPLE OF THE FREE STATES OF AMERICA.
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS AND FRIENDS,--
+
+If it were a merely personal matter for which I was arraigned before
+the United States Court, after the trial was over I should trouble the
+public no further with that matter; and hitherto indeed, though often
+attacked, nay, almost continually for the last fourteen years, I have
+never returned a word in defence. But now, as this case is one of such
+vast and far-reaching importance, involving the great Human Right to
+Freedom of Speech, and as the actual question before the court was
+never brought to trial, I cannot let the occasion pass by without
+making further use of it.
+
+When Judge Curtis delivered his charge to the Grand-Jury, June 7th,
+1854, I made ready for trial, and in three or four days my line of
+defence was marked out--the fortifications sketched, the place of the
+batteries determined; I began to collect arms, and was soon ready for
+his attack. When that Grand-Jury, summoned with no special reference
+to me, refused to find a bill and were discharged, I took public
+notice of the conduct of Judge Curtis, in a Sermon for the Fourth of
+July.[1] But I knew the friends of the fugitive slave bill at Boston
+and Washington too well to think they would let the matter sleep; I
+knew what arts could be used to pack a jury and procure a bill. So I
+was not at all surprised when I heard of the efforts making by the
+Slave Power in Boston to obtain an indictment by another grand-jury
+summoned for that purpose. It need not be supposed that I was wholly
+ignorant of their doings from day to day. The arrest was no
+astonishment to me. I knew how much the reputation of this Court and
+of its Attorney depended on the success of this prosecution. I knew
+what private malignity was at work.
+
+[Footnote 1: 2 Parker's Additional Speeches, 178-283.]
+
+After my arraignment I made elaborate preparation for my defence. I
+procured able counsel, men needing no commendation, to manage the
+technical details which I knew nothing about and so could not meddle
+with, while I took charge of other matters lying more level to my own
+capacity. I thought it best to take an active part in my own
+defence,--for the matter at issue belonged to my previous studies and
+general business; my personal friends and the People in general,
+seemed to expect me to defend myself as well as I could.
+
+A great political revolution took place between the Judge's charge and
+my arraignment, June 7th, and November 29th, 1854, and I thought the
+Court would not allow the case to come to open argument. For
+certainly, it would not be a very pleasant thing for Judge Sprague and
+Judge Curtis, who have taken such pains to establish slavery in
+Massachusetts, to sit there--each like a travestied Prometheus,
+chained up in a silk gown because they had brought to earth fire from
+the quarter opposite to Heaven--and listen to Mr. Hale, and Mr.
+Phillips and other anti-slavery lawyers, day after day: there were
+facts, sure to come to light, not honorable to the Court and not
+pleasant to look at in the presence of a New England community then
+getting indignant at the outrages of the Slave Power. I never thought
+the case would come to the jury. I looked over the indictment, and to
+my unlearned eye it seemed so looped and windowed with breaches that a
+skilful lawyer might drive a cart and six oxen through it in various
+directions; and so the Court might easily quash the indictment and
+leave all the blame of the failure on the poor Attorney--whom they
+seemed to despise, though using him for their purposes--while they
+themselves should escape with a whole reputation, and ears which had
+not tingled under manly speech.
+
+Still, it was possible that the trial would come on. Of course, I knew
+the trial would not proceed on the day I was ordered to appear--the
+eighty-fifth anniversary of the Boston Massacre. It would be
+"unavoidably postponed," which came to pass accordingly. The Attorney,
+very politely, gave me all needed information from time to time.
+
+At the "trial," April 3d, it was optional with the defendant's counsel
+to beat the Government on the indictment before the Court; or on the
+merits of the case before the Jury. The latter would furnish the most
+piquant events, for some curious scenes were likely to take place in
+the examination of witnesses, as well as instruction to be offered in
+the Speeches delivered. But on the whole, it was thought best to blow
+up the enemy in his own fortress and with his own magazine, rather
+than to cut him to pieces with our shot in the open field. So the
+counsel rent the indictment into many pieces--apparently to the great
+comfort of the Judges, who thus escaped the battle, which then fell
+only on the head of the Attorney.
+
+At the time appointed I was ready with my defence--which I now print
+for the Country. It is a Minister's performance, not a lawyer's. Of
+course, I knew that the Court would not have allowed me to proceed
+with such a defence--and that I should be obliged to deliver it
+through the press. Had there been an actual jury trial, I should have
+had many other things to offer in reference to the Government's
+evidence, to the testimony given before the grand-jury, and to the
+conduct of some of the grand-jurors themselves. So the latter part of
+the defence is only the skeleton of what it otherwise might have
+been,--the geological material of the country, the Flora and Fauna
+left out.
+
+It would have been better to publish it immediately after the decision
+of the case: but my _brief_ was not for the printer, and as many
+duties occurred at that time, it was not till now, in a little
+vacation from severer toils, that I have found leisure to write out my
+defence in full. Fellow-Citizens and Friends, I present it to you in
+hopes that it may serve the great cause of Human Freedom in America
+and the world; surely, it has seldom been in more danger.
+
+THEODORE PARKER.
+
+BOSTON, _24th August_, 1855.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+On Tuesday, the 23d of May, 1854, Charles F. Suttle of Virginia,
+presented to Edward Greeley Loring, Esquire, of Boston, Commissioner,
+a complaint under the fugitive slave bill--Act of September 18th,
+1850--praying for the seizure and enslavement of Anthony Burns.
+
+The next day, Wednesday, May 24th, Commissioner Loring issued the
+warrant: Mr. Burns was seized in the course of the evening of that
+day, on the false pretext of burglary, and carried to the Suffolk
+County Court House in which he was confined by the Marshal, under the
+above-named warrant, and there kept imprisoned under a strong and
+armed guard.
+
+On the 25th, at about nine o'clock in the morning, the Commissioner
+proceeded to hear and decide the case in the Circuit Court room, in
+which were stationed about sixty men serving as the Marshal's guard.
+Seth J. Thomas, Esquire, and Edward Griffin Parker, Esquire, members
+of the Suffolk Bar, appeared as counsel for Mr. Suttle to help him and
+Commissioner Loring make a man a Slave. Mr. Burns was kept in irons
+and surrounded by "the guard." The Slave-hunter's documents were
+immediately presented, and his witness was sworn and proceeded to
+testify.
+
+Wendell Phillips, Theodore Parker, Charles M. Ellis, and Richard H.
+Dana, with a few others, came into the Court room. Mr. Parker and some
+others, spoke with Mr. Burns, who sat in the dock ironed, between two
+of the Marshal's guard. After a little delay and conference among
+these four and others, Mr. Dana interrupted the proceedings and asked
+that counsel might be assigned to Mr. Burns, and so a defence allowed.
+To this Mr. Thomas, the senior counsel for the Slave-hunters,
+objected. But after repeated protests on the part of Mr. Dana and Mr.
+Ellis, the Commissioner adjourned the hearing until ten o'clock,
+Saturday, May 27th.
+
+On the evening of Friday, May 26th, there was a large and earnest
+meeting of men and women at Faneuil Hall. Mr. George R. Russell, of
+West Roxbury, presided; his name is a fair exponent of the character
+and purposes of the meeting, which Dr. Samuel G. Howe called to order.
+
+Speeches were made and Resolutions passed. Mr. Phillips and Mr.
+Parker, amongst others, addressed the meeting; Mr. Parker's speech, as
+reported and published in the newspapers, is reprinted in this volume,
+page 199. While this meeting was in session there was a gathering of a
+few persons about the Court House, the outer doors of which had been
+unlawfully closed by order of the Marshal; an attempt was made to
+break through them and enter the building, where the Supreme Court of
+Massachusetts was sitting engaged in a capital case; and the Courts of
+this State must always sit with open doors. In the strife one of the
+Marshal's guard, a man hired to aid in the Slave-hunt, was killed--but
+whether by one of the assailing party, or by the Marshal's guard, it
+is not yet quite clear. It does not appear from the evidence laid
+before the public or the three Grand-Juries, that there was any
+connection between the meeting at Faneuil Hall and the gathering at
+the Court House.
+
+Saturday, 27th, at ten o'clock, the Commissioner opened his Court
+again, his prisoner in irons before him. The other events are well
+known. Mr. Burns was taken away to Slavery on Friday, June 2d, by an
+armed body of soldiers with a cannon.
+
+The May Term of the Circuit Court at Boston began on the 15th of that
+month, and the Grand-Jury for that term had already been summoned.
+Here is the list:--
+
+UNITED STATES CIRCUIT COURT, }
+  MASSACHUSETTS DISTRICT.    }
+
+May Term, 1854. ss. May 15, 1854.
+
+
+GRAND-JURY.
+
+ 1 Sworn.      Isaac Tower,            Randolph,  Foreman.
+
+ 2   "         Elbridge G. Manning,    Andover.
+
+ 3   "         Asa Angier,                "
+
+ 4   "         Ballard Lovejoy,           "
+
+ 5   "         Levi Eldridge,          Chatham.
+
+ 6   "         Isaac B. Young,            "
+
+ 7   "         Josiah Peterson,        Duxbury.
+
+ 8   "         James Curtis,              "
+
+ 9 Not Sworn.  William Amory,          Boston,    Excused first day.
+                                                  Member of the bar.
+
+10 Sworn.      James P. Bush,             "       Absent June 28th.
+
+11   "         John Clark,                "
+
+12   "         Charles H. Mills,          "
+
+13   "         William N. Tyler,          "
+
+14   "         Samuel Weltch,             "
+
+15   "         Reuben Nichols,         Reading.
+
+16   "         Benjamin M. Boyce,         "
+
+17   "         Ephraim F. Belcher,     Randolph.
+
+18   "         Thomas S. Brimblecome,  Fairhaven.
+
+19   "         Obed F. Hitch,             "
+
+20   "         Lowell Claflin,         Hopkinton.
+
+21   "         William Durant,         Leominster.
+
+22   "         Charles Grant,             "
+
+23   "         Jeremiah B. Luther,     Douglas.
+
+On the 7th of June, Judge Curtis gave to this Grand-Jury his
+charge.[2] In that he spoke of the enforcement of the fugitive slave
+bill; and he charged the Jury especially and minutely upon the Statute
+of the United States of 1790, in relation to resisting officers in
+service of process as follows.
+
+[Footnote 2: The charge is printed below, at page 170.]
+
+That not only those who are present and actually obstruct, resist, and
+oppose, and all who are present leagued in the common design, and so
+situated as to be able in case of need, to afford assistance to those
+actually engaged; but all who, though absent, did procure, counsel,
+command, or abet others to commit the offence; and all who, by
+indirect means, by _evincing an express liking, approbation, or assent
+to the design, were liable as principals_. And he added, "My
+instruction to you is, that language addressed to persons who
+immediately afterwards commit an offence, actually intended by the
+speaker to incite those addressed to commit it, and adapted thus to
+incite them, is such a counselling, or advising to the crime as the
+law contemplates, and the person so inciting others is liable to be
+indicted as a principal," and _it is of no importance that his advice
+or directions were departed from in respect to the time, or place, or
+precise mode, or means of committing it_.
+
+That Jury remained in session a few weeks: pains were taken to induce
+them to find bills against the speakers at Faneuil Hall; but they
+found no indictment under the law of 1790, or that of 1850; they were
+discharged.
+
+On the 22d of September, _venires_ were issued by order of the Court
+for a new Grand-Jury; and, on the 16th of October, twenty-three were
+returned by Marshal Freeman, and impanelled. Here is the list of new
+Grand-Jurors:--
+
+UNITED STATES CIRCUIT COURT, }
+  MASSACHUSETTS DISTRICT.    }
+
+October Term, 1854. ss. October 16, 1854.
+
+GRAND-JURY.
+
+ 1 Sworn.      Enoch Patterson, Jr.,   Boston,     Foreman.
+
+ 2   "         David Alden,               "
+
+ 3   "         Stephen D. Abbott,      Andover.
+
+ 4   "         Isaac Beal,             Chatham.
+
+ 5   "         John Burrill,           Reading.
+
+ 6   "         Mathew Cox,             Boston.
+
+ 7   "         Richard B. Chandler,    Duxbury.
+
+ 8   "         Charles L. Cummings,    Douglas.
+
+ 9   "         Charles Carter,         Leominster.
+
+10   "         Warren Davis,           Reading.
+
+11   "         William W. Greenough,   Boston.
+
+12   "         George O. Hovey,           "
+
+13   "         John M. Howland,        Fairhaven.
+
+14 Sworn.      Manson D. Haws,         Leominster.
+
+15   "         John Holbrook,          Randolph.
+
+Excused.       Nathaniel Johnson,      Hopkinton,  Excused first day,
+                                                   October 16th, for
+                                                   the term.
+
+16 Sworn.      George Londen,          Duxbury.
+
+17   "         Nathan Moore,           Andover.
+
+18   "         Samuel P. Ridler,       Boston.
+
+19   "         Christopher Ryder,      Chatham.
+
+20   "         John Smith,             Andover.
+
+21   "         Appollos Wales,         Randolph.
+
+22   "         Samuel L. Ward,         Fairhaven.
+
+This Grand-Jury was not charged by the Judge upon the statute of 1790,
+or 1850, but was referred to Mr. Hallett, the Attorney, for the
+instructions previously given to the Jury that had been discharged,
+namely, for his charge of June 7th, already referred to. Mr. William
+W. Greenough, brother-in-law of Judge Curtis, was one of the Jury.
+They found the following indictment against Mr. Parker:--
+
+     UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
+
+     _Circuit Court of the United States of America, for the
+     District of Massachusetts._
+
+     At a Circuit Court of the United States of America, for the
+     District of Massachusetts, begun and holden at Boston, the
+     aforesaid District, on the sixteenth day of October, in the
+     year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four
+     (the fifteenth day of said October being Sunday).
+
+     The Jurors of the United States within the aforesaid
+     District, on their oath, present.
+
+     1st. That heretofore to wit,--on the twenty-fourth day of
+     May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and
+     fifty-four, a certain warrant and legal process directed to
+     the Marshal of the said District of Massachusetts, or either
+     of his Deputies, was duly issued under the hand and seal of
+     Edward G. Loring, Esquire, who was then and there a
+     Commissioner of the Circuit Court of the United States, for
+     said District, which said warrant and legal process was duly
+     delivered to Watson Freeman, Esquire, who was then and there
+     an officer of the United States, to wit, Marshal of the
+     United States, for the said District of Massachusetts, at
+     Boston, in the District aforesaid, on the said twenty-fourth
+     day of May in the year aforesaid, and was of the purport and
+     effect following, that is to say:--
+
+     UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
+
+     MASSACHUSETTS DISTRICT, SS.
+
+     To the Marshal of our District of Massachusetts, or either
+     of his Deputies, _Greeting_:
+
+     In the name of the President of the United States of
+     America, you are hereby commanded forthwith to apprehend
+     Anthony Burns, a negro man, alleged now to be in your
+     District, charged with being a fugitive from labor, and with
+     having escaped from service in the State of Virginia, if he
+     may be found in your precincts, and have him forthwith
+     before me, Edward G. Loring, one of the Commissioners of the
+     Circuit Court of the United States for the said District,
+     then and there to answer to the complaint of Charles F.
+     Suttle, of Alexandria, in the said State of Virginia,
+     Merchant, alleging under oath that the said Anthony Burns on
+     the twenty-fourth day of March last, did and for a long time
+     prior thereto had, owed service and labor to him the said
+     Suttle, in the said State of Virginia, under the laws
+     thereof, and that, while held to service there by said
+     Suttle, the said Burns escaped from the said State of
+     Virginia, into the State of Massachusetts; and that the said
+     Burns still owes service and labor to said Suttle in the
+     said State of Virginia, and praying that said Burns may be
+     restored to him said Suttle in said State of Virginia, and
+     that such further proceedings may then and there be had in
+     the premises as are by law in such cases provided.
+
+     Hereof fail not, and make due return of this writ, with your
+     doings therein before me.
+
+     Witness my hand and seal at Boston, aforesaid, this
+     twenty-fourth day of May, in the year one thousand eight
+     hundred and fifty-four.
+
+     EDWARD G. LORING, _Commissioner_. [L.S.]
+
+     And the Jurors aforesaid do further present, that the said
+     warrant and legal process, being duly issued and delivered
+     as aforesaid, afterwards to wit, on the twenty-fifth day of
+     May, in the year aforesaid, at Boston in said District, the
+     said Watson Freeman then and there being an officer of the
+     said United States, to wit Marshal of the District
+     aforesaid, and in pursuance of said warrant and legal
+     process, did then and there arrest the said Anthony Burns
+     named therein, and had him before the said Edward G. Loring,
+     Commissioner, for examination--and thereupon the hearing of
+     the said case was adjourned by the said Commissioner until
+     Saturday the twenty-seventh day of May, in the year
+     aforesaid, at ten o'clock in the forenoon; and the said
+     Marshal, who had so made return of the said Warrant, was
+     duly ordered by the said Commissioner to retain the said
+     Anthony Burns in his custody, and have him before the said
+     Commissioner on the said twenty-seventh day of May in the
+     year aforesaid, at the Court House in said Boston, which
+     said last-mentioned legal process and order was duly issued
+     under the hand of the said Edward G. Loring, Commissioner,
+     and was of the purport and effect following, that is to say:
+
+     U.S. OF AMERICA, DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS.
+
+     _Boston, May 25_, 1854.
+
+     And now the hearing of this case being adjourned to
+     Saturday, May 27, 1854, 10 A.M., the said Marshal, who has
+     made return of this warrant, is hereby ordered to retain the
+     said Anthony Burns in his custody, and have him before me at
+     the time last mentioned, at the Court House in Boston, for
+     the further hearing of the Complaint on which the warrant
+     was issued.
+
+     EDWARD G. LORING, _Commissioner_.
+
+     And the Jurors aforesaid do further present, that on the
+     twenty-sixth day of May, in the year aforesaid, in pursuance
+     of the warrant and legal process aforesaid, and of said
+     further legal process and order last mentioned, the said
+     Watson Freeman, Marshal as aforesaid, then and there, at the
+     said Court House in said Boston, had in his custody the
+     person of the said Anthony Burns, in the due and lawful
+     execution of the said warrant and legal process, and of the
+     said further legal process and order, in manner and form as
+     he was therein commanded--and one Theodore Parker, of
+     Boston, in said District, Clerk, then and there well knowing
+     the premises, with force and arms did knowingly and wilfully
+     obstruct, resist, and oppose the said Watson Freeman, then
+     and there being an officer of the said United States, to
+     wit, Marshal of the said District, in serving and attempting
+     to serve and execute the said warrant and legal process, and
+     the said further legal process and order in manner and form
+     as he was therein commanded, to the great damage of the said
+     Watson Freeman, to the great hinderance and obstruction of
+     Justice, to the evil example of all others, in like case
+     offending, against the peace and dignity of the said United
+     States, and contrary to the form of the Statute in such case
+     made and provided.
+
+     2d. And the Jurors aforesaid, on their oath aforesaid, do
+     further present, that on the twenty-sixth day of May, in the
+     year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four,
+     at Boston, in said District, one Theodore Parker, of Boston,
+     in said District, Clerk, with force and arms, did knowingly
+     and wilfully obstruct, resist, and oppose one Watson
+     Freeman, who was then and there the Marshal of the United
+     States of America, for the District of Massachusetts, and an
+     officer of the said United States, in serving and attempting
+     to serve and execute a certain warrant and legal process,
+     which before that time, to wit, on the twenty-fourth day of
+     May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and
+     fifty-four, had been duly issued under the hand and seal of
+     Edward G. Loring, Esquire, a Commissioner of the Circuit
+     Court of the United States, for said District of
+     Massachusetts, and directed to the Marshal of the District
+     of Massachusetts, or either of his deputies, which said
+     warrant and legal process the said Freeman, in the due and
+     lawful execution of his said office, had then and there in
+     his hands and possession for service of the same, and which
+     he was then and there serving and attempting to serve and
+     execute; which said warrant commanded the said Freeman to
+     apprehend one Anthony Burns and to have him forthwith before
+     the said Commissioner, then and there to be dealt with
+     according to law. Against the peace and dignity of the said
+     United States, and contrary to the form of the Statute in
+     such case made and provided.
+
+     3d. And the Jurors aforesaid, on their oath aforesaid, do
+     further present, that on the twenty-sixth day of May, in the
+     year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four,
+     at Boston, in said District, the said Theodore Parker, with
+     force and arms, did knowingly and wilfully obstruct, resist,
+     and oppose one Watson Freeman, who was then and there an
+     officer of the said United States, to wit, the Marshal of
+     the United States for the said District of Massachusetts, in
+     serving and attempting to serve and execute a certain legal
+     process which before that time, to wit, on the 25th day of
+     May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and
+     fifty-four, had been duly issued under the hand of Edward G.
+     Loring, who was then and there a Commissioner of the Circuit
+     Court of the United States, for the said District of
+     Massachusetts, and was then and there duly empowered to
+     issue said legal process, and which said legal process was
+     duly committed for obedience and execution to the said
+     Freeman, Marshal as aforesaid, wherein and whereby and in
+     pursuance of the command whereof the said Freeman was then
+     and there lawfully retaining, detaining, and holding one
+     Anthony Burns for the further hearing and determination of a
+     certain complaint, upon which a warrant before that time, to
+     wit, on the twenty-fourth day of said May, had been duly
+     issued under the hand and seal of the said Commissioner, by
+     force of which warrant the said Anthony Burns had been duly
+     arrested and apprehended by the said Freeman, and in
+     execution of the same, on the twenty-fifth day of said May
+     had been brought by the said Freeman before the said
+     Commissioner.
+
+     4th. And the jurors aforesaid, on their oath aforesaid, do
+     further present, that on the twenty-sixth day of May, in the
+     year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four,
+     at Boston, in said district, the said Theodore Parker, with
+     force and arms, did knowingly and wilfully obstruct, resist,
+     and oppose one Watson Freeman, who was then and there an
+     officer of the said United States, to wit, Marshal of the
+     United States, for the District of Massachusetts, in serving
+     and attempting to serve and execute a certain warrant and
+     legal process, which before that time, to wit, on the
+     twenty-fourth day of May, in the year of our Lord one
+     thousand eight hundred and fifty-four, had been duly issued
+     under the hand and seal of Edward G. Loring, Esquire, a
+     Commissioner of the Circuit Court of the United States, for
+     the District of Massachusetts, and directed to the Marshal
+     of the said District of Massachusetts or either of his
+     Deputies, which the said Freeman, in the due and lawful
+     execution of his said office, had then and there in his
+     hands and possession for service of the same, and which he
+     was then and there serving and attempting to serve and
+     execute; which warrant commanded the said Freeman to
+     apprehend one Anthony Burns, and to have him forthwith
+     before the said commissioner and that such further
+     proceedings might then and there be had in the premises, as
+     are by law in such cases provided,--and also in serving and
+     attempting to serve and execute a certain further legal
+     process which before that time, to wit, on the twenty-fifth
+     day of May, in the year aforesaid, had been duly issued
+     under the hand of the said Commissioner, and duly committed
+     for obedience and execution to the said Freeman, wherein and
+     whereby, and in pursuance of the command whereof, the said
+     Freeman was then and there lawfully retaining, detaining,
+     and holding the said Anthony Burns for the further hearing
+     and determination of a certain complaint upon which the
+     warrant aforesaid had been issued by the said Commissioner.
+
+     5th. And the Jurors aforesaid on their oath aforesaid, do
+     further present that one Theodore Parker, of Boston, in said
+     District, Clerk, on the 26th day of May, in the year of our
+     Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four, at Boston,
+     in the said District of Massachusetts, with force and arms,
+     in and upon one Watson Freeman, then and there in the peace
+     of the said United States being, an assault did make, he the
+     said Freeman also then and there being an officer of the
+     said United States, to wit, Marshal of the United States,
+     for the said District of Massachusetts, and then and there
+     also being in the due and lawful discharge of his duties as
+     such officer. And so the jurors aforesaid, on their oath
+     aforesaid, do say and present that the said Theodore Parker,
+     at Boston aforesaid, on the said twenty-sixth day of said
+     May, with force and arms assaulted the said Freeman as such
+     officer, and knowingly and wilfully obstructed, resisted,
+     and opposed him in the discharge of his lawful duties in
+     manner and form aforesaid, against the peace and dignity of
+     the said United States, and contrary to the form of the
+     Statute in such cases made and provided. And the Jurors
+     aforesaid, on their oath aforesaid, do further present that
+     the said Theodore Parker was first apprehended in said
+     District of Massachusetts, after committing the aforesaid
+     offence, against the peace and dignity of the said United
+     States, and contrary to the form of the statute in such case
+     made and provided. A true bill.
+
+     ENOCH PATTERSON, JR., _Foreman_.
+
+     B.F. HALLETT, _United States Attorney for the District of
+     Massachusetts_.
+
+Similar indictments were found against Mr. Phillips, Mr. Stowell, Rev.
+T.W. Higginson, John Morrison, Samuel T. Proudman, and John C. Cluer.
+
+Mr. Parker was arraigned on Wednesday, November 29th, and ordered to
+recognize in bonds of $1,500 for his appearance at that Court, on the
+5th of March, 1855. His bondsmen were Messrs. Samuel May, Francis
+Jackson, and John R. Manley; his counsel were Hon. John P. Hale, and
+Charles M. Ellis, Esq. The other gentlemen were arraigned afterwards
+at different times.
+
+After considerable uncertainty about the engagements of Hon. Justice
+Curtis, Tuesday, April 3d, was fixed for the commencement of the
+trials. At that time there appeared as counsel for the government,
+Hon. Benjamin F. Hallett, District Attorney, and Elias Merwin, Esq.,
+formerly a law partner of Judge Curtis; on the other side were Hon.
+John P. Hale, and Charles M. Ellis, Esq., for Mr. Parker; Wm. L. Burt,
+Esq., John A. Andrew, Esq., and H.F. Durant, Esq., counsel for Messrs.
+Phillips, Higginson, Stowell, Bishop, Morrison, Proudman, and Cluer.
+
+Mr. Hale, as senior counsel, stated to the court that the counsel for
+the defendants in several of the cases had conferred, and
+concluded--on the supposition that the Court and Government would
+assent to the plan as most for their own convenience, as well as that
+of the defendants' counsel--to file the like motion on the different
+cases; and, instead of each counsel going over the whole ground for
+each case, to divide the matter presented for debate, and for each to
+discuss some particular positions on behalf of them all. This was
+assented to; and motions, of which the following is a copy, were filed
+in the several cases:--
+
+     CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, MASSACHUSETTS DISTRICT,
+     SS.
+
+     _United States by Indictment_ v. _Theodore Parker._
+
+     And now said Theodore Parker comes and moves that the
+     indictment against him be quashed, because,
+
+     "1. The writ of venire for the jury that found said
+     indictment was directed to and returned by Watson Freeman,
+     the Marshal, who was not an indifferent person, and it was
+     not served and returned as the law directs.
+
+     "2. Because said Jury was not an impartial Jury of the
+     District, designated as the laws require, but the jury
+     Districts for this court embrace but a portion of the
+     District and of the population, and said jury was in fact
+     chosen and designated from but a fraction of the District
+     and contrary to law.
+
+     "3. Because the matters and things alleged in said
+     indictment do not constitute any crime under the statute on
+     which said indictment is framed, the said statute not
+     embracing them, or being, so far as it might embrace them,
+     repealed by the statute of eighteen hundred and fifty.
+
+     "4. Because said indictment does not allege and set forth
+     fully and sufficiently the authority and the proceedings
+     whereon the alleged warrant and order were based, or facts
+     sufficient to show that the alleged process and order were
+     lawfully issued by any person duly authorized, and his
+     authority and jurisdiction, and that the same were within
+     such jurisdiction, and issued by the authority of the law,
+     and originated, issued, and directed as the law prescribes;
+     said warrant and order not being alleged to have issued from
+     any court or tribunal of general or special jurisdiction,
+     but by a person vested with certain specific statute
+     authority.
+
+     "5. Because said indictment and the several counts thereof
+     are bad on the face of them, as follows, viz.:--
+
+     "First, it nowhere appearing that the same were found by a
+     grand-jury, because the second and third counts do not
+     conclude, against the form of the statute, and have no
+     conclusion, because the third and fourth counts do not set
+     forth the estate, degree, or mystery of the person therein
+     charged.
+
+     "Because said indictment and the counts thereof are
+     repugnant and inconsistent, the same being based on an
+     alleged obstruction, resistance, and opposition to the
+     service of an action, order, or warrant, which is therein
+     averred to have been already served, executed, and returned.
+
+     "Because the first and fifth counts are double.
+
+     "Because the alleged order of May 25th, referred to therein,
+     was a void and illegal, order.
+
+     "Because, if the alleged warrant was served as therein
+     alleged, said Watson Freeman did not, and by law could not
+     thereafter, hold the person described therein, under any
+     process or order.
+
+     "And because the same do not set forth and allege fully and
+     specifically the acts charged to be offences against the
+     statute, so as to inform said party charged, of the nature
+     and cause of the accusation.
+
+     "6. Because the warrant set forth and referred to therein
+     was void on its face, and issued from and ran into a
+     jurisdiction not authorized by law, and directed the arrest
+     of a person without legal cause, and because said indictment
+     is otherwise bad, uncertain, and insufficient."
+
+Mr. Wm. L. Burt commenced the argument of the motions, and presented
+several of the points. He was followed by Mr. C.M. Ellis, J.A. Andrew,
+and H.F. Durant, who severally discussed some of the grounds of the
+motions.
+
+Elias Merwin, Esquire, and Mr. Attorney Hallett, replied.
+
+The Court stated that they did not wish to hear Hon. John P. Hale, who
+was about to rejoin and close in support of the motion, and decided
+that the allegation, on the indictment, that Edward G. Loring was a
+Commissioner of the Circuit Court of the United States for said
+District, was not a legal averment that he was such a Commissioner as
+is described in the bill of 1850, and therefore the indictments were
+bad.
+
+The Court said they supposed it to be true that Mr. Loring was such a
+Commissioner, and that his authority could be proved by producing the
+record of his appointment; that they did not suppose the absence of
+this averment could be of any practical consequence to the defendants,
+so far as respected the substantial merits of the cases; and it was
+true the objection to the indictment was "technical;" but they held it
+sufficient, notwithstanding the averment that the warrant was "_duly
+issued_," and ordered the indictment against Stowell to be quashed. On
+every other point, save that that the Court could properly construct
+the Jury _roster_ and return the Jury from a portion of the District,
+the Judge said they would express no opinion.
+
+Mr. Hallett insisted on his right to enter a _nolle prosequi_ in the
+other cases; and the Judges decided that, though all the cases had
+been heard upon the motion, yet as it could make no difference whether
+an entry were made that this indictment be quashed, or an entry of
+_nolle prosequi_, the Attorney might enter a _nolle prosequi_ if he
+chose to do so _then_, before the Court passed any order on the
+motions.
+
+Mr. Hallett accordingly entered a _nolle prosequi_ in all the other
+cases, and the whole affair was quashed.[3]
+
+[Footnote 3: See Law Reporter for June, 1855.]
+
+
+
+
+DEFENCE.
+
+
+MAY IT PLEASE THE COURT:
+
+GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY.--It is no trifling matter which comes before
+you this day. You may hereafter decide on millions of money, and on
+the lives of your fellow men; but it is not likely that a question of
+this magnitude will ever twice be brought before the same jurymen.
+Opportunities to extend a far-reaching and ghastly wickedness, or to
+do great service for mankind, come but seldom in any man's life. Your
+verdict concerns all the people of the United States; its influence
+will reach to ages far remote, blessing or cursing whole generations
+not yet born. The affair is national in its width of reach,--its
+consequences of immense duration.
+
+In addressing you, Gentlemen, my language will be more didactic than
+rhetorical, more like a lecture, less like a speech; for I am not a
+lawyer but a minister, and do not aim to carry a Measure, which with
+you will go of its own accord, so much as to set forth a Principle
+that will make such prosecutions as impossible hereafter, as a
+conviction now is to-day.
+
+Gentlemen, I address you provisionally, as Representatives of the
+People. To them, my words are ultimately addressed,--to the People of
+the Free States of America. I must examine many things minutely, not
+often touched upon in courts like this. For mine is a Political Trial;
+I shall treat it accordingly. I am charged with no immoral act--with
+none even of selfish ambition. It is not pretended that I have done a
+deed, or spoken a word, in the heat of passion, or vengeance, or with
+calculated covetousness, to bring money, office, or honor, to myself
+or any friend. I am not suspected of wishing to do harm to man or
+woman; or with disturbing any man's natural rights. Nay, I am not even
+charged with such an offence. The Attorney and the two Judges are of
+one heart and mind in this prosecution; Mr. Hallett's "Indictment" is
+only the beast of burthen to carry to its own place Mr. Curtis's
+"Charge to the Grand-Jury," fit passenger for fitting carriage! The
+same tree bore the Judge's blossom in June, and the Attorney's fruit
+in October,--both reeking out the effluvia of the same substance. But
+neither Attorney nor Judge dares accuse me of ill-will which would
+harm another man, or of selfishness that seeks my own private
+advantage. No, Gentlemen of the Jury, I am on trial for my love of
+Justice; for my respect to the natural Rights of Man; for speaking a
+word in behalf of what the Declaration of Independence calls the
+"self-evident" Truth,--that all men have a natural, equal, and
+unalienable Right to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. I am
+charged with words against what John Wesley named, the "Sum of all
+Villanies," against a national crime so great, that it made
+freethinking Mr. Jefferson, with all his "French Infidelity,"
+"tremble" when he remembered "that God is just." I am on trial for my
+manly virtue,--a Minister of the Christian Religion on trial for
+keeping the Golden Rule! It is alleged that I have spoken in Boston
+against kidnapping in Boston; that in my own pulpit, as a minister, I
+have denounced Boston men for stealing my own parishioners; that as a
+man, in Faneuil Hall, the spirit of James Otis, of John Hancock, and
+three Adams's about me, with a word I "obstructed" the Marshal of
+Boston and a Boston Judge of Probate, in their confederated attempts
+to enslave a Boston man. When the Government of the United States has
+turned kidnapper, I am charged with the "misdemeanor" of appealing
+from the Atheism of purchased officials to the Conscience of the
+People; and with rousing up Christians to keep the golden rule, when
+the Rulers declared Religion had nothing to do with politics and there
+was no Law of God above the fugitive slave bill!
+
+Such are the acts charged. Gentlemen of the Jury, you are summoned
+here to declare them a Crime, and then to punish me for this
+"offence!" You are the Axe which the Government grasps with red hand
+to cleave my head asunder. It is a trial where Franklin Pierce,
+transiently President of the United States, and his official
+coadjutors,--Mr. Caleb Cushing, Mr. Benj. R. Curtis, and Mr. Benj. F.
+Hallett,--are on one side, and the People of the United States on the
+other. As a Measure, your decision may send me to jail for twelve
+months; may also fine me three hundred dollars. To me personally it is
+of very small consequence what your verdict shall be. The fine is
+nothing; the imprisonment for twelve months--Gentlemen, I laugh at it!
+Nay, were it death, I should smile at the official gibbet. A verdict
+of guilty would affix no stain to my reputation. I am sure to come out
+of this trial with honor--it is the Court that is sure to suffer
+loss--at least shame. I do not mean the Court will ever feel remorse,
+or even shame, for this conduct; I am no young man now, I know these
+men,--but the People are sure to burn the brand of shame deep into
+this tribunal. The blow of that axe, if not parried, will do me no
+harm.
+
+But it is not I, merely, now put to trial. Nay, it is the unalienable
+Rights of Humanity, it is truths self-evident. For on the back of that
+compliant Measure, unseen, there rides a Principle. The verdict
+expected of you condemns liberal institutions: all Religion but
+priestcraft--the abnegation of religion itself; all Rights but that to
+bondage--the denial of all rights. The word which fines me, puts your
+own purse in the hands of your worst enemies; the many-warded key
+which shuts me in jail, locks your lips forever--your children's lips
+forever. No complaint against oppression hereafter! Kidnapping will go
+on in silence, but at noonday, not a minister stirring. Meeting-houses
+will be shut; all court houses have a loaded cannon at their door,
+chains all round them, be stuffed with foreign soldiers inside, while
+commissioners swear away the life, the liberty, and even the Estate of
+the subjected "citizens." All Probate Judges will belong to the family
+of man-stealers. Faneuil Hall will be shut, or open only for a "Union
+Meeting," where the ruler calls together his menials to indorse some
+new act of injustice,--only creatures of the Government, men like the
+marshal's guard last June, allowed to speak words paid for by the
+People's coward sweat and miserable blood. The blow which smites my
+head will also cleave you asunder from crown to groin.
+
+Your verdict is to vindicate Religion with Freedom of Speech, and
+condemn the stealing of men; or else to confirm Kidnapping and condemn
+Religion with Freedom of Speech. You are to choose whether you will
+have such men as Wendell Phillips for your advisers, or such as
+Benjamin F. Hallett and Benjamin R. Curtis for your masters, with the
+marshal's guard, for their appropriate servants. Do you think I doubt
+how you will choose?
+
+Already a power of iniquity clutches at your children's throat; stabs
+at their life--at their soul's life. I stand between the living tyrant
+and his living victim; aye, betwixt him and expected victims not yet
+born,--your children, not mine. I have none to writhe under the
+successful lash which tyrants now so subtly braid therewith, one day,
+to scourge the flesh of well-descended men. I am to stand the champion
+of human Rights for generations yet unborn. It is a sad distinction!
+Hard duties have before been laid on me,--none so obviously demanding
+great powers as this. Whereto shall I look up for inspiring aid? Only
+to Him who gave words to the slow tongue of Moses and touched with
+fire Esaias' hesitating lips, and dawned into the soul of tent-makers
+and fishermen with such great wakening light, as shining through them,
+brought day to nations sitting in darkness, yet waiting for the
+consolation. May such Truth and Justice enable me also, to speak a
+testimony unto the Gentiles; He who chose the weak things, to bring to
+nought the mighty, may not despise such humble services as mine.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, my ministry deals chiefly with the Laws of God,
+little with the statutes of men. My manhood has been mainly passed in
+studying absolute, universal truth, teaching it to men, and applying
+it to the various departments of life. I have little to do with courts
+of law. Yet I am not now altogether a stranger to the circuit court
+room of the United States, having been in it on five several occasions
+before.
+
+1. A Polish exile,--a man of famous family, ancient and patrician
+before Christendom had laid eyes on America, once also of great
+individual wealth, a man of high rank alike acquired and inherited,
+once holding a high place at the court of the Czar,--became a fugitive
+from Russian despotism, seeking an asylum here; he came to the circuit
+court room to lecture on the Roman Law. I came to contribute my two
+mites of money, and receive his wealth of learning.
+
+2. The next time, I came at the summons of Thomas Sims. For a creature
+of the slave-power had spontaneously seized that poor and friendless
+boy and thrust him into a dungeon, hastening to make him a slave,--a
+beast of burthen. He had been on his mock trial seven days, and had
+never seen a Judge, only a commissioner, nor a Jury; no Court but a
+solitary kidnapper. Some of his attendants had spoken of me as a
+minister not heedless of the welfare and unalienable rights of a black
+man fallen among a family of thieves. I went to the court house.
+Outside it was belted with chains. In despotic Europe I had seen no
+such spectacle, save once when the dull tyrant who oppressed Bavaria
+with his licentious flesh, in 1844 put his capital in a brief state of
+siege and chained the streets. The official servant of the kidnapper,
+club in hand, a policeman of this city, goaded to his task by Mayor
+Bigelow and Marshal Tukey,--men congenitally mingled in such
+appropriate work,--bade me "Get under the chain." I pressed it down
+and went over. The Judges of our own Supreme Court, _they went
+under_,--had gone out and in, beneath the chain! How poetry mingles
+with fact! The chain was a symbol, and until this day remaineth the
+same chain, untaken away in the reading of the fugitive slave bill;
+and when the law of Massachusetts is read, the chain is also upon the
+neck of that court! Within the court house was full of armed men. I
+found Mr. Sims in a private room, illegally, in defiance of
+Massachusetts law, converted into a jail to hold men charged with no
+crime. Ruffians mounted guard at the entrance, armed with swords,
+fire-arms, and bludgeons. The door was locked and doubly barred
+besides. Inside the watch was kept by a horrid looking fellow, without
+a coat, a naked cutlass in his hand, and some twenty others, their
+mouths nauseous with tobacco and reeking also with half-digested rum
+paid for by the city. In such company, I gave what consolation
+Religion could offer to the first man Boston ever kidnapped,--consolations
+which took hold only of eternity, where the servant is free from his
+master, for there the wicked cease from troubling. I could offer him
+no comfort this side the grave.
+
+3. I visited the United States court a third time. A poor young man
+had been seized by the same talons which subsequently griped Sims in
+their poison, deadly clutch. But that time, wickedness went off
+hungry, defeated of its prey; "for the Lord delivered him out of their
+hands," and Shadrach escaped from that Babylonish furnace, heated
+seven times hotter than its wont: no smell of fire had passed on him.
+But the rescue of Shadrach was telegraphed as "treason." The innocent
+lightning flashed out the premeditated and legal lie,--"it is levying
+war!" What offence it was in that Fourth One who walked with the
+Hebrew children, "making their good confession," and sustained the old
+Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, I know not. But the modern countrymen
+of the African Shadrach, charged with some great crime, were haled
+into this court to be punished for their humanity! I came to look on
+these modern Angels of the Deliverance, to hear counsel of Mr. Dana,
+then so wise and humane, and to listen to the masterly eloquence which
+broke out from the great human heart of my friend, Mr. Hale, and
+rolled like the Mississippi, in its width, its depth, its beauty, and
+its continuous and unconquerable strength.
+
+4. The fourth time, a poor man had been kidnapped, also at night, and
+forced into the same illegal jail. He sat in the dock--an innocent
+man, to be made into a beast. The metamorphosis had begun;--he was
+already in chains and his human heart seemed dead in him; sixty
+ruffians were about him, aiding in this drama, hired out of the
+brothels and rum-shops for a few days, the lust of kidnapping serving
+to vary the continual glut of those other and less brutal appetites of
+unbridled flesh. While that "trial" lasted, whoredom had a Sabbath
+day, and brawlers rested from their toil. Opposite sat the Boston
+Judge of Probate, and the Boston District Attorney,--the Moses and
+Elias of this inverted transfiguration; there sat the marshal, two
+"gentlemen" from Virginia, claiming that a Boston man was their beast
+of burthen, owing service and labor in Richmond; two "lawyers,"
+"members of the Suffolk bar," pistols in their coats, came to support
+the allegation and enforce the claim. Honorable men stood up to defend
+him. There is one of them,--to defend me [Charles M. Ellis.] You know
+very well the rest of that sad story,--the mock trial of Anthony Burns
+lasted from May 25th till June 2d. I was here in all the acts of that
+Tragedy. My own life was threatened; friend and foe gave me public or
+anonymous warning. I sat between men who had newly sworn to kill me,
+my garments touching theirs. The malaria of their rum and tobacco was
+an offence in my face. I saw their weapons, and laughed as I looked
+those drunken rowdies in their coward eye. They touch me!
+
+5. The fifth time I came here at the summons of an officer of this
+court,--very politely delivered, let me say it to his credit,--indicted
+and arrested for a "misdemeanor." I gave bail and withdrew.
+
+6. The sixth time,--Gentlemen,--it is the present, whereof I shall
+erelong have much to say.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the first visit I found only scholarly and philanthropic gentlemen,
+coming out of sympathy with a Polish exile, a defeated soldier of
+freedom, from his broken English to learn sound Roman Law. On each of
+the other visits I have been in quite different company. I have
+invariably met this Honorable Court, its kinsfolk and its most
+intimate friends,--some member of the family of the distinguished
+Judge, now fitly presiding over this trial.
+
+1. It was Mr. George T. Curtis, the only brother of the honorable
+Justice now on the bench,--born of the same mother and father,--who
+had the glory of kidnapping Mr. Sims; it was he who seized Shadrach,
+and gave such witness against one of the Angels of the Deliverance,
+and then came back and enlarged his testimony; it was he who declared
+the rescue an act of "treason;" he who hung the court house in chains,
+and brought down the pliant neck of the Massachusetts Judges beneath
+that symbolic line of linked fetters long drawn out. To what weak
+forces will such necks bow when slavery commands!
+
+2. It was the honorable Judge now on the distinguished bench who tried
+men for the rescue of Shadrach. How he tried them is well known.
+
+3. It was Edward G. Loring, another of this family so distinguished,
+who kidnapped Mr. Burns and held him in irons; he whose broom swept up
+together the marshal's guard; he who advised Mr. Burns's counsel to
+make no defence,--"put no obstructions in the way of his going back,
+as he probably will;" he who, in the darkness of midnight, sought to
+sell his victim, before he had examined the evidence which might prove
+him a free man; he who delivered him up as a slave, against evidence
+as against law.
+
+4. Another of the same family, William W. Greenough, brother-in-law of
+Hon. Judge Curtis, was one of the grand-jury which found the
+indictment against me, and "the most active of all in that work."
+
+5. When I came here on the 29th of last November, the Hon. Judge
+Curtis sat on the bench and determined the amount of my bail, and the
+same eye which had frowned with such baleful aspect on the rescuers of
+Shadrach, quailed down underneath my look and sought the ground.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In thus mentioning my former visits to the court, I but relate the
+exploits of the Hon. Justice Curtis, of his kinsfolk and friends,
+adding to their glory and their renown. Their chief title to
+distinction rests on their devotion to the fugitive slave bill. It and
+their honor are "one and inseparable." Once only humanity and good
+letters brought me here, I met only scholars and philanthropists; on
+five other occasions, when assaults on freedom compelled my
+attendance, I have been confronted and surrounded with the loyalty of
+the distinguished Judge and his kinsfolk and friends, valiantly and
+disinterestedly obeying the fugitive slave bill "with alacrity;"
+patriotically conquering their prejudices against man-stealing--if
+such they ever had;--and earning for themselves an undying reputation
+by "saving the Union" from Justice, Domestic Tranquillity, general
+Welfare, and the Blessings of Liberty.
+
+If I am to be arraigned for any act, I regard it as a special good
+fortune that I am charged with such deeds, with seeking to arouse the
+noblest emotions of Human Nature; and by means of the grandest Ideas
+which Human History has brought to light. I could not have chosen
+nobler deeds in a life now stretching over nearly half a hundred
+years. I count it an honor to be tried for them. Nay, it adds to my
+happiness to look at the Court which is to try me--for if I were to
+search all Christendom through, nay, throughout all Heathendom, I know
+of no tribunal fitter to try a man for such deeds as I have done. I am
+fortunate in the charges brought; thrice fortunate in the judges and
+the attorney,--the Court which is to decide;--its history and
+character are already a judgment.
+
+6. For my sixth visit, I was recognized to appear on the fifth of
+March, 1855--the eighty-fifth anniversary of the Boston Massacre. I
+might have been bound over to any other of the great days of American
+history--22d of December, 19th of April, 17th of June, or the 4th of
+July. But as I am the first American ever brought to trial for a
+speech in Faneuil Hall against kidnapping; as I am the first to be
+tried under the act of 1790 for "obstructing an officer" with an
+argument, committing a "misdemeanor" by a word which appeals to the
+natural justice of mankind, so there could not perhaps be a fitter
+time chosen. For on the fifth of March, 1770, British despotism also
+delivered its first shot into the American bosom. Not far from this
+place the hand of George III. wounded to death five innocent citizens
+of Boston,--one of them a negro. It was the first shot Britain ever
+fired into the body of the American people, then colonial subjects of
+the king-power. That day the fire was not returned,--only with ringing
+of bells and tumult of the public, with words and resolutions. The
+next day that American blood lay frozen in the street. Soon after the
+British government passed a law exempting all who should aid an
+officer in his tyranny from trial for murder in the place where they
+should commit their crime. Mr. Toucey has humbly copied that precedent
+of despotism. It was very proper that the new tyranny growing up here,
+should select that anniversary to shoot down freedom of thought and
+speech among the subjects of the slave-power. I welcomed the omen. The
+Fifth of March is a red-letter day in the calendar of Boston. The
+Court could hardly have chosen a better to punish a man for a thought
+and a word, especially a Boston man, for such a word in Faneuil
+Hall--a word against man-stealing. But I knew the case would never
+come to trial on that day--of course it was put off.
+
+Mr. Sims and Mr. Burns were accused of no crime but birth from a
+mother whom some one had stolen. They had only a mock trial, without
+due process of law, with no judge, no jury, no judicial officer. But
+I, accused of a grave offence, am to enjoy a trial with due process of
+law. It is an actual judge before me and another judge at his side,
+both judicial officers known to the constitution. I know beforehand
+the decision of the court--its history is my judgment. Justice
+Curtis's Charge of last June, would make my daily talk a
+"misdemeanor," my public preaching and my private prayers a "crime,"
+nay, my very existence is constructively an "obstruction" to the
+marshal. On that side my condemnation is already sure.
+
+But there is another element. Gentlemen of the Jury, the judges and
+attorney cannot lay their hand on me until you twelve men with one
+voice say, "Yes! put him in jail." In the mock trial of Sims and Burns
+it was necessary to convince only a single official of the United
+States Court, a "ministerial" officer selected and appointed to do its
+inferior business, a man who needed no conviction, no evidence but the
+oath of a slave-hunter and the extorted "admission" of his victim, an
+official who was to have ten dollars for making a slave, five only for
+setting free a man! But you are a Massachusetts Jury, not of purchased
+officials, but of honest men. I think you have some "prejudices" to
+conquer in favor of justice. It has not appeared that you are to be
+paid twice as much for sending me to jail, as for acquitting me of the
+charge. I doubt that you have yet advised my counsel to make no
+defence, "put no obstructions in the way" of my being sent to jail as
+"he probably will."
+
+Gentlemen, a United States Commissioner has his place on condition
+that he performs such services as his masters "require." These United
+States Judges have their seat in consequence of services rendered to
+the ruling power of America, and for others of like sort yet to be
+paid to the stealers of men. Other rewards shine before them alluring
+to new service,--additional salary can pay additional alacrity. But
+you, Gentlemen, are not office-holders nor seekers of office, not
+hoping to gain money, or power, or honor, by any wickedness. You are
+to represent the unsophisticated Conscience of the People,--not the
+slave-power, but the power of Freedom.
+
+It is to you I shall address my defence! MY defence? No, Gentlemen,
+YOUR defence, the defence of your own Rights, inherent in your
+national Institutions as Americans, ay, in your Nature as Men. It is a
+singular good fortune that to you, as judges, I am pleading your own
+cause. You have more interest at stake than I. For at death my name
+will perish, while children and children's children, I trust, will
+gently mingle your memories in that fair tide of human life which
+never ends.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So much have I said by way of introduction, treating only of the
+accidents pertaining to this case. I will now come to the Primary
+Qualities and Substance thereof.
+
+This is a Political Trial. In _form_, I am charged with violating a
+certain statute never before applied to actions like mine; never meant
+to apply to such actions; not legally capable of such application. But
+in _fact_, my offence is very different from what the indictment
+attempts to set forth. The judges know this; the attorney knows it,
+and "never expected to procure a conviction." It is your cause, even
+more than mine, that I plead. So it concerns you to understand the
+whole matter thoroughly, that you may justly judge our common cause.
+To make the whole case clear, I will _land_ it out into four great
+parcels of matter, which your mind can command at once, and then come
+to the details of each, ploughing it all over before your face, furrow
+by furrow. I shall speak,
+
+I. Of the State of Affairs in America which has led to this
+prosecution,--the Encroachments of a Power hostile to Democratic
+Institutions.
+
+II. Of the Mode of Operation pursued by this Encroaching Power, in
+other times and in our own,--of Systematic Corruption of the
+Judiciary.
+
+III. Of the great Safeguard which has been found serviceable in
+protecting Democratic Institutions and the Rights of Man they are
+designed to defend,--of the Trial by Jury.
+
+IV. Of the Circumstances of this special case, UNITED STATES _versus_
+THEODORE PARKER.
+
+I shall speak of each in its order, and begin at the head.
+
+
+I. OF THE STATE OF AFFAIRS IN AMERICA, WHICH HAS LED TO THIS
+PROSECUTION--THE ENCROACHMENTS OF A POWER HOSTILE TO DEMOCRATIC
+INSTITUTIONS.
+
+In a republic where all emanates from the People, political
+institutions must have a Basis of Idea in the Nation's Thought, before
+they can acquire a Basis of Fact in the Force of the Nation. Now in
+America there are two diverse Ideas recognized as principles of
+Action--the Idea of Freedom and the Idea of Slavery. Allow me to read
+my analysis and description of each.
+
+     The Idea of Freedom first got a national expression on the
+     Fourth of July, 1776. Here it is. I put it in a philosophic
+     form. There are five points to it.
+
+     First, All men are endowed by their Creator with certain
+     natural rights, amongst which is the right to life, liberty,
+     and the pursuit of happiness.
+
+     Second, These rights are unalienable; they can be alienated
+     only by the possessor thereof; the father cannot alienate
+     them for the son, nor the son for the father; nor the
+     husband for the wife, nor the wife for the husband; nor the
+     strong for the weak, nor the weak for the strong; nor the
+     few for the many, nor the many for the few; and so on.
+
+     Third, In respect to these, all men are equal; the rich man
+     has not more, and the poor less; the strong man has not
+     more, and the weak man less:--all are exactly equal in these
+     rights, however unequal in their powers.
+
+     Fourth, It is the function of government to secure these
+     natural, unalienable, and equal rights to every man.
+
+     Fifth, Government derives all its divine right from its
+     conformity with these ideas, all its human sanction from the
+     consent of the governed.
+
+     That is the Idea of Freedom. I used to call it "the American
+     Idea;" that was when I was younger than I am to-day. It is
+     derived from human nature; it rests on the immutable Laws of
+     God; it is part of the natural religion of mankind. It
+     demands a government after natural Justice, which is the
+     point common between the conscience of God and the
+     conscience of mankind; it is the point common also between
+     the interests of one man and of all men.
+
+     Now this government, just in its substance, in its form must
+     be democratic: that is to say, the government of all, by
+     all, and for all. You see what consequences must follow from
+     such an idea, and the attempt to reenact the Law of God into
+     political institutions. There will follow the freedom of the
+     people, respect for every natural right of all men, the
+     rights of their body and of their spirit--the rights of mind
+     and conscience, heart and soul. There must be some
+     restraint--as of children by their parents, as of bad men by
+     good men; but it will be restraint for the joint good of all
+     parties concerned; not restraint for the exclusive benefit
+     of the restrainer. The ultimate consequence of this will be
+     the material and spiritual welfare of all--riches, comfort,
+     noble manhood, all desirable things.
+
+     That is the Idea of Freedom. It appears in the Declaration
+     of Independence; it reappears in the Preamble to the
+     American Constitution, which aims "to establish Justice,
+     insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common
+     defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the
+     blessings of Liberty." That is a religious idea; and when
+     men pray for the "Reign of Justice" and the "Kingdom of
+     Heaven" to come on earth politically, I suppose they mean
+     that there may be a Commonwealth where every man has his
+     natural rights of mind, body, and estate.
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     Next is the Idea of Slavery. Here it is. I put it also in a
+     philosophic form. There are three points which I make.
+
+     First, There are no natural, unalienable, and equal rights,
+     wherewith men are endowed by their Creator; no natural,
+     unalienable, and equal right to life, liberty, and the
+     pursuit of happiness.
+
+     Second, There is a great diversity of powers, and in virtue
+     thereof the strong man may rule and oppress, enslave and
+     ruin the weak, for his interest and against theirs.
+
+     Third, There is no natural law of God to forbid the strong
+     to oppress the weak, and enslave and ruin the weak.
+
+     That is the Idea of Slavery. It has never got a national
+     expression in America; it has never been laid down as a
+     Principle in any act of the American people, nor in any
+     single State, so far as I know. All profess the opposite;
+     but it is involved in the Measures of both State and Nation.
+     This Idea is founded in the selfishness of man; it is
+     atheistic.
+
+     The idea must lead to a corresponding government; that will
+     be unjust in its substance,--for it will depend not on
+     natural right, but on personal force; not on the
+     Constitution of the Universe, but on the compact of men. It
+     is the abnegation of God in the universe and of conscience
+     in man. Its form will be despotism,--the government of all,
+     by a part, for the sake of a part. It may be a single-headed
+     despotism, or a despotism of many heads; but whether a
+     Cyclops or a Hydra, it is alike "the abomination which
+     maketh desolate." Its ultimate consequence is plain to
+     foresee--poverty to a nation, misery, ruin.
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     These two Ideas are now fairly on foot. They are hostile;
+     they are both mutually invasive and destructive. They are in
+     exact opposition to each other, and the nation which
+     embodies these two is not a figure of equilibrium. As both
+     are active forces in the minds of men, and as each idea
+     tends to become a fact--a universal and exclusive fact,--as
+     men with these ideas organize into parties as a means to
+     make their idea into a fact,--it follows that there must not
+     only be strife amongst philosophical men about these
+     antagonistic Principles and Ideas, but a strife of practical
+     men about corresponding Facts and Measures. So the quarrel,
+     if not otherwise ended, will pass from words to what seems
+     more serious; and one will overcome the other.
+
+     So long as these two Ideas exist in the nation as two
+     political forces, there is no national unity of Idea, of
+     course no unity of action. For there is no centre of gravity
+     common to Freedom and Slavery. They will not compose an
+     equilibrious figure. You may cry "Peace! Peace!" but so long
+     as these two antagonistic Ideas remain, each seeking to
+     organize itself and get exclusive power, there is no peace;
+     there can be none.
+
+     The question before the nation to-day is, Which shall
+     prevail--the Idea and Fact of Freedom, or the Idea and the
+     Fact of Slavery; Freedom, exclusive and universal, or
+     Slavery, exclusive and universal? The question is not
+     merely, Shall the African be bond or free? but, Shall
+     America be a Democracy or a Despotism? For nothing is so
+     remorseless as an idea, and no logic is so strong as the
+     historical development of a national idea by millions of
+     men. A measure is nothing without its Principle. The Idea
+     which allows Slavery in South Carolina will establish it
+     also in New England. The bondage of a black man in
+     Alexandria imperils every white woman's daughter in Boston.
+     You cannot escape the consequences of a first Principle more
+     than you can "take the leap of Niagara and stop when
+     half-way down." The Principle which recognizes Slavery in
+     the Constitution of the United States would make all America
+     a Despotism, while the Principle which made John Quincy
+     Adams a free man would extirpate Slavery from Louisiana and
+     Texas. It is plain America cannot long hold these two
+     contradictions in the national consciousness. Equilibrium
+     must come.[4]
+
+[Footnote 4: See this statement in Mr. Parker's Additional Speeches,
+Addresses, and Occasional Sermons. Boston, 1855, vol. ii. p. 250, _et
+seq._]
+
+These two ideas are represented by two parties which aim at the
+ultimate organization of their respective doctrines, the party
+indicating the special tendency towards Democracy or Despotism. The
+Party of Freedom is not yet well organized; that of Slavery is in
+admirable order and discipline. These two parties are continually at
+war attended with various success.
+
+1. In the individual States of the North, since the Revolution, the
+Party of Freedom has gained some great victories; it has abolished
+Personal Slavery in every northern State, and on a deep-laid
+foundation has built up Democratic Institutions with well proportioned
+beauty. The Idea of Freedom, so genial to the Anglo-Saxon, so welcome
+to all of Puritanic birth and breeding, has taken deep root in the
+consciousness of the great mass of the People at the North. In the
+severe simplicity of national deduction they will carry it to logical
+conclusions not yet foreseen by human providence. The free States are
+progressively democratic.
+
+But in all the Northern States, and more especially in its
+cities,--and here chiefly among the men of exclusive intellectual
+culture and the votaries of commerce and its riches,--there are
+exceptional men who embrace the Idea of Slavery and belong to its
+Party. They know no law higher than the transient interest of their
+politics or their commerce, their ease or ambition. They may not
+theoretically hate the People, but they so love their own money, their
+own ease or pleasure, that practically they oppose what promotes the
+welfare of mankind, and seek their own personal advancement to the
+injury of the human race. These are Northern men with Southern
+"Principles." They have their Journals too well known in Boston to
+need mention here.
+
+2. In the individual States of the South, the Idea and Party of
+Slavery has also gained great victories and been uniformly successful;
+it has extended and strengthened personal slavery, which has now a
+firmer hold in the minds of the controlling classes of Southern
+men,--the rich and "educated,"--than in 1776, or ever before. The
+Southern States are progressively despotic.
+
+Still, in all the Southern States there are exceptional men, hostile
+to slavery,--the intelligent and religious from conviction, others
+from mere personal interest. These are Southern men with Northern
+Principles. They are much oppressed at home--kept from political
+advancement or social respectability, as much as democrats would be at
+Rome or Naples,--have no journals and little influence.
+
+3. In the Federal Government, the warfare goes on, each party seeking
+for mastery over the whole United States--the contest is carried on in
+Congress, in all the local legislatures; newspapers, speeches, even
+sermons, resound with the din of battle. See what forces contend and
+with what results.
+
+The nation lives by its productive industry, whereof there are these
+five chief departments:--Hunting and Fishing, the appropriation of the
+spontaneous live products of the land and sea; Agriculture, the use of
+the productive forces of the earth's surface; Mining, the
+appropriation of the metallic products of her bosom; Manufactures, the
+application of toil and thought to the products of Hunting and
+Fishing, Mining and Agriculture; Commerce, the exchange of value,
+distribution of the products of these four departments of industry,
+directly productive.
+
+Hunting and Fishing, Mining, Manufactures, Commerce, are mainly in the
+hands of Northern men--the South is almost wholly Agricultural. Her
+wealth consists of land and slaves. In 1850 the fifteen slave States
+had not fourteen hundred millions of other property. In the South
+property, with its consequent influence, is in few hands--in the North
+it is wide spread.
+
+Now the few controlling men of the South, the holders of land and
+slaves, have Unity of pecuniary Interest--the support of Slavery as a
+local measure,--for it is the source of their material wealth, and
+also a consequent Unity of political Idea, the support of Slavery as a
+universal Principle, for it is the source likewise of their political
+power. Accordingly the South presents against the North an even and
+well-disciplined front of veteran soldiers, is always hostile to
+Freedom, and as her "best educated" men devote much time to politics,
+making it the profession of their whole lives, it is plain they become
+formidable antagonists.
+
+But the North has a great variety of conflicting interests, a great
+amount of intellectual activity, where education and its consequent
+habits of reading and thinking are so wide spread, and therefore a
+great variety of opinion. Accordingly there is not the same Unity of
+pecuniary Interest and of political Idea, which distinguishes the
+South. Besides, in the North the ablest and best educated men do not
+devote their time to the thankless and stormy calling of politics;
+Virginia cares for nothing but Negroes and Politics, her loins and her
+brains gender but this twofold product: Massachusetts and New York
+care for much beside. So the North does not present against the South
+an even and well-disciplined front of veteran soldiers, but a ragged,
+discordant line of raw recruits, enlisting for a short time with some
+special or even personal local interest to serve.
+
+What makes the matter yet worse for us, Gentlemen of the Jury, is
+this: While the great mass of the people at the North, engrossed in
+direct productive industry, are really hostile to slavery, those
+absorbed in the large operations of commerce, taken as a whole class,
+feel little interest in the Idea of Freedom; nay, they are positively
+opposed to it. Before the African Slave-trade was treated like other
+kindred forms of piracy, as a capital crime, they had their ships in
+that felonious traffic; and now their vessels engage in the American
+Slave-trade and their hand still deals in the bodies of their fellow
+men. In all the great commercial cities, like Philadelphia, New York
+and Boston these men prevail, and are the "eminent citizens,"
+overslaughing the press, the pulpit, the bar, and the court, with the
+Ideas of their lower law, and sweeping along all metropolitan and
+suburban fashion and respectability in their slimy flood. Hence the
+great cities of the North, governed by the low maxims of this class,
+have become the asylum of Northern men with Southern "Principles," and
+so the strong-hold of Slavery. And hitherto these great cities have
+controlled the politics of the Northern States, crowding the Apostles
+of Freedom out from the national board, and helping the party of
+slavery to triumph in all great battles.
+
+Thus aided, for many years the South has always elected her candidate
+for the Presidency by the vote of the people. But the American
+Executive is twofold,--part Presidential, part Senatorial. Sometimes
+these two Executives are concordant, sometimes discordant. The
+Senatorial Executive has always carried the day against the less
+permanent Presidential power, except in the solitary case where
+General Jackson's unconquerable will and matchless popularity enabled
+him to master the senate itself, who "registered" his decrees, or
+"expunged" their own censure, just as the iron ruler gave orders.
+
+Now by means of the control which the Northern Cities have over the
+Northern States, and such Commercial Men over those cities, it has
+come to pass that not only the Presidential, but also the Senatorial
+Executive, has long been hostile to the Idea of Freedom.
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, the direct consequence is obvious,--the Party
+of Slavery has long been the conqueror in the field of Federal
+politics. In the numerous and great conflicts between the two, Freedom
+has prevailed against Slavery only twice since the close of the
+Revolutionary War,--in prohibiting involuntary servitude in the
+North-west Territory in 1787, and in the abolition of the African
+Slave-trade in 1808. Her last triumph was forty-seven years ago,--nay,
+even that victory was really achieved twenty years before at the
+adoption of the constitution. In this warfare we have not gained a
+battle for freedom since 1788!
+
+For a time it seemed doubtful which would triumph, though Slavery
+gained Kentucky and Tennessee, and Louisiana was purchased as slave
+soil in 1803. But in 1820 slavery became the obvious and acknowledged
+master in the Federal Territory, marched victorious over the
+Mississippi, planted itself in Missouri, and has subsequently taken
+possession of Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas, all slave States; has
+purchased Florida; "reannexed" Texas; conquered Utah, New Mexico and
+California, all slave soil; and from Freedom and the North has just
+now reconquered Kansas and Nebraska. Ever since the Missouri
+Compromise in 1820 Slavery has been really the master, obviously so
+since the annexation of Texas in 1845. The slave-power appoints all
+the great national officers, executive, diplomatic, judicial, naval
+and military,--it controls the legislative departments. Look at this
+Honorable Court, Gentlemen, and recognize its power!
+
+The idea of Slavery must be carried out to its logical consequence, so
+our masters now meditate two series of Measures, both necessary to the
+development of Slavery as a Principle.
+
+(I.) African Slavery is to be declared a Federal Institution, national
+and sectional, and so extended into all the Territories of the United
+States. New soil is to be bought or plundered from Hayti, Spain,
+Mexico, South America "and the rest of mankind," that slavery may be
+planted there; that is the purpose of all the Official Fillibustering
+of the Government, and the Extra-official Fillibustering which it
+starts, or allows; Quitman "Enterprises," Kinney "Expeditions," Black
+Warrior and El Dorado "difficulties," all point to this; the "Ostend
+Conference" is a step in that direction; Slavery is to be restored to
+the so called "Free States," reestablished in all the North. That is
+the design of the fugitive slave bill in 1850, and the kidnapping of
+northern men consequent thereon for the last five years; of President
+Pierce's inaugural declarations in behalf of slavery in 1853; of Mr.
+Toombs's threat in 1854, that "soon the master with his slaves will
+sit down at the foot of Bunker Hill Monument;" of Mr. Toucey's Bill in
+1855, providing that when a kidnapper violates the local laws of any
+State, he shall be tried by the fugitive slave bill court. Then the
+African Slave-trade is to be restored by federal enactments, or
+judicial decisions of the "Supreme Court of the United States." All
+these steps belong to Measure number One. The Supreme Court is ready
+to execute the commands of its lord. Soon you will see more
+"decisions" adverse to humanity.
+
+(II.) The next movement is progressively to weaken and ultimately to
+destroy the Democratic Institutions of the North,--yes, also of the
+South. This design is indicated and sustained by some of the measures
+already mentioned as connected with the first purpose.
+
+To this point tend the words of President Pierce addressed to the
+soldiers of 1812 on the 8th of January 1855, in which he speaks of
+such as "disseminate political heresies," that is, the Idea of
+Freedom; "revile the government,"--expose its hostility against the
+unalienable Rights of man; "deride our institutions,"--to wit, the
+patriarchal institution of Slavery; "sow political dissensions,"--advise
+men not to vote for corrupt tools of the government; "set at defiance
+the laws of the land,"--meaning the fugitive slave bill which commands
+kidnapping.
+
+There belong the attempts of the Federal courts to enlarge their
+jurisdiction at the expense of State Rights; the cry, "Union first and
+Liberty afterwards;" the shout "No higher law," "Religion nothing to
+do with Politics."
+
+Thence come the attacks made on the freedom of the pulpit, of the
+press, and all freedom of speech. The Individual State which preserves
+freedom must be put down,--the individual person who protests against
+it must be silenced. No man must hold a federal office,--executive,
+diplomatic, judicial, or "ministerial,"--unless he has so far
+conquered his "prejudices" in favor of the natural Rights of man that
+he is ready to enslave a brother with alacrity. All these steps belong
+to Measure number Two.
+
+This latter Measure advances to its execution, realizing the Idea of
+Slavery, with subtle steps, yet creeps on rapid-moving feet. See how
+it has gained ground latterly. Obviously the fugitive slave bill
+struck only at the natural Rights of Colored men--as valuable as those
+of white men, but the colored are few and the white many,--the
+experiment must be made on the feebler body. But this despotism cannot
+enslave a black girl without thereby putting in peril the liberty of
+every white man. At first our masters only asked of Boston a little
+piece of chain, but just long enough to shackle the virtuous hands of
+Ellen Craft, a wife and mother, whom her Georgian "owner" wished to
+sell as a harlot at New Orleans! A meeting was summoned at Faneuil
+Hall, and Boston answered, "Yes, here is the chain. Let the
+woman-hunter capture Ellen Craft, make her a Prostitute at New
+Orleans. She is a virtuous wife and mother,--but no matter. Slavery is
+king and commands it. Let the 'owner' have his chain."
+
+There is no escaping the consequence of a first Principle. Soon that
+little chain lengthened itself out, and coiled itself all round the
+court house, and how greedily your judges stooped to go under! This
+Anaconda of the Dismal Swamp wound its constricting twists about the
+neck of all your courts, and the Judges turned black in the face, and
+when questioned of law, they could not pronounce "Habeas Corpus,"
+"Trial by Jury," nor utter a syllable for the Bible or the
+Massachusetts Constitution, but only wheeze and gurgle and squeak and
+gibber out their defences of Slavery! No, Boston could not bewray a
+woman wandering towards freedom, without chaining the court house and
+its judges, putting the town in a state of siege,--insolent soldiers
+striking at the people's neck. Now the attempt is making by this
+Honorable Court to put the same chain round Faneuil Hall, so that the
+old Cradle of Liberty shall no more rock to manhood the noble sons of
+freedom, but only serve as a nest that the spawn of Bondage may
+hibernate therein.
+
+I am on trial because I hate Slavery, because I love freedom for the
+black man, for the white man, and for all the human Race. I am not
+arraigned because I have violated the statute on which the indictment
+is framed--no child could think it--but because I am an advocate of
+Freedom, because my Word, my Thoughts, my Feelings, my Actions, nay,
+all my Life, my very Existence itself, are a protest against Slavery.
+Despotism cannot happily advance unless I am silenced. It is very
+clear logic which indicts me. Private personal malice, deep, long
+cherished, rancorous, has doubtless jagged and notched and poisoned
+too the public sword which smites at my neck. Still it is the public
+sword of Slavery which is wielded against me. Against ME? Against YOU
+quite as much--against your children. For as Boston could not venture
+to kidnap a negro woman, without bringing down that avalanche of
+consequences connected with the Principle of Slavery,--without chains
+on her Judges, falsehood in her officers, blood in her courts, and
+drunken soldiers in her streets, and hypocrisy in her man-hunting
+ministers,--no more can she put me to silence alone. The thread which
+is to sew my lips together, will make your mouths but a silent and
+ugly seam in your faces. Slavery is Plaintiff in this case; Freedom
+Defendant. Before you as Judges, I plead your own cause--for you as
+defendant. I will not insult you by the belief or the fear that you
+can do other than right, in a matter where the law is so plain, and
+the Justice clear as noonday light. But should you decide as the
+wicked wish, as the court longs to instruct you, you doom your mouths
+to silence; you bow your manly faces to the ground, destine your
+memories to shame, and your children to bondage worse than negro
+slavery.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Such, Gentlemen of the Jury, is the state of affairs leading to this
+Prosecution--such the past, present, and prospective Encroachments of
+a Power hostile to Democratic Institutions and the unalienable Rights
+they were designed to protect. Such also are the two Measures now in
+contemplation,--the Extension of African Bondage, and the Destruction
+of American Freedom.
+
+
+II. LOOK NEXT AT THE MODE OF OPERATION HITHERTO PURSUED BY THIS
+ENCROACHING POWER, IN OTHER TIMES AND NATIONS, AND IN OUR OWN,
+SYSTEMATIC CORRUPTION OF THE JUDICIARY.
+
+Here I shall show the process by which that Principle of Slavery
+becomes a Measure of political ruin to the People.
+
+In substance Despotism is always the same, Spanish or Carolinian, but
+the form varies to suit the ethnologic nature and historical customs
+of different people. I shall mention two forms--one to illustrate, the
+other to warn.
+
+(I.) The open Assumption of Power by military violence. This method is
+followed in countries where love of Individual Liberty is not much
+developed in the consciousness of the people, and where democratic
+institutions are not fixed facts in their history; where the nation is
+not accustomed to local self-government, but wonted to a strong
+central power directed by a single will. This form prevails in Russia,
+Turkey, and among all the Romanic tribes in Europe, and their
+descendants in America. Military usurpation, military rule is
+indigenous in France,--where two Napoleons succeed thereby,--in Italy,
+in Spain, and most eminently in Spanish America. But no people of the
+Teutonic family for any length of time ever tolerated a usurping
+soldier at the head of affairs, or submitted to martial arbitrary
+rule, or military violence in the chief magistrate. It is against our
+habit and disposition.
+
+Neither Cromwell nor William of Orange could do with the Anglo-Saxon
+what it would have been impossible not to do with Spaniards or
+Italians. Even warlike Swiss--Teutonic tribes--will have a government
+with due process of law, not by the abrupt violence of the soldier.
+Washington could not have established a military monarchy in America
+had he been so wickedly disposed. Even William the Conqueror must rule
+the Saxons by Saxon law.
+
+(II.) The corruption of the acknowledged safeguards of public
+security. This is attempted in nations who have a well-known love of
+individual liberty, and institutional defences thereof, the habit of
+Local Self-government by Democratic Law-making and Law-administering.
+For example, this experiment has been repeatedly made in England. The
+monarch seeking to destroy the liberty of the people, accomplishes
+his violent measure by the forms of peaceful law, by getting the
+judicial class of men on the side of despotism. Then all the
+wickedness can be done in the name, with the forms, and by "due
+process" of law, by regular officers thereof--done solemnly with the
+assistance of slow and public deliberation.
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, this is a matter of such importance to the
+People of America just now, that I must beg you to bear with me while
+I explain this subtle operation. I will select examples from the
+history of England which are easy to understand, because her blood is
+kindred to our own, and the institutions of the two countries are
+related as parent and child. And besides, her past history affords
+alike warning and guidance in our present peril.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+(I.) The first step in this process of political iniquity is, to
+appoint men for judges and other officers of the court, who know no
+law higher than the selfish will of the hand that feeds them, mere
+creatures of the rest [Transcriber's Note: for 'rest' read
+'government'; see Errata].
+
+I will select instances of this from the reign of the Stuart kings and
+one of their successors, from a period full of melancholy warning to
+America.
+
+I will begin with James I. (1603-1625), the first King of New England.
+At his very accession he had high notions of his royal Prerogative,
+and maintained that all the privileges of the House of Commons were
+derived from his royal grant. "I am your King," said he, "I am placed
+to govern you, and I shall [must] answer for your errors." It was
+quite enough to answer for his own,--poor man. "Let me make the
+Judges," said he, "and I care not who makes the laws."
+
+Accordingly for judicial officers he appointed such men as would
+execute his unlawful schemes for the destruction of public liberty. To
+such considerations was Francis Bacon mainly indebted for his
+elevation from one legal rank to another, until he reached the seat of
+the Lord Chancellor. A man whom Villers declared, "of excellent parts,
+but withal of a base and ungrateful temper, and an arrant knave, yet a
+fit instrument for the purposes of the government." He did not receive
+his appointment for that vast, hard-working genius which makes his
+name the ornament of many an age, but only for his sycophantic
+devotion to the royal will. Sir Edward Coke was promoted rapidly
+enough, whilst wholly subservient to the despotic court, but
+afterwards, though a miracle of legal knowledge, not equalled yet
+perhaps, he must not be appointed Lord Chancellor on account of "his
+occasional fits of independence." Chief Justice Ley was one of the
+right stamp, but it was thought "his subserviency might prove more
+valuable by retaining him to preside over the Court of King's Bench."
+"For in making the highest judicial appointments the only question
+was, what would suit the arbitrary schemes of governing the
+country."[5] Hobart had resisted some illegal monopolies of the
+all-powerful Buckingham, and he was "unfit for promotion."
+
+[Footnote 5: 2 Campbell, 372, 374.]
+
+James thought the Prerogative would be strengthened by the appointment
+of clergymen of the national church, perhaps the only class of men not
+then getting fired with love of liberty,--and made Williams, Bishop of
+Lincoln, Lord Keeper, a "man of rash and insolent, though servile
+temper, and of selfish, temporizing, and trimming political conduct,"
+who at that time had never acted as "a judge except at the Waldegrave
+Petty Sessions in making an order of bastardy or allowing a rate for
+the Parish poor," and was "as ignorant of the questions coming before
+him as the door-keepers of his court." But he was subservient, and had
+pleased the King by preaching the courtly doctrine that "subjects hold
+their liberties and their property at the will of the Sovereign whom
+they are bound in every extremity passively to obey."[6] Men like
+Fleming and other creatures of the throne, sanctioning the King's
+abundant claim to absolute power, were sure of judicial distinction;
+while it was only the force of public opinion which gave the humblest
+place of honor to such able and well-studied lawyers as would respect
+the constitutional Rights of the People and the just construction of
+the laws, and at all hazards maintain their judicial independence.
+Ecclesiastics who taught that the King "is above the laws by his
+absolute power," and "may quash any law passed by Parliament," were
+sure of rapid preferment. Thus Bancroft was promoted; thus Abbot was
+pushed aside; and for his mean, tyrannical and subservient disposition
+Rev. William Laud was continually promoted in expectation of the
+services which, as Archbishop, he subsequently performed in the
+overthrow of the Liberty of the People. But time would fail me to read
+over the long dark list of men whose personal shame secured them
+"official glory."
+
+[Footnote 6: 2 Campbell, 368, 374; 3 Howell State Trials, 824.]
+
+In his address to the Judges in the Star-Chamber in 1616 James gave
+them this charge, "If there falls out a question which concerns any
+Prerogative or mysterie of State, _deale not with it till you consult
+with the King_ or his Council, or both; for they are Transcendent
+Matters, and must not be slibberly carried with over rash
+wilfullnesse." "And this I commend unto your special care, as some of
+you of late have done very much, to _blunt the edge and vaine popular
+humor of some lawyers at the Barre_, that think they are not eloquent
+and bold-spirited enough, except they _meddle with the King's
+Prerogative_." "_That which concerns the mysterie of the King's Power
+is not lawful to be disputed._"[7] Gentlemen, that was worthy of some
+judicial charges which you and I have heard.
+
+[Footnote 7: Speache in the Starre-Chamber, London, 1616.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Charles I. (1625-1659,) pursued the same course of tyranny by the same
+steps. Coventry could be implicitly relied on to do as commanded, and
+was made Lord Keeper in 1625. When the question of Ship-money was to
+be brought forward in 1636, Chief Justice Heath was thought not fit to
+be trusted with wielding the instrument of tyranny, and accordingly
+removed; "and Finch, well known to be ready to go all lengths, was
+appointed in his place." For he had steadfastly maintained that the
+King was absolute, and could dispense with law and parliament,--a fit
+person to be a Chief Justice, or a Lord Chancellor, in a tyrant's
+court, ready to enact iniquity into law. His compliance with the
+King's desire to violate the first principle of Magna Charta,
+"endeared him to the Court, and secured him further preferment as soon
+as any opportunity should occur." So he was soon made Lord Chancellor
+and raised to the peerage. Littleton had once been on the popular
+side, but deserted and went over to the Court--he was sure of
+preferment; and as he became more and more ready to destroy the
+liberties of the People, he was made Chief Justice, and finally Lord
+Chancellor in 1641. Lane was a "steady friend of the prerogative," and
+so was made Attorney-General to the Prince of Wales, and thence
+gradually elevated to the highest station.
+
+Other Judicial appointments were continually made in the same spirit.
+Thus when Sir Randolf Crewe was Chief Justice of the King's Bench, the
+government questioned him to ascertain if he were "sound," and were
+shocked to hear him declare that the King had no right to levy taxes
+without consent of Parliament, or imprison his subjects without due
+process of law. He was "immediately dismissed from his office,"
+(1626,) and Sir Nicolas Hyde appointed in his place. By such means the
+courts were filled with tools of the King or his favorites, and the
+pit digged for the liberties of the People, into which at last there
+fell--the head of the King!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Charles II. and James II., (1655-1686,) did not mend the evil, but
+appointed for judges "such a pack as had never before sat in
+Westminster Hall." Shaftesbury and Guildford had the highest judicial
+honors. Lord Chancellor Finch, mentioned already, had been accused by
+the Commons of High Treason and other misdemeanors, but escaped to the
+continent, and returned after the Restoration. He was appointed one of
+the Judges to try the Regicides. Thus he "who had been accused of high
+treason twenty years before by a full parliament, and who by flying
+from their justice saved his life, was appointed to judge some of
+those who should have been his Judges."[8] He declared in Parliament
+that Milton, for services rendered to the cause of liberty while Latin
+Secretary to Cromwell, "deserved hanging."[9]
+
+[Footnote 8: Ludlow, quoted in 2 Campbell, 470.]
+
+[Footnote 9: 4 Parl. Hist. 162.]
+
+In these reigns such men as Saunders, Wright, and Scroggs, were made
+Judges, men of the vilest character, with the meanest appetites,
+licentious, brutal, greedy of power and money, idiotic in the moral
+sense, appointed solely that they might serve as tools for the
+oppression of the People. Among these infamous men was George
+Jeffreys, of whom Lord Campbell says,--"He has been so much abused
+that I began my critical examination of his history in the hope and
+belief that I should find that his misdeeds had been exaggerated, and
+that I might be able to rescue his memory from some portion of the
+obloquy under which it labors; but I am sorry to say that in my
+matured opinion his cruelty and his political profligacy have not been
+sufficiently exposed or reprobated; and that he was not redeemed from
+his vices by one single solid virtue."[10] But in consequence of his
+having such a character, though not well-grounded in law, he was made
+a Judge, a Peer, and a Lord Chancellor! Wright, nearly as infamous,
+miraculously stupid and ignorant, "a detected swindler, knighted and
+clothed in ermine, took his place among the twelve judges of
+England."[11] He also was made Chief Justice successively of the
+Common Pleas and the King's Bench! Lord Campbell, himself a judge, at
+the end of his history of the reign of Charles and James, complains of
+"the irksome task of relating the actions of so many men devoid of
+political principle and ready to suggest or to support any measures,
+however arbitrary or mischievous, for the purpose of procuring their
+own advancement."[12] It was the practice of the Stuarts "to dismiss
+judges without seeking any other pretence, who showed any disposition
+to thwart government in political prosecutions."[13] Nor was this
+dismissal confined to cases where the judge would obey the law in
+merely Political trials. In 1686 four of the judges denied that the
+king had power to dispense with the laws of the land and change the
+form of religion: the next morning they were all driven from their
+posts, and four others, more compliant, were appointed and the
+judicial "opinion was unanimous." Hereupon Roger Coke says well,--"the
+king ... will make the judges in Westminster Hall to murder the common
+law, as well as the king and his brother desired to murder the
+parliament by itself; and to this end the king, when he would make any
+judges would make a bargain with them, that they should declare the
+king's power of dispensing with the penal laws and tests made against
+recusants, out of parliament."[14]
+
+[Footnote 10: 3 Campbell, 394.]
+
+[Footnote 11: 2 Campbell Chief Justices, 86.]
+
+[Footnote 12: 3 Campbell, 473.]
+
+[Footnote 13: 3 Hallam, 142.]
+
+[Footnote 14: 8 St. Tr. 195, note.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Here, Gentlemen of the Jury, I must mention three obscure judges who
+received their appointments under Stuart kings. Before long I shall
+speak of their law and its application, and now only introduce them to
+you as a measure preliminary to a more intimate acquaintance
+hereafter.
+
+1. The first is Sir William Jones, by far the least ignoble of the
+three. He was descended from one of the Barons who wrung the Great
+Charter from the hands of King John in 1618 [Transcriber's Note: for
+'1618' read '1215'; see Errata], and in 1628 dwelt in the same house
+which sheltered the more venerable head of his Welsh ancestor. In 1628
+he was made judge by Charles I. He broke down the laws of the realm to
+enable the king to make forced loans on his subjects, and by his
+special mandate (Lettre de Cachet) to imprison whom he would, as long
+as it pleased him, and without showing any reason for the commitment
+or the detention! Yes, he supported the king in his attempt to shut up
+members of parliament for words spoken in debate in the house of
+commons itself; to levy duties on imports, and a tax of ship-money on
+the land. He was summoned before parliament for his offences against
+public justice, and finally deprived of office, though ungratefully,
+by the king himself.[15]
+
+[Footnote 15: Account of him in Preface to his Reports, (1675); 3 St.
+Tr. 162, 293, 844, 1181; 2 Parl. Hist. 869; 1 Rushworth, 661, _et
+al._; Whitlocke, 14, _et al._]
+
+2. Thomas Twysden was counsel for George Coney in 1655, a London
+merchant who refused to pay an illegal tax levied on him by
+Cromwell--who followed in the tyrannical footsteps of the king he
+slew. Twysden was thrown into the Tower for defending his client--as
+Mr. Sloane, at Sandusky, has just been punished by the honorable court
+of the United States for a similar offence,--but after a few days made
+a confession of his "error," defending the just laws of the land,
+promised to offend no more, and was set at liberty, ignominiously
+leaving his client to defend himself and be defeated. This Twysden was
+made judge by Charles II. The reporters recording his decisions put
+down "_Twysden in furore_," thinly veiling the judicial wrath in
+modest Latin. He was specially cruel against Quakers and other
+dissenters, treating George Fox, Margarett Fell, and John Bunyan with
+brutal violence.[16]
+
+[Footnote 16: 6 St. Tr. 634; 1 Campbell Justices, 442.]
+
+3. Sir John Kelyng is another obscure judge of those times. In the
+civil war he was a violent cavalier, and "however fit he might be to
+_charge_ the Roundheads under Prince Rupert, he was very unfit to
+_charge_ a jury in Westminster Hall." In 1660 he took part in the
+trial of the Regicides and led in the prosecution of Colonel Hacker,
+who in 1649 had charge of the execution of Charles I. In 1662 he took
+part in the prosecution of Sir Henry Vane, and by his cruel subtlety
+in constructing law, that former governor of Massachusetts,--one of
+the most illustrious minds of England, innocent of every crime, was
+convicted of high treason and put to death.[17] For this service, in
+1663 Kelyng was made a judge; and then, by loyal zeal and judicial
+subserviency, he made up "for his want of learning and sound sense."
+But he was so incompetent that even the court of Charles II. hesitated
+to make him more than a puny judge. But he had been a "valiant
+cavalier," and had done good service already in making way with such
+as the king hated, and so after the death of Sir Nicolas Hyde, he was
+made Lord Chief Justice in his place. "In this office," says Judge
+Campbell, he "exceeded public expectation by the violent, fantastical,
+and ludicrous manner in which he conducted himself."[18] But I will
+not now anticipate what I have to say of him in a subsequent part of
+this defence.
+
+[Footnote 17: 6 St. Tr. 161.]
+
+[Footnote 18: 1 Campbell Justices, 401.]
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, we shall meet these three together again before
+long, and I shall also speak of them "singly or in pairs." In the mean
+time I will mention one similar appointment in the reign of George the
+III.--the last king of New England.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In 1770 Sergeant Glynn, in Parliament, moved for an inquiry into the
+administration of criminal justice. Edmund Thurlow, a rough venal man,
+then recently appointed solicitor-general, proposed that a severe
+censure should be passed on him for the motion. Thurlow wanted the
+trial by jury abolished in all cases of libel, so that the liberty of
+the people should be in the exclusive care of government attorneys and
+judges appointed by the crown. Hear him speak on the 6th of December,
+1770.
+
+     "In my opinion no man should be allowed with impunity to
+     make a wanton attack upon such venerable characters as the
+     judges of the land. We award costs and damages to the
+     aggrieved party in the most trifling actions. By what
+     analogy, then, can we refuse the same justice in the most
+     important cases, to the most important personages? If we
+     allow every pitiful patriot thus to insult us with
+     ridiculous accusations, without making him pay forfeit for
+     his temerity, we shall be eternally pestered with the
+     humming and buzzing of these stingless wasps. Though they
+     cannot wound or poison, they will tease and vex. They will
+     divert our attention from the important affairs of State to
+     their own mean antipathies, and passions, and prejudices.
+     Did they not count upon the spirit of the times and imagine
+     that the same latitude which is taken by the libellers is
+     here allowable, they would not have dared to offer so gross
+     an outrage. I hope we shall now handle them so roughly as to
+     make this the last of such audacious attempts. They are
+     already ridiculous and contemptible. To crown their
+     disgrace, let us inflict some exemplary punishment. Else
+     none of us is safe. Virtue and honor, you see from this
+     instance, are no safeguard from their attacks."
+
+     "The nature, the direct effect, and the remote consequences
+     of a State libel, are so complicated and involved with
+     various considerations of great pith and moment, that few
+     juries can be adequate judges. So many circumstances are at
+     once to be kept in view, so many ponderous interests are to
+     be weighed, so many comparisons to be made, and so many
+     judgments formed, that the mind of an ordinary man is
+     distracted and confounded, and rendered incapable of coming
+     to any regular conclusion. None but a judge, a man that has
+     from his infancy been accustomed to decide intricate cases,
+     is equal to such a difficult task. If we even suppose the
+     jury sufficiently enlightened to unravel those knotty
+     points, yet there remains an insuperable objection. In State
+     libels, their passions are frequently so much engaged, that
+     they may be justly considered as parties concerned against
+     the crown."
+
+     "In order, therefore, to preserve the balance of our
+     constitution, _let us leave to the judges_, as the most
+     indifferent persons, _the right of determining the malice or
+     innocence of the intention_."
+
+     "It is not that I think the intention a matter of fact; no,
+     in the sense put upon it by the judges, it is a matter of
+     law."
+
+     "Much dust has been raised about civil and criminal actions.
+     But to what purpose? Is not reparation to be made to the
+     public for any injury which it may have sustained, as much
+     as to an individual? Is the welfare of the nation in
+     general, of less consequence than that of a single person?
+     Where then is the propriety of making such a bustle about
+     the malice or innocence of the intention? The injury done is
+     the only proper measure of the punishment to be inflicted,
+     as well as of the damage to be assessed. Since you cannot
+     plead the intention as a mitigation in the latter case,
+     neither can you in the former."[19]
+
+[Footnote 19: 16 Parl. Hist. 1291, 1292, 1293.]
+
+What followed? On the 23d of July, 1771, he was made Attorney-General.
+His subsequent history did not disappoint the prophecy uttered above
+by his former conduct and his notorious character. "In truth his
+success was certain, with the respectable share he possessed of real
+talents and of valuable requirements--strongly marked features,
+piercing eyes, bushy eyebrows, and a sonorous voice, all worked to the
+best effect by an immeasurable share of self-confidence--he could not
+fail."[20] He hated America with the intense malignity of a low but
+strong and despotic nature, and "took a most zealous part and uttered
+very violent language against the colonists. He scorned the very
+notion of concession or conciliation; he considered 'sedition' and
+'treason,' (like _tobacco_ and _potatoes_,) the peculiar plants of the
+American soil. The natives of these regions he thought were born to be
+taxed."[21] He favored the Stamp Act, the Coercion Bill,--quartering
+soldiers upon us, sending Americans beyond seas for trial,--the Boston
+Port Bill, and all the measures against the colonies. "To say that we
+have a right to tax America and never exercise that right, is
+ridiculous, and a man must abuse his understanding very much not to
+allow of that right;" "the right of taxing was never in the least
+given up to the Americans."[22] On another occasion he said, that "as
+attorney-general he had a right to set aside every charter in
+America."[23] What followed? Notwithstanding his youthful profligacy,
+the open profanity of his public and private speech, and his living in
+public and notorious contempt of matrimony,--he was made Lord
+Chancellor and elevated to the peerage in 1778! Him also we shall meet
+again.
+
+[Footnote 20: 5 Campbell, 398.]
+
+[Footnote 21: 5 Campbell, 410.]
+
+[Footnote 22: 17 Parl. Hist. 1313.]
+
+[Footnote 23: 18 St. Tr. 999.]
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, I might as well try to bale all the salt water
+out of the sea as to mention every glaring and notorious instance
+where an oppressive government has appointed some discarder of all
+Higher Law for its servant in crushing the People. Come therefore to
+the next point.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+(II.) The next step is by means of _such Judges to punish and destroy
+or silence men who oppose the wickedness of the party in power, and
+the encroachments of despotism_. Let me describe the general mode of
+procedure, and then illustrate it by special examples.
+
+1. In the Privy Council, or elsewhere, it is resolved to punish the
+obnoxious men,--and the business is intrusted to the law-officers of
+the crown, appointed for such functions.
+
+2. They consult and agree to pervert and twist the law--statute or
+common--for that purpose. By this means they gratify their master, and
+prepare future advancement for themselves.
+
+3. The precedent thus established becomes the basis for new operations
+in the future, and may be twisted and perverted to serve other cases
+as they occur.
+
+Now, Gentlemen, look at some examples taken from British history, in
+times of the same Kings mentioned before.
+
+1. In 1610 two Puritans for refusing the _ex officio_ oath, were
+clapped in Jail by the commissioners. They were brought on _habeas
+corpus_ before a court, and Mr. Fuller, their counsel, a learned
+lawyer, insisted that they were imprisoned without due process of law.
+For this "contempt of court" he was thrown into jail by Archbishop
+Bancroft, whence he was rescued only by death.[24]
+
+[Footnote 24: Peirce's Vindication, (1717,) 174.]
+
+2. In 1613 there were many murmurs among the People of England at the
+tyranny of James. Fine and imprisonment did not quell the disturbance;
+so a more dreadful example was thought needful. The officials of
+Government broke into the study of Rev. Edmund Peacham, a Protestant
+minister, sixty or seventy years old. In an uncovered cask they found
+a manuscript sermon, never preached, nor designed for the pulpit or
+the press, never shown to any one. It contained some passages which
+might excite men to resist tyranny. He was arrested, and thrown into
+Jail, all his papers seized. The Government resolved to prosecute him
+for high treason. Francis Bacon, the powerful and corrupt
+Attorney-General, managed the prosecution. Before trial was ventured
+upon, he procured an extrajudicial opinion of the Judges appointed for
+such services,--irregularly given, out of court, that they would
+declare such an act high treason.
+
+But a manuscript sermon, neither preached nor designed for the public,
+was hardly evidence enough of treason even for such Judges--so
+purchased, for such an Attorney--so greedy of preferment, with such a
+Cabinet and such a King. For all those, like the Pharisees of old,
+"feared the People." So their victim was tortured on the rack, and
+twelve leading questions prepared by the Government officials, were
+put to him there. I quote Secretary Winwood's record--still extant in
+his own handwriting--"He was this day examined before torture, in
+torture, between torture, and after torture; notwithstanding nothing
+could be drawn from him, he still persisting in his obstinate and
+insensible denials and former answers." Bacon was present at the
+torture, which took place in the Tower, Jan. 19, 1614, O.S. (30th Jan.
+1615, N.S.). In August he was tried for high treason--"compassing and
+imagining the King's death"--before a packed jury; against law, and
+without legal evidence. He was of course found guilty under the ruling
+of the Court! But public opinion, even then making tyrants "tremble in
+their capitals," was so indignant at the outrage that the execution
+was not ventured on, and he was left to languish in Jail, till on the
+27th of March, 1616, a King more merciful took the old minister where
+the wicked cease from troubling.[25]
+
+[Footnote 25: 2 St. Tr. 869; 16 Montagu's Bacon, clxvi.; 2 Campbell,
+291.]
+
+In this case, Gentlemen of the Jury, you will notice three violations
+of the law.
+
+(1.) The opinion of the Judges before the trial was extrajudicial and
+illegal.
+
+(2.) The application of torture was contrary to law.
+
+(3.) The statute of Treason was wrested to apply to this case--and a
+crime was constructed by the servants of the court.
+
+It is curious to read the opinion of James himself. "The British
+Solomon" thus wrote:--
+
+     "So the only thing the Judges can doubt of is of the
+     delinquent's intention, on his bare denial to clear him
+     [himself], since nature teaches every man to defend his life
+     as he may; and whether in case there was a doubt herein, the
+     Judges should not rather incline to that side [namely, the
+     side of the Government,] wherein all probability lies: but
+     if Judges will needs trust rather the bare negative of an
+     _infamous delinquent_--then all the probabilities, or rather
+     infallible consequences upon the other part, caring more for
+     the safety of _such a monster_ than the preservation of a
+     crown in all ages following, whereupon depend the lives of
+     many millions, happy then are all _desperate and seditious
+     knaves_, but the fortune of this crown is more than
+     miserable. Which God forefend."[26]
+
+[Footnote 26: 2 St. Tr. 879.]
+
+3. In 1633, Laud, a tyrannical, ambitious man, and a servile creature
+of the King, mentioned before, was made Archbishop of Canterbury,
+continuing Bishop of London at the same time. Charles I. was strongly
+inclined to Romanism, Laud also leaned that way, aiming to come as
+near as possible to the Papal and not be shut out of the English
+Church. He made some new regulations in regard to the Communion Table
+and the Lord's Supper. John Williams, before mentioned, Dean of
+Westminster and Bishop of Lincoln, who had been Lord Keeper under King
+James, wrote a book against those innovations; besides, in his
+episcopal court he had once spoken of the Puritans as "good subjects,"
+and of his knowing "that the King did not wish them to be harshly
+dealt with." In 1637 Laud directed that he should be prosecuted in the
+Star-Chamber for "publishing false news and tales to the scandal of
+his Majesty's government;" and "for revealing counsels of State
+contrary to his oath of a Privy Counsellor." He was sentenced to pay a
+fine of L10,000,--equal to $50,000, or thrice the sum in these times;
+to be suspended from all offices, and kept a close prisoner in the
+Tower during the King's pleasure--whence the Revolution set him at
+liberty. Besides he wrote private letters to Mr. Osbalderston, and
+called Laud "the little great man," for this he, in 1639, was fined
+L5,000 to the King, and L3,000 to the Archbishop. Osbalderston in his
+letters had spoken of the "great Leviathan" and the "little Urchin,"
+and was fined L5,000, to the King, and the same to the Archbishop, and
+sentenced also to stand in the pillory with his ears nailed to it![27]
+
+[Footnote 27: 3 St. Tr. 769; 2 Campbell, 400.]
+
+4. In 1629 Richard Chambers, a merchant of London, complained to the
+Privy Council of some illegal and unjust treatment, and declared "that
+the merchants in no part of the world are so screwed and wrung as in
+England; that in Turkey they have more encouragement." Laud, who hated
+freedom of speech and liberal comments on the government as much as
+"eminent citizens" nowadays, is said to have told the king, "If your
+majesty had many such Chambers, you would soon have no Chamber left to
+rest in." The merchant was tried before the "commissioners" at the
+Star-Chamber, and fined L2,000, and condemned to make a "submission
+for his great offence,"[28] which the stout Puritan refused to do, and
+was kept in prison till the Court of King's Bench, faithful to the
+law, on Habeas Corpus, admitted him to bail: for which they were
+reprimanded. Laud and all the ecclesiastical members of the
+"commission" wished his fine L3,000.
+
+[Footnote 28: 3 St. Tr. 373; Franklyn, 361; 2 Hallam (Paris, 1841), 6
+_ac etiam_ 13; 2 Mrs. Macaulay, 16, 45, 65.]
+
+5. In his place in Parliament in 1629, Sir John Eliot, one of the
+noblest men in England's noblest age, declared that "the Council and
+Judges had all conspired to trample underfoot the liberties of the
+subject." Gentlemen, the fact was as notorious as the advance of the
+Slave Power now is in America. But a few days after the king (Charles
+I.) had dismissed his refractory Parliament, Eliot, with Hollis, Long,
+Selden, Strode, and Valentine, most eminent members of the commons,
+and zealous for liberty and law, was seized by the king's command and
+thrown into prison. The Habeas Corpus was demanded--it was all in
+vain, for Laud and Strafford were at the head of affairs, and the
+priests and pliant Judges in Westminster Hall--Jones was one of
+them--clove down the law of the land just as their subcatenated
+successors did in Boston in 1851. The court decreed that they should
+be imprisoned during the king's pleasure, and not released until
+making submission and giving security for good behavior. Eliot was
+fined L2,000, Hollis and Valentine in smaller sums. Eliot--the brave
+man--refused submission, and died in the Tower. Thus was the attack
+made on all freedom of speech in Parliament![29]
+
+[Footnote 29: 3 St. Tr. 293; 1 Rushworth; 2 Hallam, 2; 2 Parl. Hist.
+488, 504; Foster's Eliot, 100; 2 Mrs. Macaulay, ch. i. ii.]
+
+6. In 1630, the very year of the first settlement of Boston, on the
+4th of June, Rev. Dr. Alexander Leighton was brought before the Court
+of High Commission, in the Star-Chamber, to be tried for a seditious
+libel. He had published "An Appeal to the Parliament, or a Plea
+against Prelacy," a work still well known, remonstrating against
+certain notorious grievances in church and State, "to the end the
+Parliament might take them into consideration and give such redress as
+might be for the honor of the king, the quiet of the people, and the
+peace of the church," the court of commissions accounted it "a most
+odious and heinous offence, deserving the most serious punishment the
+court could inflict, for framing a book so full of such pestilent,
+devilish, and dangerous assertions." The two Chief Justices declared
+if the case had been brought to their courts, they would have
+proceeded against him for Treason, and it was only "his majesty's
+exceeding great mercy and goodness" which selected the milder
+tribunal. His sentence was a fine of L10,000, to be set in the
+pillory, whipped, have one ear cut off; one side of his nose slit, one
+cheek branded with S.S., Sower of Sedition, and then at some
+convenient time be whipped again, branded, and mutilated on the other
+side, and confined in the Fleet during life! Before the punishment
+could be inflicted he escaped out of prison, but was recaptured and
+the odious sentence fully executed. Those who "obstructed" the officer
+in the execution of that "process" were fined L500 a piece.[30]
+Gentlemen of the Jury, which do you think would most have astonished
+the Founders of Massachusetts, then drawing near to Boston, that trial
+on the 4th of June, 1630, or this trial, two hundred and twenty-five
+years later? At the court of Charles it was a great honor to mutilate
+the body of a Puritan minister.
+
+[Footnote 30: 3 St. Tr. 383; Laud's Diary, 4th November; 2 Hallam,
+28.]
+
+But not only did such judges thus punish the most noble men who wrote
+on political matters, there was no freedom of speech allowed--so
+logical is despotism!
+
+7. William Prynn, a zealous Puritan and a very learned lawyer, wrote a
+folio against theatres called "a Scourge for Stage-Players," dull,
+learned, unreadable and uncommon thick. He was brought to the
+Star-Chamber in 1632-3, and Chief Justice Richardson--who had even
+then "but an indifferent reputation for honesty and veracity"--gave
+this sentence: "Mr. Prynn, I do declare you to be a Schism-Maker in
+the Church, a Sedition-Sower in the Commonwealth, a wolf in sheep's
+clothing; in a word 'omnium malorum nequissimus'--[the wickedest of
+all scoundrels]. I shall fine him L10,000, which is more than he is
+worth, yet less than he deserveth; I will not set him at liberty, no
+more than a plagued man or a mad dog, who though he cannot bite, yet
+will he foam; he is so far from being a sociable soul that he is not a
+rational soul; he is fit to live in dens with such beasts of prey as
+wolves and tygers like himself; therefore I do condemn him to
+perpetual Imprisonment, as those monsters that are no longer fit to
+live among men nor to see light." "I would have him branded in the
+forehead, slit in the nose, and his ears cropped too." The sentence
+was executed the 7th and 10th of May, 1633.[31] But nothing
+intimidated, the sturdy man committed other offences of like nature,
+"obstructing" other "officers," and was punished again, and banished.
+But on the summoning of Parliament returned to England, and became
+powerful in that Revolution which crushed the tyrants of the time.
+
+[Footnote 31: 3 St. Tr. 561; 2 Hallam, 28, and his authorities. See
+also 2 Echard, 109, _et seq._, 124, _et seq._, 202, 368, 510; the
+remarks of Hume, Hist. ch. lii., remind me of the tone of the fugitive
+slave bill Journals of Boston in 1850-54.]
+
+8. In 1685, James II. was in reality a Catholic. He wished to restore
+Romanism to England and abolish the work of the Reformation, the
+better to establish the despotism which all of his family had sought
+to plant. He was determined to punish such as spoke against the Papal
+Church, though no law prohibited such speaking. Judge Jeffreys, a
+member of the cabinet and favorite of the king, was at that time chief
+justice--abundantly fit for the work demanded of him. The pious and
+venerable Richard Baxter was selected for the victim. Let Mr. Macaulay
+tell the story.
+
+     "In a Commentary on the New Testament, he had complained,
+     with some bitterness, of the persecution which the
+     Dissenters suffered. That men, who, for not using the
+     Prayerbook, had been driven from their homes, stripped of
+     their property, and locked up in dungeons, should dare to
+     utter a murmur, was then thought a high crime against the
+     State and Church. Roger Lestrange, the champion of the
+     government, and the oracle of the clergy, sounded the note
+     of war in the Observator. An information was filed. Baxter
+     begged that he might be allowed some time to prepare for his
+     defence. It was on the day on which Oates was pilloried in
+     Palace Yard that the illustrious chief of the Puritans,
+     oppressed by age and infirmities, came to Westminster Hall
+     to make this request. Jeffreys burst into a storm of rage.
+     'Not a minute,' he cried, 'to save his life. I can deal with
+     saints as well as with sinners. There stands Oates on one
+     side of the pillory; and if Baxter stood on the other, the
+     two greatest rogues in the kingdom would stand together.'"
+
+     "When the trial came on at Guildhall, a crowd of those who
+     loved and honored Baxter, filled the court. At his side
+     stood Doctor William Bates, one of the most eminent
+     Non-conformist divines. Two Whig barristers of great note,
+     Pollexfen and Wallop, appeared for the defendant."
+
+     "Pollexfen had scarce begun his address to the jury, when
+     the chief justice broke forth: 'Pollexfen, I know you well.
+     I will set a mark on you. You are the patron of the faction.
+     This is an old rogue, a schismatical knave, a hypocritical
+     villain. He hates the Liturgy. He would have nothing but
+     longwinded cant without book;' and then his lordship turned
+     up his eyes, clasped his hands, and began to sing through
+     his nose in imitation of what he supposed to be Baxter's
+     style of praying, 'Lord, we are thy people, thy peculiar
+     people, thy dear people.' Pollexfen gently reminded the
+     court that his late majesty had thought Baxter deserving of
+     a bishopric. 'And what ailed the old blockhead then,' cried
+     Jeffreys, 'that he did not take it?' His fury now rose
+     almost to madness. He called Baxter a dog, and swore that it
+     would be no more than justice to whip such a villain through
+     the whole city."
+
+     "Wallop interposed, but fared no better than his leader.
+     'You are in all these dirty causes, Mr. Wallop,' said the
+     judge. 'Gentlemen of the long robe ought to be ashamed to
+     assist such factious knaves.' The advocate made another
+     attempt to obtain a hearing, but to no purpose. 'If you do
+     not know your duty,' said Jeffreys, 'I will teach it you.'
+
+     "Wallop sat down, and Baxter himself attempted to put in a
+     word; but the chief justice drowned all expostulation in a
+     torrent of ribaldry and invective, mingled with scraps of
+     Hudibras. 'My lord,' said the old man, 'I have been much
+     blamed by Dissenters for speaking respectfully of bishops.'
+
+     "'Baxter for bishops!' cried the judge; 'that's a merry
+     conceit indeed. I know what you mean by bishops--rascals
+     like yourself, Kidderminster bishops, factious, snivelling
+     Presbyterians!'
+
+     "Again Baxter essayed to speak, and again Jeffreys bellowed,
+     'Richard, Richard, dost thou think we will let thee poison
+     the court? Richard, thou art an old knave. Thou hast written
+     books enough to load a cart, and every book as full of
+     sedition as an egg is full of meat. By the grace of God,
+     I'll look after thee. I see a great many of your brotherhood
+     waiting to know what will befall their mighty Don. And
+     there,' he continued, fixing his savage eye on Bates, 'there
+     is a doctor of the party at your elbow. But, by the grace of
+     God Almighty, I will crush you all!'
+
+     "Baxter held his peace. But one of the junior counsel for
+     the defence made a last effort, and undertook to show that
+     the words of which complaint was made, would not bear the
+     construction put on them by the information. With this view
+     he began to read the context. In a moment he was roared
+     down. 'You sha'n't turn the court into a conventicle!' The
+     noise of weeping was heard from some of those who surrounded
+     Baxter. 'Snivelling calves!' said the judge."[32]
+
+[Footnote 32: 1 Macaulay, (Harper's Ed.) 456-8.]
+
+He was sentenced to pay a fine of 500 marks, to lie in prison till he
+paid it, and be bound to good behavior for seven years. Jeffreys, it
+is said, wished him also to be whipped at the tail of a cart.[33] But
+the King remitted his fine.
+
+[Footnote 33: 1 Macaulay, 456; 11 St. Tr. 493.]
+
+Throughout the reign of James II. the courts of law became more and
+more contemptible in the eyes of the people. "All the three common law
+courts were filled by incompetent and corrupt Judges."[34] But their
+power to do evil never diminished.
+
+[Footnote 34: 2 Campbell's Justices, 87.]
+
+9. James II. wished to restore the Catholic form of religion, rightly
+looking on Protestantism as hostile to his intended tyranny; so he
+claimed a right to dispense with the laws relating thereto, put a
+Jesuit into his Privy Council, expelled Protestants from their
+offices, and filled the vacancy thus illegally made with Papists; he
+appointed Catholic bishops.[35] In 1688 he published a proclamation.
+It was the second of the kind,--dispensing with all the laws of the
+realm against Catholicism; and ordered it to be read on two specified
+Sundays during the hours of service in all places of public worship.
+This measure seemed to be a special insult to the Protestants. The
+declaration of indulgence was against their conscience, and in
+violation of the undisputed laws of the land, but Chief Justice Wright
+declared from the bench his opinion that it was "legal and
+obligatory," and on the day appointed for reading the decree attended
+church "to give weight to the solemnity," and as it was not read--for
+the clerk "had forgot to bring a copy,"--he "indecently in the hearing
+of the congregation abused the priest, as disloyal, seditious, and
+irreligious."
+
+[Footnote 35: See 2 Brewster's Newton, 108.]
+
+But the clergy thought differently from the Chief
+Justice--Episcopalians and Dissenters agreeing on this point. Seven
+bishops petitioned the King that they might not be obliged to violate
+their conscience, the articles of their religion, and the laws of the
+realm, by reading the declaration. They presented their petition in
+person to the King, who treated it and them with insolence and wrath.
+
+     "The king, says Kennet, was not contented to have this
+     declaration published in the usual manner, but he was
+     resolved to have it solemnly read in all churches as the
+     political gospel of his reign. The bishops and clergy were,
+     of all others the most averse to the subject-matter of the
+     declaration, as being most sensible of the ill design and
+     ill effects of it; and therefore the court seemed the more
+     willing to mortify these their enemies, and make them become
+     accessory to their own ruin; and even to eat their own dung,
+     as father Petre proudly threatened, and therefore this order
+     of council was made and published."[36]
+
+[Footnote 36: 12 St. Tr. 239.]
+
+The petition was printed and published with great rapidity, the
+bishops were seized, thrown into the Tower, and prosecuted in the
+court for a "false, feigned, malicious, pernicious, and seditious"
+libel.
+
+Judge Allybone thus addressed the Jury.
+
+     "And I think, in the first place, that _no man can_ take
+     upon him to _write against the actual exercise of the
+     government, unless he have leave from the government_, but
+     he makes a libel, be what he writes true or false; for if
+     once we come to impeach the government by way of argument,
+     it is the argument that makes it the government, or not the
+     government. So that I lay down that, in the first place,
+     _the government ought not to be impeached by argument_, nor
+     the exercise of the government shaken by argument; because I
+     can manage a proposition, in itself doubtful, with a better
+     pen than another man; this, say I, is a libel.
+
+     "Then I lay down this for my next position, that _no private
+     man can take upon him to write concerning the government at
+     all_; for _what has any private man to do with the
+     government_, if his interest be not stirred or shaken? It is
+     the business of the government to manage matters relating to
+     the government; it _is the business of subjects to mind only
+     their own properties and interests_. If my interest is not
+     shaken, _what have I to do with matters of government_? They
+     are not within my sphere. If the government does come to
+     shake my particular interest, the law is open for me, and I
+     may redress myself by law; and when I intrude myself into
+     other men's business that does not concern my particular
+     interest, I am a libeller.
+
+     "These I have laid down for plain propositions; now, then,
+     let us consider further, whether, if I will take upon me to
+     contradict the government, any specious pretence that I
+     shall put upon it, shall dress it up in another form and
+     give it a better denomination? And truly I think it is the
+     worse, because it comes in a better dress; for by that rule,
+     every man that can put on a good vizard, may be as
+     mischievous as he will, to the government at the bottom, so
+     that, whether it be in the form of a supplication, or an
+     address, or a petition, if it be what it ought not to be,
+     let us call it by its true name, and give it its right
+     denomination--it is a libel."
+
+     "The government here has published such a declaration as
+     this that has been read, relating to matters of government;
+     and _shall_, or ought _anybody_ to come and _impeach that as
+     illegal, which the government has done_? Truly, in my
+     opinion, I do not think he should, or ought; for by this
+     rule may every act of the government be shaken, when there
+     is not a parliament _de facto_ sitting.
+
+     "When the house of lords and commons are in being, it is a
+     proper way of applying to the king; there is all the
+     openness in the world for those that are members of
+     parliament, to make what addresses they please to the
+     government, for the rectifying, altering, regulating, and
+     making of what law they please; but if every private man
+     shall come and interpose his advice, I think there can never
+     be an end of advising the government.
+
+     "_We are not to measure things from any truth they have in
+     themselves, but from that aspect they have upon the
+     government; for there may be every tittle of a libel true,
+     and yet it may be a libel still_; so that I put no great
+     stress upon that objection, that the matter of it is not
+     false; and for sedition, it is that which every libel
+     carries in itself: and as every trespass implies _vi and
+     armis_, so every libel against the government carries in it
+     sedition, and all the other epithets that are in the
+     information. This is my opinion as to law in general. I will
+     not debate the prerogatives of the king, nor the privileges
+     of the subject; but as this fact is, I think these venerable
+     bishops did meddle with that which did not belong to them;
+     they took upon them, in a petitionary, to contradict the
+     actual exercise of the government, which I think no
+     particular persons, or singular body, may do."[37]
+
+[Footnote 37: 12 St. Tr. 427, 428, 429.]
+
+Listen, Gentlemen of the Jury, to the words of Attorney-General
+Powis:--
+
+     "And I cannot omit here to take notice, that _there is not
+     any one thing that the law is more jealous of_, or does more
+     carefully provide for the prevention and punishment of,
+     _than all accusations and arraignments of the government. No
+     man is allowed to accuse even the most inferior magistrate
+     of any misbehavior in his office_, unless it be in a legal
+     course, _though the fact is true_. No man may say of a
+     justice of the peace, to his face, that he is unjust in his
+     office. _No man may tell a judge, either by word or
+     petition, you have given an unjust, or an ill judgment_, and
+     I will not obey it; _it is against the rules and laws of the
+     kingdom, or the like_. No man may say of the great men of
+     the nation, much less of the great officers of the kingdom,
+     that they do act unreasonably or unjustly, or the like;
+     least of all may any man say any such thing of the king; for
+     these matters tend to possess the people, that the
+     government is ill administered; and the consequence of that
+     is, to set them upon desiring a reformation; and what that
+     tends to, and will end in, we have all had a sad and too
+     dear bought experience."[38]
+
+[Footnote 38: 12 St. Tr. 281.]
+
+Hearken to the law of Solicitor-General Williams:--
+
+     "If any person have slandered the government in writing, you
+     are _not to examine the truth of that fact_ in such writing,
+     but the slander which it imports to the king or government;
+     and _be it never so true_, yet if slanderous to the king or
+     the government, _it is a libel and to be punished_; in that
+     case, _the right or wrong_ is _not to be examined, or if
+     what was done by the government be legal, or no_; but
+     whether the party have done such an act. If the king have a
+     power (for still I keep to that), to issue forth
+     proclamations to his subjects, and to make orders and
+     constitutions in matters ecclesiastical, if he do issue
+     forth his proclamation, and make an order upon the matters
+     within his power and prerogative; and if any one would come
+     and bring that power in question otherwise than in
+     parliament, that the matter of that proclamation be not
+     legal, I say that is sedition, and you are not to examine
+     the legality or illegality of the order or proclamation, but
+     the slander and reflection upon the government."
+
+     "If a person do a thing that is libellous, you shall not
+     examine the fact, but the consequence of it; whether it
+     tended to stir up sedition against the public, or to stir up
+     strife between man and man, in the case of private persons;
+     as if a man should say of a judge, he has taken a bribe, and
+     I will prove it.
+
+     "They tell the king it is inconsistent with their honor,
+     prudence, and conscience, to do what he would have them to
+     do. And if these things be not reflective upon the king and
+     government, I know not what is.
+
+     "I'll tell you what they should have done, Sir. If they were
+     commanded to do any thing against _their consciences, they
+     should have acquiesced till the meeting of the parliament_.
+     [At which some people in the court hissed.]
+
+     "_If the king will impose upon a man what he cannot do, he
+     must acquiesce_; but shall he come and fly in the face of
+     his prince? Shall he say it is illegal? and the prince acts
+     against prudence, honor, or conscience, and throw dirt in
+     the king's face? Sure that is not permitted; that is
+     libelling with a witness."[39]
+
+[Footnote 39: 12 St. Tr. 415, 416, 417.]
+
+Here, however, there was a JURY--the seven bishops were acquitted amid
+the tumultuous huzzas of the people, who crowded all the open spaces
+in the neighborhood of Westminster Hall, and rent the air with their
+shouts, which even the soldiers repeated.[40]
+
+[Footnote 40: See 2 Campbell's Justices, 95.]
+
+Two of the Judges--Sir John Powell and Sir Richard Holloway--stood out
+for law and justice, declaring such a petition to the King was not a
+libel. They were presently thrust from their offices.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, the Stuarts soon filled up the measure of their
+time as of their iniquity, and were hustled from the throne of
+England. But, alas, I shall presently remind you of some examples of
+this tyranny in New England itself. Now I shall cite a few similar
+cases of oppression which happened in the reign of the last King of
+New England.
+
+I just now spoke of Edmund Thurlow, showing what his character was and
+by what means he gained his various offices, ministerial and judicial.
+I will next show you one instance more of the evil which comes from
+putting in office such men as are nothing but steps whereon despotism
+mounts up to its bad eminence.
+
+10. On the 8th of June, 1775,--it will be eighty years on the first
+anniversary of Judge Curtis's charge to the grand-jury,--John Horne,
+better known by his subsequent name John Horne Tooke, formerly a
+clergyman but then a scholarly man devoting himself to letters and
+politics--published the following notice in the _Morning Chronicle and
+London Advertiser_, as well as other newspapers:--
+
+     "King's-Arms Tavern, Cornhill, June 7, 1775. At a special
+     meeting this day of several members of the Constitutional
+     Society, during an adjournment, a gentleman proposed that a
+     subscription should be immediately entered into by such of
+     the members present who might approve the purpose, for
+     raising the sum of L100, to be applied to the relief of the
+     widows, orphans, and aged parents of our beloved American
+     fellow-subjects, who, faithful to the character of
+     Englishmen, preferring death to slavery, were for that
+     reason only inhumanly murdered by the king's troops at or
+     near Lexington and Concord, in the province of
+     Massachusetts, on the 19th of last April; which sum being
+     immediately collected, it was thereupon resolved that Mr.
+     Horne do pay to-morrow into the hands of Mess. Brownes and
+     Collinson, on account of Dr. Franklin, the said sum of
+     100_l._ and that Dr. Franklin be requested to apply the same
+     to the above-mentioned purpose."
+
+At that time Thurlow, whom I introduced to you a little while ago, was
+Attorney-General, looking for further promotion from the Tory
+Government of Lord North. Mansfield was Chief Justice, a man of great
+ability, who has done so much to reform the English law, but whose
+hostility to America was only surpassed by the hatred which he bore to
+all freedom of speech and the rights of the Jury. The Government was
+eager to crush the liberty of the American Colonies. But this was a
+difficult matter, for in England itself there was a powerful party
+friendly to America, who took our side in the struggle for liberty.
+The city of London, however, was hostile to us, wishing to destroy our
+merchants and manufacturers, who disturbed the monopoly of that
+commercial metropolis. The government thought it necessary to punish
+any man who ventured to oppose their tyranny and sympathize with
+America. Accordingly it was determined that Mr. Horne should be
+brought to trial. But as public opinion, stimulated by Erskine, Camden
+and others, favored the rights of the Jury, it seems to have been
+thought dangerous to trust the case to a Grand-Jury. Perhaps the Judge
+had no brother-in-law to put on it, or the Attorney-General--though
+famous also for his profanity,--doubted that any _swearing_ of his
+would insure a bill; nay, perhaps he did not venture to "bet ten
+dollars that I will get an indictment against him." Be that as it may,
+the Attorney-General dispensed with the services of the Grand-Jury and
+filed an information _ex officio_ against Mr. Horne, therein styling
+him a "wicked, malicious, seditious, and ill-disposed person;"
+charging him, by that advertisement, with "wickedly, maliciously, and
+seditiously intending, designing, and venturing to stir up and excite
+discontents and sedition;" "to cause it to be believed that divers of
+his Majesty's innocent and deserving subjects had been inhumanly
+murdered by ... his Majesty's troops; and unlawfully and wickedly to
+encourage his Majesty's subjects in the said Province of Massachusetts
+to resist and oppose his Majesty's Government." He said the
+advertisement was "a false, wicked, malicious, scandalous, and
+seditious libel;" "full of ribaldry, Billingsgate, scurrility,
+balderdash, and impudence;" "wicked is a term too high for this
+advertisement;" "its impudence disarmed its wickedness." In short, Mr.
+Horne was accused of "resisting an officer," obstructing the execution
+of the "process" whereby the American Provinces were to be made the
+slave colonies of a metropolitan despotism. The usual charge of doing
+all this by "force and arms," was of course thrown in. The publication
+of the advertisement was declared a "crime of such heinousness and of
+such a size as fairly called for the highest resentment which any
+court of justice has thought proper to use with respect to crimes of
+this denomination;" "a libel such that it is impossible by any
+artifice to aggravate it;" "It will be totally impossible for the
+imagination of any man, however shrewd, to state a libel more
+scandalous and base in the fact imputed, more malignant and hostile to
+the country in which the libeller is born, more dangerous in the
+example if it were suffered to pass unpunished, than this:" "It is in
+language addressed to the lowest and most miserable mortals, ... it is
+addressed to the lowest of the mob, and the bulk of the people, who it
+is fit should be otherwise taught, who it is fit should be otherwise
+governed in this country."
+
+Mr. Horne was brought to trial on the 4th of July, 1777. He defended
+himself, but though a vigorous writer, he was not a good speaker, and
+was in a strange place, while "Thurlow fought on his own dunghill,"
+says Lord Campbell, "and throughout the whole day had the advantage
+over him." There was a special jury packed for the purpose by the
+hireling sheriff,--a "London jury" famous for corruption,--a
+tyrannical and powerful judge, ready to turn every weapon of the court
+against the defendant and to construct law against the liberty of
+speech. Of course Mr. Horne was convicted.
+
+But how should he be punished? Thurlow determined.
+
+     "My Lords, the punishments to be inflicted upon misdemeanors
+     of this sort, have usually been of three different kinds;
+     fine, corporal punishment by imprisonment, and infamy by the
+     judgment of the pillory. With regard to the _fine_, it is
+     impossible for justice to make this sort of punishment,
+     however the infamy will always fall upon the offender;
+     because it is well known, that men who have more wealth, who
+     have better and more respectful situations and reputations
+     to be watchful over, employ men in desperate situations both
+     of circumstances and characters, in order to do that which
+     serves their party purposes; and when the punishment comes
+     to be inflicted, this court must have regard to the apparent
+     situation and circumstances of the man employed, that is, of
+     the man convicted, with regard to the punishment.
+
+     "With regard to _imprisonment_, that is a species of
+     punishment not to be considered alike in all cases, but ...,
+     that it would be proper for the judgment of the court to
+     state circumstances which will make the imprisonment fall
+     lighter or heavier, ... that would be proper, if I had not
+     been spared all trouble upon that account, by hearing it
+     solemnly avowed ... by the defendant himself, that
+     imprisonment was no kind of inconvenience to him; for that
+     certain employments, ... would occasion his confinement in
+     so close a way, that it was mere matter of circumstance
+     whether it happened in one place or another; and that the
+     longest imprisonment which this court could inflict for
+     punishment, was not beyond the reach of accommodation which
+     those occasions rendered necessary to him. In this respect,
+     therefore, imprisonment is not only, ... not an adequate
+     punishment to the offence, but the public are told, ... that
+     it will be _no punishment_.
+
+     "I stated in the third place to your Lordships, _the pillory
+     to have been the usual punishment for this species of
+     offence_. I apprehend it to have been so, in this case, for
+     above two hundred years before the time when prosecutions
+     grew rank in the Star-Chamber ... the punishment of the
+     pillory was inflicted, not only during the time that such
+     prosecutions were rank in the Star-Chamber, but it also
+     continued to be inflicted upon this sort of crime, and that
+     by the best authority, after the time of the abolishing the
+     Star-Chamber, after the time of the Revolution, and while my
+     Lord Chief Justice Holt sat in this court.
+
+     "I would desire no better, no more pointed, nor any more
+     applicable argument than what that great chief justice used,
+     when it was contended before him that an abuse upon
+     government, upon the administration of several parts of
+     government, amounted to nothing, because there was no abuse
+     upon any particular man. That great chief justice said, they
+     amounted to much more; they are _an abuse upon all men_.
+     Government cannot exist, if the law cannot restrain that
+     sort of abuse. Government cannot exist, unless ... the full
+     punishment is inflicted which the most approved times have
+     given to offences of much less denomination than these, of
+     much less. I am sure it cannot be shown, that in any one of
+     the cases that were punished in that manner, the
+     aggravations of any one of those offences were any degree
+     adequate to those which are presented to your Lordship now.
+     If offences were so punished then, which are not so punished
+     now, they lose that expiation which the wisdom of those ages
+     thought proper to hold out to the public, as a restraint
+     from such offences being committed again.
+
+     "I am to judge of crimes in order to the prosecution; your
+     lordship is to judge of them ultimately for punishment. I
+     should have been extremely sorry, if I had been induced by
+     any consideration whatever, to have brought a crime of the
+     magnitude which this was (of the magnitude which this was
+     when I first stated it) into a court of justice, if I had
+     not had it in my contemplation also that it would meet with
+     an adequate restraint, which I never thought would be done
+     without affixing to it the _judgment of the pillory_; I
+     should have been very sorry to have brought this man here,
+     after all the aggravations that he has superinduced upon the
+     offence itself, if I had not been persuaded that those
+     aggravations would have induced the _judgment of the
+     pillory_."[41]
+
+[Footnote 41: 20 St. Tr. 780-783.]
+
+But Mansfield thought otherwise, and punished him with a fine of L200
+and imprisonment for twelve months.[42]
+
+[Footnote 42: 20 St. Tr. 651; 5 Campbell, 415.]
+
+"Thus," says Lord Brougham, "a bold and just denunciation of the
+attacks made upon our American Brethren, which nowadays would rank
+among the very mildest and tamest effusions of the periodical press,
+condemned him to prison for twelve months."[43]
+
+[Footnote 43: Statesmen, 2 Series, 109.]
+
+Thurlow was a man of low intellect, of a fierce countenance, a saucy,
+swaggering, insolent manner, debauched in his morals beyond the
+grossness of that indecent age,--ostentatiously living in public
+concubinage,--a notorious swearer in public and private. But he knew
+no law above the will of the hand that fed and could advance him, no
+justice which might check the insolence of power. And in less than a
+month after Mr. Horne was sent to jail, Thurlow was made Lord
+Chancellor of England, and sat on the woolsack in the House of Lords.
+His chief panegyrist can only say, "in worse times there have been
+worse chancellors." "But an age of comparative freedom and refinement
+has rarely exhibited one who so ill understood, or at least so ill
+discharged, the functions of a statesman and legislator."
+
+I will enrich this part of my argument with an example of the opinions
+of this Judge, which would endear him to the present administration
+in America, and entitle him to a high place among southern
+politicians. In 1788 a bill was brought into Parliament to mitigate
+the horrors of the African slave-trade. The Lord Chancellor, Thurlow,
+opposed it and said:--
+
+     "It appears that the French have offered premiums to
+     encourage the African [slave] trade, and that they have
+     succeeded. The natural presumption therefore is, that _we
+     ought to do the same_. For my part, my Lords, I have no
+     scruple to say that if the 'five days' fit of philanthropy'
+     [the attempt to abolish the slave-trade] which has just
+     sprung up, and which has slept for twenty years together,
+     were allowed to sleep one summer longer, it would appear to
+     me rather more wise than thus to take up a subject
+     piecemeal, which it has been publicly declared ought not to
+     be agitated at all till next session of Parliament. Perhaps,
+     by such imprudence, the slaves themselves may be prompted by
+     their own authority, to proceed at once to a 'total and
+     immediate abolition of the trade.' One witness has come to
+     your Lordship's bar with a face of woe--his eyes full of
+     tears, and his countenance fraught with horror, and said,
+     '_My Lords, I am ruined if you pass this bill! I have risked
+     L30,000 on the trade this year! It is all I have been able
+     to gain by my industry, and if I lose it I must go to the
+     hospital!_' I desire of you to think of such things, my
+     Lords, in your _humane phrensy, and to show some humanity to
+     the whites as well as to the negroes_."[44]
+
+[Footnote 44: 5 Campbell, 460; 27 Parl. Hist. 638.]
+
+One measure of tyranny in the hands of such Judges is Constructive
+Crime, a crime which the revengeful, or the purchased judge distils
+out of an honest or a doubtful deed, in the alembic he has made out of
+the law broken up and recast by him for that purpose, twisted, drawn
+out, and coiled up in serpentine and labyrinthine folds. For as the
+sweet juices of the grape, the peach, the apple, pear, or plumb may be
+fermented, and then distilled into the most deadly intoxicating
+draught to madden man and infuriate woman, so by the sophistry of a
+State's Attorney and a Court Judge, well trained for this work, out of
+innocent actions, and honest, manly speech, the most ghastly crimes
+can be extorted, and then the "leprous distilment" be poured upon the
+innocent victim,
+
+     "And a most instant tetter barks about,
+     Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust,
+     All his smooth body!"
+
+Here is an example. In 1668 some London apprentices committed a riot
+by pulling down some houses of ill-fame in Moorfields, which had
+become a nuisance to the neighborhood; they shouted "Down with Bawdy
+Houses." Judge Kelyng had them indicted for High Treason. He said it
+was "an accroachment of royal authority." It was "levying war." He
+thus laid down the law. "The prisoners are indicted for levying war
+against the King. By levying war is not only meant when a body is
+gathered together as an army, but if a _company of people will go
+about any public reformation, this is high treason_. These people do
+pretend their design was against brothels; now let men to go about to
+pull down brothels, with a captain [an apprentice "walked about with a
+green apron on a pole"] and an ensign and weapons,--if this thing be
+endured, _who is safe_? It is high treason because it doth betray the
+peace of the nation, and _every subject is as much wronged as the
+King_; for if every man may reform what he will, no man is safe;
+therefore the thing is of desperate consequence, and we must make this
+for a public example. There is reason why we should be very cautious;
+we are but recently delivered from rebellion [Charles I. had been
+executed nineteen years before, and his son had been in peaceable
+possession of the throne for eight years], and we know that that
+rebellion first began under the pretence of religion and the law; for
+the Devil hath always this vizard upon it. We have great reason to be
+very wary that we fall not again into the same error. Apprentices for
+the future shall not go on in this manner. It proved that Beasly went
+as their captain with his sword, and flourished it over his head [this
+was the "weapons,"] and that Messenger walked about Moorfields with a
+green apron on the top of a pole [this was the "ensign"]. What was
+done by one, was done by all; in high treason all concerned are
+principals."[45]
+
+[Footnote 45: 1 Campbell's Justices, 404-5; Kelyng's Reports, 70.]
+
+Thereupon thirteen apprentices who had been concerned in a riot were
+found guilty of high treason, sentenced, and four hanged. All of the
+eleven Judges--Twysden was one of them--concurred in the sentence,
+except Sir Matthew Hale. He declared there was no treason committed;
+there was "but an unruly company of apprentices."[46]
+
+[Footnote 46: 6 St. Tr. 879, note 911.]
+
+This same Judge Kelyng, singularly thick-headed and ridiculous, loved
+to construct crimes where the law made none. Thus he declares, "in
+cases of high treason, if any one do any thing by which he showeth his
+_liking_ and _approbation_ to the Traitorous Design, this is in him
+High Treason. For all are Principals in High Treason, who contribute
+towards it by Action or Approbation."[47] He held it was an overt act
+of treason to print a "treasonable proposition," such as this, "The
+execution of Judgment and Justice is as well the people's as the
+magistrates' duty, and if the magistrates pervert Judgment, the people
+are bound by the law of God to execute judgment without them and upon
+them."[48] So the printer of the book, containing the "treasonable
+proposition," was executed. A man, by name Axtell, who commanded the
+guards which attended at the trial and execution of Charles I., was
+brought to trial for treason. He contended that he acted as a soldier
+by the command of his superior officer, whom he must obey, or die. But
+it was resolved that "that was no excuse, for his superior was a
+Traitor and all that joined with him in that act were Traitors, and
+did by that approve the Treason, and when the command is Traitorous,
+then the Obedience to that Command is also Traitorous." So Axtell must
+die. The same rule of course smote at the head of any private soldier
+who served in the ranks![49]
+
+[Footnote 47: Kelyng's Reports, 12.]
+
+[Footnote 48: Ibid. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 49: Kelyng's Reports, 13.]
+
+These wicked constructions of treason by the court, out of small
+offences or honest actions, continued until Mr. Erskine attacked them
+with his Justice, and with his eloquence exposed them to the
+indignation of mankind, and so shamed the courts into humanity and
+common sense.[50] Yet still the same weapon lies hid under the
+Judicial bench as well of England as of America, whence any malignant
+or purchased Judge, when it suits his personal whim or public
+ambition, may draw it forth, and smite at the fortune, the reputation,
+or the life of any innocent man he has a private grudge against, but
+dares not meet in open day. Of this, Gentlemen of the Jury, in due
+time.
+
+[Footnote 50: See his Defence of Hardy, 24 St. Tr. 877.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The mass of men, busy with their honest work, are not aware what power
+is left in the hands of judges--wholly irresponsible to the people;
+few men know how they often violate the laws they are nominally set to
+administer. Let me take but a single form of this judicial
+iniquity--the Use of Torture, borrowing my examples from the history
+of our mother country.
+
+In England the use of torture has never been conformable either to
+common or to statute law; but how often has it been practised by a
+corrupt administration and wicked judges! In 1549 Lord Seymour of
+Sudley, Admiral of England, was put to the torture;[51] in 1604 Guy
+Fawkes was "horribly racked."[52] Peacham was repeatedly put to
+torture as you have just now heard, and that in the presence of Lord
+Bacon himself in 1614.[53] Peacock was racked in 1620, Bacon and Coke
+both signing the warrant for this illegal wickedness,--"he deserveth
+it as well as Peacham did," said the Lord Chancellor, making his own
+"ungodly custom" stand for law.[54] In 1627 the Lord Deputy of Ireland
+wanted to torture two priests, and Charles I. gave him license, the
+privy council consenting--"all of one mind that he might rack the
+priests if he saw fit, and hang them if he found reason!"[55] In 1628
+the judges of England solemnly decided that torture was unlawful; but
+it had always been so,--and Yelverton, one of the judges, was a member
+of the commission which stretched Peacham on the rack.[56] Yet, spite
+of this decision, torture still held its old place, and a warrant from
+the year 1610 still exists for inflicting this illegal atrocity on a
+victim of the court.[57] Yet even so late as 1804, when Thomas Pictou,
+governor of Trinidad, put a woman to tortures of the most cruel
+character, by the connivance of the court he entirely escaped from all
+judicial punishment.[58] Yes, torture was long continued in England
+itself, though not always by means of thumbscrews and Scottish boots
+and Spanish racks; the monstrous chains, the damp cells, the perpetual
+irritation which corrupt servants of a despotic court tormented their
+victims withal, was the old demon under another name.[59] Nay, within
+a few months the newspapers furnish us with examples of Americans
+being put to the torture of the lash to force a confession of their
+alleged crime--and this has been done by the power which this court
+has long been so zealous to support--the Slave Power of America.
+
+[Footnote 51: See 2 St. Tr. 774, note.]
+
+[Footnote 52: 1 Jardine, Crim. Tr. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 53: 2 St. Tr. 871.]
+
+[Footnote 54: 1 Jardine, 19.]
+
+[Footnote 55: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 56: 3 St. Tr. 371. See 30 St. Tr. 892.]
+
+[Footnote 57: 1 Jardine, 20. See Emlyn, Preface to St. Tr. in 1
+Hargrave, p. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 58: 30 St. Tr. 225.]
+
+[Footnote 59: See case of Huggins in 17 St. Tr. 297, 309.]
+
+It has been well said:--
+
+     "It must be owned that the Guards and Fences of the law have
+     not always proved an effectual security for the subject. The
+     Reader will ... find many Instances wherein they who hold
+     the sword of Justice did not employ it as they ought to in
+     punishment of Evil-Doers, but to the Oppression and
+     Destruction of Men more righteous than themselves. Indeed it
+     is scarce possible to frame a Body of Laws which a
+     tyrannical Prince, influenced by wicked Counsellors and
+     corrupt Judges, may not be able to break through.... The Law
+     itself is a dead letter. Judges are the interpreters of it,
+     and if they prove men of no Conscience nor Integrity, they
+     will give what sense they will to it, however different from
+     the true one; and when they are supported by superior
+     authority, will for a while prevail, till by repeated
+     iniquities they grow intolerable and throw the State into
+     convulsions which may at last end in their own ruin. This
+     shows how valuable a Blessing is an upright and learned
+     Judge, and of what great concern it is to the public that
+     none be preferred to that office but such whose Ability and
+     Integrity may be safely depended on."[60]
+
+[Footnote 60: 1 Hargrave's St. Tr. 6.]
+
+Thus, Gentlemen of the Jury, is it that judges who know no law but the
+will of "the hand that feeds them," appointed for services rendered to
+the enemies of mankind and looking for yet higher rewards, have sought
+to establish the despotism of their masters on the ruin of the People.
+But the destruction of obnoxious individuals is not the whole of their
+enormity; so I come to the next part of the subject.
+
+(III.) The next step is for such judges to interpret, wrest, and
+pervert the laws so as to prepare for prospective Acts of Tyranny.
+
+Here, Gentlemen of the Jury, I shall have only too many examples to
+warn you with.
+
+Early in his reign James I. sought to lay burthensome taxes on the
+people without any act of Parliament; this practice was continued by
+his successors.
+
+1. In 1606 came "the great Case of Impositions," not mentioned in the
+ordinary histories of England. The king assumed the right to tax the
+nation by his own prerogative. He ordered a duty of five shillings on
+every hundred pounds of currants imported into the kingdom to be
+levied in addition to the regular duty affixed by Act of Parliament.
+This was contrary to law, nay, to the Constitution of England, her
+Magna Charta itself provided against unparliamentary taxation. Sir
+John Bates, a London merchant, refused to pay the unlawful duty, and
+was prosecuted by information in the Star-Chamber. "The courts of
+justice," says Mr. Hallam, "did not consist of men conscientiously
+impartial between the king and the subject; some corrupt with hopes of
+promotion, many more fearful of removal, or awe-struck by the fear of
+power." On the "trial" it was abundantly shown that the king had no
+right to levy such a duty. "The accomplished but too pliant judges,
+and those indefatigable hunters of precedents for violations of
+constitutional government, the great law-officers of the crown,"
+decided against the laws, and Chief Justice Fleming maintained that
+the king might lay what tax he pleased on imported goods! The corrupt
+decision settled the law for years--and gave the king absolute power
+over this branch of the revenue, involving a complete destruction of
+the liberty of the people,--for the Principle would carry a thousand
+measures on its back.[61] The king declared Fleming a judge to his
+"heart's content." Bacon's subserviency did not pass unrewarded. Soon
+after James issued a decree under the great seal, imposing heavy
+duties on almost all merchandise "to be for ever hereafter paid to the
+king and his successors, on pain of his displeasure."[62] Thus the
+Measure became a Principle.
+
+[Footnote 61: 2 St. Tr. 371, and 11 Hargrave, 29; 1 Campbell's
+Justices, 204.]
+
+[Footnote 62: 1 Hallam, 231. See 1 Parl. Hist. 1030, 1132, 1150;
+Baker's Chronicle, 430.]
+
+2. James, wanting funds, demanded of his subjects forced contributions
+of money,--strangely called "Benevolences," though there was no
+"good-will" on either side. It was clearly against the fundamental
+laws of the kingdom. Sir Oliver St. John refused to pay what was
+demanded of him, and wrote a letter to the mayor of Marlborough
+against the illegal exaction. For this he was prosecuted in the
+Star-Chamber in 1615 by Attorney-General Bacon. The court, with Lord
+Chancellor Ellesmere at its head, of course decided that the king had
+a right to levy Benevolences at pleasure. St. John was fined five
+thousand pounds, and punished by imprisonment during the king's
+pleasure. This decision gave the king absolute power over all property
+in the realm,--every private purse was in his hands![63] With such a
+court the king might well say, "Wheare any controversyes arise, my
+Lordes the Judges chosene betwixte me and my people shall discide and
+rulle me."[64]
+
+[Footnote 63: 2 St. Tr. 899; 1 Hallam, 251; 2 Campbell, 291.]
+
+[Footnote 64: 1 Parl. Hist. 1156.]
+
+3. Charles I. proceeded in the steps of his father: he levied forced
+loans. Thomas Darnel and others refused to pay, and were put in prison
+on a General Warrant from the king which did not specify the cause of
+commitment. They brought their writs of _habeas corpus_, contending
+that their confinement was illegal. The matter came to trial in 1627.
+Sir Randolf Crewe, a man too just to be trusted to do the iniquity
+desired, was thrust out of office, and Sir Nicolas Hyde appointed
+chief justice in his place. The actual question was, Has the king a
+right to imprison any subject forever without process of law? It was
+abundantly shown that he had no such right. But the new chief justice,
+put in power to oppress the people, remembering the hand that fed him,
+thus decreed,--"Mr. Attorney hath told you that the _king hath done
+it, and we trust him in great matters_, and he is bound by law, and he
+bids us proceed by law; ... and we make no doubt but _the king_, if
+you look to him, he knowing the cause why you are imprisoned, _he will
+have mercy_; but that we believe that ... he cannot deliver you, but
+_you must be remanded_." Thus the judges gave the king absolute power
+over the liberties of any subject.[65]
+
+[Footnote 65: 3 St. Tr. 1. See also 2 Parl. Hist. 288; 1 Rushworth and
+1 Mrs. Macaulay, 341.]
+
+But the matter was brought up in Parliament and discussed by men of a
+different temper, who frightened the judge by threats of impeachment,
+and forced the king to agree to the PETITION OF RIGHT designed to put
+an end to all such illegal cruelty. Before Charles I. would sign that
+famous bill, he asked Judge Hyde if it would restrain the king "from
+committing or restraining a subject _without showing cause_." The
+crafty judge answered, "_Every law_, after it is made, _hath its
+exposition, which is to be left to the courts of justice to
+determine_; and although the Petition be granted _there is no fear of
+[such a] conclusion as is intimated in the question_!" That is, the
+court will interpret the plain law so as to oppress the subject and
+please the king! As the judges had promised to annul the law, the
+king signed it.[66] Charles dissolved Parliament and threw into jail
+its most noble and powerful members--one of whom, Eliot, never left
+the prison till death set him free.[67] The same chief justice gave an
+extrajudicial opinion justifying the illegal seizure of the
+members,--"that a parliament man committing an offence against the
+King in Parliament not in a parliamentary course, may be punished
+after the Parliament is ended;" "that by false slanders to bring the
+Lords of the Council and the Judges, not in a parliamentary way, into
+the hatred of the people and the government into contempt, was
+punishable out of Parliament, in the Star-Chamber, as an offence
+committed in Parliament beyond the office, and beside the duty of a
+parliament man."[68] Thus the judges struck down freedom of speech in
+Parliament.
+
+[Footnote 66: 1 Campbell, Justices, 311; 2 Parl. Hist. 245, 350, 373,
+408, _et al._; 3 St. Tr. 59.]
+
+[Footnote 67: See above, p. 29.]
+
+[Footnote 68: 1 Campbell's Justices, 315.]
+
+4. In 1634 Charles I. issued a writ levying ship-money, so called, on
+some seaport towns, without act of Parliament. London and some towns
+remonstrated, but were forced to submit, all the courts being against
+them. Chief Justice Finch, "a servile tool of the despotic court,"
+generalized this unlawful tax, extending it to inland towns as well as
+seaboard, to all the kingdom. All landholders were to be assessed in
+proportion to their property, and the tax, if not voluntarily paid,
+collected by force. The tax was unpopular, and clearly against the
+fundamental law of the kingdom. But if the government could not get
+the law on its side it could control its interpreters, for "every law
+hath its exposition." So the Judges of Assize were ordered in their
+circuits to tell the people to _comply with the order and pay the
+money_! The King got all extrajudicial opinion of the twelve Judges
+delivered irregularly, out of court, in which they unanimously
+declared that in time of danger the _King might levy such tax as he
+saw fit, and compel men to pay it_. He was the sole judge of the
+danger, and of the amount of the tax.[69]
+
+[Footnote 69: 3 St. Tr. 825. See the opinion of the Judges with their
+twelve names, 844, and note [dagger symbol].]
+
+John Hampden was taxed twenty shillings--he refused to pay, though he
+knew well the fate of Richard Chambers a few years before. The case
+came to trial in 1637, in the Court of Exchequer before Lord
+Chancellor Coventry, a base creature, mentioned before. It was "the
+great case of Ship-money." The ablest lawyers in England showed that
+the tax was contrary to Magna Charta, to the fundamental laws of the
+realm, to the Petition of Right and to the practice of the kingdom.
+Hampden was defeated. Ten out of the twelve Judges sided with the
+King. Croke as the eleventh had made up his mind to do the same, but
+his noble wife implored him not to sacrifice his conscience for fear
+of danger, and the Woman, as it so often happens, saved the man.[70]
+Attorney-General Banks thus set forth the opinion of the Government,
+and the consequent "decision" of the Judges. He rested the right of
+levying Ship-money on the "intrinsic, absolute authority of the King."
+There was no Higher Law in Old England in 1634! Banks said, "this
+power [of arbitrary and irresponsible taxation] is innate in the
+person of an absolute King, and in the persons of the Kings of
+England. All-magistracy it is of nature; and obedience and subjection
+[to] it is of nature. This power is not anyways derived from the
+people, but reserved unto the King when positive laws first began. For
+the King of England, he is an absolute monarch; nothing can be given
+to an absolute prince but what is inherent in his person. He can do no
+wrong. He is the sole judge and we ought not to question him, whom the
+law trusts we ought not to distrust." "The Acts of Parliament contain
+no express words to take away so high a prerogative; and the King's
+prerogative, even in lesser matters, is always saved, where express
+words do not restrain it."[71]
+
+[Footnote 70: Whitelocke, Memor. 25.]
+
+[Footnote 71: 2 Hallam, 16.]
+
+It required six months of judicial labor to bring forth this result,
+which was of "infinite disservice to the crown." Thereupon Mr. Hallam
+says:--
+
+     "Those who had trusted to the faith of the judges were
+     undeceived by the honest repentance of some, and looked with
+     indignation on so prostituted a crew. That respect for
+     courts of justice which the happy structure of our Judicial
+     administration has in general kept inviolate, was exchanged
+     for distrust, contempt, and a desire of vengeance. They
+     heard the speeches of some of the Judges with more
+     displeasure than even their final decision. Ship-money was
+     held lawful by Finch and several other Judges, not on the
+     authority of precedents which must in their nature have some
+     bounds, but on principles subversive of every property or
+     privilege in the subject. Those paramount rights of
+     monarchy, to which they appealed to-day in justification of
+     Ship-money, might to-morrow serve to supersede other laws,
+     and maintain more exertions of despotic power. It was
+     manifest by the whole strain of the court lawyers that no
+     limitations on the King's authority could exist but by the
+     King's sufferance. This alarming tenet, long bruited among
+     the churchmen and courtiers, now resounded in the halls of
+     justice."[72]
+
+[Footnote 72: 2 Hallam, 18.]
+
+Thus by the purchased vote of a corrupt Judiciary all the laws of
+Parliament, all the customs of the Anglo-Saxon tribe, Magna Charta
+itself with its noble attendant charters, were at once swept away, and
+all the property of the kingdom put into the hands of the enemy of the
+People. These four decisions would make the King of England as
+absolute as the Sultan of Turkey, or the Russian Czar. If the opinion
+of the Judges in the case of Impositions and Ship-money were accepted
+in law,--then all the Property of the People was the King's; if the
+courts were correct in their judgments giving the King the power by
+his mere will to imprison any subject, during pleasure, and also to do
+the same even with members of Parliament and punish them for debates
+in the House of Commons, then all liberty was at an end, and the
+King's Prerogative extended over all acts of Parliament, all property,
+all persons.
+
+5. One step more must be taken to make the logic of despotism perfect,
+and complete the chain. That work was delegated to clergymen purchased
+for the purpose--Rev. Dr. Robert Sibthorpe and Rev. Dr. Roger
+Mainwaring. The first in a sermon "of rendering all their dues,"
+preached and printed in 1627, says, "the Prince who is the Head, and
+makes his Court and Council, it is his duty to direct and make laws.
+'He doth whatsoever pleaseth him;' 'where the word of the King is
+there is power, and who may say unto him, What doest thou?'" And
+again, "If Princes command any thing which subjects may not perform,
+because it is against the Laws of God, or of Nature, or impossible;
+yet Subjects are bound to undergo the punishment, without either
+resisting, or railing, or reviling, and are to yield a Passive
+Obedience where they cannot exhibit an Active one, ... but in all
+others he is bound to active obedience."[73]
+
+[Footnote 73: Cited in Franklyn, 208; 1 Rushworth, 422, 436, 444.]
+
+Mainwaring went further, and in two famous sermons--preached, one on
+the 4th of July, 1628, the other on the 29th of the same
+month--declared that "the King is not bound to observe the Laws of the
+Realm concerning the Subject's Rights and Liberties, but that his
+_Royal will and Command_, in imposing Loans, and Taxes, without
+consent of Parliament, _doth oblige the subject's conscience upon pain
+of eternal damnation_. That those who refused to pay this Loan
+offended against the Law of God and the King's Supreme Authority, and
+became guilty of Impiety, Disloyalty, and Rebellion. And that the
+authority of Parliament is not necessary for the raising of Aid and
+Subsidies; and that the slow proceedings of such great Assemblies were
+not fitted for the Supply of the State's urgent necessities, but would
+rather produce sundry impediments to the just designs of Princes."
+"_That Kings partake of omnipotence with God._"[74]
+
+[Footnote 74: Franklyn, 208, 592. These two Sermons were published in
+a volume with the title "Religion and Allegiance."... "Published by
+his Majesty's special command." (London, 1628.) Prof. Stuart seems
+inspired by this title in giving a name to his remarkable
+publication--written with the same spirit as Dr. Mainwaring's--"Conscience
+and the Constitution." (Andover, 1851.) See 3 St. Tr. 335; 1
+Rushworth, 422, 436, 585, _et al._; 1 Hallam, 307; 2 Parl. Hist. 388,
+410.]
+
+The nation was enraged. Mainwaring was brought before Parliament,
+punished with fine and imprisonment and temporary suspension from
+office and perpetual disability for ecclesiastical preferment. But the
+King who ordered the publication of the sermons, and who doubtless had
+induced him to preach them, immediately made him Rector of Stamford
+Parish, soon appointed him Dean of Worcester, and finally in 1645 made
+him Bishop of St. David's. A few years ago such clerical apostasy
+would seem astonishing to an American. But now, Gentlemen of the Jury,
+so rapid has been the downfall of public virtue, that men filling the
+pulpits once graced and dignified by noblest puritanic piety, now
+publicly declare there is no law of God above the fugitive slave bill.
+Nay, a distinguished American minister boldly proclaimed his readiness
+to send his own Mother (or "Brother") into eternal bondage! Thus
+modern history explains the old; and the cheap bait of a republican
+bribe can seduce American dissenters, as the wealthy lure of royal
+gifts once drew British churchmen into the same pit of infamy. Alas,
+hypocrisy is of no sect or nation.
+
+Gentlemen, the Government of England once decreed "that every
+clergyman, four times in the year, should instruct his parishioners in
+the Divine right of Kings, and the damnable sin of resistance."[75] No
+Higher Law! America has ministers who need no act of Parliament to
+teach them to do the same; they run before they are sent.
+
+[Footnote 75: 2 Campbell, 460; 1 Rushworth, 1205.]
+
+6. After the head of one Stuart was shorn off and his son had
+returned, no wiser nor better than his father, the old progress of
+despotism began anew. I pass over what would but repeat the former
+history, and take two new examples to warn the nation with, differing
+from the old only in form.
+
+In 1672, Charles II. published a proclamation denouncing rigorous
+penalties against all such as _should speak disrespectfully of his
+acts_, or _hearing others thus speak should not immediately inform the
+magistrates_! Nay, in 1675, after he had sold himself to the French
+king, and was in receipt of an annual pension therefrom, he had this
+test-oath published for all to sign: "I do solemnly declare that _it
+is not lawful upon any pretence whatever to take up arms against the
+king_, ... and that _I will not_, at any time to come, _endeavor the
+alteration of the government_, either in Church or State."[76]
+
+[Footnote 76: Carroll's Counter Revolution (Lond. 1846), 99, _et
+seq._]
+
+An oath yet more stringent was enforced in Scotland with the edge of
+the sword, namely, to defend all the prerogatives of the crown, "_never
+without the king's permission to take part in any deliberations upon
+ecclesiastical or civil affairs; and never to seek any reform in
+Church or State_."
+
+Notwithstanding all that the Charleses had done to break down the
+liberty of Englishmen, still the great corporate towns held out,
+intrenched behind their charters, and from that bulwark both annoyed
+the despot and defended the civil rights of the citizen. They also
+must be destroyed. So summons of _quo warranto_ were served upon them,
+which frightened the smaller corporations and brought down their
+charters. Jeffreys was serviceable in this wicked work, and on his
+return from his Northern Circuit, rich with these infamous spoils, as
+a reward for destroying the liberties of his countrymen, the king
+publicly presented him with a ring, in token of "acceptance of his
+most eminent services." This fact was duly blazoned in the Gazette,
+and Jeffreys was "esteemed a mighty favorite," which, "together with
+his lofty airs, made all the charters, like the walls of Jericho, fall
+down before him, and he returned, laden with surrenders, the spoil of
+towns."[77]
+
+[Footnote 77: 8 St. Tr. 1038, and the quotations from North (Examen.)
+Sprat, and Roger Coke, in note on p. 1041, _et seq._ See, too, Fox,
+James II. p. 48, 54, and Appendix, Barillon's Letter of Dec. 7th,
+1684.]
+
+London still remained the strong-hold of commerce, of the Protestant
+Religion, and of liberal Ideas in domestic Government; for though
+subsequently corrupted by lust of gain, which sought a monopoly, the
+great commercial estates and families of England were not then on the
+side of Despotism, as now strangely happens in America.
+
+When the king sought to ruin Shaftesbury,--a corrupt man doubtless,
+but then on the side of liberty, the enemy of encroaching
+despotism,--a London Grand-Jury refused to find a bill, and was warmly
+applauded by the city. Their verdict of IGNORAMUS was a "personal
+liberty bill" for that time, and therefore was the king's wrath
+exceeding hot, for "Ignoramus was mounted in Cathedra," and there was
+a stop put to such wickedness. So London must be brought down. She
+refused to surrender her Charter. In 1682 the king proceeded to wrest
+it from her by the purchased hand of the courts of law. But even they
+were not quite adequate to the work. So Chief Justice Pemberton was
+displaced, and Saunders,--a man as offensive in his personal habit of
+body as he was corrupt in conduct and character--was put in his
+office. Dolbin, too just for the crime demanded of him, was turned
+out, and Withins made to succeed him. For "so great a weight was there
+at stake as could not be trusted to men of doubtful principles," says
+North. Saunders, who had plotted this whole matter, was struck with an
+apoplexy when sentence was to be given, but sent his opinion in
+writing. Thus on the judgment given by only two judges, who assigned
+no reasons for their decision, it was declared that the Charter of
+London was forfeit, and the liberties and franchises of the city
+should "be seized into the king's hands."[78]
+
+[Footnote 78: 2 Hallam, 333; Burnet, Own Times (London, 1838), 350; 8
+St. Tr. 1039, 1081 note, 1267, _et seq._; 2 Campbell, Justices, 63;
+North's Examen. 626; Fox, 54.]
+
+Thus fell the charter of London! Gentlemen of the Jury, the same sword
+was soon to strike at the neck of New England; the charter of
+Massachusetts could not be safe in such a time.
+
+In 1686 James II. wished to destroy Protestantism,--not that he loved
+the Roman form of religion, but that tyranny which it would help him
+get and keep. So he claimed the right by his royal prerogative to
+dispense with any laws of the land. Of the twelve Judges of England
+eight were found on his side, and the four unexpectedly proven
+faithful were at once dismissed from office and their places filled
+with courtiers of the king, and the court was unanimous that the king
+had a constitutional right to destroy the constitution. Then he had
+not only command of the purses of his subjects and their bodies, but
+also of their mind and conscience, and could dictate the actual
+Religion of the People as well as the official "religion" of the
+priests.[79]
+
+[Footnote 79: 11 St. Tr. 1165; 12 Ibid. 358.]
+
+One State-secret lay at the bottom of the Stuarts' plans,--to appoint
+base men for judges, and if by accident a just man came upon the
+bench, to keep him in obscurity or to hustle him from his post. What
+names they offer us--Kelyng, Finch, Saunders, Wright, Jeffreys,
+Scroggs![80] infamous creatures, but admirable instruments to destroy
+generous men withal and devise means for the annihilation of the
+liberties of the people. Historians commonly dwell on the fields of
+battle, recording the victories of humanity, whereof the pike and gun
+were instruments; but pass idly over the more important warfare which
+goes on in the court house, only a few looking on, where lawyers are
+the champions of mankind, and the battle turns on a sentence; nay, on
+a word which determines the welfare of a nation for ages to come. On
+such little hinges of law do the great gates hang, and open or shut to
+let in the happiness or the ruin of millions of men! Naseby and
+Worcester are important places truly, venerable for great deeds.
+Cromwell and Blake are names not likely to perish while men can
+appreciate the heroism which sheds blood. But Westminster Hall has
+rung with more important thunder than cannon ever spoke, and Pym and
+Selden, St. John and Hampden--nay, Penn, Bunyan, Fox, Lilburne--have
+done great service for mankind. Gentlemen of the Jury, it is a matter
+of great magnitude which hinges on the small question of fact and law
+to-day. You are to open or shut for Humanity. If the People make
+themselves sheep there will be wolves enough to eat you up.
+
+[Footnote 80: This last name is thought to be extinct in Great
+Britain, but I find one Thomas Scruggs _in Massachusetts_ in 1635 _et
+post_, 1 Mass. Records (1628-1641), index.]
+
+It is difficult to calculate the amount of evil wrought by such
+corrupt judges as I have spoken of; they poison the fountains of
+society. I need not speak of monsters like Scroggs and Jeffreys, whose
+names rot in perpetual infamy, but creatures less ignoble, like
+Wright, Saunders, Finch, Kelyng, Thurlow, Loughborough, and their
+coadjutors, must be regarded as far more dangerous than thieves,
+murderers, or pirates. A cruel, insolent Judge selecting the worst
+customs, the most oppressive statutes, and decisions which outrage
+human nature--what an amount of evil he can inflict on groaning
+humanity!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, in this long sad history of judicial tyranny in
+England there is one thing particularly plain: such judges hate
+freedom of speech, they would restrict the Press, the Tongue, yes, the
+Thought of mankind. Especially do they hate any man who examines the
+actions of the government and its servile courts, and their violation
+of justice and the laws. They wish to take exemplary and malignant
+vengeance on all such. Let me freshen your knowledge of some examples.
+
+1. In 1410 the government made a decree "that whatsoever they were
+that should rede the Scriptures in the mother tongue, they should
+forfeit land, catel, body, lif, and godes from their heyres forever,
+and so be condempned for heretykes to God, enemies to the crowne, and
+most errant traiters to the land." The next year, in _one day
+thirty-nine persons were first hanged and then burned for this
+"crime."_[81]
+
+[Footnote 81: 1 St. Tr. 252.]
+
+2. In 1590, Mr. Udall, a Puritan minister, published a book,
+"Demonstrations of Discipline," not agreeable to the authorities. He
+was brought to a trial for a Felony,--not merely a "misdemeanor." The
+jury were ordered by the judge to find him guilty of that crime if
+they were satisfied that he published the book,--for the court were to
+judge whether the deed amounted to that crime! He was found "guilty,"
+and died in jail after nearly three years of cruel confinement.[82]
+
+[Footnote 82: 1 St. Tr. 1271; 1 Neal's Puritans (N.Y. 1844), 190. See
+16 Parl. Hist. 1276, where Mr. Dunning says this is the first example
+of such a charge to a jury.]
+
+3. In 1619 one Williams of Essex wrote a book explaining a passage in
+the book of Daniel as foretelling the death of James I. in 1621. He
+inclosed the manuscript in a box, sealed it, and secretly conveyed it
+to the king. For this he was tried for high treason, and of course
+executed. "_Punitur Affectus, licet non sequatur Effectus_," said the
+court, for "_Scribere est agere_," "Punish the wish though the object
+be not reached," for "writing is doing!"[83]
+
+[Footnote 83: 2 St. Tr. 1085.]
+
+4. In 1664 Mr. Keach, a Baptist, published a "Childs' Instructer, or a
+New and Easy Primmer," in which he taught the doctrines of his sect,
+"that children ought not to be baptized" but only adults; "that laymen
+may preach the gospel." He was brought before Lord Chief Justice Hyde,
+who after insulting the prisoner, thus charged the grand-jury:--"He is
+a base and dangerous fellow; and if this be suffered, children by
+learning of it will become such as he is, and therefore I hope you
+will do your duty." Of course such a jury indicted him. The "trial"
+took place before Judge Scroggs; the Jury were at first divided in
+opinion. "But," said the Judge, "you must agree!" So they found him
+guilty. He was fined "L20, twice set in the pillory, and bound to make
+public submission."[84]
+
+[Footnote 84: 7 St. Tr. 687.]
+
+5. In 1679 George Wakeman and others were tried for high treason
+before Scroggs, whose conduct was atrocious, and several pamphlets
+were published commenting on the ridiculous and absurd conduct of this
+functionary, "Lord Chief Justice Scroggs." One Richard Radley in a
+bantering talk had bid another man "Go to Weal Hall, to my Lord
+Scroggs, _for he has received money enough of Dr. Wakeman_!" Radley
+was indicted for "speaking scandalous words of Chief Justice Scroggs."
+Whereupon at the opening of the court that eminent officer, who did
+not disdain to wreak public and judicial vengeance on heads that
+wrought his private and personal grief, made a speech setting forth
+his magisterial opinions on the liberty of the press. Doubtless this
+court knows original authority for the opinions they follow; but for
+your instruction, Gentlemen of the Jury, I will give you the chief
+things in the judicial speech of Scroggs, Lord Chief Justice of the
+Supreme Court of England in 1679.[85]
+
+[Footnote 85: 6 St. Tr. 701; see Dunning in 16 Parl. Hist. 1276, _et
+seq._]
+
+     "For these hireling scribblers who traduce it [the fairness
+     and equality of the trial in which he had been notoriously
+     unfair and unequal], who write to eat, and lie for bread, I
+     intend to meet with them another way; for they are only safe
+     while they can be secret; but so are vermin, so long as they
+     can hide themselves.... They shall know that the law wants
+     not the power to punish a libellous and licentious press,
+     nor I a resolution to exact it. And this is all the answer
+     is fit to be given (besides a whip) to these hackney
+     writers." "However, in the mean time, the _extravagant
+     boldness of men's pens and tongues is not to be endured, but
+     shall be severely punished_; for if once causes come to be
+     tried with complacency to particular opinions, and shall be
+     innocently censured if they go otherwise, public causes
+     shall all receive the doom as the multitude happen to be
+     possessed; and at length any cause shall become public ...
+     at every session the Judges shall be arraigned, the Jury
+     condemned, and the verdicts overawed to comply with popular
+     wish and indecent shouts."
+
+     "There are a set of men ... that too much approve and
+     countenance such vulgar ways, ... that embrace all sorts of
+     informations, true or false, likely or impossible, nay
+     though never so silly and ridiculous, they refuse none; so
+     shall all addresses be made to them, and they be looked on
+     as the only patrons of religion and government!"
+
+His associates chimed in with accordant howl. Puny Judge Jones
+declared,--
+
+     "We have a particular case here before us, as a matter of
+     scandal against a great Judge, the _greatest Judge in the
+     kingdom_, in criminal causes [the Lord Chancellor Nottingham
+     was greater in _civil_ causes]; and it is a great and an
+     high charge upon him. And certainly there was never any age,
+     I think, more licentious than this in aspersing governors,
+     scattering of libels and _scandalous speeches against those
+     that are in authority_: and without all doubt _it doth
+     become the court to show their zeal in suppressing it_." [It
+     was 'resisting an officer.'] "That trial [of Dr. Wakeman]
+     was managed with _exact justice and perfect integrity_. And
+     therefore I do think it very fit that this person be
+     proceeded against by an information, that he may be made _a
+     public example_ to all such as shall presume to scandalize
+     the government, and the governors, with any false aspersions
+     and accusations."
+
+Accordingly Mr. Radley, for that act, was convicted of speaking
+"scandalous words against the Lord Chief Justice Scroggs" and fined
+L200.[86]
+
+[Footnote 86: 7 St. Tr. 701.]
+
+Mr. Hudson says of the Star-Chamber, "So tender the court is of
+upholding the honor of the sentence, as they will punish them who
+speak against it with great severity."[87]
+
+[Footnote 87: In 2 Collectanea Juridica, 228.]
+
+6. In 1680 Benjamin Harris, a bookseller, sold a work called "An
+Appeal from the country to the city for the Preservation of his
+Majesty's Person, Liberty, Property, and the Protestant Religion." He
+was brought to trial for a libel, before Recorder Jeffreys and Chief
+Justice Scroggs who instructed the jury they were only to inquire _if
+Harris sold the book_, and if so, find him "guilty." It was for the
+court to determine what was a libel. He was fined five hundred pounds
+and placed in the pillory; the Chief Justice wished that he might be
+also whipped.[88]
+
+[Footnote 88: 7 St. Tr. 925.]
+
+7. The same year Henry Carr was brought to trial. He published a
+periodical--"the Weekly Packet of advice from Rome, or the History of
+Popery"--hostile to Romanism. Before the case came to court, Scroggs
+prohibited the publication on his own authority. Mr. Carr was
+prosecuted for a libel before the same authority, and of course found
+guilty. The character of that court also was judgment against natural
+right. Jane Curtis and other women were in like manner punished for
+speaking or publishing words against the same "great judge."[89] And
+it was held to be a "misdemeanor" to publish a book reflecting on the
+justice of the nation--the truer the book the worse the libel! It was
+"obstructing an officer," and of course it was a greater offence to
+"obstruct" him with Justice and Truth than with wrong and lies. The
+greater the justice of the act the more dangerous the "crime!" If the
+language did not hit any one person it was "malice against all
+mankind."
+
+[Footnote 89: 7 St. Tr. 1111, 959; 4 Parl. Hist. 1274.]
+
+8. In 1684 Sir Samuel Barnardiston was brought to trial charged with a
+"High Misdemeanor." He had written three private letters to be
+sent--it was alleged--by post to his friend, also a private man. The
+letters do not appear designed for any further publication or use;
+they related to matters of news, the events of the day and comments
+thereon, and spoke in praise of Algernon Sidney and Lord Russell who
+were so wickedly beheaded about the time the letters were written. It
+would require a microscopic eye to detect any evil lurking there.
+Jeffreys presided at the trial, and told the jury:--
+
+     "The letters are _factious, seditious, and malicious
+     letters, and as base as the worst of mankind could ever have
+     invented_." "And if he be guilty of it--the greater the man
+     is the greater the crime, and the more understanding he has,
+     the more malicious he seems to be; for your little ordinary
+     sort of people, that are of common mean understanding, they
+     may be wheedled and drawn in, and surprised into such
+     things; but men of a public figure and of some value in the
+     world that have been taken to be men of the greatest
+     interest and reputation in a party, it cannot be thought a
+     hidden surprise upon them; no, it is a work of time and
+     thought, it is a thing fixed in his very nature, and it
+     _shows so much venom as would make one think the whole mass
+     of his blood were corrupt_." "Here is the matter he is now
+     accused of, and here is in it malice against the king,
+     malice against the government, malice against both Church
+     and State, malice against any man that bears any share in
+     the government, indeed malice against all mankind that are
+     not of the same persuasion with these bloody miscreants."
+     "Here is ... the sainting of two horrid conspirators! Here
+     is the Lord Russell sainted, that blessed martyr; Lord
+     Russell, that good man, that excellent Protestant, he is
+     lamented! And here is Mr. Sidney sainted, what an
+     extraordinary man he was! Yes, surely he was a very good
+     man--and it is a shame to think that such bloody miscreants
+     should be sainted and lamented who had any hand in that
+     horrid murder [the execution of Charles I.] and treason ...
+     who could confidently bless God for their being engaged in
+     that good cause (as they call it) which was the rebellion
+     which brought that blessed martyr to his death. It is high
+     time for all mankind that have any Christianity, or fear of
+     Heaven or Hell, to bestir themselves, to rid the nation of
+     such caterpillars, such monsters of villany as those are!"
+
+Of course the packed jury found him guilty; he was fined L10,000.[90]
+
+[Footnote 90: 7 St. Tr. 1333.]
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, such judges, with such kings and cabinets, have
+repeatedly brought the dearest rights of mankind into imminent peril.
+Sad indeed is the condition of a nation where Thought is not free,
+where the lips are sewed together, and the press is chained! Yet the
+evil which has ruined Spain and made an Asia Minor of Papal Italy,
+once threatened England. Nay, Gentlemen of the Jury, it required the
+greatest efforts of her noblest sons to vindicate for you and me the
+right to print, to speak, to think. Milton's "Speech for the Liberty
+of unlicensed Printing" is one monument of the warfare which lasted
+from Wicliffe to Thomas Carlyle. But other monuments are the fines and
+imprisonment, the exile and the beheading of men and women! Words are
+"sedition," "rebellion," "treason;" nay, even now at least in New
+England, a true word is a "Misdemeanor," it is "obstructing an
+officer." At how great cost has our modern liberty of speech been
+purchased! Answer John Lilburne, answer William Prynn, and Selden, and
+Eliot, and Hampden, and the other noble men who
+
+     ----"in the public breach devoted stood,
+     And for their country's cause were prodigal of blood."
+
+Answer Fox and Bunyan, and Penn and all the host of Baptists,
+Puritans, Quakers, martyrs, and confessors--it is by your stripes that
+we are healed! Healed! are we healed? Ask the court if it be not a
+"misdemeanor" to say so!
+
+A despotic government hates implacably the freedom of the press. In
+1680 the Lord Chief Justice of England declared the opinion of the
+twelve judges "indeed all subscribe that to _print or publish any
+news-books, or pamphlets of news whatsoever, is illegal; that it is a
+manifest intent to the breach of the peace_, and they may be proceeded
+against by law for an illegal thing." "And that is for a public notice
+to all people, and especially printers and booksellers, that _they
+ought to print no book or pamphlet of news whatsoever without
+authority;" "they shall be punished if they do it without authority_,
+though there is nothing reflecting on the government."[91] Judge
+Scroggs was right--it was "resisting an officer," at least
+"obstructing" him in his wickedness. In England, says Lord Campbell,
+the name and family of Scroggs are both extinct. So much the worse for
+you and me, Gentlemen. The Scroggses came over to America; they
+settled in Massachusetts, they thrive famously in Boston; only the
+name is changed.
+
+[Footnote 91: 7 St. Tr. 1127.]
+
+In 1731 Sir Philip Yorke, attorney-general, solemnly declared that an
+editor is "_not to publish any thing reflecting on the character and
+reputation and administration of his Majesty or his Ministers_;" "if
+he breaks that law, or exceeds that liberty of the press he is to _be
+punished for it_." Where did he get his law--in the third year of
+Edward I., in A.D. 1275! But that statute of the Dark Ages was held
+good law in 1731; and it seems to be thought good law in 1855! And the
+attorney who affirmed the atrocious principle, soon became Chief
+Justice, a "consummate judge," a Peer, Lord Hardwicke, and Lord
+Chancellor![92] Lord Mansfield had not a much higher opinion of the
+liberty of the press; indeed, in all libel cases, he assumed it was
+exclusively the function of the judges to determine whether the words
+published contained malicious or seditious matter, the jury were only
+to find the fact of publication.[93] Thus the party in power with
+their Loughboroughs, their Thurlows, their Jeffreys, their
+Scroggs--shall I add also American names--are the exclusive judges as
+to what shall be published relating to the party in power--their
+Loughboroughs, their Thurlows, their Jeffreys and their Scroggs, or
+their analogous American names! It was the free press of
+England--Elizabeth invoked it--which drove back the "invincible
+Armada;" this which stayed the tide of Papal despotism; this which
+dyked the tyranny of Louis XIV. out from Holland. Aye, it was this
+which the Stuarts, with their host of attendants, sought to break down
+and annihilate for ever;[94] which Thurlow and Mansfield so formidably
+attacked, and which now in America--but the American aspect of the
+matter must not now be looked in the face.
+
+[Footnote 92: 17 St. Tr. 674; 5 Campbell, 57; Hildreth's Despotism,
+199.]
+
+[Footnote 93: 20 St. Tr. 900. But see 28 St. Tr. 595, and 16 Parl.
+Hist. 1211.]
+
+[Footnote 94: For the frequency of trials for words spoken in Charles
+II.'s reign of terror, see the extracts from Narcissus Luttrel's Brief
+Historical Relation, 10 St. Tr. 125.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But spite of all these impediments in the way of liberty, the voice of
+humanity could not be forever silenced. Now and then a virtuous and
+high-minded judge appeared in office--like Hale or Holt, Camden or
+Erskine. Even in the worst times there were noble men who lifted up
+their voices. Let me select two examples from men not famous, but
+whose names, borne by other persons, are still familiar to this court.
+
+In 1627 Sir Robert Phillips, member for Somersetshire, in his place in
+Parliament, thus spoke against the advance of despotism:[95]--
+
+[Footnote 95: 1 Rushworth, 502.]
+
+     "I read of a custom among the old Romans, that once every
+     year they had a solemn feast for their slaves; at which they
+     had liberty, without exception, to speak what they would,
+     thereby to ease their afflicted minds; which being finished,
+     they severally returned to their former servitude. This may,
+     with some resemblance and distinction, well set forth our
+     present state; where now, after the revolution of some time,
+     and grievous sufferance of many violent oppressions, we
+     have, as those slaves had, a day of liberty of speech; but
+     shall not, I trust, be hereafter slaves, for we are free:
+     yet what new illegal proceedings our estates and persons
+     have suffered under, my heart yearns to think, my tongue
+     falters to utter. They have been well represented by divers
+     worthy gentlemen before me; yet one grievance, and the main
+     one, as I conceive, hath not been touched, which is our
+     Religion: religion, Mr. Speaker, made vendible by
+     commission, and men, for pecuniary annual rates, dispensed
+     withal; Judgments of law against our liberty there have been
+     three; each latter stepping forwarder than the former, upon
+     the Rights of the Subject; aiming, in the end, to tread and
+     trample underfoot our law, and that even in the form of
+     law."
+
+     "The first was the Judgment of the Postnati, (the Scots,)
+     ... The second was the Judgment upon Impositions, in the
+     Exchequer Court by the barons; which hath been the source
+     and fountain of many bitter waters of affliction unto our
+     merchants." "The third was that fatal late Judgment against
+     the Liberty of the Subject imprisoned by the king, argued
+     and pronounced but by one judge alone." "I can live,
+     although another who has no right be put to live with me;
+     nay, I can live although I pay excises and impositions more
+     than I do; but to have my liberty, which is the soul of my
+     life, taken from me by power; and to have my body pent up in
+     a gaol, without remedy by law, and to be so adjudged: O
+     improvident ancestors! O unwise forefathers! To be so
+     curious in providing for the quiet possession of our lands,
+     and the liberties of Parliament; and to neglect our persons
+     and bodies, and to let them lie in prison, and that _durante
+     bene placito_, remediless! If this be law, why do we talk of
+     liberties? Why do we trouble ourselves with a dispute about
+     law, franchises, property of goods, and the like? What may
+     any man call his own, if not the Liberty of his Person? I am
+     weary of treading these ways."[96]
+
+[Footnote 96: 2 Parl. Hist. 232. See also 441, 471. He had been thrown
+into the Tower by James in 1624. Cabbala (3d Ed.), 311.]
+
+In 1641 Sir Philip Parker, Knight of the Shire for Suffolk, in his
+place in Parliament, thus spoke:--
+
+     "The cries of the people have come up to me; the voice of
+     the whole nation tingles in my ears." "'Tis true, I confess,
+     we have tormented ourselves with daily troubles and
+     vexations, and have been very solicitous for the welfare of
+     the Commonwealth; but what have we performed, what have we
+     perfected? Mr. Speaker, excuse my zeal in this case; for my
+     mouth cannot imprison what my mind intends to let out;
+     neither can my tongue conceal what my heart desires to
+     promulge. Behold the Archbishop [Laud], that great
+     incendiary of this kingdom, lies now like a firebrand raked
+     up in the embers; but if ever he chance to blaze again I am
+     afraid that what heretofore he had but in a spark, he will
+     burn down to the ground in a full flame. Wherefore let us
+     begin, for the kingdom is pregnant with expectation on this
+     point. I confess there are many more delinquents, for the
+     judges and other knights walk _in querpo_; but they are only
+     thunderbolts forged in Canterbury's fire."[97]
+
+[Footnote 97: Parl. Hist. 867.]
+
+Six of the wicked judges were soon brought to trial.[98]
+
+[Footnote 98: 1 Rushworth, 502.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This same threefold experiment of despotism which was attempted in
+England, was tried also in America by the same tyrannical hand. Here,
+also, the encroaching power put creatures of its arbitrary will in
+judicial offices; they then by perverting the laws, punished the
+patriots, and next proceeded to destroy the best institutions of the
+land itself. Here I shall take but a few examples, selected from the
+colonial history of our own New England.
+
+After capturing the great fortress of freedom at home, by taking away
+the charter of London, Charles proceeded to destroy the freedom of the
+colonies; the Charter of Massachusetts was wrested from us on a _quo
+warranto_ in 1683,[99] and the colony lay at the feet of the monarch.
+In privy council it had already been determined that our rights should
+be swept into the hands of some greedy official from the court.[100]
+In 1686 James II. sent Sir Edmund Andros to New England as a
+"Commissioner" to destroy the liberty of the people. He came to Boston
+in the "Kingfisher, a fifty gun ship," and brought two companies of
+British soldiers, the first ever stationed in this town to dragoon the
+people into submission to an unrighteous law. Edward Randolph, the
+most determined enemy of the colony, greedily caressing the despotic
+hands that fed him, was his chief coadjutor and assistant, his
+secretary, in that wicked work. Andros was authorized to appoint his
+own council, and with their consent enact laws, levy taxes, to
+organize and command the militia. He was to enforce the hateful "Acts
+of Trade." He appointed a council to suit the purpose of his royal
+master, to whom no opposition was allowed. Dudley, the new Chief
+Justice, told the people who appealed to Magna Charta, "they must not
+think the privileges of Englishmen would follow them to the end of the
+world." Episcopacy was introduced; no marriages were to "be allowed
+lawful but such as were made by the minister of the Church of
+England." Accordingly, all must come to Boston to be married, for
+there was no Episcopal minister out of its limits. It was proposed
+that the Puritan Churches should pay the Episcopal salary, and the
+Congregational worship be prohibited. He threatened to punish any man
+"who gave two pence" toward the support of a Non-conformist minister.
+All fees to officers of the new government were made exorbitantly
+great. Only one Probate office was allowed in the Province, that was
+in Boston; and one of the creatures of despotic power was,
+prophetically, put in it. Andros altered the old form of oaths, and
+made the process of the courts to suit himself.
+
+[Footnote 99: See the steps of the process in 1 Hutchinson, (Salem,
+1795,) 297; 8 St. Tr. 1068, note.]
+
+[Footnote 100: Barillon to Louis XIV. in Fox's Appendix, p. vii., _et
+seq._ In 1685 Halifax, who had been friendly to the rights of the
+colonies, was dismissed from his office; Sunderland, their enemy, had
+a pension from Louis XIV. of L5,000 or L6,000 a year; p. cxxvii.,
+cxxx. _et seq._, cxliii., cxlviii. Not the last instance of a high
+functionary pensioned by a foreign hand!]
+
+He sought to wrest the charters from the Colonies; that of Rhode
+Island fell into his hands; Connecticut escaped by a "miracle:"
+
+     "The Charter-Oak--it was the tree
+     That saved our sacred Liberty."
+
+The Charter government of Plymouth was suspended. Massachusetts was
+put under arbitrary despotism. Towns were forbidden to meet, except
+for the choice of officers; there must be no deliberation; "discussion
+must be suppressed." He was to levy all the taxes; he assessed a
+penny in the pound in all the towns. Rev. John Wise, one of the
+ministers of Ipswich, advised the people to resist the tax.
+"Democracy," said he, "is Christ's government in Church and State; we
+have a good God and a good king; we shall do well to stand to our
+privileges." One of the Council said, "_You have no privileges left
+you, but not to be sold as slaves._" Even that was not likely to last
+long. The town of Ipswich refused to pay the tax, because invalid; the
+governor having no authority to tax the people: "they will petition
+the King for liberty of an assembly before they make any rates." The
+minister and five others were arrested; they had "obstructed an
+officer." The Rev. Mr. Wise was guiltiest of all; he did it with a
+word, an idea. They were brought to Boston, and thrown into jail, "for
+contempt and high misdemeanors." They claimed the _habeas corpus_;
+Chief Justice Dudley refused it, on the ground that it did not extend
+to America! They were tried before a packed jury, and such a court as
+James II. was delighted to honor. The patriots plead the laws of
+England and Magna Charta. It was all in vain. "I am glad," said the
+judge to his packed jury, "there be so many worthy gentlemen of the
+jury, so capable to do the king service; and we expect a good verdict
+from you, seeing the matter hath been so sufficiently proved against
+the _criminals_." The jury of course found them guilty. They were
+fined from L15 to L50 a piece. The whole cost to the six was over
+L400. "It is not for his majesty's interest that you should thrive,"
+said one of those petty tyrants,--a tide-water of despotism.[101]
+
+[Footnote 101: 1 Hutch. 316; 2 Hildreth, Hist. 108; 2 Bancroft, 425;
+Washburn, Judicial Hist. of Mass. 105; Drake's Boston, ch. L.]
+
+Andros denied the colonial title to lands, claiming that as the
+charter was declared void, all the lands held under its authority
+escheated to the crown,--"The calf died in the cow's belly." A deed of
+purchase from the Indians was "worth no more than the scratch of a
+bear's paw." "The men of Massachusetts did much quote Lord Coke" for
+their titles: but Rev. John Higginson, minister of the first church in
+Salem, the son of the first minister ever ordained in New
+England,--and ancestor of this noble-hearted man [Rev. T.W. Higginson]
+who is now also indicted for a "misdemeanor,"--found other laws for
+their claim, and insisted on the citizens' just and natural right to
+the lands they had reclaimed from the wilderness.[102] Andros said,
+"You are either subjects, or else you are rebels;" and in either case,
+their lands would be forfeit.
+
+[Footnote 102: 1 Felt's Salem, 24; 2 Ib. 542; Felt's Ipswich, 123, _et
+seq._; Gage's Rowley, 157, _et seq._; Sullivan's Land Titles, 54.]
+
+Andros hated freedom of speech and of thought. He was to allow no
+unlicensed printing. Randolph was appointed censor of the press, and
+ordered the printer to publish nothing without his approbation, nor
+"any almanac whatever." There must be but one town meeting in a year,
+and no "deliberation" at that; no "agitation," no discussion of
+grievances. There must be no preaching on the acts of the government.
+Rev. Dr. Increase Mather, one of the ablest men in the Colonies, was
+the special object of his hate. Randolph advised the authorities to
+forbid any non-conformist minister to land in New England without the
+special consent of the governor, and that he should restrain such as
+he saw fit to silence. The advice was not lost on such willing ears.
+John Gold, of Topsfield, was tried for "treasonable words," and fined
+fifty pounds--a great deal more at Topsfield in 1687, than "three
+hundred dollars" is now in Boston. Rev. Increase Mather had opposed
+the surrender of the Charter of Massachusetts, and published his
+reasons; but with such prudence, for he was careful how he "evinced an
+express liking" for justice, that it was difficult to take hold of
+him. So the friends of government forged a letter with his name, to a
+person in Amsterdam. Randolph showed the letter to persons whom he
+wished to prejudice against the alleged writer. When Mr. Mather
+learned the facts, he wrote a letter to a friend, clearing himself,
+and charging the forgery on Randolph or his brother. Randolph brought
+his action for a libel, claiming L500 damages. But it came to
+nothing--then. Now times are changed!
+
+Col. Pynchon, of Springfield, one of the officers in this new state of
+things, was empowered to bind over all persons suspected of riots,
+"outrageous or abusive _reflecting words and speeches against the
+government_." "The spirit of justice was banished from the courts that
+bore the name."[103]
+
+[Footnote 103: Hutch. 327; Washburn, ibid.]
+
+But notwithstanding the attempt to stifle speech, a great tall
+minister at Rowley, called Andros "a wicked man!" For that offence he
+was seized and put in prison! He, also, like Higginson, is represented
+in this court by one of his own name; and the same inextinguishable
+religious fire which burned in the bosom of Robert in Old England, and
+from Samuel in New England flashed into the commissioned face of
+Andros, now lightens at this bench from the eyes of WENDELL PHILLIPS,
+who confers new glory on his much-honored ancestor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, you know how this wickedness was brought to an
+end. If the courts would not decree Justice, there was a rougher way
+of reaching it, and having it done. Civil war, revolution by violence,
+came in place of the simple forms of equity, which the judges had set
+at nought. William of Orange, a most valiant son-in-law, drove the
+foul tyrant of Old England from that Island, where the Stuarts have
+ever since been only "Pretenders;" and on the 19th of April, 1689, the
+people of Massachusetts had the tyrant of New England put solemnly in
+jail! We were rid of that functionary for ever, and all such
+"commissioners" have been held odious in New England ever since the
+days of Andros. Eighty-six years later came another 19th of April,
+also famous. Well said Secretary Randolph, "Andros has to do with a
+perverse people,"--they would not bow to such tyranny in 1689. But he
+afterwards became a quite acceptable governor in Virginia,--where, I
+doubt not, he has descendants in African bondage at this day.
+
+Catholic James II. sought to establish arbitrary power in America, as
+in England, by his prerogative--the Omnipotence of the King; he
+failed; the high-handed despotism of the Stuarts went to the ground.
+The next attempt at the same thing was by the legislature--the
+Omnipotence of Parliament--for a several-headed despotism took the
+place of the old, and ruled at home with milder sway. It tried its
+hand in America; there were no more requisitions from a king hostile
+to the Colonies, but acts of Parliament took their place. After the
+French power in North America had given way, the British government
+sought to tame down and break in the sturdy son, who had grown up in
+the woods so big and rough, as obstinate as his father. Here are three
+measures of subjugation, all flowing from the same fountain of
+Principle--vicarious government by a feudal superior.
+
+1. All the chief colonial officers were to be appointed by the king,
+to hold office during his pleasure, to receive their pay from him.
+Such was the tenure of the executive officers who had a veto on all
+colonial legislation, and of the judicial officers. Thus the power of
+making and administering the laws fell from the people distributed
+everywhere, into the hands of the distant government centralized in
+the King.
+
+2. A standing army of British soldiers must be kept in the Colonies to
+overawe the people, and enforce the laws thus made and administered.
+
+3. A revenue was to be raised from the Colonies themselves--from which
+the King would pay his officers and provide for his army that enforced
+his laws. The eagle is to feather the arrow which shoots him in mid
+heaven.
+
+Thus law was a threefold cord wherewith to bind the strong Puritan.
+But his eyes were not put out--not then. Blindness came at a later
+day--when he had laid his head in the lap of a not attractive
+Delilah. With such judges and governors, backed by a standing army of
+hirelings--how soon would her liberty go down, and the Anglo-American
+States resemble Spanish America!
+
+In 1760 Francis Bernard was made governor of Massachusetts, and thus
+officially put at the head of the Judiciary, a man wholly devoted to
+the Crown, expecting to be made a baronet! He did not wish an annual
+election of councillors, but wanted the sovereign power to enforce its
+decrees by violent measures. Thus Thomas Hutchinson was made Chief
+Justice in 1760, and afterwards Lieutenant-Governor,--continually
+hostile to the constitution of his native land. Thus Andrew
+Oliver--"Governor Oliver," "hungry for office and power," was
+appointed Secretary, Commissioner of Stamps and Lieutenant-Governor;
+and Peter Oliver--"Judge Oliver"--though not bred a lawyer, was made
+Chief Justice, the man who refused to receive his salary from the
+treasury of Massachusetts, preferring the money of the crown which
+owned him. In the revolutionary times of the _five Judges of
+Massachusetts four were Tories_!
+
+Accordingly, when the Stamp Act was passed--22d March, 1765--there
+were Judicial officers in the Colonies ready to declare it
+"constitutional;" executive magistrates ready to carry out any
+measures intrusted to them. "I will cram the stamps down their throat
+with the end of my sword," said an officer at New York. Governor
+Bernard wanted soldiers sent to Boston to enforce submission; so did
+Hutchinson and "Governor Oliver." The Governor of New York thought,
+"if _Judges be sent from England_, with an able attorney-general and
+solicitor-general to _make examples of some very few_, the Colony will
+remain quiet."[104]
+
+[Footnote 104: 5 Bancroft, 358.]
+
+In 1768 John Hancock was arrested at Boston--for a "misdemeanor;" I
+suppose, "obstructing an officer," or some such offence.[105] The
+government long sought to procure indictments against James Otis--who
+was so busy in fencing out despotism--Samuel Adams, and several other
+leading friends of the colony. But I suppose the judge did not succeed
+in getting his brother-in-law put on the grand-jury, and so the scheme
+fell through. No indictment for that "misdemeanor" then. Boston had
+the right men to do any thing for the crown, but they did not contrive
+to get upon the grand-jury.
+
+[Footnote 105: 6 Bancroft, 213.]
+
+The King, it was George III., in his parliament, spoke of the Patriots
+of Boston, as "those turbulent and seditious persons." In the House of
+Commons, Stanley called Boston an "insolent town;" its inhabitants
+"must be treated as aliens;" its "charter and laws must be so changed
+as to give the King the appointment of the Council, and to the
+_sheriffs the sole power of returning jurors_;" then the Stamp Act
+could be carried out, and a revenue raised without the consent of the
+people. The plan was admirably laid; an excellent counsel! Suppose, as
+a pure conjecture, an hypothesis of illustration--that there were in
+Boston a fugitive slave bill court, eager to kidnap men and so gain
+further advancement from the slave power, which alone distributes the
+federal offices; suppose the court should appoint its creatures,
+relatives, nay, its uterine brother--its brother in birth--as fugitive
+slave bill commissioners to hunt men; and then should get its
+matrimonial brother--its brother-in-law--on the grand-jury to indict
+all who resisted the fugitive slave bill! You see, gentlemen, what an
+admirable opportunity there would be to accomplish most manifold and
+atrocious wickedness. This supposed case exactly describes what was
+contemplated by the British authorities in the last century! Only,
+Gentlemen, it was so unlucky as not to succeed; nay, Gentlemen, as to
+fail--then! Such accidents will happen in the best of histories!
+
+It was moved in Parliament to address the king "to bring to condign
+punishment" such men as Otis and Adams and Hancock. Chief Justice
+Hutchinson declared Samuel Adams "_the greatest incendiary in the
+king's dominions_." Hutchinson was right for once. Samuel Adams lit a
+fire which will burn on Boston Common on the Fourth day of next July,
+Gentlemen, and on many other commons besides Boston. Aye, in the heart
+of many million men--and keep on burning long after Hutchinson ceases
+to be remembered with hate, and Adams with love. "The greatest
+incendiary!" so he was. Hutchinson also thought there must be "an
+Abridgment of what are called English Liberties," doubtless the
+liberty of speaking in Faneuil Hall, and other meeting-houses was one
+"of what are called English Liberties" that needed speedy abridgment.
+He wished the law of treason to be extended so that it might catch all
+the patriots of Boston by the neck. He thought it treasonable to deny
+the authority of Parliament.[106] Men suspected of "misdemeanors" were
+to be sent to England for trial! What a "trial" it would have
+been--Hancock and Adams in Westminster Hall with a jury packed by the
+government; Thurlow acting as Attorney-General, and another Thurlow
+growling on the bench and expecting further office as pay for fresh
+injustice! Truly there would have been an "abridgment of English
+Liberties." Gentlemen of the Jury, Mr. Phillips and Mr. Higginson in
+this case are charged with "obstructing an officer." Suppose they were
+sent to South Carolina to be tried by a jury of Slaveholders, or
+still worse, without change of place, to be tried by a court deadly
+hostile to freedom,--wresting law and perverting justice and
+"enlarging testimony," personally inimical to these gentlemen; suppose
+that the Slave-hunter whose "process" was alleged to be resisted, was
+kinsman to the court, and the judge had a near relation put on the
+jury--what opportunity would there be for justice; what expectation of
+it? Gentlemen of the Jury, that is the state of things which the
+despots of England wanted to bring about by sending Hancock and Adams
+over seas for trial! Bernard, Oliver, and Hutchinson were busy in
+getting evidence against the Patriots of New England, especially
+against Adams. Affidavits were sent out to England to prove that he
+was a fit subject to be transported for "trial" there. And an old
+statute was found from the enlightened reign of Henry VIII.
+authorizing that mode of trial in case of such "misdemeanor."
+Commissary Chew wished that two thirds of the lawyers and printers
+were shipped off to Africa "for at least seven years." Edes and Gill,
+patriotic printers in Boston, and "all the authors of numberless
+treasonable and seditious writings," were to go with them.[107] They
+were all guilty, very guilty! Gentlemen of the Jury, they committed
+"misdemeanors," they "obstructed officers," they resisted the process
+of despotism! But alas--
+
+     "The Dog it was that died."
+
+[Footnote 106: 6 Bancroft, 250, 251, 291; Sabine's Loyalists, 207, _et
+al._]
+
+[Footnote 107: 6 Bancroft, 250, 251, 291; Sabine's Loyalists, 207, _et
+al._]
+
+Edes and Gill never saw Africa; the patriotic lawyers and printers
+made no reluctant voyage to England.
+
+     "The Dog it was that died."
+
+Bernard, Hutchinson, Oliver, and their coadjutors went over the seas
+for punishment after being tried at home by a Law older than the
+statute of Henry VIII.; a law not yet repealed, Gentlemen, the Higher
+Law which God wrote ineffaceably in the hearts of mankind; and
+indignant America pronounced sentence--Tories, Traitors! Commissary
+Chew learned a lesson at Saratoga in 1777. And the Franklins, the
+Mayhews, the Hancocks, the Adamses, they also were tried at home, and
+not found wanting; and the verdict! Gentlemen of the Jury, you know
+what verdict America has pronounced on these men and their kinsfolk!
+There is only one spot in the United States where the Hutchinsons, the
+Olivers, the Bernards are honored,--that is where the Adamses, the
+Hancocks, the Mayhews, and the Franklins, with the principles of
+justice they gave their lives to, are held in contempt! Where is the
+one spot, that speck of foreign dirt in the clean American garden? It
+is where the Democratic Herod and the Whig Pilate are made friends
+that they may crucify the Son of Man, the Desire of all nations, the
+Spirit of Humanity--it is the court of the Fugitive Slave Bill judges,
+the Gabbatha of the Kidnappers. Look there!
+
+In 1765 it was too late to conquer America. What Andros and Randolph
+could accomplish in 1686 with their sixty soldiers, could not be done
+in 1768 with all the red coats Britain could send out: nor in 1778
+with all the Hessians she could purchase. The 19th of April, 1689,
+foretold another 19th of April--as that many to-morrows after to-day!
+In the House of Lords Camden and Pitt thought Parliament not
+omnipotent.[108] Samuel Adams declared "Acts of Parliament against
+natural equity are void;" prayed that "Boston might become a Christian
+Sparta," and looked to the Law of an Omnipotence somewhat higher than
+a king or a court. He not only had Justice, but also the People on his
+side. What came of that last attempt of the last king of New England
+to establish a despotism here? The same, Gentlemen, which will
+ultimately come of all such attempts.
+
+[Footnote 108: 16 Parl. Hist. 168, 195, 658.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, there is one great obstacle which despotism has
+found in Anglo-Saxon lands, steadily opposing its steady attempts to
+destroy the liberties of the People. It is easy for the controlling
+power, which represents the Centripetal Tendency of the Nation, to
+place its corrupt and servile creatures in judicial offices, vested
+with power to fine, to imprison, and to kill; it is then easy for them
+to determine on the destruction of all such friends of Justice and
+Humanity as represent the Centrifugal Tendency of the Nation; and with
+such judicial instruments it is not difficult to wrest and pervert law
+in order to crush the Patriots, and construct a word into "Treason,"
+or "evincing express approbation" into a "Misdemeanor," "resisting an
+officer." And if the final decision rested with such a court, it would
+be exceeding easy to make way with any man whom the judge's private
+malignity or the public vengeance of his master, wished to smite and
+kill. But in the Anglo-Saxon people there is one institution, old,
+venerable, and well-beloved, which has stood for two thousand years,
+the great Fortress of Freedom. Thank God, Gentlemen, it still stands.
+Neither British Kings nor American Slave-drivers have yet brought it
+to the ground. Of this I must now say a word.
+
+
+III. OF THE GREAT SAFEGUARD WHICH HAS BEEN FOUND SERVICEABLE IN
+PROTECTING DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS AND THE RIGHTS OF MAN THEY ARE
+DESIGNED TO DEFEND.--OF THE TRIAL BY JURY.
+
+This is an invaluable protection against two classes of foes to the
+welfare of mankind.
+
+1. Against such as would commit offences upon the property or persons
+of men, without law and contrary to the form of law,--against common
+criminals of all denominations. Against such it is a sword--to resist
+and punish.
+
+2. Against such as would commit offences upon the property or persons
+of men, with the form of law and by means of its machinery,--against
+unjust legislators, corrupt Judges, and wicked magistrates; against
+such it is a shield defending the public head.
+
+In all the States of Anglo-Saxon origin there are two great popular
+institutions--Democratic Legislation and Democratic Administration of
+Law.
+
+In the process of its historical development the first has come to the
+representative form of democratic legislation,--popular law-making by
+a body of sworn delegates met in an Assembly, local or federal,
+subject to a constitution, written or only traditional, which is the
+People's Power of Attorney, authorizing them to do certain matters and
+things pertinent to law-making. These are a Jury of general
+Law-makers.
+
+In its process of historical development, the second has also come to
+a representative form, that of democratic application of law, popular
+law-applying, by a body of sworn delegates, that is a Court, subject
+to a constitution and laws, written or only traditional, which are the
+People's Power of Attorney authorizing them to do certain matters and
+things pertinent to law-applying. These are a Jury of special
+Law-appliers.
+
+Neither of them as yet has reached its perfect and ultimate form; both
+are still in a state of transition. These two are the most valuable
+institutional safeguards against unorganized selfishness in the
+community,--against thieves, robbers, murderers, traitors, and the
+like; against the organized selfishness which gets into places of
+delegated power, and would misuse the Form of law so as to prevent the
+People from attaining the Purpose of law.
+
+There is also a body of men intermediate between the two,--the
+Law-Explainers, the Judges. Speaking theoretically they are not
+ultimately either Law-makers or Law-appliers, yet practically, in
+their legitimate function, they certainly have much to do with both
+the making and applying of laws. For it is their business, not only
+to preside at all trials, and determine many subordinate questions of
+mere form to expedite the process, but also from the whole mass of
+laws, oral or written, statutes and customs, to select such particular
+laws as they think require special attention,--this is like the work
+of law-makers; and also, in their charges to the grand and petty
+Juries, to suggest the execution thereof in such cases as the times
+may bring,--this like the work of the law-appliers.
+
+The good judge continually modifies the laws of his country to the
+advantage of mankind. He leaves bad statutes, which aim at or would
+promote injustice, to sleep till themselves become obsolete, or
+parries their insidious thrusts at humanity; he selects good statutes
+which enact natural Justice into positive law; and mixes his own fresh
+instincts of humanity with the traditional institutions of the age.
+All this his official function requires of him--for his oath to keep
+and administer the laws binds him to look to the Purpose of Law--which
+is the Eternal Justice of God,--as well as to each special statute.
+Besides, after the Jury declares a man guilty, the Judge has the power
+to fix the quantity and sometimes the quality of his punishment. And
+the discretion of a great noble man will advance humanity.
+
+In this way a good Judge may do a great service to mankind, and
+correct the mistakes, or repel the injustice of the ultimate makers
+and appliers of law, and supply their defects. Thus in England those
+eminent Judges, Hale, Somers, Hobart, Holt, Camden, Mansfield, and
+Brougham, have done large service to mankind. Each had his personal
+and official faults, some of them great and glaring faults of both
+kinds, but each in his way helped enact natural Justice into positive
+law, and so to promote the only legitimate Purpose of human
+legislation, securing Natural Rights to all men. To such Judges
+mankind owes a quite considerable debt.
+
+But in America the Judge has an additional function; he is to
+determine the Constitutionality of a law. For while the British King
+and Parliament claim to be legislatively omnipotent, supreme, the
+Ultimate human source of law, the Living Constitution of the realm,
+and therefore themselves the only Norm of law,--howsoever ill-founded
+the claim may be,--in America it is the People, not their elected
+servants, who are the Ultimate human source of law, the Supreme
+Legislative power. Accordingly the People have prepared a written
+Constitution, a Power of Attorney authorizing their servants to do
+certain matters and things relating to the government of the nation.
+This constitution is the human Norm of law for all the servants of the
+people. So in administering law the Judge is to ask, Is the statute
+constitutional? does it square with the Norm of law which the People
+have laid down; or have the legislative servants exceeded their Power
+of Attorney, and done matters and things which they were not empowered
+to do? In deciding this question, the Judge is to consider not merely
+the Provisional Means which the Constitution designates, but also the
+Ultimate Purpose thereof, the Justice and Liberty which, as its
+preamble declares, it expressly aims at, and which are also the ideal
+End of all sound legislation.
+
+There is no country in the world where a great man has so noble a
+place and opportunity to serve mankind as in America.
+
+But a wicked Judge, Gentlemen, may do great harm to mankind, as I have
+already most abundantly shown. For we have inherited a great mass of
+laws,--customary or statutory; the legislature repeals, modifies, or
+adds to them; the Judge is to expound them, and suggest their
+application to each special case. The Jury is to apply or refuse to
+apply the Judge's "law." In all old countries, some of these laws have
+come from a barbarous, perhaps even from a savage period; some are the
+work of tyrants who wrought cruelly for their own advantage, not
+justly, or for the good of mankind; some have been made in haste and
+heat, the legislature intending to do an unjust thing. Now an unjust
+Judge has great power to select wicked statutes, customs, or
+decisions; and in no country has he more power for evil than in the
+federal courts of the United States. For as in England, when the
+King-power makes a wicked law, the Judge, who is himself made by that
+same power, may declare it just, and execute the heinous thing; so in
+America, when the Slave power enacts a wicked statute, contrary to the
+purpose of the constitution and to the natural justice of God, the
+Judge, who is the creature of that same power, may declare it
+constitutional and binding on all the People who made the constitution
+as their Power of Attorney. Thus all the value of the constitution to
+check despotism is destroyed, and the Fortress of Freedom is betrayed
+into the hands of the enemies of liberty!
+
+But barbarous laws must not be applied in a civilized age; nor unjust
+laws enforced by righteous men. While left unrepealed, a fair and
+conscientious Jury will never do injustice, though a particular
+statute or custom demand it, and a wicked Judge insist upon the wrong;
+for they feel the moral instinct of human nature, and look not merely
+to the letter of a particular enactment, but also to the spirit and
+general purpose of law itself, which is justice between man and man.
+The wicked Judge, looking only to the power which raised him to his
+place, and may lift him higher still,--not to that other Hand which is
+over all,--or consulting his own meanness of nature, selects the
+wicked laws, and makes a wicked application thereof. Thus in America,
+under plea of serving the people, he can work most hideous wrong.
+
+Besides, the Judges are lawyers, with the technical training of
+lawyers, with the disposition of character which comes from their
+special training and profession, and which marks the manners, the
+language and looks of a lawyer. They have the excellence of the
+lawyer, and also his defects. Commonly they are learned in their
+profession, acute and sharp, circumspect, cautious, skilful in making
+nice technical distinctions, and strongly disposed to adhere to
+historical precedents on the side of arbitrary power, rather than to
+obey the instinctive promptings of the moral sense in their own
+consciousness. Nay, it seems sometimes as if the moral sense became
+extinct, and the legal letter took the place of the spirit of Justice
+which gives life to the People. So they look to the special statute,
+its technical expositions and applications, but not to Justice, the
+ultimate Purpose of human law; they preserve the means and miss the
+end, put up the bars in the nicest fashion, and let the cattle perish
+in their pen. Like the nurse in the fable, they pour out the baby, and
+carefully cherish the wooden bath-tub! The Letter of the statute is
+the Idol of the Judicial Den, whereunto the worshipper offers
+sacrifices of human blood. The late Chief Justice Parker, one of the
+most humane and estimable men, told the Jury they _had nothing to do
+with the harshness of the statute_! but must execute a law, however
+cruel and unjust, because somebody had made it a law! How often Juries
+refuse to obey the statute and by its means to do a manifest
+injustice; but how rarely does a Judge turn off from the wickedness of
+the statute to do Justice, the great Purpose of human law and human
+life! Gentlemen, I once knew a democratic judge--a man with a noble
+mind, and a woman's nicer sense of right--who told the Jury, "Such is
+the law, such the decisions; such would be its application to this
+particular case. But it is unjust;--it would do a manifest and
+outrageous wrong if thus applied. You as Jurors are to do Justice by
+the law, not injustice. _You will bring in a verdict according to your
+conscience._" They did so. Gentlemen, I should not dare tell you that
+Judge's name. It would greatly injure his reputation. God knows
+it--for there is a Higher Law.
+
+When the New York Convention assembled in 1846 to revise the
+constitution of that State, some powerful men therein felt the evil of
+having the Court of last Appeal consist wholly of lawyers. Mr. Ruggles
+thought the judges who reexamine the decisions and pronounce the final
+judgment in disputed cases, and determine the constitutionality of
+laws, should be men who are "brought into direct contact with the
+people and their business." He wished that of the eight judges of this
+appellate Court, four should be Justices of the Supreme Court, and
+four more should be elected by the people on a general ballot, thus
+securing a popular element in that highest Court. By this popular
+element, representing the instinctive Justice of Humanity, he hoped to
+correct that evil tendency of professional men which leads them away
+"from the just conclusions of natural reason into the track of
+technical rules inapplicable to the circumstances of the case, and at
+variance with the nature and principles of our social and political
+institutions."[109] "Such judges," said another lawyer, "would retain
+more of the great general principles of moral justice, ... the
+impulses of natural equity, such as ... would knock off the rough
+corners of the common law and loosen the fetters of artificial and
+technical equity."[110]
+
+[Footnote 109: Debates in New York Convention, 371, _et al._]
+
+[Footnote 110: Jordan's Speech, _ibid._, 447, _et al._ See also Mr.
+Stow's Remarks, 473, and Mr. Stephens', 474, _et al._ Yet all these
+four speakers were lawyers.]
+
+Commonly in America, as in England, for judges the Federal Government
+appoints lawyers who have done some party service, or are willing to
+execute the designs of the great ruling Power, the Slaveholders,
+regardless alike of the interests of the People and the protestations
+of the Conscience of Mankind.[111] You know how Hardwicke and Thurlow
+got their office in England, how they filled it, and what additional
+recompense followed each added wickedness. Need I mention the name of
+Americans with a similar history? Gentlemen, I pass it by for the
+present.
+
+[Footnote 111: Hildreth's Despotism in America (1854), 263, _et al._]
+
+Still further, these judges thus appointed become familiar with fraud,
+violence, cruelty, selfishness,--refined or brutal,--which comes
+before them; they study the technicalities of the statutes, balance
+the scruples of advocates; they lose their fresh intuitions of
+justice, becoming more and more legal, less and less human, less
+natural and more technical; their eye is microscopic in its niceness
+of discrimination, microscopic also in its narrowness of range. They
+forget the universality of justice,--the End which laws should aim at;
+they direct their lynx-eyed attention to the speciality of the
+statutes which is only the Means, of no value save as conducing to
+that end. Their understanding is sharp as a mole's eye for the minute
+distinctions of the technicalities of their craft; but, as
+short-sighted as the mole, they cannot look at justice. So they come
+to acknowledge no obligation but the legal, and know no law except
+what is written in Black Letter on parchment, printed in
+statute-books, reported in decisions; the Law written by God on the
+soul of man they know not, only the statute and decision bound in pale
+sheepskin. In the logic of legal deduction--technical inference--they
+forget the intuition of conscience: not What is right? but What is
+law? is the question, and they pay the same deference to a wicked
+statute as a just one. So the true Mussulman values the absurdities
+of the Koran as much as its noblest wisdom and tenderest humanity.
+
+Such a man so appointed, so disciplined, will administer the law
+fairly enough in civil cases between party and party, where he has no
+special interest to give him a bias--for he cares not whether John Doe
+or Richard Roe gain the parcel of ground in litigation before him. But
+in criminal cases he leans to severity, not mercy; he suspects the
+People; he reverences the government. In political trials he never
+forgets the hand that feeds him,--Charles Stuart, George Guelph, or
+the Slave Power of America.
+
+These things being so, in such trials you see the exceeding value of
+the jury, who are not Office-holders, under obligation to the hand
+that feeds them; not Office-seekers, willing to prostitute their
+faculties to the service of some overmastering lust; not lawyers
+wonted to nice technicalities; not members of a class, with its
+special discipline and peculiar prejudices; but men with their moral
+instincts normally active, and unsophisticated humanity in their
+hearts. Hence the great value of the jury in criminal trials.
+
+Gentlemen, you are the jurors in this case, to decide between me and
+the government. Between the government and ME! no, Gentlemen, between
+the Fugitive Slave Bill and Humanity. You know the Function of the
+court--the manner of the Judges' appointment--the services they are
+expected to render in cases like this, the services they have already
+rendered.
+
+Let me speak of the Function of the Jury. To do that, I must say a few
+words of its Historical Development. I must make it very brief and
+sketchy. Here I shall point out six several steps in the successive
+development of popular Law-making and Law-applying.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+1. In the barbarous periods of the Teutonic Family,[112] it seems the
+"whole People" came together at certain regular seasons to transact
+the business of the nation. There was also a meeting of the
+inhabitants of each district or neighborhood at stated times,--a
+"regular meeting;" and sometimes a special meeting to provide for some
+emergency--a "called meeting." If one man had wronged another the
+matter was inquired into at those popular meetings. One man
+presided--chosen for the occasion. In the early age it appears he was
+a priest, afterwards a noble, or some distinguished man, selected on
+the spot. The whole people investigated the matter, made the
+law--often an _ex post facto_ law,--applied it to the special case,
+and on the spot administered the punishment--if corporeal, or decreed
+the recompense--if pecuniary. The majority carried the day. Thus at
+first the Body of People present on the occasion were the law-makers,
+the law-appliers, and law-executors. Each law was special--designed
+for the particular case in hand, retrospective for vengeance more than
+prospective for future welfare.
+
+[Footnote 112: By this term I mean all the nations with language akin
+to the German.]
+
+2. Then in process of time, there came to be a body of laws--fixed and
+understood by the People. Partly, these came from the customs of the
+People, and represented past life already lived; but partly, also,
+from the decrees of the recognized authorities--theocratic, monarchic,
+aristocratic, democratic--representing the desire for a better life, a
+rule of conduct for the future. Then at their meetings, to punish an
+offender the people did not always make a new law, they simply used
+what they found already made. They inquired into the fact, the deed
+done, the law, and applied the general law to the special fact, made
+their decree and executed it. Thus extemporaneous Making of law for
+the particular case, gradually passed away, and was succeeded by the
+extemporaneous Declaration of the law previously made, and its
+Application to the matter in hand.
+
+3. By and by it was found inconvenient for a multitude to assemble and
+make the laws, so a body of select men took a more special charge of
+that function. Sometimes a chief, or king, usurped this for himself;
+or men were chosen by the people, and took an oath for the faithful
+discharge of their trust. Thus came popular law-making by sworn
+delegates, representatives of the people, who had a certain special
+power of attorney, authorizing them to make laws. These might be
+Priests--as at the beginning; or Nobles of priestly stock, as at the
+next stage; or Military Chiefs--as in all times of violence; or
+powerful Private men,--summoned from the nation, of their own accord
+undertaking the task, or chosen by the various neighborhoods,--the
+whole process seems to have been irregular and uncertain, as indeed it
+must be amongst rude people.
+
+So at that time there were two sources of law-making.
+
+(1.) The unorganized People--the primary source, whose unconscious
+life flows in certain channels and establishes certain customs, rules
+of conduct, obeyed before they are decreed, without any formal
+enactment. These were laws _de facto_.
+
+(2.) The organized Delegates--priestly, kingly, nobilitary, or
+warlike--the secondary source. These made statute laws. As this was a
+self-conscious and organized body, having an object distinctly set
+before its mind and devising means for its purposes, it easily
+appropriated to itself the chief part of the business of law-making.
+Statute laws became more and more numerous and important; they were
+the principal--the customs were only subsidiary, laws _de Jure_,
+enacted before they are obeyed by the People. Still new customs
+continued to flow from the primitive source of legislation, the
+People, and of course took new forms to suit the conditions of
+national life.
+
+4. Still the people came together to apply the laws--customary or
+enacted,--to the special cases which occurred. There were fixed
+periods when they assembled without notice given,--"regular law-days;"
+and if an emergency occurred, they were summoned on "extraordinary
+law-days." Here wrongs between party and party, and offences against
+the public, were set right by the "Country," the "Body of the county,"
+that is, by the bulk of the population. The majority carried the day.
+
+5. At length it was found inconvenient for so large a body to
+investigate each particular case, or to determine what cases should be
+presented for investigation.
+
+(1.) So this preliminary examination was delegated to a smaller body
+of men, sworn to discharge the trust faithfully, who made inquiry as
+to offences committed, and reported the criminals for trial to the
+full meeting, the actual "Body of the country." Here, then, is the
+first organized and sworn "Jury;" "the grand inquest;"--here is
+popular Indictment by delegates.
+
+(2.) Then it was found inconvenient for a large body--the whole
+country--to investigate the cases presented. Men were busy with their
+own work, and did not wish to appear and consume their time. So a
+smaller body of men was summoned to attend to any special case which
+was presented by the Grand Inquest. These also were sworn to do their
+duty. They were to try the men indicted. Here is Trial by sworn
+delegates, who represent the Body of the People. They were still
+called the "Country," as any spot of the Atlantic is the "Ocean." Here
+is the "Trial by Jury." They must be taken from the neighborhood of
+the parties concerned--for at this stage the jurors were also the
+witnesses, and other sworn witnesses were not then known. All the
+Jurors must concur in the vote of condemnation before the magistrate
+could hurt a hair of the accused's head.
+
+Still after the people had delegated their law-making to one body of
+sworn representatives, and the twofold function of law-applying, by
+Indictment and Trial, to other sworn representatives, there was yet a
+great concourse of people attending the court on the "law-days;"
+especially when important matters came up for adjudication; then the
+crowd of people took sides with Plaintiff or Defendant; with the
+authorities which accused, or with the man on trial, as the case might
+be. Sometimes, when the Jury acquitted, the people tore the suspected
+man to pieces; sometimes when the Jury condemned, they showed their
+indignation--nay, rescued the prisoner. For the old tradition of
+actual trial by the "Body of the Country" still prevailed.
+
+6. At length the Jurors are no longer the witnesses in the case.
+Others testify before them, and on the evidence which is offered, the
+Grand-Jury indict or not, and the Trial Jury acquit or condemn. Then
+the Jurors are no longer taken from the immediate neighborhood of the
+party on trial, only from his district or county. But sworn witnesses
+from the neighborhood, depose to the facts. There is no longer a great
+concourse of people in the open air, but the trial is carried on in a
+small court house, yet with open doors, in the face of the people,
+_coram populo_--public opinion still influences the Jury.
+
+As most of the Jurors were unlearned men, not accustomed to intricate
+questions, it became necessary for the presiding judge, a man of nicer
+culture, to prepare rules of evidence which should prevent the matter
+from becoming too complicated for the rustic judgment. Thence came the
+curious and strange "rules of evidence" which prevail in all countries
+where trial by Jury is established, but are unknown in lands where the
+trial is conducted solely by experts, educated men. But as the mass of
+the people, as in America, become well informed, the old rules appear
+ridiculous, and will perish.
+
+The number of sworn judges varies in different tribes of the Teutonic
+family, but as twelve has long been a sacred number with the
+Anglo-Saxons, that was gradually fixed for the Jury. Twelve consenting
+voices are indispensable for the indictment or the condemnation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Such is the form of the Jury as we find it at this day. The other
+officers have also undergone a change. So, Gentlemen, let me give you
+a brief sketch of the Historical Formation of the Function of the
+Judge in nations of the same ethnological origin. Here I shall mention
+four steps.
+
+1. At the meetings of the people to make, apply, and execute the law,
+some one must preside to keep order, put the question, and declare the
+vote. He was the Moderator of the meeting. At first it would seem that
+some important man, a priest, or a noble, or some other wise,
+distinguished, or popular man, performed that function. The business
+over, he dropped into his private place again. A new one was chosen at
+each meeting.
+
+2. If the former moderator had shown skill and aptness, he was chosen
+the next time; again and again; at length it was a matter of course
+that he should preside. He studied the matter, and became "expert in
+all the manners and customs of his nation." This happens in most of
+the New England towns, where the same man is Moderator at the
+town-meetings for many years in succession. Men love to walk in the
+path they have once trodden, even if not the shortest way to their
+end.
+
+3. When the nation is organized more artificially and the laws chiefly
+proceed from the secondary source, the government,--elective or
+usurpatory--a judge is appointed by the central authority to visit
+the districts (counties) and assist at the administration of justice.
+As the law is now made by the distant delegates, the judge they send
+down declares and explains it to the people, for they have not made it
+as before directly, nor found it ready-made, an old inherited custom,
+but only receive it as the authorities send it down from the Capitol.
+The law is _written_--the officer can read while they have no copy of
+the law, or could not read it had they the book. Hence the necessity
+of a judge learned in the law. Still the people are to apply the
+written law or apply it not.
+
+Besides, the old customs remain, the unwritten laws of the people,
+which the judge does not understand so well as they. He represents the
+written law, the assembly the unwritten custom or tradition. The judge
+is appointed that he may please the central power; the people are only
+to satisfy such moral convictions as they have. There is often a
+conflict between the statute and the custom, a conflict of laws; and
+still more between the judge and the jury--a conflict in respect to
+the application of the law.
+
+4. Then comes the critical period of the Trial by Jury. For the
+deputed judge seeks to enlarge his jurisdiction, to enforce his law,
+often against the customs and the consciences of the People, the jury,
+who only seek to enlarge Justice. He looks technically at the statute,
+the provisional Means of law, not at Justice the ultimate Purpose of
+law. To the "Country," the "Body of the People," or to the jury of
+inquest and of trial, he assumes not to suggest the law and its
+application, but absolutely to _dictate_ it to them. He claims the
+exclusive right to decide on the Law and its Application; the jury is
+only to determine the Fact--whether the accused did the deed charged
+or not.
+
+If the judge succeeds in this battle, then tyranny advances step by
+step; the jury is weakened; its original function is curtailed;
+certain classes of cases are taken from its jurisdiction; it becomes
+only the tool of the government, and finally is thrown aside. Popular
+law-making is gone; popular law-applying is also gone; local
+self-government disappears and one homogeneous centralized tyranny
+takes the place of the manifold Freedom of the people. So the trial by
+jury faded out of all the South-Teutonic people, and even from many
+regions of the German and Scandinavian North. But the Anglo-Saxon,
+mixing his blood with Danes and Normans, his fierce kinsfolk of the
+same family, has kept and improved this ancient institution. When King
+or Parliament made wicked laws, or appointed corrupt and cruel men for
+judges, the People have held this old ancestral shield between the
+tyrant and his victim. Often cloven through or thrust aside, the Saxon
+Briton never abandons this. The Puritan swam the Atlantic with this on
+his arm--and now all the Anglo-Saxon tribe reverences this defence as
+the Romans their twelve AONCILIA [Transcriber's Note: for 'AONCILIA'
+read 'ANCILIA'; see Errata], the mythic shield which "fell from
+Heaven."[113]
+
+[Footnote 113: In this brief sketch I do not refer to the authorities,
+but see, who will, the classic passages and proof-texts in the
+well-known works of Grimm, Rogge, Biener, Michelsen, Moeser, Phillips,
+Eichhorn, Maurer, and others.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After so much historic matter, Gentlemen, it is now easy to see what
+is--
+
+THE FUNCTION OF THE JURY AT THIS TIME. Here I make three points.
+
+I. They are to decide the QUESTION OF FACT, the matter charged, and
+determine whether the accused did the deed alleged to be done. That is
+the first step--to determine the Fact.
+
+II. They are to decide the QUESTION OF LAW, the statute or custom
+supposed to apply to the Deed done, and determine whether there is
+such a statute or custom, and whether it denounces such a Deed as a
+Crime assigning thereto a punishment. That is the second step--to
+determine the Law.
+
+III. They are to decide the QUESTION OF THE APPLICATION OF THE LAW TO
+THE FACT, and to determine whether that special statute shall be
+applied to the particular person who did the deed charged against him.
+That is the third step--to determine the Application of the Law.
+
+Gentlemen, I shall speak a few words on each of these points, treating
+the matter in the most general way. By and by I shall apply these
+general doctrines to this special case.
+
+I. The jury is to DECIDE THE QUESTION OF FACT; to answer, Did the
+accused do the deed alleged, at the time and place alleged, with the
+alleged purpose and producing the alleged result? The answer will be
+controlled by the Evidence of sworn witnesses, who depose under a
+special oath to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
+truth." Their Evidence is the Testimony as to the Fact,--the sole
+testimony; the jury is the ultimate arbiter to decide on the
+credibility of the evidence, part by part, and its value as a whole.
+
+Sometimes it is an easy matter to answer this Question of Fact;
+sometimes exceedingly difficult. If there be doubts they must weigh
+for the accused, who is held innocent until proven guilty.
+
+With us the theory that the jury is the exclusive judge of the
+Question of Fact is admitted on all sides. But in England it has often
+happened that the judge instructs the jury to "_find the facts_" so
+and so; that is--he undertakes to decide the Question of Fact. In
+libel cases it is very common for New England judges to undertake to
+determine what constitutes a libel, and to decide on the intentions of
+the accused; that is to decide the most important part of the complex
+and manifold Question of Fact. For it is as much a question of fact to
+determine what constitutes a libel, as what constitutes theft, the
+_animus libellandi_ as much as the _animus furandi_. Sometimes juries
+have been found so lost to all sense of manhood, or so ignorant of
+their duties, as to submit to this judicial insolence and usurpation.
+
+If the Jury decide the Question of Fact in favor of the accused, their
+inquiry ceases at that step, they return their verdict, "NOT GUILTY;"
+and the affair is ended. But if they find he did the deed as charged,
+then comes the next function of the Jury.
+
+II. The Jury are to DECIDE THE QUESTION OF LAW. Is there a statute or
+custom denouncing a penalty on that special deed? is the statute
+constitutional? To determine this matter, there are three sources of
+evidence external to their own knowledge.
+
+1. _The Testimony of the Government's Attorney._ The Government itself
+is his client, and he gives such a statement of the law as suits the
+special purposes of the rulers and his own private and particular
+interest, selects such statutes, customs, and decisions, as will serve
+this purpose, and declares, Such is the law. Nay, he makes inferences
+from the law, and thereby infers new customs, and constructs new
+statutes, invents new crimes. He treats the law as freely as he treats
+the facts--making the most that is possible against the party accused.
+You have seen already what tricks Government attorneys have played,
+how they pervert and twist the law--making it assume shapes never
+designed by its original makers. He gives his opinion as to the law,
+as he gave an opinion as to the fact. This is not necessarily his
+personal and actual, but only his official and assumed opinion--what
+he wishes the Jury to think is law in this particular case.
+
+2. _The Testimony of the Defendant's Attorney._ The accused is his
+client. He is to do all he can to represent the law as favorable as
+possible to the man on trial. He gives an opinion of the law, not his
+personal and actual, but his official and assumed opinion--what he
+wishes the Jury to think is law in this particular case.
+
+3. _The Testimony of the Judge on the Bench._ But in the English
+courts, and the Federal courts of the United States, he is commonly no
+more than a government attorney in disguise; I speak only of the
+general rule, not the exceptions to it. He has received his office as
+the reward for party services--was made a judge because he was
+one-sided as a lawyer. In all criminal cases he is expected to twist
+the law to the advantage of the hand that feeds him. Especially is
+this so in all Political trials--that is, prosecutions for opposition
+to the party which the judge represents. The judge may be impartial,
+or partial, just or unjust, ignorant or learned. He gives an opinion
+of the law,--not his personal and actual, but his official and assumed
+opinion--what he wishes the jury to think is law in this particular
+case. For the court also is a stage, and the judges, as well as the
+attorneys, may be players,
+
+     "And one man in his time play many parts."
+
+Of these three classes of witnesses, no one gives evidence under
+special oath to tell the law, the whole law, and nothing but the
+law--or if it be so understood, then all these men are sometimes most
+grossly and notoriously perjured; but each allows himself large
+latitude in declaring the law. The examples I have already cited, show
+that the judge often takes quite as wide a range as the
+attorney-general, or the prisoner's counsel.
+
+As the jury hears the manifold evidence as to the facts, and then
+makes up its mind thereon and decides the Question of Fact, often
+rejecting the opinion of various witnesses, as ignorant, partial,
+prejudiced, or plainly false and forsworn; so will the jury hear the
+manifold and often discrepant evidence as to the law, and then make up
+their mind thereon and decide the Question of Law, often rejecting the
+opinion of various witnesses thereupon ignorant, partial, prejudiced,
+or plainly false and forsworn.
+
+In regard to the Fact, the jury is limited to the evidence adduced in
+court. What any special juror knows from any other source is not
+relevant there to procure conviction. But in regard to the Law there
+is no such restriction; for if the jury know the law better than these
+three classes of witnesses for it in court, then the jury are to
+follow their better knowledge. At any rate, the jury are to make up
+their minds on this question of Law, and for themselves determine what
+the special Law is.
+
+Every man is to be held innocent until proved guilty--until the
+special Deed charged is proved against him, and until that special
+deed is proved a Crime. The jury is not to take the government
+attorney's opinion of the Fact, nor the prisoner's counsel's opinion
+of the Fact, nor yet the judge's opinion thereon; but to form their
+own opinion, from the evidence offered to make up their own judgment
+as to the Fact. So likewise they are not to take the government
+attorney's opinion of the Law, or the prisoner's counsel's opinion of
+the Law, nor yet the judge's opinion thereon; but from all the
+evidence offered, not [Transcriber's Note: for 'not' read 'or'; see
+Errata] otherwise known to them, to make up their own judgment as to
+the Law. After they have done so--if they decide the Law in favor of
+the accused, the process stops there. The man goes free; for it does
+not appear that his deed is unlawful. But if the jury find the Law
+against the deed, they then proceed to their third function.
+
+III. The jury is to decide the QUESTION OF THE APPLICATION OF THE LAW
+TO THE FACT. Here is the question: "Ought the men who have done this
+deed against the form of Law to be punished thereby?" The government
+attorney and the judge are of the opinion that the law should be thus
+applied to this case, but they cannot lay their finger on him until
+the jury, specially sworn "well and truly to try and true deliverance
+make," have unanimously come to that opinion, and say, "Take him and
+apply the law to him."
+
+The Deed may be clear and the Statute clear, while the Application
+thereof to the man who did the deed does not follow, and ought not to
+follow. For
+
+1. It is not designed that the full rigor of every statute shall be
+applied to each deed done against the letter thereof. The statute is a
+great sleeping Lion, not to be roused up when everybody passes that
+way. This you see from daily practice of the courts. It remains in the
+Discretion of the Attorney to determine what offences he will present
+to the Grand-Jury,--he passes by many, and selects such as he thinks
+ought to be presented. It remains in the Discretion of the Grand-Jury
+to determine whom they will indict, for sometimes when the Fact and
+Law are clear enough to them, they yet find "no bill" or _ignore_ the
+matter. And after the man is indicted, it still remains in the
+Discretion of the Attorney to determine whether he will prosecute the
+accused, or pass him by. Indeed I am told that the very Grand-Jury who
+found the bills which have brought you and me face to face, hesitated
+to indict a certain person on account of some circumstances which
+rendered his unlawful act less deserving of the legal punishment: the
+Attorney told them he thought they had better find a bill, and he
+would enter a _nolle prosequi_ in court,--plainly admitting that while
+the Law and the Fact were both clear, that the Grand-Jury were to
+determine in their Discretion whether they would apply the law to that
+man, whether they would indict or not; and the Attorney whether he
+would prosecute or forbear. It remains equally in the Discretion of
+the Trial Jury to determine whether the man who did the unlawful deed
+shall be punished--whether the spirit of that statute and the Purpose
+of Law requires the punishment which it allows.
+
+2. Besides, in deciding this question--the jurors are not only to
+consider the one particular statute brought against the prisoner, but
+the whole Complex of Customs, Statutes, and Decisions, making up the
+Body of Law, and see if that requires the application of this special
+statute to this particular deed. Here are two things to be
+considered.
+
+(1.) The general Purpose of the whole Body of Laws, the Object aimed
+at; and
+
+(2.) The Means for attaining the end. Now the Purpose of Law being the
+main thing, and the statute only subsidiary to that purpose, the
+question comes--"Shall we best achieve that Purpose by thus applying
+the statute, or by not applying it?" This rests with the Jury in their
+Discretion to determine.
+
+3. Still more, the Jury have consciences of their own, which they must
+be faithful to, which no official position can ever morally oblige
+them to violate. So they are to inquire, "Is it right in the sight of
+God, in the light of our consciences, to apply this special statute to
+this particular case and thus punish this man for that unlawful deed?"
+Then they are to ask, also, "Was the deed _naturally wrong_; done from
+a wrong motive, for a wrong purpose?" If not, then be the statute and
+the whole complex of laws what they may, it can never be right for a
+jury to punish a man for doing a right deed, however unlawful that
+deed may be. No oath can ever make it right for a man to do what is
+wrong, or what he thinks wrong--to punish a man for a just deed!
+
+But if the twelve men think that the Law ought not to be applied in
+this case--they find "not guilty," and he goes free; if otherwise,
+"guilty," and he is delivered over to the judges for sentence and its
+consequences, and the judge passes such sentence as the Law and his
+Discretion point out.
+
+The judge commonly, and especially in political trials, undertakes to
+decide the two last Questions himself, determining the Law and the
+Application thereof, and that by his Discretion. He wishes to leave
+nothing to the Discretion of the jury, who thus have only the single
+function of deciding the Question of Fact, which is not a Matter of
+Discretion--that is, of moral judgment,--but only a logical deduction
+from evidence, as the testimony compels. He would have no moral
+element enter into their verdict. The judge asks the jury to give him
+a deed of the ground on which he will erect such a building as suits
+his purpose, and then calls the whole thing the work of the jury, who
+only granted the land!
+
+But this assumption of the judges ultimately and exclusively to decide
+the question of Law and its Application, is a tyrannous usurpation.
+
+(1.) It is contrary to the fundamental Idea of the Institution of
+Trial by jury.
+
+(2.) It leads to monstrous tyranny by putting the Property, Liberty,
+and Life of every man at the mercy of the government officers, who
+determine the Law and its Application, leaving for the jury only the
+bare question of Fact, which the judge can so manage in many cases as
+to ruin most virtuous and deserving men.
+
+(3.) Not only in ancient times did the jury decide the three questions
+of Fact, of Law, and of its special Application, but in cases of great
+magnitude they continue to do so now, in both America and England, and
+sometimes in direct contradiction to the commands of the judges.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, if you perform this threefold function, then
+you see the exceeding value of this mode of trial,
+
+1. For the punishment of wrong deeds done against the law, done by the
+unorganized selfishness of thieves, housebreakers, murderers, and
+other workers of unrighteousness;
+
+2. And also for the prevention of wrong deeds attempted in the name of
+law, by the organized selfishness of the makers and officers thereof.
+
+For in each special case brought to trial, the jury are judges of the
+Law and of its Application. They cannot make a law--statute or
+custom--nor repeal one; but in each particular case they must demand
+or forbid its execution. These Tribunes of the Saxon People have no
+general veto on law-making, and can efface no letter from the
+statute-book, but have a special and imperative veto on each case for
+the Application of the law.
+
+Justice, the point common to the interests of all men, yes, the point
+common to God and our Conscience, is the Aim and Purpose of Law in
+general; if it be not that the law is so far unnatural, immoral, and
+of no obligation on the conscience of any man. The special Statute,
+Custom, or Decision, is a provisional Means to that end; if just, a
+moral means and adequate in kind; if unjust, an immoral means,
+inadequate in kind, and fit only to defeat the attainment of that
+Justice which is the Purpose of all Law. Accordingly, if by an
+accident, a special statute is so made that its application in a
+particular case would do injustice and so defeat the Design and
+Purpose of Law itself, then the function of the jury under their oath
+requires them to preserve the End of law by refusing to apply the
+provisional statute to an unjust use. And if by design a statute is
+made in order to do injustice to any man--as it has very often
+happened in England as well as America,--then the jury will accomplish
+their function by refusing to apply that statute to any particular
+case. So will they fulfil their official oath, and conserve the great
+ultimate Purpose of Law itself.
+
+Gentlemen, you will ask me where shall the jury find the Rule of
+Right, and how know what is just, what not? In your own Conscience,
+Gentlemen; not in the conscience of the Attorney for the
+Plaintiff-Government, or the accused Defendant; not in the conscience
+of the community; still less in the technical "opinion" of the
+lawyers, or the ambition, the venality, the personal or purchased rage
+of the court. Of course you will get such help as you can find from
+judges, attorneys, and the public itself, but then decide as you must
+decide--each man in the light of his own conscience, under the
+terrible and beautiful eyes of God. How does the juror judge of the
+Credibility of Evidence? By the "opinion" of the lawyers on either
+side? by the judge's "opinion," or that of the community? No one would
+dare determine thus. He decides personally by his own common sense,
+not vicariously by another's opinion. And as you decide the Matter of
+Fact by your own Discretion of Intellect, so will you decide the
+Matter of Right by your own Discretion of Conscience.
+
+Gentlemen, when the jury do their official duty it becomes impossible
+to execute a statute, or custom, or to enforce a decision which the
+jury--"the country"--think unjust and not fit to be applied.
+
+But if the judge usurps these two functions of the jury, and himself
+decides the Question of Law and its Application, you see what
+follows--consequences the most ghastly, injustice in the name of Law,
+and with the means of Law! Yes, tyranny spins and weaves with the
+machinery of Freedom, and a Nessus-shirt of bondage is fixed on the
+tortured body of the People. The power of the judge will be especially
+dangerous in times of political excitement, and in political trials.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gentlemen, this matter is so important, and the danger now so imminent
+that you will pardon me a few words while I set forth the mode by
+which this wickedness goes to work, and what results it brings to
+pass. Follow me in some details.
+
+I. As to the judges dealing with the Grand-Jury.
+
+Here let me take the examples from the circuit court of the United
+States in a supposed case where a man is to be tried for violating the
+fugitive slave bill. You will see this is a case which may actually
+happen.
+
+1. The judge challenges the whole body summoned as grand-jurors and
+catechizes them after this fashion.
+
+(1.) "Have you formed an opinion that the law of the United States,
+known as the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, is Unconstitutional, so that
+you cannot indict a person under it for that reason, although the
+court holds the statute to be Constitutional?"
+
+This is riddling No. 1. Such as think the fugitive slave bill
+unconstitutional are at once set aside. The judge proceeds to ask such
+as have no doubt that it is constitutional,
+
+(2.) "Do you hold any opinions on the subject of Slavery in general,
+or of the Fugitive Slave Law in special, which would induce you to
+refuse to indict a man presented to you for helping his brother to
+freedom?"
+
+This is riddling No. 2; other "good men and true" are rejected, but
+some are found "faithful" to the purposes of the court; and the judge
+puts his next question,
+
+(3.) "Will you accept for Law whatever the court declares such?"
+
+This is riddling No. 3. Still the judge finds three-and-twenty men
+small enough to pass through all these sieves. They are to be "the
+jury." All the men who deny the constitutionality of the wicked
+statute; all who have such reverence for the unalienable Rights of man
+and for the Natural Law of God that they would not prevent a Christian
+from aiding his brother to escape from bondage; all who have such
+respect for their own manhood that they will not swear to take a
+judge's word for law before they hear it--are shut out from the "grand
+inquest;" they are no part of the "Country," or the "Body of the
+county," are not "good men and true."
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, consider the absurdity of swearing to take for
+law what another man will declare to be law, and before you hear it!
+Suppose the judge should be drunk and declare the fugitive slave bill
+in perfect harmony with the Sermon on the Mount, those noble words
+"Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto
+them,"--are jurors to believe him? What if the judge should be sober,
+and declare it a "misdemeanor" to call the fugitive slave bill a
+wicked and hateful statute, and all who thus offended should be put in
+jail for twelve months! Are honest men to take such talk for American
+law?
+
+The jurors then take this oath which the clerk reads them:--
+
+"You, as a member of this Inquest for the District of Massachusetts,
+shall diligently inquire and true presentment make of all such matters
+and things as shall be given you in charge; the counsel of the United
+States, your fellows', and your own you shall keep secret; you shall
+present no man for envy, hatred, or revenge; neither shall you leave
+any man unpresented--for love, fear, favor, affection, or hope of
+reward; but you shall present things truly as they come to your
+knowledge, according to the best of your understanding. So help you
+God!"[114]
+
+[Footnote 114: See other forms of Oath in 8 St. Tr. 759, 772.]
+
+Then the judge appoints the most pliant member of the jury as
+"foreman"--selecting, if possible to find him, some postmaster or
+other official of the government, or some man marked for his injustice
+or venality, who may have the desirable influence with his fellows.
+
+2. The next thing is to moisten this material thus trebly sifted, and
+mould it into such vessels of tyranny as he can fill with his private
+or judicial wrath and then empty on the heads of his personal foes or
+such as thwart his ambitious despotism or the purposes of his
+government. So he delivers his CHARGE TO THE GRAND-JURY.
+
+By way of introduction, he tells them--
+
+(1.) That they are not the Makers of Law. Legislation is the function
+of Congress and the President; even the COURT, the "SUPREME COURT OF
+THE UNITED STATES" itself cannot make a law, or repeal one!
+
+(2.) That they are not the Declarers, or Judges of Law. To know and
+set forth the Law is the function of the COURT. It is true every man
+in his personal capacity, as private citizen, is supposed to know the
+law, and if he violates it, of his own presumption, or by the
+persuasion of some others who falsely tell him about the law, he must
+be punished; for "_ignorantia nemini excusat_," ignorance excuseth
+none; the private advice of the full bench of judges would be held no
+excuse. But in their official capacity of jurors they are supposed to
+know nothing of the Law whatsoever.
+
+It seems taken for granted that though one of the Jurors may be an old
+judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, and have sat on the
+bench for twenty years; nay, though he may be also an old legislator
+of twenty years' standing, and as legislator have made the very
+statute in question, and also as judge subsequently have explained and
+declared it, yet the moment he takes the oath as Grand-Juror, all this
+knowledge is "gone from him" as completely Nebuchadnezzar's dream. The
+court is the assembly of magicians, astrologers, sorcerers, and
+Chaldeans to restore it. Congress might pass a law compelling
+ex-judges, ex-senators, and ex-representatives--who are so numerous
+nowadays, and continually increasing and likely to multiply yet
+more,--to serve as grand-jurors; soon as they take their oath, they
+are in law held and accounted to be utterly ignorant of law, and bound
+to accept as law whatsoever the court declares such. The acting judge
+may be young, blind, ignorant, ambitious, drunk with brandy or rage,
+he may have a personal interest in promoting [Transcriber's Note: for
+'promoting' read 'perverting'; see Errata] the law, and may
+notoriously twist it so as to gratify his peculiar or familistic
+spleen, still the jury to accept the court's opinion for the nation's
+law. Any political ignoramus, if hoisted to the "bench," has judicial
+authority to declare the law,--it is absolute. If he errs, "he is
+responsible to the proper authorities--he may be removed by
+impeachment;" but the jury must not question the infallibility of his
+opinion. For though the grand-jury is "the country," the judge is not
+only all that, and more so; but is "the rest of mankind" besides.
+
+Then the judge goes further--talks _solemnly_, yet familiar; to
+wheedle jurors the better, he mixes himself with them, his "WE"
+embracing both judge and jury. I shall now quote actual language used
+in this very court, by the late Hon. Judge Woodbury:--
+
+     "One of the peculiar dangers ... to which jurors, as well as
+     judges, are exposed, is the _unpopularity, or obnoxiousness_
+     ... of any particular law, which has been violated, leading
+     _us_ ... to be timid or unfaithful in enforcing it ... the
+     subject-matter being a delicate or offensive one." "While we
+     ... are holding the scales as well as the sword of Justice,
+     in _humble imitation of the Divine Judge_ on high," it is
+     our duty to "_let law, as law_, [that is, whether it is just
+     or unjust] _reign supreme_, reign equally over all, and as
+     to _all things_, no less than persons; and till it is
+     changed by the proper authorities, _not to interpose our
+     individual caprices or fancies or speculations_ [that is,
+     our _convictions of justice_] _to defeat its due course and
+     triumph_." We must _not_ "_disregard laws_, when disliked,
+     _because we can_, under the universal suffrage enjoyed here,
+     _otherwise help_ legally _to change or annul them_ by our
+     votes." "As jurors _you have sworn to obey them till so
+     changed_, and ought to stand by them faithfully, to the last
+     moment of their existence." "We are safest in our capacity
+     of public officers ... to execute the laws as they are
+     [right or wrong], _while others_ who may make or retain bad
+     laws in the statute-book, _are answerable for their own
+     wrong_. If they preserve laws on the statute-book, which are
+     darkness rather than light and life to the people, theirs is
+     the fault, [that is, if a blacksmith make a dagger, and tell
+     us to stab an innocent man with it, we must obey, and the
+     blame will rest on the blacksmith who made the dagger, not
+     on the assassin who murdered with it!] In some cases, also,
+     when we think the _existing laws and punishments are wrong_,
+     and hence venture to encourage others in disobedience by
+     neglecting to indict and punish offenders, it should make us
+     pause and halt when it is remembered, it may turn out that
+     _we_ ourselves _may not be exactly Solons or Solomons_ in
+     these respects, nor quite so much wiser than the laws
+     themselves, as sometimes we are hastily induced to suppose."
+     "Miserable must be the fate of that community where the
+     ministers of the law are themselves disposed to disregard
+     it;" "government will become a curse;" "and this whether
+     such a _betrayal of public trust_ springs from the
+     _delusions of false philanthropy or fanatical prejudices, no
+     less than when it comes from unbridled licentiousness_."
+
+     "We must not lay the flattering unction to our souls, that
+     because by some _possibility there may not be guilt_, we can
+     rightfully discharge as if there were no guilt." "It is
+     sometimes urged against agreeing to indict, convict, or
+     punish, that we have _conscientious scruples on the
+     subject_;" "if sincere tenderness of conscience presses on
+     the heart and mind against executing some of the laws, _it
+     should lead us to decline office or resign_; not to neglect
+     or disobey, while in office, what we have promised and sworn
+     to perform;" [as if the juror swore to do injustice!] "or if
+     a majority prove unaccommodating or inflexible against us,
+     then it behooves those differing from them ... _to withdraw
+     entirely from such a government, and emigrate_." [So the
+     juror must not try to do justice at home, but seek it in
+     exile.] "But in all such cases we must take special care not
+     to indulge ourselves in considering an act as a sin which
+     _is only disagreeable_, or the result of only some
+     _prejudice or caprice_." "_The presumptions are that all
+     laws_, sanctioned by such intelligent, numerous, and
+     respectable members of society as compose our legislative
+     bodies, _are constitutional_, and until pronounced otherwise
+     by the proper tribunal, the judiciary, _it is perilous for
+     jurors to disobey them_," [that is, to refuse to execute
+     them] "and it is trifling with their solemn obligations to
+     _disregard them in any way and on any occasion, from
+     constitutional doubts_, unless of the clearest and strongest
+     character."[115]
+
+[Footnote 115: The above extracts are from Judge Woodbury's charge to
+the Grand-Jury, in Circuit Court of United States, at Boston, taken
+from the _Evening Traveller_, copying the reprint of Boston Daily
+Advertiser, of October 25, 1850.]
+
+He then tells them that _no feeling of Humanity_ must be allowed to
+prevent them from executing any law which the court declares to them,
+"whether the statute is a harsh one, is not for us to determine."[116]
+_A cruel law is to be enforced as vigorously as a humane one_; an
+_unjust law_ as a _just one_; a statute which aims to defeat the
+purpose of Law itself, just as readily as one which aims to secure the
+dearest rights of humanity. If the statute is notoriously wicked, as
+in the case supposed, then the Judge says: "It is to be observed that
+this statute [the fugitive slave bill] subjects no person to arrest
+who was not before liable to be seized and carried out of the State;"
+"Congress has enacted this law. _It is imperative, and it will be
+enforced._ Let no man mistake the mildness and forbearance with which
+the criminal code is habitually administered, [as in cases of engaging
+in the slave-trade] for weakness or timidity. _Resistance [to the
+fugitive slave bill] must make it sternly inflexible._" "As great
+efforts have been made to convince the public that the recent law [the
+fugitive slave bill] cannot be enforced with a good conscience, but
+may be conscientiously resisted ... I deem it proper to advert,
+briefly, to _the moral aspects_ of the subject." "The States without
+the constitution would be to each other foreign nations." "Those,
+therefore, who have the strongest convictions of the _immorality of
+the institution of slavery_, are not thereby authorized to conclude
+that the _provision for delivering up fugitive slaves is morally
+wrong_, [that is, if it be wrong to hold man in bondage, it is also
+not wrong,] or that our Fathers ... did not act wisely, justly, and
+humanely in acceding to the compacts of the Constitution." "Even those
+who go to the extreme of condemning the Constitution and the laws made
+under it, as _unjust and immoral_, cannot ... justify resistance. In
+their view, such laws are inconsistent with the justice and
+benevolence and against the will of the Supreme Lawgiver, and they
+emphatically ask, '_Which shall we obey, the law of man, or the Will
+of God?_' I answer, 'OBEY BOTH!' The _incompatibility_ which the
+question assumes [between _Right and Wrong, or Good and Evil, or God
+and the Devil_] _does not exist_! Unjust and oppressive laws _may
+indeed be passed_ by human governments. But if _Infinite and
+Inscrutable Wisdom permits political society_, having the power of
+human legislation, _to establish such laws, may not the same Infinite
+and Inscrutable Wisdom permit and require an individual_, who has no
+such power, _to obey them_?" [So "if Infinite and Inscrutable Wisdom
+permits" a Blacksmith "having the power" to forge steel and temper
+it, to make daggers, "may not the same Infinite and Inscrutable Wisdom
+permit and require the individual" carpenter or tailor, who has no
+such power, to use the dagger for the purpose intended!] "Conscience,
+indeed, is to be reverenced, and obeyed; but still we must remember
+that it is _fallible_, especially when the rights of others are
+concerned, [that is, the right to kidnap men] _and may lead us to do
+great injustice_, [by refusing to punish a man who helps his brother
+enjoy his self-evident, natural, and unalienable right to life,
+liberty, and the pursuit of happiness]. The annals of the world abound
+with enormities committed by a narrow and darkened conscience." A
+_statute_ "is the moral judgment, the _embodied conscience of the
+political community_, [the fugitive slave bill the 'embodied
+conscience' of New England]. To this not only is each individual bound
+to submit, [right or wrong,] but it is a new and _controlling element
+in forming his own moral judgment_;" [that is, he must _think_ the
+statute is just]. "Obedience is a _moral duty_, [no matter how immoral
+the law may be]. _This is as certain as that the Creator made man a
+social being_;" "to _obey the laws of the land_ [no matter what laws,
+or how wicked soever] _is, then, to obey the Will of God_!"
+
+[Footnote 116: Words of Chief Justice Parker, in _Commonwealth_ vs.
+_Griffith_, 2 Pickering's Reports, 19, cited with approbation by Chief
+Justice Shaw, in the Sims case, 7 Cushing's Reports, 705, and also
+cited from him and acted on by fugitive slave bill Commissioner
+Loring, in the Burns case.]
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, you think I have imagined and made up this
+language out of my own fancy. No, Gentlemen, I could not do it. I have
+not the genius for such sophistry. I only quote the words of the Hon.
+Judge Peleg Sprague delivered to the grand-jury of this Circuit Court
+of United States at Boston, March 18, 1851.[117] Gentlemen, I showed
+you what Thurlow could say at Horne Tooke's trial on the 4th of July,
+1777. Nay, I quoted the words of Powis and Allybone, and Scroggs and
+Jeffreys.[118] But, Gentlemen, the judge of New England transcends the
+judges of Old England.
+
+[Footnote 117: See _Boston Daily Advertiser_ of March 19, 1851.]
+
+[Footnote 118: See above, p. 33, 37, _et al._]
+
+3. Having made this general preparation for his work and shaped his
+vessel to the proper form, he proceeds to fill it with the requisite
+matter.
+
+(1.) He practically makes the Law just as he likes, so as to suit the
+general purpose of the government, or the special purpose of his
+private vengeance or ambition. Thus,
+
+a. Out of the whole complex of law--statutes, decisions, customs,
+charges, opinions of judicial men, since the Norman conquest or before
+it,--he selects that special weapon which will serve his present turn.
+And tells the jury, "that is the law which you are sworn to enforce. I
+have not made it--it is the _Lex terrae_, the Law of the Land." Or if
+in such an arsenal, so copious, he finds no weapon ready made, then
+
+b. Out of that pile of ancient instruments he selects something which
+he forges over anew, and thus constructs a new form of law when he
+could not find one ready for his hand. If a straight statute will not
+catch the intended victims he perverts it to a hook and therewith lays
+hold. He thus settles the law.
+
+(2.) He next practically determines what Deed constitutes the
+"offence" forbidden by the law he has just made. So he selects some
+act which it is notorious was done by the man he strikes at, and
+declares it is the "offence," the "crime." Here too he is aided by
+ancient precedent; whereof if our brief Republican annals do not
+furnish examples, he hies to the exhaustless treasury of Despotism in
+the English common law. He opens the "Reports," the "Statutes of the
+Realm," or goes back to the "Year-books." Antiquity is rich in
+examples of tyranny. "He readily finds a stick who would beat a dog."
+"Such are the opinions," quoth he, "of the venerable Chief Justice
+Jones," or "my Lord Chancellor Finch," or "Baron Twysden," or "my Lord
+Chief Justice Kelyng."
+
+Thus the Judge constructs the Jury--out of such men as he wishes for
+his purpose; constructs the Law, constructs the Offence, the Crime:
+nay, he points out the particular Deed so plain that he constructs the
+Indictment. All that is left for the "Grand Inquest" is the mechanical
+work of listening to the "evidence" and signing the Bill--"_Billa
+Vera_," a true bill. That they may accomplish this work he delivers
+them over to the District Attorney; he may be also an agent of the
+government, appointed for his party services, looking for his reward,
+expecting future pay for present work, extra pay for uncommon zeal and
+"discretion." Gentlemen of the Jury, this _may_ be the case--humanity
+is fallible, and it sometimes may happen even in the Circuit Court of
+the United States that such a man should hold the office of District
+Attorney. For it is not to be expected, nay, it is what we should not
+even ask--that this place should always be filled by such conspicuous
+talent, such consummate learning, and such unblemished integrity as
+that of the present attorney (Hon. Mr. Hallett). No, Gentlemen of the
+Jury, as I look round these walls I am proud of my country! Such a
+District Attorney, so bearing "his great commission in his look;" his
+political course as free from turning and winding as the river
+Missouri; high-minded, the very Caesar's wife of democratic
+virtue,--spotless and unsuspected; never seeking office, yet alike
+faithful to his principles and his party; and with indignant foot
+spurning the Administration's bootless bribe,--the fact outtravels
+fancy. Nay, Gentlemen, it is something to be an American--I feel it
+as I look about me. For the honorable Attorney is perfectly suited to
+this Honorable Court;--yea, to the Administration which gives them
+both their dignity and their work and its pay. Happy country with such
+an Attorney, fortunate with such a Court, but thrice and four times
+fortunate when such several stars of justice unite in such a
+constellation of juridic fire!
+
+But, Gentlemen, it is too much to ask of human nature that it should
+be always so. In my supposed case, the judge delivers the persons
+accused to the officers, restless, bellowing, and expecting some
+fodder to be pitched down to them from the national mow, already
+licking their mouths which drool with hungry anticipation. They will
+swear as the court desires. Then the Attorney talks with the most
+pliant jurors, coaxes them, wheedles them, stimulates them to do what
+he wants done. Some he threatens with the "displeasure of the
+government;" he swears at some. After all, if the jury refuse to find
+a bill,--a case, Gentlemen, which has happened,--they are discharged;
+and a new jury is summoned; some creature of the government is put on
+it, nay, perhaps some kinsman of the anxious judge, at least a
+Brother-in-Law, and at last twenty-three men are found of whom twelve
+consent to a "True Bill." Then great is the joy in the judge's
+heart,--it is corrupt judges I am speaking of, Gentlemen of the Jury,
+not of upright and noble men, may it please your Honors! There is
+great joy in the judge's heart, and great rejoicing _amongst his
+kinsfolk and intimate friends_ who whinney and neigh over it in the
+public journals, and leer at the indicted man in the street, lolling
+out their tongues greedy for his [Transcriber's Note: omit 'his'; see
+Errata] vengeance!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+II. Now, Gentlemen, look next at the judge's dealing with the
+Trial-Jury. He proceeds as before.
+
+1. He sifts the material returned to him, through those three sieves
+of questioning, and gets a Jury with no hard individual lumps of solid
+personal independence. They take the oath which you have just taken,
+Gentlemen: "You shall well and truly try the issue between the United
+States and the Defendant at the Bar, according to the law, and the
+evidence given you, so help you God!"
+
+The facts are then presented, and the case argued on both sides.
+
+2. The Judge sums up, and charges the Jury. He explains their oath; to
+try the issue _according to the law_ does not mean (a) according to
+the whole complex which is called "_Law_," or "_The Law_," but
+according only to that particular statute which forbids the deed
+charged,--for otherwise the Jury must judge of the Purpose of Law,
+which is Justice, and inquire into the rightfulness of the deed and of
+the statute which forbids it. Nor does it mean (b) by the Jurors'
+notion of that statute, but only by the Judge's opinion thereof. He
+tells them--if they proceed to inquire into the natural Justice of the
+deed, or into the law which forbids it, then they transcend their
+office, and are guilty of "Perjury," and reads them the statute for
+the punishment of that offence, and refers to examples--from the times
+of the Stuarts, though he does not mention that--when Jurors were
+fined and otherwise severely dealt with for daring to resist a judge.
+
+Then out of the facts testified to by the government witnesses, he
+selects some one which is best supported, of which there is no doubt.
+He then declares that the question of "Guilty or not guilty" turns on
+that point. If the accused did that deed--then he is Guilty. So the
+moral question, "Has the man done a wrong thing?" is taken from their
+consideration; the intellectual question, "Has he done a deed which
+amounts to the crime forbidden?" is not before them; only the
+mechanical question, "Did he do that particular act?" They are not to
+inquire as to the Justice of the law, its Constitutionality, or its
+Legality; nor the Justice or the Criminality of the deed--only of its
+Actuality, Did he do this deed? Nay, sometimes the Judge treats them
+as cattle, and orders them to _find the facts for the government_. If
+they refuse, he threatens them with punishment.
+
+Thus he constructs the Trial-Jury, the Law, the Evidence, the Crime,
+and the Fact.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now, Gentlemen, when this is done and done thoroughly, the Judge has
+kept all the Forms, Presentment by the Grand-Jury, and Trial by a
+Petty Jury; but the substance is all gone; the Jury is only a stalking
+horse, and behind it creeps the Judicial servant of Tyranny, armed
+with the blunderbuss of law,--made and loaded by himself,--and
+delivers his shot in the name of law, but against Justice, that
+purpose of all law. Thus can tyranny be established--while all the
+forms of law are kept.[119]
+
+[Footnote 119: See 1 Jardine, Criminal Trials, 110. 2 Parker's
+Sermons, 266 and note.]
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, let me make this more clear by a special case
+wholly fictitious.--Thomas Nason, a "Non-Resistant" and a Quaker, is a
+colored citizen of Boston, the son and once the slave of Hon. James
+Nason of Virginia, but now legally become a free man by self-purchase;
+he has the bill of sale of himself in his pocket, and so carries about
+him a title deed which would perhaps satisfy your Honors of his right
+to liberty. But his mother Lizzie (Randolph) Nason, a descendant of
+both Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison,--for Virginia, I am told, can
+boast of many children descended from two Presidents, perhaps from
+three, who
+
+     "Boast the pure blood of an illustrious race,
+     In quiet flow from Lucrece to Lucrece"--
+
+from Saxon master to African slave,--is still the bondwoman of the
+Hon. James, the father of her son Thomas. From the "Plantation
+manners" of her master, the concubine, "foolishly dissatisfied with
+slavery," flies to Boston, and takes refuge with her Quaker son, who
+conceals his mother, and shelters her for a time. But let me suppose
+that his Honor Judge Curtis, while at Washington, fired with that
+patriotism which is not only habitual but natural and indigenous to
+his Honor, informs Mr. Nason of the hiding-place of his female slave,
+thus betraying a "mistress" to her master, no longer, alas, her
+"keeper." It is no injurious imputation--it is an imaginary honor I
+attribute to the learned and honorable Judge. Mr. Nason sends the
+proper agent to Boston to save the Union of States by restoring the
+union of master and slave. Mr. George Ticknor Curtis, fugitive slave
+bill commissioner, and brother to the Hon. Judge, issues his warrant
+for kidnapping the mother; his coadjutor and friend, Mr. Butman,
+attempts to seize her in her son's house. Thomas, unarmed, resists the
+intruder, and with a child's pop-gun drives that valiant officer out
+of the house, and puts the mother in a place of safety,--beneath the
+flag of England, or the Pope, or the Czar. Commissioner Curtis
+telegraphs the news to Washington,--announcing a "NEW CASE OF
+TREASON--more 'levying war!'" The Secretaries of State and of War
+write dreadful letters, breathing fire and slaughter, and President
+Pierce, a man of most heroic courage, alike mindful of his former
+actual military exploits at Chapultepec, of his delegated triumph at
+Greytown, and of the immortal glory of Mr. Fillmore, issues his
+Proclamation, calling on all good citizens, and especially on the
+politicians of his party, to "Save the Union" from the treason of this
+terrible Thomas Nason, who will blow up the Constitution with a
+pop-gun!
+
+At the next session of the Honorable Circuit Court of the United
+States in and for the first District, his Honor the Hon. Benjamin
+Robbins Curtis, Judge, constructs and charges the Grand-Jury in the
+manner already set forth. He instructs them that if any man, by force
+and arms, namely, with a pop-gun, does resist a body of United States
+officers, attempting to kidnap a woman, his own mother, that he
+thereby levies war against the United States, and accordingly commits
+the crime of "Treason" which consists in levying war against the
+United States--the "_amount_ of force is not material." And it is
+their duty to indict all persons in that form offending. The Attorney,
+the Hon. Benjamin Franklin Hallett, offers to "bet ten dollars that I
+will get" Nason "indicted," and urges the matter. But no bill is
+found, the Jury is discharged, a new Jury is summoned, and Mr. William
+W. Greenough, the Brother-in-law of the Judge is put on it, "drawn as
+Juror"--and then a "true bill" is found, Mr. Hallett actually making
+an indictment that cannot be quashed!
+
+On the day before Thanksgiving Thomas Nason is arraigned; and is
+brought to trial for this new Boston Massacre on the anniversary of
+the old one--on the Fifth of March. The judge constructs a Trial-Jury
+as before. Mr. Hallett, assisted by Mr. Thomas, Mr. George T. Curtis,
+and Commissioner Loring, manage the case for the government, bringing
+out the whole strength of the kidnapping party, and directing this
+Macedonian phalanx of Humanity and Law and Piety against a poor
+friendless negro. Mr. Hale, Mr. Ellis, and Mr. Dana defend him.
+Officer Butman and his coadjutors--members of the "Marshal's
+guard"--testify that Mr. Nason attacked them with the felonious weapon
+above named, putting them in mortal bodily fear greater than that
+which in Mexico once overthrew the (future) President of all this
+land! Mr. Herrman, the dealer in toys, testifies that he sold the
+murderous weapon for twenty-five cents to Mr. Nason who declared that
+he "could frighten Butman with it;" that it is of German manufacture,
+and is called a Knallbuechse!
+
+Judge Curtis sums up the matter. He tells the jury, (1.) That they are
+not to judge of the Law punishing treason, but to take it from the
+Court. (2.) Not to judge what Act constitutes the Crime of Treason,
+but take that also from the Court, and if the Court decides that
+offering a pop-gun at a rowdy's breast constitutes the crime of
+treason, they are to accept the decision as constitutional law. (3.)
+They are not to ask if it be just to hang a man for thus resisting a
+body of men who sought to kidnap his mother, for even if it be unjust
+and cruel it is none of their concern, for they must execute a cruel
+and unjust law with even more promptitude than a just and humane one,
+and in the language of the "Defender of the Constitution," "conquer
+their prejudices," and "do a disagreeable duty." (4.) If they think
+the Law commands one thing and the Will of God exactly the opposite,
+in the well-known words of Judge Sprague, they must "obey both" by
+keeping the law of man when it contradicts the law of God, for they
+can never be good Christians so long as they scruple to hang a Quaker
+for driving off a kidnapper; and obedience to the law is a moral duty,
+no matter how immoral the law may be, and "to obey the law of the land
+is to obey the will of God." (5.) But they have a simple question of
+fact to determine; namely, Did the Defendant resist officer Butman in
+the manner set forth? If satisfied of that, they must find him guilty.
+No mistaken notions of Justice must induce them to refuse their
+verdict--for they are not to make the law, but only help execute it;
+and their conscience is so "fallible, especially when the rights of
+others are concerned, and may lead them to do great injustice," for
+"the annals of the world abound with enormities committed by a narrow
+and darkened conscience." They must not ask if it be "religious" to do
+so--for to use the words of the most religious of all Americans, a man
+of most unspotted life in public and private, "Religion has nothing to
+do with politics," and this is a political trial. If there be any
+injustice in the law and its execution the blame lies with the makers
+thereof not with the jurors, and they may wash their hands as clean as
+Pilate's from the blood of Christ. Besides, if there be injustice the
+President can pardon the offender, and from his well-known religious
+character--which rests on the unbiased testimony of his _own minister_
+and the statement of several partisan newspapers published in the very
+heat of the election, when men, and especially politicians looking for
+office, never exaggerate,--he doubtless "will listen to petitions for
+a commutation of punishment!"
+
+But there is no injustice in it--for slavery is part of the _lex
+terrae_, the law of the land, protected by the Constitution itself,
+which is the _Lex Suprema_--the Supreme Law of the Land, and nearly
+eighty years old! Besides, "Slavery is not immoral," not contrary to
+the public policy of Massachusetts; and, moreover, the "mother" whom
+the criminal actually rescued, was a "foreigner" and "whatever rights
+she had, she had no right _here_."[120]
+
+[Footnote 120: See Hon. Judge Curtis's Speech at the Union Meeting in
+Faneuil Hall, November 26, 1850.]
+
+But it is not a cruel or an unchristian thing to require a negro
+layman to allow his mother to be kidnapped in his own house--especially
+if she were a born slave, and so by the very law "a chattel personal
+to all uses, intents, and purposes whatever," and of course wholly
+divested of all natural rights, even if a colored person ever had
+any--for an eminent American minister, of one of the most enlightened
+sects in Christendom, has publicly offered to send his own freeborn
+mother into bondage for ever!
+
+Moreover, if the jurors do not find a verdict of guilty, then they
+themselves are guilty of PERJURY!
+
+So the jury, without leaving their seats, find him guilty; the judge
+sentences; the President signs the Death-warrant, and Marshal Freeman
+hangs the man--to the great joy of the Commissioner's and the
+Marshal's guard who vacate the brothels once more and attend on that
+occasion and triumph over the murdered Quaker.
+
+But the mischief does not stop there; the Boston slave-hunters are not
+yet satisfied with blood; the judge constructs another grand-jury as
+before, only getting more of his kinsfolk thereon, and taking his law
+from the impeached Judges Kelyng and Chase, charges that all persons
+who _advise_ to an act of levying war, or evince an "_express liking_"
+for it, or "_approbation_" of it, are also guilty of treason; and "in
+treason all are Principals." Accordingly the jury must indict all who
+have evinced an "express liking" of the rescue, though they did not
+evince approval of the rescue by such means. It appears that Rev. Mr.
+Grimes in the meeting-house the Sunday before the treason was
+consummated, had actually prayed that God would "break the arm of the
+oppressor and let the oppressed go free;" that he read from a book
+called the Old Testament, "Bewray not him that wandereth," "Hide the
+outcast," and other paragraphs and sentences of like seditious nature.
+Nay, that from the New Testament he had actually read the Sermon on
+the Mount, especially the Golden Rule and the summing of the Law and
+the Prophets in one word, Love,--and had applied this to the case of
+fugitive slaves; moreover, that he had read the xxvth chapter of
+Matthew from the 31st to the 46th verse, with dreadful emphasis.
+
+Nay, anti-slavery men--in lectures--and in speeches in the Music Hall,
+which was built by pious people--and in Faneuil Hall, which was the
+old Cradle of Liberty, had actually spoken against man-stealing,--and
+even against some of the family of kidnappers in Boston!
+
+Still further, he adds, with great solemnity, a woman--a negro
+woman,--the actual wife of the criminal Nason--had brought
+intelligence--to her husband--that Mr. George T. Curtis,--the brother
+of the judge,--had issued his warrant--and Mr. Butman--"with a
+monstrous watch"--was coming to execute it--she told her
+husband,--and--incited him to his dreadful crime! If you find these
+facts you must convict the prisoners.
+
+So thirty or forty more are hanged for treason.
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, these fictitious cases doubtless seem
+extravagant to you. I am glad they do. In peaceful times, in the
+majority of cases there is no disagreement between the law, the judge,
+and the jurors; the law is just, or at least is an attempt at justice,
+the judge wishes to do justice by means thereof, and the jurors aim at
+the same thing. In such cases there is no motive for doing wrong to
+any person: so the judge fairly interprets the righteous and wholesome
+law, the jurors willingly receive the interpretation and apply it to
+the special case, and substantial justice is done. This happens not
+only in civil suits between party and party, but also in most of the
+criminal cases between the Public and the Defendant. But in times of
+great political excitement, in a period of crisis and transition, when
+one party seeks to establish a despotism and deprive some other class
+of men of their natural rights, cases like those I have imagined
+actually happen. Then there is a disagreement between the judge and
+the jury; nay, often between the jury and the special statute
+wherewith the government seeks to work its iniquity. It is on such
+occasions that the great value of this institution appears,--then the
+jury hold a shield over the head of their brother and defend him from
+the malignity of the government and the Goliath of injustice,
+appointed its champion to defy the Law of the living God, is smote in
+the forehead by the smooth stone taken from a country brook, and lies
+there slain by a simple rustic hand; for in such cases the jury fall
+back on their original rights, judge of the Fact, the Law, and the
+Application of the Law to the Fact, and do justice in spite of the
+court, at least prevent injustice.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now, Gentlemen of the Jury, I will mention some examples of this kind,
+partly to show the process by which attempts have been made to
+establish despotism, that by the English past you may be warned for
+the American present and future; and partly that your function in this
+and all cases may become clear to you and the Nation. The facts of
+history will show that my fancies are not extravagant.
+
+1. In April, 1554, just three hundred and one years ago this very
+month, in England, Sir Nicolas Throckmorton, a gentleman of
+distinguished family, was brought to trial for high treason. He had
+held a high military office under Henry VIII. and Edward VI., but
+"made himself obnoxious to the Papists, by his adherence to some of
+the persecuted Reformers." With his two brothers he attended Anne
+Askew to her martyrdom when she was burnt for heresy, where they were
+told to "take heed to your lives for you are marked men." He was
+brought to trial April 17th, 1554, the first year of Bloody Mary. Of
+course he was allowed no counsel; the court was insolent, and demanded
+his condemnation. But the jury acquitted him; whereupon the _court
+shut the twelve jurors in prison_! Four of them made their peace with
+the judges, and were delivered: but eight were kept in jail till the
+next December, and then fined,--three of them L60 apiece, and five
+L225 apiece.
+
+This is one of the earliest cases that I find, where an English jury
+in a political trial refused to return such a verdict as the tyrant
+demanded.[121]
+
+[Footnote 121: See the case in 1 St. Tr. 869, and 1 Jardine, 40, also
+115. The great juridical attacks upon English Liberty were directed
+against the Person of the Subject, and appear in the trials for
+Treason, but as in such trials the defendant had no counsel, the great
+legal battle for English Liberty was fought over the less important
+cases where only property was directly concerned. Hence the chief
+questions seem only to relate to money.]
+
+2. In September, 1670, William Penn, afterwards so famous, and William
+Mead, were brought to trial before the Lord Mayor of London, a
+creature of the king, charged with "a tumultuous assembly." For the
+Quaker meeting-house in Grace Church Street, had been forcibly shut by
+the government, and Mr. Penn had preached to an audience of Dissenters
+in the street itself. The court was exceedingly insolent and
+overbearing, interrupting and insulting the defendants continually.
+The jury found a special verdict--"guilty of speaking in Grace Church
+Street." The judge sent them out to return a verdict more suitable to
+the desire of the government. Again they substantially found the same
+verdict. "This both Mayor and Recorder resented at so high a rate that
+they exceeded the bounds of all reason and civility." The Recorder
+said, "You shall not be dismissed till we have a verdict that the
+court will accept; you shall be locked up without meat, drink, fire,
+and tobacco; you shall not think thus to abuse the court; we will have
+a verdict by the help of God, or you shall starve for it!" When Penn
+attempted to speak, the Recorder roared out, "Stop that prating
+fellow's mouth or put him out of court." The jury were sent out a
+third time, and kept all night, with no food, or drink, or bed. At
+last they returned a verdict of "not guilty," to the great wrath of
+the court. _The judge fined the jurors forty marks apiece_, about
+$140, _and put them in jail_ until they should pay that sum. The
+foreman, Edward Bushel, refused to pay his fine and was kept in jail
+until he was discharged on _Habeas Corpus_ in November. Here the
+attempt of a wicked government and a cruel judge was defeated by the
+noble conduct of the jurors, who dared be faithful to their duty.[122]
+
+[Footnote 122: 6 St. Tr. 951; Dixon's Life of Penn; 22 St. Tr. 925.]
+
+3. In 1681 an attempt was made to procure an indictment against the
+Earl of Shaftesbury, for High Treason. The Bill was presented to the
+Grand-Jury at London; Chief Justice Pemberton gave them the charge, at
+the king's desire--it was Charles II. They were commanded to _examine
+the evidence in public_ in the presence of the court, in order that
+they might thus be overawed and forced to find a bill, in which case
+the court had matters so arranged that they were sure of a conviction.
+The court took part in examining the witnesses, attempting to make out
+a case against the Earl. But the jury returned the bill with IGNORAMUS
+on it, and so found no indictment. The spectators rent the air with
+their shouts. The court was in great wrath, and soon after the king
+seized the Charter of London, as I have already shown you, seeking to
+destroy that strong-hold of Liberty. Shaftesbury escaped--the jury was
+discharged. Why did not the court summon another jury, and the chief
+justice put his brother-in-law on it? Roger Coke says, "But as the
+knights of Malta could make knights of their order for eight pence a
+piece, yet could not make a soldier or seaman; so these kings [the
+Stuarts] though _they could make what judges they pleased_ to do their
+business, _yet could not make a grand-jury_." For the grand-juries
+were returned by the Sheriffs, and the sheriffs were chosen by the
+Livery, the corporation of London. This fact made the king desire to
+seize the charter, _then he could make a grand-jury to suit himself_,
+out of the kinsfolk of the judge.[123]
+
+[Footnote 123: 8 St. Tr. 759, see the valuable matter in the notes,
+also 2 Hallam, 330 and notes.]
+
+4. Next comes the remarkable case of the Seven Bishops, which I have
+spoken of already.[124] You remember the facts, Gentlemen. The king,
+James II., in 1688, wishing to overturn Protestantism--the better to
+establish his tyranny--issued his notorious proclamation, setting
+aside the laws of the land and subverting the English Church. He
+commanded all Bishops and other ministers of religion to read the
+illegal proclamation on a day fixed. Seven Bishops presented to him a
+petition in most decorous language, remonstrating against the
+Proclamation, and asking to be excused from reading it to their
+congregations. The king consulted with Father Petre,--a Jesuit, his
+confessor--on the matter, and had the bishops brought to trial for a
+misdemeanor, for publishing "a seditious libel in writing against his
+majesty and his government." It was "obstructing an officer."
+
+[Footnote 124: See above, p. 32.]
+
+Then the question before the trial-jury was, Did the seven bishops, by
+presenting a petition to the king--asking that they might not be
+forced to do an act against the laws of England and their own
+consciences--commit the offence of publishing a seditious libel; and,
+Shall they be punished for that act? All the judges but two, Holloway
+and Powell, said "Yes," and the jury were so charged. But the jury
+said, "Not guilty." The consequence was this last of the Stuarts was
+foiled in his attempt to restore papal tyranny to England and
+establish such a despotism as already prevailed in France and Spain.
+Here the jury stood between the tyrant and the Liberties of the
+People.
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, let me show you how that noble verdict was
+received. Soon as the verdict was given, says Bishop Burnet, "There
+were immediately very loud acclamations throughout Westminster Hall,
+and the words 'Not guilty,' 'Not guilty,' went round with shouts and
+huzzas; thereat the King's Solicitor moved very earnestly that such as
+had shouted in the court might be committed. But the shouts were
+carried on through the cities of Westminster and London and flew
+presently to Hounslow Heath, where the soldiers in the camp echoed
+them so loud that it startled the king."[125] "Every man seemed
+transported with joy. Bonfires were made all about the streets, and
+the news going over the nation, produced the like rejoicings all
+England over. The king's presence kept the army in some order. But he
+was no sooner gone out of the camp, than he was followed with an
+universal shouting, as if it had been a victory obtained."[126] "When
+the Bishops withdrew from the court, they were surrounded by countless
+thousands who eagerly knelt down to receive their blessing." Of course
+the two judges who stood out for the liberties of the citizens, were
+removed from office!
+
+[Footnote 125: 12 St. Tr. 430.]
+
+[Footnote 126: Burnet's Own Times, 470. See also 2 Campbell, Justices,
+89, _et seq._]
+
+5. Here is another remarkable case, that of William Owen, in 1752.
+These are the facts. In 1750 there was a contested election of a
+member of Parliament for Westminster. Hon. Alexander Murray, an
+anti-ministerial member of the Commons, was denounced to the House for
+his conduct during the election, and it was ordered that he should be
+confined a close prisoner in Newgate, and that he receive his sentence
+on his knees. He refused to kneel, and was punished with great cruelty
+by the bigoted and intolerant House. Mr. Owen, who was a bookseller,
+published a pamphlet, entitled "The Case of Alexander Murray, Esq.,"
+detailing the facts and commenting thereon. For this an information
+was laid against him, charging him with publishing a "wicked, false,
+scandalous, seditious, and malicious libel."
+
+On the trial, the Attorney-General, Ryder, thus delivered himself:--
+
+     "What!--shall a person appeal from that Court, who are the
+     only judges of things belonging to them, the House of
+     Commons I mean. An appeal! To whom? To a mob? Must Justice
+     be appealed from? To whom? To injustice? Appeal to 'the good
+     people of England,' 'particularly the inhabitants of
+     Westminster'! The House of Commons are the good people of
+     England, being the representatives of the people. The rest
+     are--what? Nothing--unless it be a mob. But the clear
+     meaning of this libel was an _appeal to violence_, in fact,
+     and to stigmatize the House." "Then he charges the House
+     with sinking material evidence; which in fact is accusing
+     the House of injustice. This is a charge the most shocking;
+     the most severe, and the most unjust and virulent, against
+     the good, the tender House of Commons; that safeguard of our
+     liberty, and guardian of our welfare."
+
+     "This libel ... will be found the most powerful invective
+     that the skill of man could invent. I will not say the
+     skill, but the wit, art, and false contrivance of man,
+     instigated by Satan;" "to say that this is not a libel, is
+     to say that there is no justice, equity, or right in the
+     world."
+
+The Solicitor-General told the Jury that they were only to inquire _if
+Mr. Owen published the pamphlet_, "_the rest follows of course_;" "you
+are upon your oaths; you judge of the facts ... and _only them_."
+Chief Justice Lee summed up the evidence "and delivered it as his
+opinion, that the _Jury ought to find the defendant guilty;_ for he
+thought the _fact of publication was fully proved; and if so they
+could not avoid bringing in the defendant guilty_."
+
+The jury returned, "Not guilty;" but Ryder, the Attorney-General, put
+this question, Do you think the evidence is not sufficient to convince
+you that _Owen did sell the book_? The foreman stuck to his general
+verdict, "Not guilty," "Not guilty;" and several of the jurymen said,
+"that is our verdict, my lord, and we abide by it." "Upon which the
+court broke up, and there was a prodigious shout in the hall." Then
+"the Jury judged as to facts, law, and justice of the whole, and
+therefore did not answer the leading question which was so artfully
+put to them."[127] Of course the insolent Attorney-General was soon
+made "Lord Chief Justice," and _rode_ the bench after the antiquated
+routine.
+
+[Footnote 127: 18 St. Tr. 1203; 14 Parl. Hist. 888, 1063; 3 Hallam,
+200; 2 Campbell, Justices, 198.]
+
+This was the third great case in which the Jury had vindicated the
+right of speech.
+
+6. Here is another case very famous in its day, and of great value as
+helping to establish the rights of juries, and so to protect the
+natural right of the citizens--the Trial of John Miller for reprinting
+Junius's Letter to the King, in 1770.
+
+Here are the facts. Mr. Miller was the publisher of a newspaper called
+the _London Evening Post_, and therein, on December 19, 1769, he
+reprinted Junius's celebrated Letter to the King. For this act, an
+information _ex officio_ was laid against him, wherein he was charged
+with publishing a false, wicked, seditious, and malicious libel. A
+suit had already been brought against Woodfall, the publisher of the
+_Public Advertiser_, in which the letter originally appeared, but the
+prosecution had not turned out to the satisfaction of the government,
+nor had the great question been definitely settled. So this action was
+brought against Mr. Miller, who reprinted the original letter the day
+of its first appearance.[128]
+
+[Footnote 128: 20 St. Tr. 803, 895, 869; Woodfall's Junius (Bohn,
+1850), Preface, p. 94, Appendix, p. 471; 2 Campbell, Justices, 363; 5
+Mahon.]
+
+Solicitor-General Thurlow,--whom you have met before,
+Gentlemen,--opened the case for the Crown, and said:--
+
+     "I have not of myself been able to imagine ... that there is
+     a serious man of the profession in the kingdom who has the
+     smallest doubt whether this ought to be deemed a libel or
+     not;" "for I neither do, nor ever will, attempt to lay
+     before a jury, a cause, in which I was under the necessity
+     of stating a single principle that went to intrench, in the
+     smallest degree, upon the avowed and acknowledged liberty of
+     the subjects of this country, even with regard to the press.
+     The complaint I have to lay before you is that that liberty
+     has been so abused, so turned to licentiousness, ... that
+     under the notion of arrogating liberty to one man, that is
+     the writer, printer, and publisher of this paper, they do
+     ... annihilate and destroy the liberty of all men, more or
+     less. Undoubtedly the man that has indulged the _liberty of
+     robbing upon the highway_, has a very considerable portion
+     of it allotted to him." The defendant "has published a
+     paper, in which, concerning the King, concerning the House
+     of Commons, and concerning the great officers of State,
+     concerning the public affairs of the realm, there are
+     uttered things of such tendency and application as ought to
+     be punished." "When we are come to that situation, when it
+     shall be lawful for any men in this country to speak of the
+     sovereign [George III.] in terms attempting to fix upon him
+     such contempt, abhorrence, and hatred, there is an end of
+     all government whatsoever, and then liberty is indeed to
+     shift for itself." He quotes from the paper: "'He [the king]
+     has taken a decisive personal part against the subjects of
+     America, and those subjects know how to distinguish the
+     sovereign and a venal Parliament, upon one side, from the
+     real sentiments of the English nation upon the other.' For
+     God's sake is that no libel? To _talk of the king as taking
+     a part of an hostile sort against one branch of his
+     subjects_, and at the same time to _connect him ... with the
+     parliament which he calls a venal parliament_; is that no
+     libel?"
+
+Lord Mansfield,--the bitterest enemy of the citizens' right of speech
+and of the trial by jury,--charged upon the jury, "The question for
+you to try ... is, whether the _defendant did print_, or publish, or
+both, a _paper of the tenor_, and of the meaning, so _charged by the
+information_." "If it is of the tenor and meaning set out in the
+information, the next consideration is, whether he _did print and
+publish it_." "If you ... find the defendant not guilty, the fact
+established by that verdict is, _he did not publish a paper of that
+meaning_;" "the fact finally established by your verdict, if you find
+him guilty, is, that _he printed_ and published a _paper, of the
+tenor_ and of the meaning set _forth in the information_;" "but you do
+_not give an opinion ... whether it is or not lawful to print a paper_
+... of the tenor and meaning in the information;" "if in point of fact
+it is innocent, it would be an innocent thing."
+
+Thus practically the judge left the jury only one thing to determine,
+Did Mr. Miller print Junius's letter to the king? That was a fact as
+notorious as it now is in Boston that the _Daily Advertiser_ supported
+the fugitive slave bill, and helped its execution, for the letter to
+the king was there in Mr. Miller's journal as plainly as those
+defences of the fugitive slave bill were in the _Advertiser_. If the
+jury said "guilty," the court had the defendant in their claws,--and
+all the wrath of the most malignant tories would fall on him and rend
+him in pieces. But the jury fell back on their legitimate function to
+determine the Fact, the Law, and the Application of the law to the
+fact, and returned a verdict, Not Guilty, which a great multitude
+repeated with loud acclaim!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+7. Next, Gentlemen, I will relate a few cases in which the government
+set all justice at defiance and clove down the right of speech,
+commonly packing submissive juries. In 1790 and following years, while
+the French Revolution was in progress, the thoughtful eyes of England
+fell on the evils of her own country. America was already a Republic,
+just recovering from the shock of violent separation from her
+mother,--young, poor, but not unprosperous, and full of future promise
+too obvious to escape the sagacious politicians who there saw a
+cause--
+
+         "----with fear of change,
+     Perplexing Kings."
+
+The people of France, by a few spasmodic efforts, broke the threefold
+chain of Priest, King, and Noble, and began to lift up their head. But
+Saxon England is sober, and so went to work more solemnly than her
+mercurial neighbor. And besides, the British people had already a
+firm, broad basis of personal freedom to stand on. Much was thought,
+written, and spoken about reform in England, then most desperately
+needing it. The American Revolution had English admirers whom no
+courts could silence. Nay, at first the French Revolution delighted
+some of the ablest and best men in Britain, who therein beheld the
+carrying out of the great Principles which Aristotle and Machiavelli
+had laid down as the law of the historical development and social
+evolution of mankind. They wished some improvement in England itself.
+But of course there was a strong opposition made to all change.
+Parliament refused to relieve the evils which were made obvious. The
+upper House of Nobles was composed of the Elder Sons of the families
+which had a social and pecuniary interest in oppressing the people,
+and the lower House "consisted mainly of the Younger Sons of the same
+families, or still worse the purchased dependents" of their families.
+Societies were organized for Reform, such as the "London Corresponding
+Society," "the Friends of the People," etc., etc. The last mentioned
+contained many literary, scientific, and political men, and about
+thirty members of Parliament. Great complaints were made in public at
+the inequality of Representation in Parliament. Stormy debates took
+place in Parliament itself--such as we have not yet heard in America,
+but which wicked and abandoned men are fast bringing upon us. Pitt and
+Fox were on opposite sides.
+
+           "----and such a frown
+     Each cast at the other, as when two black clouds,
+     With Heaven's artillery fraught, come rattling on
+     Over the Caspian, then stand front to front,
+     Hovering a space, till winds the signal blow
+     To join their dark encounter in mid air."
+
+At that time the House of Commons was mainly filled with creatures of
+a few powerful men; thus 91 commoners elected 139 members of the
+commons, and 71 peers also elected 163; so 302 British members of
+Parliament, besides 45 more from Scotland,--347 in all,--were returned
+by 162 persons. This was called "Representation of the People." From
+the party who feared to lose their power of tyranny, there went out
+the decree, "Discussion on the subject of national grievances must be
+suppressed, in Parliament and out of Parliament." Violent attempts
+were made to suppress discussion. In short, the same efforts were made
+in England which were attempted in New York and Boston in 1850 and the
+two following years, till they were ended by a little sprinkling of
+dust. But in Britain the public mind is harsher than ever in America,
+and the weapons which broke in the hand of Old England were much more
+formidable than that which here so suddenly snapped, and with such
+damage to the assassinating hand.
+
+(1.) In 1792, John Lambert and two others published an advertisement
+in the London Morning Chronicle, with which they were connected as
+printers or proprietors, addressed "to the friends of free inquiry and
+the general good," inviting them in a peaceful, calm, and unbiased
+manner to endeavor to improve the public morals in respect to law,
+taxation, representation, and political administration. They were
+prosecuted, on _ex officio_ information, for a "false, wicked,
+scandalous, and seditious libel." The government made every effort to
+secure their conviction. But it failed.[129]
+
+[Footnote 129: 22 St. Tr. 923.]
+
+(2.) The same year, Duffin and Lloyd, two debtors in the Fleet Prison,
+one an American citizen, wrote on the door of the prison chapel "this
+house to let; peaceable possession will be given by the present
+tenants on or before the first day of January, 1793, being the
+commencement of liberty in Great Britain. The republic of France
+having rooted out despotism, their glorious example and success
+against tyrants renders infamous Bastiles no longer necessary in
+Europe." They also were indicted for a "wicked, infamous, and
+seditious libel," and found guilty. Lloyd was put in the pillory![130]
+
+[Footnote 130: 2 St. Tr. 1793.]
+
+(3.) In 1793, Rev. William Frend, of the University of Cambridge,
+published a harmless pamphlet entitled "Peace and Union recommended to
+the associated bodies of Republicans and anti-Republicans." He was
+brought to trial, represented as a "heretic, deist, infidel, and
+atheist," and by sentence of the court banished from the
+university.[131]
+
+[Footnote 131: 22 St. Tr. 523.--So late as 1820, the chief justice
+punished an editor with a fine of L500, for publishing an account of a
+trial for high treason. See 33 St. Tr. 1564, also 22 St. Tr. 298; 2
+Campbell, Justices, 363, 371 _et al._]
+
+(4.) The same year, John Frost, Esq., "a gentleman" and attorney, when
+slightly intoxicated after dinner, and provoked by others, said, "I am
+for equality. I see no reason why any man should not be upon a footing
+with another; it is every man's birthright." And when asked if he
+would have no king, he answered, "Yes, no king; the constitution of
+this country is a bad one." This took place in a random talk at a
+tavern in London. He was indicted as a person of a "depraved, impious,
+and disquiet mind, and of a seditious disposition, and contriving,
+practising, and maliciously, turbulently, and seditiously intending
+the peace and common tranquillity of our lord the king and his laws to
+disturb," "to the evil example of all others in like case offending."
+He was sentenced to six months in Newgate, and one hour in the
+pillory! He must find sureties for good behavior for five years,
+himself in L500, two others in L100 each, be imprisoned until the
+sureties were found, and be struck from the list of attornies![132]
+
+[Footnote 132: 22 St. Tr. 471.]
+
+(5.) Rev. William Winterbotham, the same year, in two sermons, exposed
+some of the evils in the constitution and administration of England,
+and for that was fined L200, and sentenced to jail for four years,--a
+good deal more than $300 and twelve months' imprisonment.[133]
+
+[Footnote 133: Ibid. 823.]
+
+(6.) The same year, Thomas Briellat, a London pump-maker, in a private
+conversation said, "A reformation cannot be effected without a
+revolution; we have no occasion for kings; there never will be any
+good time until all kings are abolished from the face of the earth; it
+is my wish that there were no kings at all." "I wish the French would
+land 500,000 men to fight the government party." He was tried, found
+guilty, and sentenced to a fine of L100, and sent to jail for a
+year.[134]
+
+[Footnote 134: Ib. 909.]
+
+(7.) Richard Phillips, afterwards Sheriff of London, was sent to jail
+for eighteen months for selling Paine's Rights of Man; for the same
+offence two other booksellers were fined and sent to Newgate _for four
+years_! A surgeon and a physician were sent to Newgate for two years
+for having "_seditious libels in their possession_." Thirteen persons
+were indicted at once.[135]
+
+[Footnote 135: Ibid. 471. Wade, Brit. Hist. (1847), 582, _et seq._]
+
+(8.) In 1793 a charge was brought against the Rev. Thomas Fyshe
+Palmer, formerly a Senior Fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge, and
+then a Unitarian minister at Dundee. Mr. Palmer wrote an Address which
+was adopted at a meeting of the Friends of Liberty and published by
+them, which, in moderate language, called on the People "to join us in
+our exertions for the preservation of our perishing liberty, and the
+recovery of our long lost rights." He distributed copies of this
+address. He was prosecuted for "Leasing-making," for publishing a
+"seditious and inflammatory writing." The (Scotch) jury found him
+guilty, and the judges sentenced him to _transportation for seven
+years_. The sentence was executed with rigorous harshness.[136]
+
+[Footnote 136: 23 St. Tr. 237; Belsham's History of George III.]
+
+(9.) The same year Thomas Muir, Esq., was brought to trial for
+Leasing-making or public Libel at Edinburgh. He was a promising young
+lawyer, with liberal tendencies in politics, desiring the education of
+the great mass of the people and a reform in Parliament. He was a
+member of various Reform societies, and sometimes spoke at their
+meetings in a moderate tone recommending only legal efforts--by
+discussion and petition--to remedy the public grievances. His Honor
+(Mr. Curtis) who belongs to a family so notoriously "democratic" in
+the beginning of this century, and so eager in its denunciations of
+the Federalists of that period, knows that the law even of
+England--which they so much hated--allows all that. It appeared that
+Mr. Muir also lent a copy of Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man" to a
+mechanic who asked the loan as a favor. For these offences he was
+indicted for sedition, charged with instituting "a Society for
+Reform," and with an endeavor "to represent the government of this
+country as oppressive and tyrannical, and the legislative body as
+venal and corrupt." It was alleged in the indictment that he
+complained of the government of England as "costly," the monarchy as
+"useless, cumbersome, and expensive," that he advised persons to read
+Paine's Rights of Man, and circulated copies of a periodical called
+"the _Patriot_," which complained of the grievances of the people. On
+trial he was treated with great insolence and harshness, reprimanded,
+interrupted, and insulted by the agents of the government--the court.
+An association of men had offered a reward of five guineas for the
+discovery of any person who circulated the writings of Thomas Paine.
+Five of the fifteen jurors were members of that association,--and in
+Scotland a bare majority of the jurors convicts. Mr. Muir defended
+himself, and that ably. Lord Justice Clark charged his packed jury:--
+
+     "There are two things which you should attend to, which
+     require no proof. The first is that the British Constitution
+     is the _best in the world_!" "Is not every man _secure in
+     his life, liberty, and property? Is not happiness in the
+     power of every man?_ 'Does not every man sit safely under
+     his own vine and fig-tree' and none shall make him afraid?"
+     "The other circumstance ... is the state of the country
+     during last winter. _There was a spirit of sedition and
+     revolt going abroad._" "I leave it for you to judge whether
+     it was perfectly innocent or not in Mr. Muir ... to go about
+     ... among _the lower classes of the people ... inducing them
+     to believe that a reform was absolutely necessary, to
+     preserve their safety and their liberty_, which, had it not
+     been for him, they never would have suspected to have been
+     in danger." "He ran a parallel between the French and
+     English Constitutions, and _talked of their respective
+     taxes_ ... and gave a preference to the French." "He has
+     brought many witnesses to prove his general good behavior,
+     and his recommending peaceable measures, and petitioning to
+     Parliament." "Mr. Muir might have known that _no attention
+     could be paid to such a rabble, what right had they to
+     representation_? He could have told them the _Parliament
+     would never listen to their petition_! How could they think
+     of it? A government in any country should be just like a
+     corporation; and in this country it is _made up of the
+     landed interest, which alone has a right to be
+     represented_."
+
+Gentlemen, you might think this speech was made by the "Castle Garden
+Committee," or at the Boston "Union Meeting" in 1850, but it comes
+from the year 1793.
+
+Of course the jury found him guilty: the judges sentenced him to
+_transportation for fourteen years_! Lord Swinton quoted from the
+Roman law, that the punishment for sedition was _crucifixion_, or
+exposure _to be torn to pieces by wild beasts_, or transportation. "We
+have chosen the _mildest of these punishments_." This sentence was
+executed with great cruelty. But Mr. Pitt, then in the high places of
+power, declared these punishments were dictated by a "sound
+discretion."[137]
+
+[Footnote 137: 23 St. Tr. 117; 30 Parl. Hist. 1486, for Adams' Speech
+in Commons.]
+
+For like offences several others underwent the same or similar
+punishment. But these enormities were perpetrated by the government in
+Scotland--where the Roman Law had early been introduced and had
+accustomed the Semi-Saxons to forms of injustice foreign to the
+ethnologic instinct and historic customs of the parent tribe. But
+begun is half done. Emboldened by their success in punishing the
+friends of Humanity in Scotland, the ministry proceeded to attempt the
+same thing in England itself. Then began that British Reign of Terror,
+which lasted longer than the French, and brought the liberties of the
+People into such peril as they had not known since William of Orange
+hurled the last of the Stuarts from his throne. Dreadful laws were
+passed, atrocious almost as our own fugitive slave bill. First came
+"the Traitorous correspondence Bill;" next the "Habeas Corpus
+Suspension Act;" and then the "Seditious Practices Act," with the
+"Treasonable Attempts Bill" by legislative exposition establishing
+constructive treason! All these iniquitous measures were brought
+forward in Parliament by Sir John Scott--then Attorney-General, one of
+those North Britons who find the pleasantest prospect in Scotland is
+the road to London. He also was vehemently active in defending the
+tyranny of the Scotch judges just referred to, as indeed all judicial
+insolence and legal wrong.[138] He opposed all attempts to reform the
+law which punished with death a theft of five shillings. In two years
+there were more prosecutions for seditious libel than in twenty
+before. But Scott had his reward, and was made Lord Chancellor in
+1801, and elevated to the peerage as Lord Eldon.[139]
+
+[Footnote 138: 30 Parl. Hist. 581; 31 Parl. Hist. 520, 929, 1153, _et
+al._; 32 Parl. Hist. 370.]
+
+[Footnote 139: 7 Campbell, 119; 1 Townsend's Judges; Life of Vic.
+Gibbs.]
+
+8. Then came that series of trials for high treason which disgraced
+the British nation and glutted the sanguinary vengeance of the court.
+The government suborned spies to feign themselves "radicals," join the
+various Reform Societies, worm themselves into the confidence of
+patriotic and philanthropic or rash men, possess themselves of their
+secrets, catch at their words, and then repeat in court what they were
+paid for fabricating in their secret haunts. A ridiculous fable was
+got up that there was a plot to assassinate the King! Many were
+arrested, charged with treason--"constructive treason." On the
+evidence of spies of the government, hired informers--such men,
+Gentlemen of Jury, as Commissioner Loring and Marshal Freeman jointly
+made use of last year to kidnap Mr. Burns--estimable men were seized
+and locked up in the most loathsome dungeons of the kingdom, with
+intentional malignity confined amongst the vilest of notorious
+criminals. The judges wrested the law, constructing libels, seditions,
+"misdemeanors," treasons--any crime which it served their purpose to
+forge out of acts innocent, or only rash or indiscreet. Juries were
+packed by bribed sheriffs, and purchased spies were brought in
+evidence to swear away the liberty or the life of noble men. One of
+the government witnesses was subsequently convicted of ten perjuries!
+No man was safe who dared utter a serious word against George III. or
+Mr. Pitt.
+
+Here, Gentlemen, I shall mention two cases of great importance in
+which the jury did their duty and turned the stream of ministerial and
+judicial tyranny.
+
+(1.) In 1794 in a bill suspending the Habeas Corpus, Parliament
+declared "that a treacherous and detestable conspiracy had been formed
+for subverting the existing laws and constitution, and for introducing
+the system of anarchy and violence which had lately prevailed in
+France." Soon after the grand-jury for Middlesex indicted twelve men
+for high treason; they were members of some of the Societies mentioned
+just now. "The overt act charged against them was, that they had
+engaged _in a conspiracy to call a convention_, the object of which
+was to bring about a revolution in the country," but it was not
+alleged that there was any plot against the King's life, or any
+preparation for force.[140] Thomas Hardy, a shoemaker, was first
+brought to trial. The trial began October 28, 1794, just sixty years
+before Mr. Curtis's grand-jury found a bill against me. Sir John
+Scott, the attorney-general, in opening the Prosecution, made a
+_speech nine hours' long_, attempting to construct treason out of
+belonging to a society. All who belonged to it were to be considered
+guilty of "compassing the death of our Lord the King." Chief Justice
+Eyre, in addressing the grand-jury, referred to the act of Parliament
+as _proof of a conspiracy_.[141] Mr. Erskine defended Hardy in a
+speech which "will live forever." Seldom had English Liberty been in
+such peril; never did English lawyers more manfully defend it. The
+jury, a London jury, returned "NOT GUILTY."[142] Gentlemen, the report
+of the trial occupies more than twelve hundred pages in this
+volume,[143] and it shook the nation. The British juries for a long
+time had slept on their post, and allowed the enemy to enter the camp
+and murder its inmates. But the trial of Hardy woke up those heedless
+sentinels, and Liberty was safe--in England, I mean.
+
+[Footnote 140: 6 Campbell, 366.]
+
+[Footnote 141: 34 George III. c. 54.]
+
+[Footnote 142: 24 St. Tr. 199; Annual Register, 1794, p. 274; 31 Parl.
+Hist. 1062, _et al._]
+
+[Footnote 143: 24 St. Tr.]
+
+(2.) Still the infatuated government went on, not conscious of the
+spirit of Anglo-Saxon liberty it had at last roused from long, heavy
+and deathlike sleep, and eleven days after brought Mr. John Horne
+Tooke to trial. You remember, Gentlemen, that on the first anniversary
+of the Declaration of Independence, he was tried for publishing a
+notice of a meeting which raised L100 for the widows and orphan
+children of our citizens who fell at Lexington on the 19th of April,
+1775, and for that offence was punished with fine and imprisonment.[144]
+After the acquittal of Hardy, the government brought Mr. Tooke to
+trial, relying on the same evidence to convict him which had so
+signally failed a fortnight before. The overt act relied on to convict
+him of "levying war" and "compassing the death of our Lord the King,"
+was membership of a Reform society! Mr. Erskine defended him: "I
+_will_ assert the freedom of an Englishman; I will maintain the
+dignity of man, I will vindicate and glory in the principles which
+raised this country to her preeminence among the nations of the earth;
+and as she shone the bright star of the morning to shed the light of
+liberty upon nations which now enjoy it, so may she continue in her
+radiant sphere to revive the ancient privileges of the world which
+have been lost, and still to bring them forward to tongues and people
+who have never known them yet, in the mysterious progression of
+things."[145]
+
+[Footnote 144: See above, p. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 145: 25 St. Tr. 1.]
+
+Gentlemen, Horne Tooke was acquitted--the government routed and
+overwhelmed with disgrace, gave up the other prosecutions, and the
+treason trials ended. Even George III. had wit enough left to see the
+blunder which his ministers--the Slave Power of England in 1794--had
+committed, and stammered forth, "You have got us into the wrong box my
+Lord [Loughborough]; you have got us into the wrong box. Constructive
+treason won't do my Lord; constructive treason won't do." By and by,
+Gentlemen, other men, wiser than poor feeble-minded George III., will
+find out that "constructive _misdemeanors_ won't do."
+
+Of these trials, Mr. Campbell, himself a Judge, declares, "This [the
+conduct of the government] was more exceptionable in principle than
+any thing done during the reign of Charles II.; for then the
+fabricators of the Popish Plot did not think of corroborating the
+testimony of Oates and Bedloe by a public statute; and then, if the
+facts alleged had been true, they would have amounted to a plain case
+of actual treason; whereas here, admitting the truth of all the facts
+alleged, there was no pretence for saying that any treason
+contemplated by the legislature had been committed. If this scheme had
+succeeded, not only would there have been a sacrifice of life contrary
+to law, but all political 'agitation' must have been extinguished in
+England, as there would have been a precedent for holding that the
+effort to carry a measure by influencing public opinion through the
+means openly resorted to in our days, is a 'compassing the death of
+the sovereign.' The only chance of escaping such servitude would have
+been civil war. It is frightful to think of the perils to which the
+nation was exposed.... But Erskine and the crisis were framed for each
+other.... His contemporaries, who without him might have seen the
+extinction of freedom among us, saw it, by his peculiar genius, placed
+on an imperishable basis."[146] But Erskine without a Jury, Gentlemen,
+what could he have done? He could only wail, O Jerusalem,
+Jerusalem--when she would not!
+
+[Footnote 146: 5 Campbell, 367.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now, Gentlemen, let us come over to this side of the water. I shall
+mention some cases in which the Jury have manfully done their duty,
+some others in which they have allowed themselves to be browbeaten and
+bullied by a judge, and so have done the greatest wrong.
+
+1. First look at the famous case of John Peter Zenger.[147] Here are
+the facts. In 1733, Mr. Zenger established a newspaper in New
+York--there was only one there before--called the "New York Weekly
+Journal," "containing the freshest Advices foreign and domestic." In
+some numbers of this he complained, modestly enough, of various
+grievances in the administration of the Province, then ruled by
+Governor Cosby. He said, "as matters now stand their [the People's]
+liberties and properties are precarious, and that Slavery is likely
+to be entailed on them and their posterity, if some past things be not
+amended." He published the remarks of some one who said he "should be
+glad to hear that the Assembly would exert themselves, as became them,
+by showing that they have the interest of their country more at heart
+than the gratification of any private view of any of their members, or
+being at all affected by the smiles or frowns of a Governor, both
+which ought equally to be despised when the interest of the country is
+at stake." "We see men's deeds destroyed, judges arbitrarily
+displaced, new courts erected without consent of the legislature, by
+which, it seems to me, trials by juries are taken away when a Governor
+pleases." "Who, then, in that province can call any thing his own, or
+enjoy any liberty longer than those in the administration will
+condescend to let him do it?"
+
+[Footnote 147: 3 Doc. Hist. N.Y. p. 340, 341.]
+
+In October, 1734, Chief Justice de Lancey gave a charge to the
+Grand-Jury, urging them to indict Mr. Zenger for a libel. He says, "It
+is a very high aggravation of a libel that it tends to scandalize the
+government by _reflecting on those who are intrusted with the
+administration of public affairs_, which ... has a direct tendency to
+breed in the public a dislike of their Governors." "If he who hath
+either read a libel himself, or hath heard it read by another, _do
+afterwards_ maliciously _read or report any part of it in the presence
+of others_, or _lend or show it to another, he is guilty of an
+unlawful publication of it._"
+
+But the Judge had not packed the Grand-Jury with sufficient care, and
+so no bill was found. Thereupon the Governor's Council sent a message
+to the General Assembly of New York, complaining of Mr. Zenger's
+Journal as tending "to alienate the affections of the people of this
+province from his majesty's government," and asking them to inquire
+into the said papers and the authors thereof; the Council required
+that the obnoxious numbers might "be _burned by the hands of the
+common hangman or whipper, near the pillory_." The Assembly let them
+lie on the table. The Court of Quarter-sessions was applied to to burn
+the papers; but as that body refused, the sheriff "delivered them unto
+the hands of _his own negro_, and ordered him to put them into the
+fire, which he did."
+
+Mr. Zenger was imprisoned by a warrant from the Governor, a _lettre de
+cachet_, and "for several days denied the use of pen, ink, and paper,
+and the liberty of speech with any person." An _ex officio_
+information was brought against him, charging him with "malicious and
+seditious libel." His counsel, Messrs. Alexander and Smith, took
+exceptions to the proceedings. The Chief Justice would neither hear
+nor allow the exceptions, "for" said he, "you thought to have gained a
+great deal of applause and popularity by opposing this court ... but
+you have brought it to that point, that either we must go from the
+bench or you from the bar, therefore we exclude you." So "for contempt
+of court" their names were struck from the list of attorneys. The case
+came on for trial. The clerk of the Court sought to pack his jury, and
+instead of producing the "Freeholders' book" to select the Jury from,
+presented a list of forty-eight persons which he said he had taken
+from that book. This Honorable Court knows how easy it is to violate
+the law in summoning jurors; none knew it better a hundred and twenty
+years ago. Of the 48 some were not freeholders at all; others held
+commissions and offices at the Governor's pleasure; others were of the
+late displaced magistrates who had a grudge against Mr. Zenger for
+exposing their official conduct; besides, there were the governor's
+baker, tailor, shoemaker, candle-maker, and joiner. But it does not
+appear that this Judge had any Brother-in-law on the list; corruption
+had not yet reached that height. But that wicked list was set aside
+after much ado, and a Jury summoned in the legal manner. It may
+astonish the Court but it was really done--and a Jury summoned
+according to law. The trial went on. Andrew Hamilton of Philadelphia
+defended Mr. Zenger with law, wit, learning, and eloquence. He
+admitted the fact of printing and publishing the documents, and rested
+the defence on the truth of their assertions. The Attorney-General,
+Mr. Bradley, said, "supposing they were true, the law says that they
+are not the less libellous for that: nay, indeed, the law says, _their
+being true is an aggravation of the crime_." He "did not know what
+could be said in defence of a man that had so notoriously scandalized
+the governor and principal magistrates ... by _charging them with
+depriving the people of their rights and liberties, and taking away
+trials by juries, and in short putting an end to the law itself_. If
+this was not a libel, he did not know what was one. Such persons as
+did take these liberties ... ought to suffer for stirring up sedition
+and discontent among the people."
+
+The Chief Justice declared, "It is far from being a justification of a
+libel that the contents thereof are true ... since the _greater
+appearance there is of truth, so much the more provoking is it_!" "The
+jury may find that Mr. Zenger printed and published these papers, and
+_leave it to the court to judge whether they are libellous_!"
+
+That would be to put the dove's neck in the mouth of the fox, and
+allow him to decide whether he would bite it off. Mr. Hamilton
+replied:--
+
+     "This of leaving it to the judgment of the court whether the
+     words are libellous or not, in effect renders Juries useless
+     (to say no worse), in many cases." "If the faults, mistakes,
+     nay even the vices of such a person be private and personal,
+     and don't affect the peace of the public, or the liberty or
+     property of our neighbor, it is unmanly and unmannerly to
+     expose them, either by word or writing. But, when a ruler of
+     the people brings his personal failings, but much more his
+     vices, into his administration, and the people find
+     themselves affected by them, either in their liberties or
+     properties, that will alter the case mightily; and all the
+     high things that are said in favor of rulers and of
+     deputies, and upon the side of power, will not be able to
+     stop people's mouths when they feel themselves oppressed, I
+     mean in a free government. It is true _in times past it was
+     a crime to speak truth_; and in that terrible court of
+     Star-Chamber many worthy and brave men suffered for so
+     doing; and yet even in that court, and in those bad times, a
+     great and good man durst say, what I hope will not be taken
+     amiss of me to say in this place, namely, 'The practice of
+     informations for libels is a sword in the hands of a wicked
+     king, and an arrant coward, to cut down and destroy the
+     innocent; the one cannot because of his high station, and
+     the other dares not, because of his want of courage, redress
+     himself in another manner.'
+
+     "It is a right which all persons claim and are entitled to,
+     to complain when they are hurt; they have a right publicly
+     to remonstrate against the abuses of power, in the strongest
+     terms; to put their neighbors upon their guard against the
+     craft or open violence of men in authority; and to assert
+     with courage the sense they have of the blessings of
+     liberty, the value they put upon it, and their resolution at
+     all hazards to preserve it as one of the greatest blessings
+     Heaven can bestow." "It is a duty which all good men owe to
+     their country, to guard against the unhappy influence of ill
+     men when intrusted with power, and especially against their
+     creatures and dependants, who as they are generally more
+     necessitous, are surely more covetous and cruel."
+
+According to the Judge the Jury had only one question before them,
+"Did Zenger publish the words charged in the information?" That fact
+was clear; nay, he did not himself deny it. He confessed it in court.
+But the jury fell back on their rights and duties to decide the
+Question of Fact, of Law, and of the Application of the Law to the
+Fact, and returned "NOT GUILTY," "upon which there were three huzzas
+in the Hall." Had this Honorable Court been then in existence I
+suppose it would have talked of indicting the jurors for "perjury,"
+and would doubtless have had its labor for its pains. For the Common
+Council of New York presented Mr. Hamilton with a costly gold box and
+the freedom of the city. Gentlemen, this took place one hundred and
+twenty years ago. Forty years before the Revolution, Andrew Hamilton
+helped lay the "brilliant foundation of liberty," whereon another
+Hamilton was also to raise up noble walls of freedom. Gentlemen of the
+Jury, by Wisdom is a house builded, but the foolish plucketh it down
+with her own hands. Will you allow that to be done? What if the jury
+in 1735 had been faithless? The axe which smote down Zenger in New
+York, bloody and cruel, would have shorn off the heads of Otis and
+Quincy, and Adams and Hancock at Boston; the family of Scroggs alone
+would be held in honor in New England.[148]
+
+[Footnote 148: 17 St. Tr. 675.]
+
+Gentlemen, it once happened in New York that Governor Nicholson was
+offended with one of the clergymen of the Province. He met him on the
+road one day, and "as it was usual with him (under the protection of
+his commission) used the poor minister with the worst of language,
+threatened to cut off his ears, slit his nose, and at last to shoot
+him through the head." The minister, "being a reverend man, continued
+all this time uncovered in the heat of the sun, until he found an
+opportunity to fly for it, and coming to a neighbor's house fell ill
+of a fever and wrote for a doctor," relating the facts and concluding
+that the governor was crazy, for no man in his right mind would behave
+so ill. The doctor showed the letter; the governor brought a
+prosecution against the minister for publishing a "scandalous, wicked,
+and seditious libel." No doubt he could have found a judge even then
+who would twist the law so as to make the letter "sedition" and
+"libel;" nay, perhaps he could construct a jury so as to secure a
+conviction, but before it reached trial the prosecution was stopped by
+the order of Queen Anne.
+
+2. In 1816, in Massachusetts, there occurred the celebrated case of
+Commonwealth _vs._ Bowen, to which I shall again refer in a subsequent
+part of this defence. These are the facts. In September, 1815,
+Jonathan Jewett was convicted of murder in Hampshire county,
+Massachusetts, and sentenced to be hanged on the 9th of the following
+November. He was confined at Northampton, and hung himself in his cell
+on the night preceding the morning appointed for his public execution.
+George Bowen was confined in the same jail, in an apartment adjacent
+to Jewett's, and in such a situation that they could freely converse
+together. Bowen repeatedly and frequently advised and urged Jewett to
+destroy himself and thus disappoint the sheriff and the expectant
+people. He did so, and the coroner's jury returned that he committed
+suicide. But nevertheless, Bowen was indicted for the wilful murder of
+Jewett. It was charged that he "feloniously, wilfully, and of his
+malice aforethought, did counsel, hire, persuade, and procure the said
+Jewett the said felony and murder of himself to do and commit;" or
+that he himself murdered the said Jewett by hanging him.
+
+At the trial Attorney-General Perez Morton contended that Bowen "was
+guilty of _murder as principal_;" and he cited and relied chiefly on
+the following authority from the Reports of our old friend Kelyng.
+
+     "Memorandum, that my brother _Twisden_ showed me a report
+     which he had of a charge given by Justice _Jones_ to the
+     grand-jury, at the King's Bench barre, _Michaelmas Term_, 9
+     _Car._ 1, in which he said, that poisoning another was
+     murder at common law. And the statute of 1 _Ed._ 6, was but
+     declaratory of the common law, and an affirmation of it. If
+     one drinks poison by the provocation of another, and dieth
+     of it, this is murder in the person that persuaded it. And
+     he took this difference. If A. give poison to J.S. to give
+     to J.D., and J.S. knowing it to be poison, give it to J.D.
+     who taketh it in the absence of J.S., and dieth of it; in
+     this case J.S., who gave it to J.D., is principal; and A.
+     who gave the poison to J.S., and was absent when it was
+     taken, is but accessory before the fact. But if A. buyeth
+     poison for J.S., and J.S., in the absence of A., taketh it
+     and dieth of it, in this case A., though he be absent, yet
+     he is principal. So it is if A. giveth poison to B. to give
+     unto C.; and B., not knowing it to be poison, but believing
+     it to be a good medicine, giveth it to C., who dieth of it;
+     in this case A., who is absent, is principal, or else a man
+     should be murdered, and there should be no principal. For
+     B., who knoweth nothing of the poison, is in no fault,
+     though he gave it to C. So if A. puts a sword into the hands
+     of a madman, and bids him kill B. with it, and then A. goeth
+     away, and the madman kills B. with the sword, as A.
+     commanded him, this is murder in A., though absent, and he
+     is principal; for it is no crime in the madman, who did the
+     fact by reason of his madness."[149]
+
+[Footnote 149: See the case in Kelyng's Reports (London, 1708), p. 52.
+The opinion of Justice _Jones_ was only the charge of an inferior
+judge given to the grand-jury in 1634.]
+
+Mr. Morton also laid down this as law, "_the adviser of one who
+commits a felony of himself is a murderer_." He might have added, "the
+adviser of one who breaks into his own house is a burglar."
+
+Chief Justice Parker--who once declared that the jury had nothing to
+do with the harshness of a law--charged the jury that the important
+question for them was, Did Bowen's advice induce Jewett to kill
+himself? if so, they were to find him guilty of wilful murder! "The
+community has an interest _in the public execution_ of criminals [the
+crowd having an _interest in the spectacle_] and to take such an one
+out of the reach of the law [by advising him to self-destruction] is
+no trivial offence." "_You are not to consider the atrocity of this
+offence in the least degree diminished by the consideration that
+justice was thirsting for its sacrifice_; and that but a small portion
+of Jewett's earthly existence could, in any event, remain to
+him."[150]
+
+[Footnote 150: 13 Mass. Rep. 356.]
+
+There was no doubt that Bowen advised Jewett to commit suicide; but
+the jury, in defiance of the judge's charge and Mr. Kelyng's law,
+nevertheless returned "NOT GUILTY."
+
+Here, Gentlemen, is a remarkable instance of a judge, in private a
+benevolent man, perverting his official power, and constructing the
+crime of murder out of advice given to a man to anticipate a public
+execution by privately hanging himself! The law relied on was the
+Memorandum of the charge to a grand-jury made by a judge who
+notoriously broke the fundamental laws of England, by declaring that
+the king had a constitutional right to imprison, at will and as long
+as he liked, any of his subjects without trial, even members of
+Parliament for words uttered in public debate; and also the right to
+levy ship-money contrary to the Acts of Parliament. This charge was
+made in the tyrannical reign of Charles I. in 1634, by a tyrannical
+judge. There was no report, only _a memorandum_ of it, and that not
+printed till seventy-four years after! It had not the force of law
+even then: it was only the memorandum of the "opinion" of a single
+judge, not even the "opinion" of the full court. The memorandum is
+contained in Kelyng's Book, which Lord Campbell calls "a folio volume
+of decisions in criminal cases, which are of no value whatever, except
+to make us laugh at some of the silly egotisms with which they
+abound."[151] On such authority in 1816 would even a Massachusetts
+court, with a judge who was a kindly man in private, dash away the
+life of a fellow-creature,--with such mockery of law! But, Gentlemen,
+the jury at that time did not slumber; they set the matter right, and
+did justice spite of Judge Kelyng and his "law." They made nothing of
+the judge's charge!
+
+[Footnote 151: 2 Campbell, Judges, 406.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, I will now mention some cases of gross
+injustice perpetrated by the Federal Courts of the United States.
+
+The tenth article of amendments to the Constitution provides that
+"powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
+prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States
+respectively, or to the People." The Constitution itself confers no
+Common Law Jurisdiction on the Government. Neither the People nor
+their Representatives had ever decreed the Common Law of England to be
+a part of the law of the United States. Yet, spite of the absence of
+positive enactment and the express words of the above amendment to the
+Constitution, the Supreme Court at once assumed this jurisdiction. In
+1799, Chief Justice Ellsworth said, "the Common Law of this country
+remains the same as it was before the Revolution;"[152] and proceeded
+on that supposition to exercise the powers of English Judges of Common
+Law, undertaking to punish men for offences which no Act of Congress
+forbid. You see at once what monstrous tyranny would follow from that
+usurpation. Had the English Common Law power of punishing for
+"seditious libel," for example, been allowed to the Federal court,
+Gentlemen, you know too well what would follow. But this monstrous
+assumption was presently brought to an ignominious end; and strange as
+it may appear, by one of the judges of the court itself. Samuel Chase
+of Maryland, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence,
+had been an Anti-Federalist and a strong State-Right's man, as such
+insisting on a strict construction of the Constitution. Singular as it
+may appear he was made a Judge in 1796, and what is yet more
+surprising, in 1798, declared "the United States as a Federal
+government, had no Common Law," and thus ended this claim.[153] But
+tyranny did not end; nay, he himself, a man of uncommon powers and
+legal attainments, became a most atrocious example of Judicial
+despotism.
+
+[Footnote 152: Wharton, State Trials, 653. See too Virginia
+Resolutions (Richmond, 1850), Preface, xiii. _et seq._; Virginia
+Resolutions by Madison, and his Report thereon; Kentucky Resolutions
+by Jefferson, in 4 Eliot's Debates (1836).]
+
+[Footnote 153: Wharton, 197; 3 Dallas, 384; see 5 Hildreth, 230.]
+
+1. In 1791 a direct tax was levied by Act of Congress on all lands and
+houses; excise officers were to ascertain their value. The "Alien and
+Sedition Laws" were also passed the same year. The execution of the
+law relative to the direct tax was resisted in Northampton county,
+Penn., and some prisoners rescued from an officer of the United
+States. The President, Mr. Adams, issued his proclamation. In 1799
+John Fries was arrested on the charge of treason. The overt act
+alleged was resistance to that one special law of Congress. Judge
+Iredell charged the Grand-Jury, "You have heard the government as
+grossly abused as if it had been guilty of the vilest tyranny." Had he
+read the private correspondence of the Cabinet, he might have found
+other specimens of "abuse." He defended both the Alien and Sedition
+Laws.--They were "constitutional" and "proper."[154]
+
+[Footnote 154: See a defence of them in 2 Gibbs's Administration, 74,
+78; also 162.]
+
+Mr. Fries was indicted for treason. The Judiciary Act of Congress of
+1789 provides that "in cases punishable with death the trial shall be
+had in the county where the offence was committed; or when that cannot
+be done without great inconvenience, twelve petit jurors at least
+shall be summoned from thence." The offence was committed in
+Northampton county, and he was indicted and brought to trial in
+Philadelphia county, nor could the court be induced to comply with the
+statute!
+
+The government laid down the law and constructed treason with the
+usual ingenuity of officials working by the job. Judge Kelyng's loose
+opinion that an attack on a brothel was high treason, was cited by Mr.
+Rawle, the District Attorney, as good law.[155] What "in England is
+called constructive levying of war, in this country must be called
+direct levying of war." Judge Peters charged that though force was
+necessary to constitute the crime of treason, yet "the quantum of
+force is immaterial," of course it may be wielding a wheat straw, or a
+word, I suppose. "The doctrine of constructive treason has produced
+much real mischief in another country" [England]. "The _greater part
+of the objections to it are irrelevant here_."
+
+[Footnote 155: Wharton, 539; Kelyng, R. 70, 75.]
+
+Fries was found guilty. His counsel moved for a new trial, on the
+ground that before the trial one of the jurors had declared, "Fries
+ought to be hung;" "I myself shall be in danger unless we hang them
+all;" that the jurors were irregularly drawn, and the trial was not
+held in the county where the offence was committed. Judge Iredell
+ruled that it was "_a high contempt_ at this time _to call for a
+renewal of an argument whereon a solemn, decisive opinion was
+delivered_." Judge Peters declared the juror had "said no more than
+all friends to the laws and the government were warranted in thinking
+and saying." Yet a new trial was granted.
+
+The new trial was held before Judge Chase, who had, as Mr. Wharton
+says, a "singular instinct for tumults which scents it at a distance
+... and irresistibly impels a participation in it," "moving
+perpetually with a mob at his heels." Yet "apart from his criminal
+jurisdiction he was reckoned a wise and impartial judge, a master of
+the Common Law, and a thorough and indefatigable administrator of
+public functions." "It was this despotic ardor of temperament ...
+which made him, when a young man, employ with resolute audacity the
+engine of popular revolt, and which led him when older, and when in
+possession of that power against which he had so steadily warred, to
+wield with the same vigor the sword of constituted authority."[156]
+Gentlemen, he was like many that this Honorable Court perhaps have
+known, who were privateering Democrats in 1812, and Kidnapping Whigs
+in 1850. To him we are indebted for the invaluable decision that the
+United States courts have no Common Law jurisdiction.
+
+[Footnote 156: 4 Hildreth, 571; 1 Gibbs, 300; 2 Gibbs, 419.]
+
+At this new trial he treated the defendants' counsel in such a manner
+that they abandoned the case, and left the Prisoner without defence.
+The District Attorney, taking his law from Kelyng and similar servants
+of British despots, laid it down that treason "may consist in
+_assembling together in numbers_, and by actual force, or by terror,
+_opposing any particular law_;" "_Force need not be used_ to manifest
+this spirit of rebellion." "Even _if the matter made a grievance of
+was illegal, the demolition of it_ in this way _was_, nevertheless,
+_treason_," "a rising with intent by force to prevent the execution of
+a law ... preventing the marshal executing his warrants, and
+preventing the other officers ... amounted to levying war." "In short
+an opposition to the acts of Congress in whole or in part [that is to
+_any one law_] ... either by collecting numbers, or by a display of
+force ... which should operate ... either throughout the United
+States, or in _any part thereof to procure a repeal or a suspension_
+of the law ... this offence be considered to be _strictly_ treason."
+
+Judge Chase laid it down as law not to be questioned in his court,
+"that any ... rising of any body of the people ... to attain by force
+... any object of a great public nature ... is a levying of war:"
+"any such ... rising to resist ... the execution of any statutes of
+United States ... or for any other object of a general nature or
+national concern, under any pretence as that the statute was unjust
+... or unconstitutional is a levying war;" "_any force ... will
+constitute the crime_ of levying war."
+
+If that be law, then an old negro woman who, with a dishcloth,
+frightens officer Butman away from kidnapping her granddaughter in
+Southac street, does thereby levy war against the United States and
+commits the crime of treason.
+
+The jury, overborne by the assumptions of the judge, or ignorant of
+their duties and their rights, allowed this tyrannical court to have
+its way, surrendered the necks of the people, and brought in a verdict
+of guilty. Judge Chase made an insolent address to the prisoner and
+sentenced him to death. But Mr. Adams, with a remarkable degree of
+justice, gave him a full pardon, and drew down upon himself thereby
+the wrath of his cabinet.[157]
+
+[Footnote 157: Wheaton, 458; 9 Adams's Works, 57; 2 Gibbs, 360; 5
+Hildreth, 366; Chase's Trial, 18.]
+
+2. In 1788 Mathew Lyon, a native of Ireland, a Revolutionary soldier,
+a member of congress, and editor of a newspaper in Vermont, was
+brought to trial under the Sedition Law, for a false, malicious, and
+seditious libel. He had published in his newspaper a somewhat severe
+attack on the Federalists then in power. The article, alleged to be
+"seditious," was a letter written and mailed at the seat of government
+seven days before, and published nine days after, the passage of the
+Sedition Law itself. It was as much a political trial, Gentlemen, as
+this--purely political. Judge Patterson--United States Circuit Judge
+of Vermont--charged that the jury had nothing whatever to do with the
+constitutionality of the Sedition Law. "Congress has said that the
+author and publisher of seditious libels is to be punished." "The only
+question you are to determine is ... Did Mr. Lyon publish the
+writing?... Did he do so seditiously, with the intent of making odious
+or contemptible the President and government, and bringing them both
+into disrepute?"
+
+Mr. Lyon was found guilty, and punished by a fine of $1,000 and
+imprisonment for four months. The "Seditious Libel" would now be
+thought a quite moderate Editorial or "Letter from our Correspondent."
+His imprisonment was enforced with such rigor that his constituents
+threatened to tear down the jail, which he prevented.[158]
+
+[Footnote 158: Wharton, 333; 4 Jefferson's Works (1853), 262.]
+
+3. In 1799 Thomas Cooper, a native of England, residing at
+Northumberland, Pennsylvania, published a handbill reflecting severely
+on the conduct of President Adams. He was prosecuted by an
+Information _ex officio_, in the Circuit Court for Pennsylvania, and
+brought to trial before Judge Chase, already referred to, charged with
+a "false, scandalous, and malicious attack" on the President. Mr.
+Chase charged the jury, "A Republican government can only be destroyed
+in two ways: the introduction of luxury, or the licentiousness of the
+press. This latter is the more slow, but most sure and certain means
+of bringing about the destruction of the government." He made a fierce
+and violent harangue, arguing the case against the defendant with the
+spirit which has since become so notorious in the United States courts
+in that State. The pliant jury found Mr. Cooper guilty, and he was
+fined $400 and sent to jail for six months. He subsequently became a
+judge in Pennsylvania, as conspicuous for judicial tyranny as Mr.
+Chase himself, and was removed by Address of the Legislature from his
+seat, but afterwards went to South Carolina where he became Professor
+at her college, and a famous nullifier in 1830.[159]
+
+[Footnote 159: Wharton, 659.]
+
+4. In 1799, or 1800, Mr. Callender, a native of England, then residing
+at Richmond, in Virginia--a base and mean fellow, as his whole history
+proved, depraved in morals and malignant in temper--published a
+pamphlet called "The Prospect before us," full of the common abuse of
+Mr. Adams and his administration. He was indicted for a false,
+malicious, and seditious libel, and brought to trial before Judge
+Chase who pressed the Sedition Law with inquisitorial energy and
+executed it with intolerant rigor.[160] As he started for Richmond to
+hold the trial, he declared "he would teach the lawyers in Virginia
+the difference between the liberty and the licentiousness of the
+press." He told the marshal "not to put any of those creatures called
+Democrats on the jury,"--it does not appear that he had his own
+Brother-in-Law on it however;--"he likened himself to a schoolmaster
+who was to turn the unruly boys of the Virginia courts over his knee
+and give them a little wholesome chastisement."
+
+[Footnote 160: Wharton, 45, 688; Chase's Trial, 33; 4 Jefferson, 445,
+447.]
+
+Some of the ablest lawyers in Virginia were engaged for the defence.
+But they could not secure any decent regard to the common forms of
+law, or to the claims of justice. He would not grant the delay always
+usual in such cases, and indispensable to the defence. He refused to
+allow the defendants' counsel to examine their most important witness,
+and allowed them to put none but written questions approved of by him!
+The defendant was not allowed to prove the truth of any statements,
+alleged to be libellous, by establishing the truth of one part through
+one witness and of another through a different one. He would not allow
+him to argue to the jury that the law was unconstitutional. "We all
+know that juries have the right to decide the law as well as the fact,
+and the Constitution is the Supreme law of the land." "Then," said
+Mr. Wirt, "since the jury have a right to consider the law, and since
+the Constitution is law, it is certainly syllogistic that the jury
+have a right to consider the Constitution;" and the judge exclaimed,
+"a _non sequitur_, Sir!" "Sit down, Sir!" Mr. Wirt sat down. The judge
+declared "a right is given to the jury to determine what the law is in
+the case before them, and not to decide whether a statute is a law or
+not, or whether it is void, under an opinion that it is
+unconstitutional." "It appears to me the right now claimed has a
+direct tendency to dissolve the Union." "No citizen of knowledge and
+information ... will believe, without very strong and indubitable
+proof, that Congress will, intentionally, make any law in violation of
+the Federal Constitution." "If such a case should happen, the mode of
+redress is pointed out in the Constitution." It was obvious that
+Congress had made laws in violation of the Constitution, and he
+insisted that the jury should enforce those laws against their own
+conscience. After all his violent injustice he of course declared "the
+decisions of courts of justice will not be influenced by political and
+_local_ principles and prejudices." The packed jury found the prisoner
+guilty. He was fined $200 and sent to jail for nine months.
+
+But Virginia was too high-spirited to bear this. Nay, Gentlemen of the
+Jury, the whole Nation then was too fond of justice and liberty to
+allow such wickedness to proceed in the name of law. "Virginia was in
+a flame;" the lawyers "throughout the country were stung to the
+quick." They had not been so long under the slave-power then as now.
+At this day, Gentlemen, such conduct, such insolence, yet more
+oppressive, rouses no general indignation in the lawyers. But then the
+Alien and Sedition Laws ruined the Administration, and sent Mr.
+Adams--who yet never favored them--from his seat; his successor, Mr.
+Jefferson, says, "_I discharged every person under punishment_, or
+prosecution, _under the Sedition Law, because I considered and now
+consider, that law to be a nullity as absolute and as palpable as if
+Congress had ordered us to fall down and worship a golden
+image_."[161] Judge Chase was impeached by the House of
+Representatives, tried by the Senate, and only escaped condemnation by
+the prejudice of the political partisans. As it was, a majority were
+in favor of his condemnation. But the Constitution, properly, requires
+two thirds. Judge Chase escaped by this provision. But his influence
+was gone.
+
+[Footnote 161: 4 Jefferson, Correspondence in Wharton, 721.]
+
+The Alien and Sedition Laws, which sought to gag the People, and make
+a Speech a "misdemeanor," soon went to their own place; and on the 4th
+of July, 1840, Congress passed a law to pay Mr. Lyon and others the
+full amount of the fine and costs levied upon them, with interest to
+the date of payment: a Committee of the House had made a report on
+Lyon's case, stating that "the law was unconstitutional, null, and
+void, passed under a mistaken exercise of undelegated power, and that
+the mistake ought to be remedied by returning the fine so obtained,
+with interest thereon."[162] Just now, Gentlemen, Judge Chase and the
+principles of the Sedition Law appear to be in high favor with the
+Federal Courts: but one day the fugitive slave bill will follow the
+Alien and Sedition Bill, and Congress will refund all the money it has
+wrenched unjustly from victims of the Court. There is a To-morrow
+after to-day, and a Higher Law which crushes all fugitive slave bills
+into their kindred dust.
+
+[Footnote 162: 2 Sess. 26th, Cong. Doc. 86, Ho. Rep.; Wharton, 344,
+679. See also Virginia Resolutions (1850), and the remarks in the
+Debates. Then Virginia was faithful to State Rights, and did a service
+to the cause of Liberty which no subsequent misconduct should make us
+forget.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gentlemen, allow me to vary this narrative of British and American
+despotism by an example from a different nation. I will refresh you
+with a case more nearly resembling that before you; it is an instance
+of German tyranny. In 1853, Dr. Gervinus, Professor of History in the
+University of Heidelberg in Germany, published this little volume of
+about 200 pages,[163] "An Introduction to the History of the 19th
+Century." Mr. Gervinus is one of the most enlightened men in the
+world, a man of great genius for the philosophical investigation of
+human history, and enriched with such culture and learning as is not
+common even in that home of learned men. His book, designed only for
+scholars, and hardly intelligible to the majority of readers even in
+America, sets forth this great fact,--The democratic tendency of
+mankind shown in all history.
+
+[Footnote 163: 2 Einleitung in die Geschichte des neunzehnten
+Jahrhunderts; Leipzig, 1853. 8vo. pp. 181.]
+
+Gervinus was seized and brought to trial on the 24th of February,
+1853, at Mannheim, charged with publishing a work against
+constitutional monarchy, intending thereby to depose the lawful head
+of the State, the Grand Duke Charles Leopold, and with changing and
+endangering the constitution, "disturbing the public tranquillity and
+order, and incurring the guilt of High Treason." In short he was
+charged with "obstructing an officer" and attempting to "dissolve the
+Union," with "levying war." For his trial the judge purposely selected
+a small room, though four times larger than what now circumscribes the
+dignity of this Honorable Court; he did not wish the people to hear
+Gervinus's defence. But I will read you some extracts from the preface
+to the English translation of his book:--
+
+     "I offer nothing purely theoretical or speculative, and as
+     few opinions and conclusions as can possibly be given in a
+     historical narrative. The work finally reaches a period
+     when the Present and the Future become its subject, and when
+     therefore it can no longer relate any events of history
+     which have been completed; and is confined to the simple
+     statement of _the Fact_ that opposite opinions exist, and
+     may yet be advanced, concerning the problem of the Future.
+     These opinions are themselves weighed against one another,
+     but their value is not determined by dogmas, or phrases, or
+     declamations, but simply by facts. If the balance incline
+     towards a more liberal form of government, towards
+     democratic institutions, and therefore towards
+     self-government, and the participation of the many rather
+     than of the few in the affairs of the State, I am not to
+     blame, nor is it my ordinance, but that of History and of
+     Providence. My work is only (what all historical narrative
+     should be) a vindication of the decrees of Providence; and
+     to revolt against them appears to me neither pious in a
+     moral point of view, nor wise in a political. That which is
+     proved by the most remarkable facts of History, will not be
+     altered in the smallest degree by the suppression of my
+     work, or by my condemnation. The charge on this head is an
+     absurdity, since no rational end can be attained by it. It
+     aims at the suppression of a truth which, should _I_ not
+     tell it, will be ever louder and louder proclaimed by the
+     _Facts of History_.
+
+     "To believe such a thing possible is a proof how limited an
+     idea exists of the eager inquiry going on after
+     knowledge--and truth, the source and origin of all
+     knowledge. There will always be so eager a demand for a
+     history of the Present time, that, even should _I_ be
+     prevented, ten others would arise, only to proclaim the
+     louder, and to repeat the oftener, the truth which is here
+     suppressed. To believe that the philosophy of History can be
+     silenced by persecution, argues an entire ignorance even of
+     the external mechanism of philosophy. A political pamphlet,
+     intended to serve a particular purpose at a particular
+     period, may be suppressed. The author of such a pamphlet,
+     bent on agitation, can easily console himself for its
+     suppression. It has cost him little time and trouble; it is
+     only a means to an end, one means out of many means, any of
+     which, when this is lost, will serve the author as well. But
+     it is not thus with philosophical works, it is not thus with
+     the work before me. This book is deeply rooted in the
+     vocation of my whole life, and is the end of my
+     philosophical research; I have prepared myself for it by the
+     labor of years, and the labor of years will be necessary for
+     its completion. I have reached a time of life when I can
+     neither change my vocation, nor even cease to labor in this
+     vocation. I am also so imbued with my philosophy, that even
+     if I could change I would not. I may be hindered in the
+     prosecution of this work for four months, but in the fifth I
+     shall return to it. For a judicial sentence cannot arrest
+     (like a mere pamphlet) the philosophical scheme interwoven
+     into a whole existence."
+
+     "If it is possible that this 'Introduction' can be condemned
+     in Germany, that it can be prohibited, that by these means
+     the work should be strangled in its birth, then the
+     philosophy of history has no longer a place in Germany. The
+     tribunal of Baden will have given the first blow, in
+     pronouncing judgment on a matter which is purely
+     philosophical, and Germany, whose freedom of philosophical
+     research has been her pride and her boast, of which even the
+     various administrations of the nation have never been
+     jealous, will receive a shock such as she never before
+     sustained."
+
+     "My book is on so strictly a philosophical plan, and treats
+     of such comprehensive historical questions, that, properly,
+     no judgment of any value could be pronounced upon it but by
+     the professed historian, of whom there are not two dozen in
+     all Germany. Among them there has not, to this hour, been
+     found one competent to give an opinion in a few weeks on a
+     book which is the fruit of half a life. On the other hand,
+     there was soon a whole set of fanatical partisans and
+     obstreperous bunglers in a neighboring press, who in eight
+     days had condemned this work, in some instances, by calling
+     it an historical commonplace, and in others, a political
+     pamphlet with '_destructive tendencies_.' At the same time,
+     and in a manner easily accounted for, under the influence
+     of such an expression of public opinion, and almost before
+     any other could make itself heard, accusations were made
+     against the book, and it was confiscated. Let no one take it
+     amiss if, in the urgency of my defence, _I_ for a moment lay
+     aside modesty, as far as such modesty might prove injurious
+     to my cause. My work demonstrates a law of historical
+     development, which I do not claim as my property, or as
+     originating in me, but which has been demonstrated more than
+     two thousand years ago by the greatest thinker of all ages,
+     derived from observations on the history of the Grecian
+     State. To repeat a law which has been already demonstrated,
+     ought to appear but a trifling circumstance, and indeed
+     might merit the term of an historical commonplace; we could
+     even suppose that it might be mentioned in a popular as well
+     as in a philosophical book. Nevertheless this law has
+     scarcely been twice repeated in the course of two thousand
+     years, and then only by two imitators, who scarcely
+     understood its whole purport, though they were the most
+     thinking heads of the most thinking nations--Machiavelli in
+     Italy, and Hegel in Germany. I solemnly ask of the whole
+     philosophical world if my words can be gainsaid, and to name
+     for me the third, by whom the Aristotelian law, of which I
+     speak, has been repeated and understood. I have ventured to
+     consider the thought of Aristotle, and to apply it to the
+     history of modern European States, and I found it confirmed
+     by a series of developments which have occupied two thousand
+     years. I also found that the whole series of events
+     confirmatory of this law (itself deduced from experience)
+     are not yet entirely fulfilled. Like the astronomer, who,
+     from a known fraction of the path of a newly discovered
+     planet, calculates its whole course, I ventured to divine
+     that which is still wanting, and which may yet take
+     centuries to complete. I turned silently to those whose
+     profession was the study of history, to prove the justice of
+     my calculations; I handed my book over to coming generations
+     and coming centuries, with the silent demand, when the
+     required series of events shall be fulfilled, then to
+     pronounce the final sentence, whether this law, and its
+     purport as now explained, be just or not. This is the
+     philosophical character, and these the contents of my
+     book--no more than was indispensably necessary to make this
+     calculation. And now comes the charge, and pronounces that
+     in the character of a pamphleteer, I have endeavored to
+     excite a revolution in the Grand Duchy of Baden, or in the
+     German Confederation."
+
+On the 8th of March--it should have been the _fifth_--the thing came
+to a close. On account of "his hostility to constitutional monarchy,
+and his declaration of its weakness, his denial of its good-will
+[towards the people], and his representing that the American Democracy
+was a universal necessity and a desirable fact," sentence was
+pronounced against him, condemning him to an imprisonment of four
+months, and ordering his book to be destroyed. There was no Jury of
+the People to try him! Here our own Court has an admirable precedent
+for punishing me for a word.[164]
+
+[Footnote 164: See Preface to English Translation of Gervinus (London,
+1853); and Allg. Lit. Zeitung fuer 1853, pp. 867, 883, 931, 946, 994,
+1131.]
+
+But even in Massachusetts, within twenty years, an attempt was made to
+punish a man for his opinions on a matter of history which had no
+connection with politics, or even with American Slavery. In July,
+1834, Rev. George R. Noyes, a Unitarian Minister at Petersham, a
+retired scholar, a blameless man of fine abilities and very large
+attainments in theological learning, wrote an elaborate article in the
+Christian Examiner, the organ of the "Liberal Christians" in America,
+in which he maintained that Jesus of Nazareth is not the Messiah
+predicted in the Old Testament. "It is difficult," said this
+accomplished Theologian, "to point out any predictions which have been
+properly fulfilled in Jesus." Peter and Paul found the death and
+resurrection of Jesus in the 16th Psalm, but they "were in an error,"
+which should not surprise us, for "the Evangelists and Apostles never
+claimed to be _inspired reasoners and interpreters_;" "they partook of
+the errors and prejudices of their age in things in which Christ had
+not instructed them." "The commonly received doctrine of the
+inspiration of all the writings included in the Bible, is a millstone
+hung round its neck [the neck of Christianity], sufficient to sink
+it."
+
+The article was written with remarkable candor and moderation, and
+indicated a devout and holy purpose in the author. The doctrines were
+by no means new. But Hon. James T. Austin, was then Attorney-General
+of the State; his attention being called to it by an anonymous writer
+in a newspaper, he attacked Mr. Noyes's article, thus giving vent to
+his opinion thereon: "He considers its learning very ill bestowed, its
+researches worse than useless, and that its tendency is to strike down
+one of the pillars on which the fabric of Christianity is supported."
+"Its tendency is to shock the pious,--confound the unlearned,--overwhelm
+those who are but moderately versed in the recondite investigations of
+theology, and above all to open an arsenal whence all the small wits
+of the infidel army may supply themselves with arms. Its greater evil
+is to disarm the power of public opinion." "It certainly disarms to a
+great degree the power of the law."[165]
+
+[Footnote 165: 16 Examiner, 321; 17 ibid. 127; Boston Atlas, July 8th
+and 9th, 1834.]
+
+Gentlemen, suppose it had not been necessary to submit the matter to a
+Jury, what would the right of freedom of conscience be worth in the
+hands of such a man, "dressed in a little brief authority?" It was
+said at the time that the author was actually presented to the
+Grand-Jury, and an attempt made to procure an indictment for
+Blasphemy, or Misdemeanor. I know not how true the rumor was. The
+threat of prosecution came to nought, and Dr. Noyes, one of the most
+scholarly men in America, is now Professor of Theology in the Divinity
+School at Cambridge, and an honor to the liberal sect which maintains
+him there.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gentlemen, when laws are unjustly severe, denouncing a punishment
+highly excessive, the juries refuse to convict. Examples of this are
+very common in trials for capital offences, now that the conscience of
+moral men has become so justly hostile to the judicial shedding of
+blood. There is no doubt with the Jurors as to the Fact, none as to
+the Law; but they say it is unjust to apply such a law to such a fact
+and hang a man. The Jury exercising their moral discretion, spite of
+the judge, and spite of the special statute or custom, are yet
+faithful to their official obligation and manly duty, and serve
+Justice, the ultimate End and Purpose of Law, whereto the statutes and
+customs are only provisional means. Foolish judges accuse such juries
+of "Perjury;" but it is clear enough, Gentlemen, where the falseness
+is.
+
+"Do you take notice of that juryman dressed in blue?" said one of the
+judges at the old Bailey to Judge Nares. "Yes." "Well, then, take my
+word for it, there will not be a single conviction to-day for any
+capital offence." So it turned out. The "gentleman in blue" thought it
+unjust and wicked, contrary to the ultimate Purpose of law, to hang
+men, and he was faithful to his juror's oath in refusing to convict.
+Of course he did not doubt of the Fact, or the Law, only of the
+Justice of its Application. One day there will be a good many
+"gentlemen in blue."
+
+To prevent this moral independence of the jury from defeating the
+immoral aim of the government, or of the judges, or the
+legislature--the court questions the jurors beforehand, and drives off
+from the panel all who think the statute unfit for such application.
+Gentlemen, that is a piece of wicked tyranny. It would be as unfair to
+exclude such men from the legislature, or from the polls, as from the
+jury box. In such cases the defendant is not tried by his "country,"
+but by a jury packed for the purpose of convicting him, spite of the
+moral feelings of the people.
+
+Sometimes the statute is so framed that the jurors must by their
+verdict tell an apparent falsehood, or commit a great injustice. When
+it was a capital offence in England to steal forty shillings, and
+evidence made it plain that the accused had actually stolen eight or
+ten times that value, you all know how often the jurors brought in a
+verdict of "_stealing thirty-nine shillings_."[166] They preferred to
+tell what seemed to be a lie, rather than kill a man for stealing
+fifteen or twenty dollars. The verdict of NOT GUILTY would have been
+perfectly just in form as in substance, and conformable to their
+official oath.
+
+[Footnote 166: See several cases of this kind in Sullivan on Abolition
+of Punishment of Death, (N.Y. 1841), 73. Rantoul's Works, 459.]
+
+Gentlemen, tyrannical rulers, and their servants, despotic and corrupt
+judges, have sought to frighten the juries from the exercise of all
+discretion--either moral or intellectual. To that end they threaten
+them before the verdict, and punish them when they decide contrary to
+the wish of the tyrant. To make the jurors agree in a unanimous
+verdict, they were kept without "fire or water or food or bed" until
+they came to a conclusion; if eleven were of one mind and the twelfth
+not convinced, the refractory juror was fined or put in jail.[167] If
+the verdict, when unanimously given, did not satisfy the judge or his
+master, the jurors were often punished.[168] I have already shown you
+how the juries were treated--with fine and imprisonment--who acquitted
+Throckmorton and Penn.[169] When John Lilburne was tried for his life
+in 1653, he censured the authorities which prosecuted him and appealed
+to the "honorable Jury, the Keepers of the Liberties of England:" they
+found him Not Guilty, and were themselves brought before the council
+of State for punishment. "Thomas Greene of Snow-hill, tallow chandler,
+Foreman of the Jury, being asked what the grounds and reasons were
+that moved him to find ... Lilburne not guilty, ... saith '_that he
+did discharge his conscience in what he then did, and that he will
+give no further answer to any questions which shall be asked him upon
+that matter_.'"[170] This was in the time of Cromwell; but as the
+People were indignant at his tyrannical conduct in that matter, and
+his insolent attempt to punish the jurors, they escaped without fine
+or imprisonment. Indeed more than a hundred and twenty-five years
+before, Thomas Smith had declared "such doings to be very violent,
+tyrannical, and contrary to the liberty and customs of the realm of
+England." Sir Matthew Hale said at a later day, "It would be a most
+unhappy case for the judge himself, if the prisoner's fate depended
+upon his directions; unhappy also for the prisoner; for if the judge's
+opinion must rule the verdict, the trial by jury would be
+useless."[171] Judge Kelyng was particularly hostile to the jury,
+throwing aside "all regard to moderation and decency." He compelled
+the grand-jury of Somersetshire to find an indictment against their
+consciences, reproaching Sir Hugh Wyndham, the foreman, as the "Head
+of a Faction." He told the jury, "You are all my servants, and I will
+make the best in England stoop!" He said it was a "misdemeanor" for
+them to discriminate between murder and manslaughter; that was for the
+court to determine. But, Gentlemen, it does not appear that he had his
+brother-in-law on that grand-jury. Several persons were indicted for
+"attending a conventicle;" the jury acquitted them contrary to his
+wish, and he fined them $334 apiece, and put them in jail till it was
+paid. On another occasion, this servile creature of Charles II. fined
+and imprisoned all the jurors because they convicted of _manslaughter_
+a man whom he wanted to hang. But for this conduct he was accused in
+the House of Commons, and brought to answer for it at their bar.[172]
+
+[Footnote 167: Forsyth, 241, 243.]
+
+[Footnote 168: Thomas Smith, Commonwealth, (London, 1589,) b. iii. c.
+1. Hargrave, in 6 St. Tr. 1019.]
+
+[Footnote 169: See above, p. 95. 1 St. Tr. 901; 6 St. Tr. 967, 969,
+999; 21 St. Tr. 925.]
+
+[Footnote 170: 1 St. Tr. 445.]
+
+[Footnote 171: 6 St. Tr. 967, note; Bushell's Case, Ibid. 999, and
+Hargrave's note, 1013.]
+
+[Footnote 172: 2 Campbell, Justices, 405; 6 St. Tr. 910; Kelyng, 50; 3
+Hallam, 6, note; Commons Journals, 16 Oct. 1667.]
+
+In 1680 Chief Justice Scroggs was brought up before the House of
+Commons for discharging "a refractory grand-jury"--such an one as was
+discharged in Boston last July: Sir Francis Winnington said, "If the
+judges instead of acting by law shall be acted by their own ambition,
+and endeavor to get promotion rather by worshipping the rising sun
+than doing justice, this nation will soon be reduced to a miserable
+condition." "As faults committed by judges are of more dangerous
+consequence than others to the public, so there do not want precedents
+of severer chastisements for them than for others."[173]
+
+[Footnote 173: 4 Parl. Hist. 1224.]
+
+But spite of the continual attempt to destroy the value of the trial
+by jury, and take from the People their ancient, sevenfold shield, the
+progress of liberty is perpetual. Now and then there arose lawyers and
+judges like Sir Matthew Hale, Holt, Vaughan, Somers, Camden, and
+Erskine, who reached out a helping hand. Nay, politicians came up to
+its defence. But the great power which has sustained and developed it
+is the sturdy and unconquerable Love of individual Liberty which is
+one of the most marked characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon, whether
+Briton or American. The Common People of England sent Juries, as well
+as regiments of Ironsides, to do battle for the Right. Gentlemen, let
+us devoutly thank God for this Safeguard of Freedom, and take heed
+that it suffers no detriment in our day, but serves always the Higher
+Law of the Infinite God.
+
+Now, Gentlemen of the Jury, I come to the end.
+
+
+IV. OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THIS SPECIAL CASE, UNITED STATES VERSUS
+THEODORE PARKER.
+
+Here, Gentlemen, I shall speak of three things.
+
+(I.) Of the Fugitive Slave Bill.
+
+At the close of the Revolution there was a contradiction in the
+national consciousness: the People were divided between the Idea of
+Freedom and the Idea of Slavery. There consequently ensued a struggle
+between the two elements. This has continued ever since the Treaty of
+Peace in 1783.
+
+Twice the Idea of Freedom has won an important victory: in 1787
+Slavery was prohibited in the North-West Territory; in 1808 the
+African Slave Trade was abolished. Gentlemen, this is all that has
+been done for seventy-two years; the last triumph of American Freedom
+over American Slavery was forty-seven years ago!
+
+But the victories of Slavery have been manifold: in 1787 Slavery came
+into the Constitution,--it was left in the individual States as a part
+of their "Republican form of government;" the slaves were counted
+fractions of men, without the personal rights of integral humanity,
+and so to be represented by their masters; and the rendition of
+fugitive slaves was provided for. In 1792 out of old territory a new
+Slave State was made and Kentucky came into the Union. Tennessee
+followed in 1796, Mississippi in 1817, Alabama in 1819, and thus four
+Slave States were newly made out of soil which the Declaration of
+Independence covered with ideal freedom. In 1793 the Federal
+government took Slavery under its special patronage and passed the
+first fugitive slave bill for the capture of such as should escape
+from bondage in one State, and flee to another. In 1803 Louisiana was
+purchased and Slavery left in that vast territory; thus the first
+expansion of our borders was an extension of bondage,--out of that
+soil three great States, Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, have since
+been made, all despotic, with more than half a million of Americans
+fettered there to-day. Florida was purchased as slave soil, and in
+1845 made a State with perpetual Slavery written in its Constitution.
+In 1845 Texas was annexed and Slavery extended over nearly four
+hundred thousand square miles of once free soil; in 1848 Slavery was
+spread over California, Utah, and New Mexico. Here were seven great
+victories of Slavery over Freedom.
+
+At first it seemed doubtful which was master in the federal councils;
+but in 1820, in a great battle--the Missouri Compromise--Slavery
+triumphed, and has ever since been master. In 1845 Texas was annexed,
+and Slavery became the open, acknowledged, and most insolent master.
+The rich, intelligent, and submissive North only registers the decrees
+of the poor, the ignorant, but the controlling South; accepts for
+Officers such as the master appoints, for laws what the Slave-driver
+commands. The Slave-Power became predominant in American politics,
+business, literature, and "Religion."
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, do you doubt what I say? Look at this Honorable
+Court,--at its Judges, its Attorney, at its Marshal, and its Marshal's
+Guard: they all hold their offices by petty serjeantry of menial
+service rendered to the Slave-Power. It would be an insult to any one
+of this august fraternity to hint that he had the faintest respect
+for the great Principles of American Liberty, or any love of justice
+for all men. I shall not be guilty of that "contempt of court."
+Gentlemen, I had expected that this Court would be solemnly opened
+with prayer. I knew whom the Slave-Power would select as its priest to
+"intercede with Heaven." I expected to hear the Rev. Nehemiah Adams,
+D.D., ask the God he worships and serves to take "a South-side view of
+American Slavery" in general, and in special of this prosecution of a
+minister of the Christian Religion for attempting to keep the Golden
+Rule. Should the Court hereafter indulge its public proclivity to
+prayer, that eminent divine will doubtless be its advocate--fit
+mediator for a Court which knows no Higher Law.
+
+Well, Gentlemen, that sevenfold triumph was not enough. Slavery will
+never be contented so long as there is an inch of free soil in the
+United States! New victories must be attempted. Mr. Toombs has
+declared to this noble Advocate of Justice and Defender of Humanity,
+[John P. Hale] who renews the virtuous glories of his illustrious
+namesake, Sir Matthew Hale, that, "Before long the master will sit
+down with his slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill Monument." But one
+thing disturbed our masters at the South--the concubine runs away from
+her lusty lord, the mulatto slave child from her white father; I have
+had the "best blood of Virginia," fugitive children of her "first
+families" in my own house, and have given many a dollar to help the
+sons and daughters of "Southern Democrats" enjoy a taste of Northern
+Democracy. The slaves would run away. The law of 1793 was not adequate
+to keep or catch these African Christians who heeded not the Southern
+command, "Slaves, obey your masters." The Decision of the Supreme
+Court in the Prigg case,[174] showed the disposition of the Federal
+Government, and took out of the hands of the individual States the
+defence of their own citizens. Still the slaves would run away. In
+1849 there were more than five hundred fugitives from Southern
+Democracy in Boston--and their masters could not catch them. What a
+misfortune! Boston retained $200,000 of human Property of the
+Christian and chivalric South! Surely the Union was "in danger."
+
+[Footnote 174: 16 Peters, 616.]
+
+In 1850 came the fugitive slave bill. When first concocted, its
+author,--a restless politician, a man of small mind and mean
+character, with "Plantation manners,"--thought it was "too bad to
+pass." He designed it not for an actual law, but an insult to the
+North so aggravating that she must resist the outrage, and then there
+would be an opportunity for some excitement and agitation at the
+South--and perhaps some "nullification" in South Carolina and
+Virginia; and in that general fermentation who knows what scum would
+be thrown up! Even Mr. Clay "never expected the law would be
+enforced." "No Northern _gentleman_," said he, "will ever help return
+a fugitive slave." It seemed impossible for the bill to pass.
+
+But at that time Massachusetts had in the Senate of the nation a
+disappointed politician, a man of great understanding, of most mighty
+powers of speech,--
+
+     "Created hugest that swim the ocean stream,"--
+
+and what more than all else contributed to his success in life, the
+most magnificent and commanding personal appearance. At that time--his
+ambition nothing abated by the many years which make men
+venerable,--he was a bankrupt in money, a bankrupt in reputation, and
+a bankrupt in morals--I speak only of his public morals, not his
+private,--a bankrupt in political character, pensioned by the Money
+Power of the North. Thrice disappointed, he was at that time gaming
+for the Presidency. When the South laid down the fugitive slave bill,
+on the national Faro-table, Mr. Webster bet his all upon that card. He
+staked his mind--and it was one of vast compass; his eloquence, which
+could shake the continent; his position, the senatorial influence of
+Massachusetts; his wide reputation, which rung with many a noble word
+for justice and the Rights of man; he staked his conscience and his
+life. Gentlemen, you know the rest,--the card won, the South took the
+_trick_, and Webster lost all he could lose,--his conscience, his
+position, his reputation; not his wide-compassing mind, not his
+earth-shaking eloquence. Finally he lost his--life. Peace to his
+mighty shade. God be merciful to him that showed no mercy. The warning
+of his fall is worth more than the guidance of his success. Let us
+forgive; it were wicked to forget. For fifty years no American has had
+such opportunity to serve his country in an hour of need. Never has an
+American so signally betrayed the trust--not once since Benedict
+Arnold turned a less ignoble traitor!
+
+Gentlemen, you know the speech of the 7th of March. You know it too
+well. He proposed to support the fugitive slave bill "with all its
+provisions, to the fullest extent." At that time this bill of
+abominations was worse than even now; for then it left the liberty of
+a man to the discretion not only of any judge or commissioner of any
+Federal court, but to any clerk or marshal thereof, nay, to any
+collector of the customs and every one of the seventeen thousand
+postmasters in the United States! It provided that an affidavit made
+before any officer empowered, by the United States or any State, to
+administer oaths, should be taken as conclusive evidence to prove a
+man a slave! So John Smith of some unknown town in Texas, might make
+affidavit before John Jones, a justice of peace in the same place,
+that Lewis Hayden, or Wendell Phillips, or his Honor Judge Curtis, was
+his (Smith's) slave, and had escaped to Boston: might bring hither
+John Brown, a Postmaster from Texas, or find some collector of the
+customs or minion of the court in Massachusetts, seize his victim, and
+swear away his liberty; and any man might be at once consigned to
+eternal bondage! All that the bill provided for,--and authorized the
+kidnapper to employ as many persons as he might think proper to
+accomplish his purpose by force, at the expense of the United States!
+All this Mr. Webster volunteered to support "to the fullest extent."
+
+The bill was amended, here bettered, there worsened, and came to the
+final vote. Gentlemen, the Money Power of the North joined the Slave
+Power of the South to kidnap men in America after 1850, as it had
+kidnapped them in Africa before 1808. Out of fifty Senators only
+twelve said, No; while in the House 109 voted Yea. The Hon. Samuel A.
+Eliot gave the vote of Beacon and State Streets for kidnapping men on
+the soil of Boston. The one Massachusetts vote for man-stealing must
+come from the town which once bore a Franklin and an Adams in her
+bosom; yes, from under the eaves of John Hancock's house! That one
+vote was not disgrace enough; his successor [Hon. William Appleton]
+must take a needless delight in reaffirming the infamy. When the bill
+passed, Gentlemen, you remember how Mr. Webster rejoiced:--
+
+     "Now is the winter of our discontent
+     Made glorious summer,"
+
+was his public outcry on the housetop! And Boston fired a hundred guns
+of joy! Do you know _who_ fired them? Ask Mr. Attorney Hallett; ask
+Mr. Justice Curtis. They can "instruct the jury."
+
+Gentlemen, you know the operation of the fugitive slave bill. It
+subverts the Purposes of the Constitution, it destroys Justice,
+disturbs domestic Tranquillity, hinders the common Defence and the
+general Welfare, and annihilates the Blessings of Liberty. It defies
+the first Principles of the Declaration of Independence,--think of the
+fugitive slave bill as an appendix to that document! It violates the
+Idea of Democracy. It contradicts the very substance of the Christian
+Religion--the two great commandments of Love to God, and Love to man,
+whereon "hang all the Law and the Prophets." It makes natural humanity
+a crime; it subjects all the Christian virtues to fine and
+imprisonment. It is a _lettre de cachet_ against Philanthropy.
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, you know the fugitive slave bill is
+unconstitutional. I need not argue the matter; it is too plain to need
+proof. See how it opposes Justice, the ultimate purpose of human law;
+nay, the declared objects of the Constitution itself! But yet its
+unconstitutionality has been most abundantly shown by our own
+fellow-citizens. I need not go out of Massachusetts for defenders of
+Justice and Law. You remember the Speeches of Mr. Phillips, Mr.
+Sewall, Mr. Rantoul, Mr. Sumner, Mr. Mann, the arguments of Mr.
+Hildreth. The judges before you by nature are able-minded men, both of
+them; both also learned as lawyers and otherwise well educated,--I
+love to honor their natural powers, and their acquired learning; would
+I could offer higher praise. Now, I will not insult their manly
+understanding with the supposition that either of them ever thought
+the fugitive slave bill constitutional. No, Gentlemen, it is not
+possible that in the _personal_ opinion of Mr. Sprague, or even Mr.
+Curtis, this bill can be held for a constitutional law. But the Court
+has its official dress: part of it is of silk--or supposed to be,--the
+gown which decorates the outward figure of the man who wears its ample
+folds; it is made after a prescribed pattern. But part of it also is
+made of _opinion_ which hides the ability and learning of the
+honorable Court. The constitutionality of the fugitive slave bill is a
+part of the judge's official dress: accordingly, as no federal judge
+sits without his "silk gown," so none appears without his "opinion"
+that the fugitive slave bill is constitutional. But if the court
+should solemnly declare that such was its _personal opinion_--Gentlemen
+of the Jury, I,--I--should not believe it--any more than if they
+declared the gown of silk was the natural judicial covering, the
+actual "true skin" of the judges. No, Gentlemen, these judges are not
+monsters, not naturally idiotic in their Conscience. This opinion is
+their official robe, a supplementary cuticle, an artificial epidermis,
+woven from without, to be thrown off one day, when it shall serve
+their turn, by political desquamation. Let them wear it; "they have
+their reward." But you and I, Gentlemen, let us thank God we are not
+officially barked about with such a leprous elephantiasis as that. You
+are to judge of its constitutionality for yourselves, not to take the
+_purchased, official opinion_ of the judge as veil for your
+Conscience; let it hide the judges' if they like.
+
+Gentlemen, I lack words to describe the fugitive slave bill; its sins
+outrun my power of speech. But you know the consequences which follow
+if it be accepted by the People, submitted to, and enforced: the State
+of Massachusetts is nothing; her courts nothing; her juries nothing;
+her laws nothing; her Constitution nothing--the Rights of the State
+are whistled away by the "opinion" of a fugitive slave bill judge, the
+rights of the citizen--all gone; his right to life, liberty, and the
+pursuit of happiness lies at the mercy of the meanest man whom this
+Court shall ever make a Commissioner to kidnap men. Yes, Gentlemen of
+the Jury, you hold your liberty at the mercy of George T. Curtis and
+Seth J. Thomas! You are the People, "the Country" to determine whether
+it shall come to this.
+
+You know the motive which led the South to desire this bill,--it was
+partly pecuniary, the desire to get the work of men and not pay for
+it; partly political, the desire to establish Slavery at the North.
+Mr. Toombs is not the only man who wishes the master to sit down with
+his slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill Monument! You know the motive of
+the Northern men who supported the bill;--words are idle here!
+
+Gentlemen, I said that Boston fired a hundred jubilant cannon when the
+fugitive slave bill became a law. It was only a _part of Boston_ that
+fired them. The bill was odious here to all just and honorable men.
+Massachusetts hated the bill, and was in no haste to "conquer her
+prejudices" in favor of Justice, Humanity, and the Christian Religion;
+she did not like the "disagreeable duty" of making a public profession
+of practical Atheism. At first the yellow fever of the slave-hunters
+did not extend much beyond the pavements of Boston and Salem; so pains
+must be taken to spread the malady. The greatest efforts were made to
+induce the People to renounce their Christianity, to accept and
+enforce the wicked measure. The cry was raised, "The Union is in
+danger:" nobody believed it; they least of all who raised the cry.
+Some clergymen in the Churches of Commerce were coaxed, wheedled, or
+bought over, and they declared kidnapping would be imputed unto men
+for "righteousness." The actual man-stealer in Boston was likened to
+"faithful Abraham" in the Hebrew mythic tale,--"the rendition of a
+slave was like the sacrifice of Isaac." One Trinitarian minister, a
+son of Massachusetts, laid Conscience down before the Juggernaut of
+the fugitive slave bill, another would send his own mother into
+Slavery; both had their reward. Editors were brought over to the true
+faith of kidnapping. Alas, there were some in Boston who needed no
+conversion; who were always on the side of inhumanity. There were
+"Union meetings" called to save the Nation; and the meanest men in the
+great towns came to serve as Redeemers in this Salvation unto
+kidnapping. Mr. Webster outdid himself in giant efforts--and though
+old and sick, he wrought with mighty strength. So in the great poem
+the fallen angel, his Paradise of Virtue lost,--
+
+             ----"with bold words
+     Breaking the horrid silence thus began.
+     'To do aught good never will be our task,
+     But ever to do ill our sole delight,
+     As being the contrary to His high will
+     Whom we resist....
+     Let us not slip the occasion....
+     But reassembling our afflicted powers
+     Consult how we may henceforth most offend
+     Our enemy; our own loss how repair,
+     How overcome this dire calamity;
+     What reinforcement we may gain from hope,
+     If not what resolution from despair.'"
+
+One class of men needed no change, no stimulation. They were ready to
+execute this unjust, this unconstitutional Act; their lamps were
+trimmed and burning, their loins girt about, their feet swift to shed
+blood. Who were they? Ask Philadelphia, ask New York, ask Boston. Look
+at this bench. The Federal Courts were as ready to betray justice in
+1850 as Kelyng and Jeffreys and Scroggs and the other pliant judges of
+Charles II. or James II. to support his iniquities. I must speak of
+this.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+(II.) Of the conduct of the Federal Courts.
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, that you may understand the enormity of the
+conduct of the federal courts and the peril they bring upon their
+victims, I must refresh your memory with a few facts.
+
+1. I shall begin with the cases in Pennsylvania. In that State four
+officials of government have acquired great distinction by their zeal
+in enslaving men, McAllister, Ingraham, Grier, and Kane; the two first
+are "Commissioners," the latter two "Judges." In one year they had the
+glory of kidnapping twenty-six Americans and delivering them over to
+Slavery. Look at a few cases.
+
+(1.) On the 10th of March, 1851, Hannah Dellam was brought before
+Judge Kane charged with being a fugitive slave. She was far advanced
+in pregnancy, hourly expecting to give birth to a child. If a
+convicted murderess is in that condition, the law delays the execution
+of its ghastly sentence till the baby is born, whom the gallows
+orphans soon. The poor negro woman's counsel begged for delay that the
+child might be born in Pennsylvania and so be free,--a poor boon, but
+too great for a fugitive slave bill judge to grant. The judge who
+inherits the name of the first murderer, disgraced the family of Cain;
+he prolonged his court late into night, that he might send the child
+into Slavery while in the bowels of its mother! Judge Kane held his
+"court" and gave his decision in the very building where the
+Declaration of Independence was signed and published to the world. The
+memorable bell which summons his court, has for motto on its brazen
+lips, "Proclaim Liberty throughout the Land, to all the inhabitants
+thereof."
+
+(2.) The same year Rachel Parker, a free colored girl, was seized in
+the house of Joseph C. Miller of West-Nottingham, Chester County, by
+Thomas McCreary of Elkton, Maryland. Mr. Miller pursued the kidnapper
+and found the girl at Baltimore, and brought a charge of kidnapping
+against McCreary. But before the matter was decided Mr. Miller was
+decoyed away and murdered! The man-hunter was set free and the girl
+kept as a slave, but after long confinement in jail was at last
+pronounced free--not by the Pennsylvania "judge" but by a Baltimore
+Jury![175]
+
+[Footnote 175: 20 Anti-Slavery Report, 28 and 21; Ibid. 34.]
+
+(3.) The same year occurred the Christiana Tragedy. Here are the
+facts.
+
+In Virginia a general law confers a reward of $100 on any man who
+shall bring back to Virginia a slave that has escaped into another
+State, and gives him also ten cents for each mile of travel in the
+chase after a man. Accordingly, beside the officers of the fugitive
+slave bill courts commissioned for that purpose, there is a body of
+professional Slave-hunters, who prowl about the borders of
+Pennsylvania and entrap their prey. In September, 1850, "a colored
+man, known in the neighborhood around Christiana to be free, was
+seized and carried away by professional kidnappers, and never
+afterwards seen by his family." In March, 1851, in the same
+neighborhood, under the roof of his employer, during the night,
+another colored man was tied, gagged, and carried away, "marking the
+road along which he was dragged by his own blood." He was never
+afterwards heard from. "These and many other acts of a similar kind
+had so alarmed the neighborhood, that the very name of Kidnapper was
+sufficient to create a panic."[176]
+
+[Footnote 176: History of the Trial of Castner Hanway and others for
+Treason (Philadelphia, 1852), 35.]
+
+     "On the 11th of September, Edward Gorsuch, of Maryland, his
+     son, Dickerson Gorsuch, with a party of friends, and a
+     United States officer named Kline, who bore the warrant of
+     Commissioner Ingraham, made their appearance in a
+     neighborhood near Christiana, Lancaster County,
+     Pennsylvania, in pursuit of a Slave. They lay in wait for
+     their prey near the house of William Parker, a colored man.
+     When discovered and challenged, they approached the house,
+     and Gorsuch demanded his Slave. It was denied that he was
+     there. High words ensued, and two shots were fired by the
+     assailants at the house. The alarm was then given by blowing
+     a horn, and the neighborhood roused. A party of colored men,
+     from thirty to fifty strong, most of them armed in some way,
+     were before long on the ground. Castner Hanway and Elijah
+     Lewis, both white men and Friends, rode up before the
+     engagement began and endeavored to prevent bloodshed by
+     persuading both parties to disperse peaceably. Kline, the
+     Deputy Marshal, ordered them to join the _posse_, which
+     they, of course, refused to do, but urged upon him the
+     necessity of withdrawing his men for their own safety. This
+     he finally did, as far as he personally was concerned, when
+     satisfied that there was actual danger of bloody resistance.
+     Gorsuch, however, and his party persisted in their attempt,
+     and he and two of his party fired on the colored men, who
+     returned the fire with deadly effect. Gorsuch was killed on
+     the spot, his son severely, though not mortally, wounded,
+     and the rest of the party put to flight. The dead and
+     wounded were cared for by the neighbors, mostly Friends and
+     Abolitionists. The Slave, for the capture of whom this
+     enterprise was undertaken, made his escape and reached a
+     land of safety.
+
+     "Judge Grier denounced the act from the Bench as one of
+     Treason. A party of marines were ordered to the ground to
+     keep the peace after the battle had been fought and won.
+     United States Marshal Roberts, Commissioner Ingraham, United
+     States District Attorney Ashmead, with a strong body of
+     police, accompanied them, and kept the seat of war under a
+     kind of martial law for several days. The country was
+     scoured, houses ransacked, and about thirty arrests made.
+     Among those arrested were Castner Hanway and Elijah Lewis,
+     whose only crime had been endeavoring to prevent the
+     effusion of blood. The prisoners were brought to
+     Philadelphia, examined before a Commissioner, and committed
+     on a charge of High Treason. At the next term of the
+     District Court, under a charge from Judge Kane, the
+     Grand-Jury found indictments against all of them for this
+     crime."[177]
+
+[Footnote 177: 20 Anti-Slavery Report, pp. 30, 31.]
+
+Mr. Hanway was brought to trial--for his life, charged with "treason."
+It appears that this was his overt act.--He was a Quaker, an
+anti-slavery Quaker, and a "non-resistant;" when he heard of the
+attack on the colored people, he rode on a sorrel horse to the spot,
+in his shirt-sleeves, with a broad felt hat on; he advised the colored
+men not to fire, "For God's sake don't fire;" but when Deputy Marshal
+Kline ordered him to assist in the kidnapping, he refused and would
+have nothing to do with it. Some of the colored people fired, and with
+such effect on the Kidnappers as I have just now shown. It appeared
+also that Mr. Hanway had said the fugitive slave bill was
+unconstitutional, and that he would never aid in kidnapping a
+man--words which I suppose this Honorable Court will consider as a
+constructive "misdemeanor;" "obstructing an officer."
+
+For this "offence" his case was presented to the grand-jury of the
+Circuit Court the 29th of September, 1851. Judge Kane charged the
+jury--laying down the law of treason. Mr. Hanway was indicted for
+"wickedly devising and intending the peace and tranquillity of the ...
+United States to disturb;" and that he "wickedly and traitorously did
+intend to levy war against the said United States." And also that he
+"with force and arms, maliciously and traitorously did prepare and
+compose and ... and cause and procure to be prepared and composed,
+divers books, pamphlets, letters, and declarations, resolutions,
+addresses, papers, and writings, and did ... maliciously and
+traitorously publish and disperse ... divers other books ...
+containing ... incitement, encouragement, and exhortations, to move,
+induce, and persuade persons held to service in any of the United
+States ... who had escaped ... to resist, oppose, and prevent, by
+violence and intimidation, the execution of the said laws, [that is
+the law for kidnapping their own persons]."
+
+He was brought to trial at Philadelphia, November 24th 1851, before
+Honorable Judges Kane and Grier, then and subsequently so eminent for
+their zeal in perverting law and doing judicial iniquity. Gentlemen of
+the Jury--it is no slander to say this. It is their great glory that
+in the cause of Slavery they have struck at the first principles of
+American Democracy, and set at nought the Christian Religion. It is
+only their panegyric which I pronounce.
+
+On behalf of the government there appeared six persons as prosecuting
+officers. One United States Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Cooper),
+the Attorney-General of Maryland, the District Attorney of
+Pennsylvania, the Recorder of the City of Philadelphia, and two
+members of her bar.[178] For Mr. Webster, then Secretary of State, was
+highly desirous that Maryland should send her Attorney-General, Hon.
+Mr. Brent, to help the government of the United States prosecute a
+Quaker miller, a Non-resistant, for the crime of treason. Hon. James
+Cooper, the Pennsylvania Senator, also appeared on behalf of Maryland,
+seeking to convict one of his own constituents! Gentlemen, such
+conduct carries us back to the time of the Stuarts; but despotism is
+always the same. It was very proper that the United States government
+should thus outrage the common decencies of judicial process.
+
+[Footnote 178: History, 55, 57; Report, 19; 2 Wallace.]
+
+This question amongst others was put to each juror:--
+
+     "Have you formed an opinion that the law of the United
+     States, known as the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, is
+     unconstitutional, so that you cannot for that reason convict
+     a person indicted for a forcible resistance thereto, if the
+     facts alleged in the indictment are proved and the court
+     hold the statute to be constitutional?"
+
+Thus all persons were excluded from the jury who believed this wicked
+bill a violation of the constitution; and one most important means of
+the prisoner's legitimate defence was purposely swept away by the
+court.
+
+Now look at the law as laid down by the government.
+
+Mr. Ashmead, the government's Attorney, said when the Constitution was
+adopted "Men had not then become wiser than the laws [the laws of
+England and colonial laws which they were born under and broke away
+from]; nor had they learned to measure the plain and unambiguous
+letter of the Constitution by an artificial standard of their own
+creation [that is the Self-evident Truth that all men have a natural
+and unalienable Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of
+Happiness]; to obey or disregard it according as it came up to or fell
+beneath it [as the law was just or unjust]."
+
+"_You will receive the law from the court._" "You _are bound by the
+instructions which the court may give_ in respect to it;" "_it is in
+no sense true that you are judges of the law_." "_You must take the
+interpretation which the court puts upon it._ You have a right to
+apply the law to the facts, but you have no right to go further."
+
+"The crime charged against this defendant is ... that of _levying war
+against the United States_. The phrase _levying war_ was long before
+the adoption of the Constitution, a phrase ... _embracing such a
+forcible resistance to the laws as that charged against this
+defendant_ [that is, speaking against the fugitive slave bill and
+refusing to kidnap a man is 'levying war against the United States']!"
+
+It is treason "if the intention is by force to prevent the execution
+of _any one ... of the general laws of the United States_, or _to
+resist_ the exercise of _any legitimate authority of the government_."
+
+"Levying war embraces ... any combination forcibly to prevent or
+oppose the execution ... of a public statute, if accompanied or
+followed by an act of forcible opposition." Of course the court is to
+determine the meaning of _force_; and using the same latitude of
+construction as in interpreting _levying war_, it would mean, a
+_word_, a _look_, a _thought_, a _wish_, a _fancy_ even.
+
+Mr. Ludlow enforced the same opinions, relying in part on the old
+tyrannical decisions of the British courts in the ages of despotism,
+and on the opinion of Judge Chase--who had derived his law of treason
+from that source, and was impeached before the American Senate for his
+oppressive conduct while judge in the very trials whence these
+iniquitous doctrines were derived! But Mr. Ludlow says "if a _spurious
+doctrine have been introduced into the common law ... it would require
+great hardihood in a judge to reject it_." So the jury must accept "a
+spurious doctrine" as genuine law!
+
+"In treason, all the _participes criminis_ are principals; there are
+no accessaries to this crime. Every act which ... would render a man
+an _accessary_ will ... make him a _principal_." "If any man joins and
+acts with an assembly of people, _his intent is always to be
+considered ... the same as theirs; the law ... judgeth of the intent
+by the Fact_." This was Judge Kelyng's "law."
+
+"It may be ... advanced that because Hanway was not armed, he was not
+guilty. It is perfectly well settled that _arms are not necessary_."
+"Military weapons ... are not necessary ... to a levying war." "This
+is the opinion of Judge Chase," and "it may be alleged that Judge
+Chase was impeached, and that [therefore] his opinions are of little
+weight. Whatever may have been the grounds of that impeachment, _it is
+not for us to discuss_."
+
+"If a body of men be assembled for the purpose of effecting a
+treasonable object [that is, 'to oppose the execution of a public
+statute,' no matter what or how] _all those who perform any part,
+however minute, or however remote from the scene of action ... are
+equally traitors_."
+
+Mr. Brent, the Maryland State Attorney, whom Mr. Webster had sent
+there, declared that "_any combination_ like this, of colored and
+white persons, _to prevent the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law, is
+treason_."
+
+Mr. Cooper, the Pennsylvania Senator, adds, "Castner Hanway ... having
+been present ... at the time the overt act was committed, he is a
+principal ... provided he was there aiding and abetting the objects of
+the confederated parties." "_Persons_ procuring, contriving, or
+_consenting_, come within the words aid and abet." So "_if he_
+encourages, _assists, or consents to the act_, it is enough; _he
+becomes at once an aider and abettor, and obnoxious to all the pains
+and penalties denounced against it_." "If persons _do assemble
+themselves_ and act with _some_ force in opposition to _some_ law ...
+and _hope thereby to get it repealed, this is a levying war and high
+treason_." That is, an assembly of men acting against any law, with
+any force of argument, in order to procure its repeal, levies war and
+is guilty of treason!
+
+To connect Mr. Hanway with this constructive treason, the government
+relied on the evidence of Mr. Kline, the Deputy Marshal of the court,
+a man like Mr. Butman and Mr. Patrick Riley, so well known in this
+court, and so conspicuous for courage and general elevation of
+character. Witnesses testified that Kline was so much addicted to
+falsehood that they would not believe him on oath,--but what of that?
+He had "conquered his prejudices." It appeared that Mr. Hanway went to
+the scene of action on a sorrel horse, in his shirt-sleeves, with a
+felt hat on, and did not join the Deputy in attempting to kidnap when
+commanded. Hear how Mr. Ludlow constructs levying war out of the
+disobedience of a non-resistant Quaker in a felt hat and
+shirt-sleeves, mounted on a sorrel horse! Hearken to this voice of the
+government:--
+
+     "Suddenly he sees the assembled band of infuriated men....
+     Does he leave the spot? No, Sir! Does he restrain the
+     negroes? Take the evidence for the defence in its fullest
+     latitude, and you will perceive he raised the feeble cry,
+     'Don't shoot! for God's sake don't shoot!' and there it
+     ended. Is that consistent with innocence?... according to
+     their own evidence the conclusion is irresistible that he
+     was not innocent."
+
+"But he does more than this." When summoned by the Deputy to steal a
+man "he is thrown off his guard, and exclaims, 'I will not assist
+you;' 'he allowed the colored people had a right to defend
+themselves.' 'He did not care for that Act of Congress or any other
+Act of Congress.'"
+
+And so with his unsaddled sorrel nag this non-resistant miller levies
+war upon the United States by crying "Don't fire," and commits treason
+by the force and arms of a broad-brimmed Quaker hat. "The smallest
+amount of force is sufficient," "military weapons are not necessary to
+levy war!"
+
+Mr. Brent thought if Mr. Hanway was not hanged it would appear that a
+"small and miserable and traitorous faction can resist and annul the
+laws of the United States." "Put down these factions [the Free-Soil
+Party, the Liberty Party, the Anti-Slavery Societies], overwhelm them
+with shame, disgrace, and ruin, or you are not good citizens
+fulfilling the bonds that bind you to us of the South."
+
+The government Attorney declared that Mr. Hanway and others
+
+     "Had no right to refuse to assist because it was repugnant
+     to their consciences. Conscience! Conscience ... is the
+     pretended justification for an American citizen to refuse to
+     execute a law of his country." "_Damnable, treasonable
+     doctrine._" "He has become a conspirator, he has connected
+     himself with them, and all their acts are his acts, and all
+     their intentions are his intentions."
+
+     "The whole neighborhood was not only disloyal, but wanting
+     in common humanity:" "the whole region is infected," "in
+     _that horde of traitors_;" "a whole county, a whole
+     township, a whole neighborhood are involved in plotting
+     treason." "When you see these things _can you not infer ...
+     that he went there by pre-arrangement_!" "When you see a man
+     ... not saying one word to save his dear colored friends
+     from the guilt of murder, I say it is passing human
+     credulity to say that you cannot _infer_ in all that _a
+     feeling of hostility to the law, and an intention to resist
+     it_."
+
+     "The consequences [of the verdict] are not with the jury:"
+     the responsibility will not be with you--you are not
+     responsible for those just consequences."
+
+     "When you allege that a master has come into Pennsylvania
+     and illegally seized and possessed himself of his slave
+     without process, you are to inquire, 'Has he done that which
+     he had authority to do in his own State?' You are to look to
+     the _laws of his own State_; for the Supreme Court
+     says,[179] 'He _has the same right to repossess his slave
+     here as in his own State_.'" "He who employs a man said to
+     have come from Maryland without being satisfied of his
+     freedom, is himself guilty of the first wrong."
+
+[Footnote 179: 16 Peters, Prigg _v._ Penn.]
+
+Senator Cooper closed for the government. Law was not enough for him;
+he would have the sanction of "Religion" also. So he read extract from
+a Sermon. Gentlemen of the Jury, you have not had the benefit of Rev.
+Dr. Adams's prayers in this court; it is a pity you should not be
+blessed with the theology of despotism; listen therefore to the
+"Thanksgiving Sermon" of Rev. Dr. Wadsworth, which Hon. Mr. Cooper
+read to the Jury in Independence Hall.
+
+     "For passing by all other causes of irritation as just now
+     secondary and subordinate, look for a moment, at the
+     influence which the Gospel of Christ would have in this
+     great sectional controversy about slavery.
+
+     "First, It would say to the Northern fanatic, who _vapors
+     about man-stealing_ as if there were no other evil under the
+     sun but this one evil of Slavery--it would say to him,
+     Emulate the spirit of your blessed Master and his apostles,
+     _who, against this very evil_ [man-stealing] in their own
+     times, _brought no railing accusation_; but in one instance
+     at least, _sent back a fugitive_ from the household of
+     Philemon.
+
+     "In treating Southern _Christian slaveholders_ with
+     Christian courtesy, and _sending back their fugitives_ when
+     apprehended among you, you neither indorse the system nor
+     partake of its evil; you are only performing in good faith
+     the agreement, and redeeming the pledges of your
+     forefathers, and leaving to each man for himself to answer
+     for his own acts at the judgment-seat of Jesus. It would
+     tear away from the man, as the foulest cloak of hypocrisy,
+     that pretence of a religious principle in this whole matter
+     of political abolitionism.
+
+     "Religious principle! Oh my God! That religious principle,
+     that for the sake of _an abstract right_ whose very exercise
+     were disastrous to the unprepared bondmen who inherit it,
+     would tear this blest confederacy in pieces, and deluge
+     these smiling plains in fraternal blood, and barter the
+     loftiest freedom that the world ever saw, for the armed
+     despotism of a great civil warfare! That religious principle
+     which, in disaster to man's last great experiment, would
+     fling the whole race back into the gloom of an older
+     barbarism--rearing out of the ruin of these free homes, the
+     thrones of a more adamantine despotism--freedom's beacons
+     all extinguished, and the whole race slaves. That religious
+     principle through which, losing sight of God's great purpose
+     of evangelizing the nations, [by American Slavery,] would
+     shatter the mightiest wheel in the mechanism of salvation,
+     and palsy the wing of God's preaching angel in its flight
+     through the skies.
+
+     "Alas--alas! ye that count as little this bond of blessed
+     brotherhood, wrought by our fathers' mighty hands and
+     bleeding hearts--we tell you, sorrowing and in tears, that
+     your pretence is foul hypocrisy. Ye have reversed the first
+     precept of the gospel, for your wisdom is a dove's, and your
+     harmlessness a serpent's. _Ye have not the first principle
+     within you either of religion or philanthropy, or common
+     human benevolence._ Your principle is the principle of Judas
+     Iscariot, and with the doom of the traitor ye shall go to
+     your own place."
+
+"No, Sir--no, Sir," concludes the Senator thirsting for his
+constituent's blood, "'There is no gospel in all this treasonable
+fanaticism--for treason to my country is rebellion to my God.'"
+
+Judge Grier charged the Jury;--but as _he stuck out from the
+phonographer's report_--of which the proof-sheets were sent to
+him--_the most offensive portion_, Gentlemen of the Jury, I shall not
+be able to enlighten you with all the legal words of this "consummate
+judge." So be content with the following Elegant Extracts.
+
+     "With the exception of a few individuals of perverted
+     intellect in some small districts or neighborhoods whose
+     moral atmosphere has been tainted and poisoned by male and
+     female vagrant lecturers and conventions, no party in
+     politics, no sect of religion, or any respectable numbers or
+     character can be found within our borders, who have viewed
+     with approbation or have looked with any other than feelings
+     of abhorrence upon this disgraceful tragedy."
+
+     "It is not in this Hall of Independence that meetings of
+     infuriated fanatics and unprincipled demagogues have been
+     held to counsel a bloody resistance to the laws of the land.
+     It is not in _this_ city that conventions are held
+     denouncing the Constitution, the Laws, and the Bible. It is
+     not _here_ that the pulpit has been desecrated by seditious
+     exhortations, teaching that theft [a man stealing his own
+     limbs and person from his 'lawful owner'] is meritorious,
+     murder [in self-defence killing a man-stealer] excusable,
+     and treason [opposition to the fugitive slave bill] a
+     virtue!"
+
+     "The guilt of this foul murder [the shooting of a kidnapper
+     by the men whom he intended for his victims, and whose
+     premises he invaded without due process of law, and with
+     armed force], rests not alone on the deluded individuals who
+     were its immediate perpetrators, but the blood taints with
+     even deeper dye the skirts of those who promulgated
+     doctrines subversive of all morality and all government,
+     [that is, of Slavery and the fugitive slave bill]."
+
+     "This murderous tragedy is but the necessary development of
+     principles and the natural fruit from seed sown by others
+     whom the arm of the law cannot reach," [such as the Authors
+     of the Declaration of Independence, and still more the
+     Author of the "Sermon on the Mount]."
+
+     "This [the slave clause of the Constitution] is the Supreme
+     law of the land, _binding ... on the conscience_ and conduct
+     of every individual citizen of the United States." "The
+     shout of disapprobation with which this [the fugitive slave
+     bill] has been received by some, has been caused ... because
+     it is an act which can be executed ... the real objection
+     ... is to the Constitution itself, which is supposed to be
+     void in this particular, from the effect of some 'higher
+     law.' It is true that the number of persons whose
+     consciences affect to be governed by such a law [that is the
+     law of Natural Morality and Religion], is very small. But
+     there is a much larger number who take up opinions on
+     trust,--and have concluded this must be a very pernicious
+     and unjust enactment, for no other reason than because the
+     others shout their disapprobation with such violence and
+     vituperation."
+
+     "This law is Constitutional." "The question of its
+     Constitutionality is to be settled by the Courts, [fugitive
+     slave bill courts,] and not by conventions either of laymen
+     or ecclesiastics." "_We are as much bound to support this
+     law as any other._" "The jury should regard the construction
+     of the Constitution as given them by the court as to what is
+     the true meaning of the words _levying war_." "In treason
+     all are principals, and a man may be guilty of aiding and
+     abetting, though not present."
+
+He spoke of those "associations, or conventions, which occasionally or
+annually infest the neighboring village of West-Chester, for the
+purpose of railing at and resisting the Constitution and laws of the
+land [that is the fugitive slave bill and other laws which annihilate
+a man's unalienable right to his liberty], and denouncing those who
+execute them as no better than a Scroggs or a Jeffreys;--who stimulate
+and exhort poor negroes to the perpetration of offences which they
+know must bring them to the penitentiary or the gallows."
+
+But he thought refusing to aid the deputy marshal in kidnapping was
+not an act of levying war, or treason against the United States. "In
+so doing he is not acting the part of an honest, loyal citizen [who
+ought to do any wickedness which a bum-bailiff commands]; he may be
+_liable to be punished for a misdemeanor for his refusal to
+interfere_."
+
+     "But he thought the government was right "in procuring an
+     indictment for Treason." For "meetings had been held in many
+     places in the North, denouncing the law, and advising a
+     traitorous resistance to its execution: conventions of
+     infuriated fanatics had invited to acts of rebellion; and
+     even the pulpit had been defiled with furious denunciations
+     of the law, and exhortations to a rebellious resistance to
+     it.
+
+     "The government was perfectly justified in supposing that
+     this transaction was but the first overt act of a
+     treasonable conspiracy, extending over many of the Northern
+     States, to resist by force of arms the execution of this
+     article of the Constitution and the laws framed in pursuance
+     of it. In making these arrests, and having this
+     investigation, the officers of government have done no more
+     than their strict duty.
+
+     "The activity, zeal, and ability, which have been exhibited
+     by the learned Attorney of the United States, in endeavoring
+     to bring to condign punishment the perpetrators of this
+     gross offence, are deserving of all praise. _It has given
+     great satisfaction to the Court also, that the learned
+     Attorney-General of Maryland, and the very able counsel
+     associated with him_ [Senator Cooper of Pennsylvania] _have
+     taken part in this prosecution_."
+
+In about fifteen minutes the Jury returned a verdict of "NOT
+GUILTY."[180]
+
+[Footnote 180: See Report of Trial of Castner Hanway, Phil. 1852.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+(4.) On the 29th of April, 1852, a man named William Smith was
+arrested by Commissioner McAllister of Columbia, Pennsylvania, on
+complaint of one Ridgeley of Baltimore. While in the custody of the
+officers, Smith endeavored to escape, and Ridgeley drew a pistol and
+shot him dead. The murderer escaped. No serious efforts were made by
+the State authorities to bring that offender to justice. "He has the
+same right to repossess his slave here as in his own State;" the same
+right to kill him if he attempts to escape! Mr. Toombs is modest--but
+we shall soon see the slaveholder not only sit down with his slaves at
+the foot of Bunker Hill Monument, but _shoot them if they attempt to
+run away_! Nay, Gentlemen, we shall see this Court defending the
+slave-hunter's "privilege."
+
+(5.) Here is another case, Gentlemen of the Jury, in which this same
+Judge Grier appears, and with his usual humanity. This is a brief
+account of the case of Daniel Kauffman. In 1852 he allowed a party of
+fugitive slaves to pass the night in his barn, and gave them food in
+the morning. For this he was brought before Judge Grier's court and
+fined $2,800! It was more than his entire property. Gentlemen, there
+are persons in this room who gave money to Mr. Kauffman, to indemnify
+him for his losses; were not they also guilty of treason, at least of
+a "misdemeanor?" They "evinced an express liking" for Freedom and
+Humanity, not Slavery and bloodshed.
+
+(6.) But here is yet one more,--which you shall have in the language
+of another:--
+
+     "In a case of attempted Slave-catching at Wilkesbarre, in
+     Pennsylvania, the Deputy Marshal, Wyncoop and his
+     assistants, had behaved with such atrocious and abominable
+     cruelty, that the citizens felt that justice demanded their
+     punishment for the outrage. They were, accordingly, arrested
+     on a warrant issued by a most respectable magistrate, on the
+     oath of one of the principal inhabitants of the place. A
+     writ of habeas corpus was forthwith sued out, returnable
+     before Judge Grier. When the District Attorney, Ashmead,
+     moved the discharge of the relators, (which, it is needless
+     to say, was ordered,) Judge Grier delivered himself to the
+     following effect. 'If _habeas corpuses_ are to be taken out
+     after that manner, _I will have an indictment sent to the
+     United States Grand-Jury against the person who applies for
+     the writ, or assists in getting it, the lawyer who defends
+     it, and the sheriff who serves the writ_, to see whether the
+     United States officers are to be arrested and harassed
+     whenever they attempt to serve a process of the United
+     States.'"
+
+2. Gentlemen of the Jury, you might suppose that love of liberty had
+altogether vanished from the "Free" States, else how could such men
+ride over the local law as well as natural justice? But I am happy to
+find one case where the wickedness of the fugitive slave bill courts
+was resisted by the people and the local judges--it is a solitary
+case, and occurred in Wisconsin:--
+
+     "About the middle of March, 1854, a man named Joshua Glover,
+     was seized near Racine, in Wisconsin, as a Fugitive Slave.
+     His arrest was marked by the circumstances of cruelty and
+     cowardice which seem to be essential to the execution of
+     this Law above all others. He was brought, chained and
+     bleeding, to Milwaukee, where he was lodged in jail. As soon
+     as the news spread, an indignation, as general as it was
+     righteous, prevailed throughout the city. A public meeting
+     was forthwith called, and held in the open air, at which
+     several of the principal citizens assisted. Stirring
+     speeches were made, and strong resolutions passed, to the
+     effect that the rights of the man should be asserted and
+     defended to the utmost. Counsel learned in the law
+     volunteered, and all necessary process was issued, as well
+     against the claimant for the assault and battery, as in
+     behalf of the man restrained of his liberty. A vigilance
+     committee was appointed to see that Glover was not secretly
+     hurried off, and the bells were ordered to be rung in case
+     any such attempt should be made. But the people were not
+     disposed to trust to the operation of the Slave Law,
+     administered by United States Judges or Commissioners, and
+     they stepped in and settled the question for themselves in a
+     summary manner. A hundred men arrived, in the afternoon,
+     from Racine, the town from which the man had been kidnapped,
+     who marched in order to the jail. They were soon reinforced
+     by multitudes more, and a formal demand was made for the
+     slave. This being denied, an attack was made upon the door,
+     which was soon broken in, the man released, and carried back
+     in triumph to Racine, whence he was afterwards conveyed
+     beyond the jurisdiction of the star-spangled banner. A mass
+     convention of the citizens of Wisconsin was afterwards held
+     to provide for similar cases, should they occur, and a most
+     sound and healthy tone of feeling appears to have pervaded
+     that youthful commonwealth.
+
+     "After the rescue had been effected, the United States
+     Marshal arrested several persons for the offence of
+     resisting an officer in the discharge of his duties. Among
+     these was Mr. Sherman M. Booth, the editor of the Free
+     Democrat. When brought before a Commissioner, in the custody
+     of the Marshal, a writ of habeas corpus was sued out on his
+     behalf, and he was brought before Judge A.D. Smith, of the
+     Supreme Court. After a full hearing, Judge Smith granted him
+     his discharge, on the ground that the fugitive slave law
+     was unconstitutional. The Marshal then had the proceedings
+     removed by a writ of certiorari before a full bench of the
+     Supreme Court, when the decision of Judge Smith was
+     confirmed, and Mr. Booth discharged from custody.
+     Immediately afterwards, Judge Miller, of the United States
+     District Court, issued another warrant for the arrest of Mr.
+     Booth, making no mention of the fugitive slave act, but
+     directing his arrest to answer to a charge for abetting the
+     escape of a prisoner from the custody of the United States
+     Marshal. Another writ of habeas corpus was sued out, but it
+     was denied by the Supreme Court, on the ground that there
+     was nothing on the face of the record to bring it within
+     range of their former decision."
+
+     "In the mean time the United States Judge and Marshal were
+     busy in their vocation. It affirmed that the Grand-Jury was
+     packed in the most unblushing manner, until an inquest was
+     made up that would answer the purpose of the Government.
+     However this may have been, indictments were found in the
+     District Court, against Mr. Booth and several other persons.
+     A petty Jury selected with the same care that had been
+     bestowed on the composition of the Grand-Jury, convicted Mr.
+     Booth and Mr. Ryecraft. All the weight of the government was
+     thrown against the defendants. Special counsel were retained
+     to assist the District Attorney, the instructions of the
+     Court were precise and definite against them; all motions in
+     their behalf resting on the irregularities and injustices of
+     the proceedings were overruled. So were all motions
+     subsequent to the conviction for an arrest of judgment. They
+     were sentenced to fine and imprisonment--Mr. Booth to pay
+     one thousand dollars and costs, and to be imprisoned one
+     month, and Mr. Ryecraft to pay two hundred dollars, and to
+     be imprisoned for ten days. On these sentences they were
+     committed to jail. The public excitement in Milwaukee, and
+     throughout the State, was intense. It was with difficulty
+     that the people could be restrained from forcibly liberating
+     the prisoners. Fortunately there was no occasion for any
+     such extreme measures. They found protection, where it ought
+     to be found, in the constituted authorities of their State.
+     A writ of habeas corpus was issued in their behalf by the
+     Supreme Court, then sitting at Madison, the Capital of the
+     State, returnable before them there. Escorted by two
+     thousand of their fellow-citizens, thither, in charge of the
+     High Sheriff, they had a hearing at once. After full
+     deliberation, the Court unanimously ordered them to be
+     discharged. The majority of the Court made this decision on
+     the ground of the unconstitutionality of the fugitive slave
+     law, one Judge (Crawford) sustaining the law, but concurring
+     in the order on the ground that no offence, under that Act,
+     was charged in the indictment. So the prisoners were
+     discharged, and brought home in triumph."
+
+Gentlemen, that matter will be carried up to the Supreme Court of the
+United States, and you may yet hear the opinion of the Hon. Associate
+Justice Curtis, for which let us wait with becoming reverence.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+3. Here is the case of Mr. Sloane, which happened in the State of
+Ohio.
+
+In October, 1852, several colored persons were about leaving Sandusky
+in a steamer for Detroit, when they were seized and taken before Mr.
+Follet, mayor of the city, and claimed as fugitive slaves. This
+seizure was made by the city marshal and three persons claiming to act
+for the owners of the slaves.
+
+After the colored persons were brought before the mayor, their friends
+engaged Mr. Rush R. Sloane to act as counsel in their defence. He
+demanded of the mayor and the claimants by what authority the
+prisoners were detained. There was no reply. He then asked, whether
+they were in the custody of a United States Marshal or Commissioner.
+Again there was no reply. He next called for any writs, papers, or
+evidences by which they were detained. Still there was no answer. He
+then said to his clients, "_I see no authority to detain your colored
+friends._"
+
+At that time some one near the door cried out, "Hustle them out," and
+soon the crowd and the alleged fugitives were in the street. Then one
+of the claimants said to Mr. Sloane, "I own these slaves; they are my
+property, and I shall hold you individually liable for their escape."
+_These were the first and only words he spoke to Mr. Sloane, and then
+not until the black men were in the street._
+
+In due time Mr. Sloane was arrested for resisting the execution of the
+fugitive slave bill, though he had _only acted as legal counsel for
+the alleged slaves and had offered no resistance to the law, by deed,
+or word, or sign_.
+
+He was brought to trial at Columbus. Before the jurors were sworn they
+were all asked "whether they had any conscientious scruples against
+the fugitive slave law, and would hesitate to convict under it." If
+they said "Yes," they were rejected. Thus a jury was packed for the
+purpose, and the trial went on. Thirteen unimpeached witnesses deposed
+to the facts stated before, while the slave claimant had no evidence
+but the _city marshal_ of Sandusky--the Tukey of that place--and _two
+of the three slave-catchers_--who swore that they had with them
+_powers of attorney for the seizure of twenty-four slaves_.
+
+Gentlemen, such was the action of the court, and such the complexion
+of the packed jury, that Mr. Sloane was found "guilty." The Judge,
+Hon. Mr. Leavitt, refused to sign a bill of exceptions, enabling him
+to bring the matter before the Supreme Court. Mr. Sloane was sentenced
+to pay a fine of $3,000, and $930 _as costs of court_! Such was the
+penalty for a lawyer telling his clients that he saw no authority to
+detain them,--after having three times demanded the authority, and
+none had been shown!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+4. Gentlemen of the Jury, I now come to cases which have happened in
+our own State,--in this city. Some alarm was felt as soon as Mr.
+Mason's fugitive slave bill was proposed in the Senate. But men said,
+"No northern man will support it. There is much smoke and no fire."
+But when on the 7th of March, 1850, Mr. Webster adopted the bill, and
+promised to defend it and the amendments to it, "with all its
+provisions to the fullest extent;" when he declared that Massachusetts
+would execute the infamous measure "with alacrity"--then not only
+alarm but indignation took possession of northern breasts. The friends
+of Slavery at Boston must do all in their power to secure the passage
+of the bill, the prosperity of its adoptive father, and its ultimate
+enforcement--the kidnapping of men in Massachusetts. Here are the
+measures resorted to for attaining this end.
+
+i. A meeting was called at the Revere House, that Mr. Webster might
+defend his scheme for stealing his constituents and putting himself
+into the Presidency.
+
+ii. A public letter was written to him approving of his attempts to
+restore man-stealing, and other accompaniments of slavery, to the free
+States. This letter declared the "deep obligations" of the signers
+"for what this speech has done and is doing;" "we wish to thank you,"
+they say, "for recalling us to our duties under the constitution;"
+"you have pointed out to a whole people the path of duty, have
+convinced the understanding, and touched the conscience of the
+nation;" "we desire, therefore, to express to you our entire
+concurrence in the sentiments of your speech." This letter was dated
+at Boston, March 25th, 1850, and received 987 signatures, it is said.
+
+iii. When the bill became an Act of government, a hundred cannons, as
+I have before stated, were fired on Boston Common in token of joy at
+the restoration of slavery to our New England soil.
+
+iv. Articles were written in the newspapers in defence of kidnapping,
+in justification of the fugitive slave bill. The _Boston Courier_ and
+_Boston Daily Advertiser_ gave what influence they had in support of
+that crime against America.
+
+v. Several ministers of Boston came out and publicly, in sermons in
+their own pulpits, defended the fugitive slave bill, and called on
+their parishioners to enforce the law!
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, need I tell you of the feelings of the
+Philanthropists of Boston,--of the colored citizens who were to be the
+victims of this new abomination! Within twenty-four hours of its
+passage more than thirty citizens of Boston, colored citizens, fled in
+their peril to a man whose delight it is to undo the heavy burthens
+and let the oppressed go free. While others were firing their joyful
+cannon at the prospect of kidnapping their brothers and sisters,
+Francis Jackson helped his fellow Christians into the ark of
+Deliverance which he set afloat on that flood of Sin. Gentlemen, he is
+here to-day--he is one of my bondsmen. There are the others--this
+venerable gentleman [Samuel May], this steadfast friend [John R.
+Manley.]
+
+vi. It was not long before the kidnappers came here for their prey.
+
+(1.) I must dwell a moment on the first attempt. Gentlemen of the
+Jury, you know the story of William and Ellen Craft. They were slaves
+in Georgia; their master was said to be a "very pious man," "an
+excellent Christian." Ellen had a little baby,--it was sick and ready
+to die. But one day her "owner"--for this wife and mother was only a
+piece of property--had a dinner party at his house. Ellen must leave
+her dying child and wait upon the table. She was not permitted to
+catch the last sighing of her only child with her own lips; other and
+ruder hands must attend to the mother's sad privilege. But the groans
+and moanings of the dying child came to her ear and mingled with the
+joy and merriment of the guests whom the mother must wait upon. At
+length the moanings all were still--for Death took a North-side view
+of the little boy, and the born-slave had gone where the servant is
+free from his master and the weary is at rest--for _there_ the wicked
+cease from troubling. Ellen and William resolved to flee to the North.
+They cherished the plan for years; he was a joiner, and hired himself
+of his owner for about two hundred dollars a year. They saved a little
+money, and stealthily, piece by piece, they bought a suit of
+gentleman's clothes to fit the wife; no two garments were obtained of
+the same dealer. Ellen disguised herself as a man, William attending
+as her servant, and so they fled off and came to Boston. No doubt
+these Hon. Judges think it was a very "immoral" thing. Mr. Curtis
+knows no morality here but "legality." Nay, it was a wicked thing--for
+Mr. Everett, a most accomplished scholar, and once a Unitarian
+minister, makes St. Paul command "SLAVES, obey your masters!" Nay,
+Hon. Judge Sprague says it is a "precept" of our "Divine Master!"
+
+Ellen and William lived here in Boston, intelligent, respected, happy.
+The first blow of the fugitive slave bill must fall on them. In
+October, 1850, one Hughes, a jailer from Macon, Georgia, a public
+negro-whipper, who had once beaten Ellen's uncle "almost to death,"
+came here with one Knight, his attendant, to kidnap William and Ellen
+Craft. They applied to Hon. Mr. Hallett for a writ. Perhaps they had
+heard (false) rumors that the Hon. Commissioner was "a little slippery
+in his character;" that he was "not overscrupulous in his conduct;"
+that he "would do any dirty work for political preferment." Gentlemen,
+you know that such rumors will get abroad, and will be whispered of
+the best of men. Of course you would never believe them in this case:
+but a kidnapper from Georgia might; "distance lends" illusion, as well
+as "enchantment, to the view." But be that as it may, Mr. Hallett (in
+1850) appeared to have too much manhood to kidnap a man. He was better
+than his reputation; I mean his reputation with Knight and Hughes, and
+would not (then) steal Mr. and Mrs. Craft. This is small praise; it is
+large in comparison with the conduct of his official brethren. But
+for the salvation of the Union another Commissioner was found who had
+no such scruples. This Honorable Court--Mr. Woodbury was then in the
+chief place, and Mr. Sprague in his present position--issued the writ
+of man-stealing. Two gentlemen of this city were eminently, but
+secretly, active in their attempt to kidnap their victim. I shall
+speak of them by and by. Somebody took care of Ellen Craft. William
+less needed help; he armed himself with pistols and a poignard, and
+walked in the streets in the face of the sun. He was a tall, brave
+man, and was quite as cool then as this Honorable Court is now, while
+I relate their "glorious first essay" in man-stealing. Public opinion
+at length drove the (southern) kidnappers from Boston. Then the Crafts
+also left the town and the country, and found in the Monarchical
+Aristocracy of Old England what the New England Democracy refused to
+allow them--protection of their unalienable right to Life, Liberty,
+and the pursuit of Happiness.
+
+Gentlemen, the Evangelists of slavery could not allow a Southern
+kidnapper to come to Boston and not steal his man: they were in great
+wrath at the defeat of Hughes and Knights. So they procured a meeting
+at Faneuil Hall to make ready for effectual kidnapping and restoring
+Slavery to Boston. "The great Union meeting" was held at Faneuil Hall
+November 26th, 1850,--two days before the annual Thanksgiving; it was
+"a preparatory meeting" to make ready the hearts of the People for
+that dear New England festival when we thank God for the Harvest of
+the Land, and the Harvest of the Sea, and still more for the State
+whose laws are Righteousness, and the Church that offers us "the
+Liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free," "the glorious Liberty of
+the Sons of God." Here are the Resolutions which were passed.
+
+     "Resolved, That the preservation of the Constitution and the
+     Union is the paramount duty of all citizens;--that the
+     blessings which have flowed from them in times past, which
+     the whole country is now enjoying under them, and which we
+     firmly believe posterity will derive from them hereafter,
+     are incalculable; and that they vastly transcend in
+     importance all other political objects and considerations
+     whatever.
+
+     "Resolved, That it would be folly to deny that there has
+     been and still is danger to the existence of the Union,
+     where there is prevalent so much of a spirit of disunion,
+     constantly weakening its strength and alienating the minds
+     of one part of the people of the United States from another;
+     and that if this spirit be not checked and restrained, and
+     do not give way to a spirit of conciliation and of patriotic
+     devotion to the general good of the whole country, we cannot
+     expect a long continuance of the political tie which has
+     hitherto made us one people; but must rather look to see
+     groups of rival neighboring republics, whose existence will
+     be a state of perpetual conflict and open war.
+
+     "Resolved, That all the provisions of the Constitution of
+     the United States--the supreme law of the land--are equally
+     binding upon every citizen, and upon every State in the
+     Union;--that ALL laws passed by Congress, in pursuance of
+     the Constitution, are equally binding on all the citizens,
+     and no man is at liberty to resist or disobey any one
+     constitutional act of Congress any more than another; and
+     that we do not desire or intend to claim the benefit of any
+     one of the powers or advantages of the Constitution, and to
+     refuse, or seem to refuse, to perform any part of its
+     duties, or to submit to any part of its obligations.
+
+     "Resolved, That the adjustment of the measures which
+     disturbed the action of Congress for nearly ten months of
+     its last session, ought to be carried out by the people of
+     the United States in good faith, in all the substantial
+     provisions; _because_, although we may differ with each
+     other about the details of those measures, yet, in our
+     judgment, a renewed popular agitation of any of the main
+     questions then settled, would be fraught with new and
+     extreme dangers to the peace and harmony of the country,
+     which this adjustment has happily restored.
+
+     "Resolved, That every species and form of resistance to the
+     execution of a regularly enacted law, except by peaceable
+     appeal to the regular action of the judicial tribunals upon
+     the question of its constitutionality--an appeal which ought
+     never to be opposed or impeded--is mischievous, and
+     subversive of the first principles of social order, and
+     tends to anarchy and bloodshed.
+
+     "Resolved, That men, who directly or indirectly instigate or
+     encourage those who are or may be the subjects of legal
+     process, to offer violent resistance to the officers of the
+     law, deserve the reprehension of an indignant community, and
+     the severest punishment which its laws have provided for
+     their offence; and that we have entire confidence that any
+     combination or attempt to fix such a blot upon the fair fame
+     of our State or city, will be promptly rebuked and punished,
+     by an independent and impartial judiciary, and by firm and
+     enlightened juries.
+
+     "Resolved, That we will at all times, in all places, and
+     under all circumstances, so far as our acts or influence may
+     extend, sustain the Federal Union, uphold its Constitution,
+     and enforce the duty of obedience to the laws."
+
+A singular preparation for a Thanksgiving day in Boston! But on that
+festival, Gentlemen, three Unitarian ministers thanked God that the
+fugitive slave bill would be kept in all the land!
+
+Several speeches were made at the meeting, some by Whigs, some by
+Democrats, for it was a "Union meeting," where Herod and Pilate were
+made friends. Gentlemen, I must depart a little from the severity of
+this defence and indulge you with some of the remarks of my
+distinguished opponent, Hon. Attorney Hallett: then he was merely a
+lawyer, and fugitive slave bill Commissioner, appointed "to take bail,
+affidavits," and colored men,--he was only an expectant Attorney. His
+speech was a forerunner of the "Indictment" which has brought us
+together. Hearken to the words of Mr. Hallett in his "preparatory
+lecture:"--
+
+     "We can now say that there is no law of the United States
+     which cannot be executed in Massachusetts. If there was any
+     doubt before, _there can be no doubt now_; and if there be
+     any wild enough hereafter to resort to a fancied 'Higher
+     Law' to put down law [that is, the fugitive slave bill],
+     they will find in your determined will a stronger law to
+     sustain _all the laws of the United States_." "The
+     threatened nullification comes from Massachusetts upon a law
+     [the fugitive slave bill] which the whole South insist is
+     _vital to the protection of their property and industry_
+     [much of their "property" and "industry" being addicted to
+     running away]. _And shall Massachusetts nullify that law?_"
+     "The question for us to-day is whether we will in good
+     faith abide by, and carry out these _Peace Measures_ [for
+     the rendition of fugitive slaves, the new establishment of
+     Slavery in Utah and New Mexico, and the restoration of it to
+     all the North] or whether we shall rush into renewed
+     agitation," etc. "Resort is had to a new form of _moral
+     treason_ which assumes by the mysterious power of a '_Higher
+     Law_' to trample down all law [that is, the fugitive slave
+     bill]. Some of our fellow-citizens have avowed that the
+     fugitive slave bill is to be treated like the _Stamp Act_,
+     and never to be enforced in Massachusetts. If that means any
+     thing, it means that which our fathers meant when they
+     resisted the Stamp Act and threw the tea
+     overboard--Revolution.[181] _It_ [opposition to the fugitive
+     slave bill] _is revolution, or it is treason. If it only
+     resists law, and obstructs its officers, it is treason; and
+     he who risks it, must risk hanging for it._"[182]
+
+[Footnote 181: The learned counsel for the fugitive slave bill
+confounds two events. The Stamp Act was passed March 22d, 1765, and
+repealed the 28th of the next March. The tea was destroyed December
+16th, 1773.]
+
+[Footnote 182: Report in Boston Courier of November 27th, 1850.]
+
+Gentlemen, that meeting determined to execute the fugitive slave bill
+"with all its provisions, to the fullest extent." It is dreadful to
+remember the articles in the Daily Advertiser and the Courier at that
+period. Some of the sermons in the Churches of Commerce on the
+following Thursday, Thanksgiving day, were filled with the most odious
+doctrines of practical atheism. The "preparatory meeting" had its
+effect. Soon the seed bore fruit after its kind. But some ministers
+were faithful to their Brother and their Lord.
+
+(2.) February 15th, 1851, a colored man named "Shadrach" was arrested
+under a warrant from that Commissioner who had been so active in the
+attempt to kidnap Mr. and Mrs. Craft. But a "miracle" was wrought:
+"where sin abounded Grace did much more abound," and "the Lord
+delivered him out of their hands." Shadrach went free to Canada, where
+he is now a useful citizen. He was rescued by a small number of
+colored persons at noonday. The kidnapping Commissioner telegraphed to
+Mr. Webster, "It is levying war--it is treason." Another asked, "What
+is to be done?" The answer from Washington was, "Mr. Webster was very
+much mortified."
+
+On the 18th, President Fillmore, at Mr. Webster's instigation, issued
+his proclamation calling on all well disposed citizens, and
+_commanding all officers_, "civil and military, to aid and assist in
+quelling this, and all other such combinations, _and to assist in
+recapturing the above-named person_" Shadrach. General orders came
+down from the Secretaries of War and the Navy, commanding the
+_military and naval officers to yield all practicable assistance_ in
+the event of such another "_insurrection_." The City Government of
+Boston passed Resolutions regretting that a man had been saved from
+the shackles of slavery; cordially approving of the President's
+proclamation, and promising their earnest efforts to carry out his
+recommendations. At that time Hon. Mr. Tukey was Marshal; Hon. John P.
+Bigelow was Mayor; Hon. Henry J. Gardner, a man equally remarkable for
+his temperance, truthfulness, and general integrity, was President of
+the Common Council.
+
+It was not long, Gentlemen, before the City Government had an
+opportunity to keep its word.
+
+(3.) On the night of the 3d of April, 1851, Thomas Sims was kidnapped
+by two police officers of Boston, pretending to arrest him for theft!
+Gentlemen of the Jury, you know the rest. He was on trial nine days.
+He never saw the face of a jury, a judge only once--who refused the
+_Habeas Corpus_, the great "Writ of Right." That judge--I wish his
+successors may better serve mankind--has gone to his own place; where,
+may God Almighty have mercy on his soul! You remember, Gentlemen, the
+chains round the Court House; the Judges of your own Supreme Court
+crawling under the southern chain. You do not forget the "Sims
+Brigade"--citizen soldiers called out and billeted in Faneuil Hall.
+You recollect the Cradle of Liberty shut to a Free Soil Convention,
+but open to those hirelings of the Slave Master. You will never forget
+the Pro-Slavery Sermons that stained so many Boston pulpits on the
+"Fast-day" which intervened during the mock trial!
+
+Mr. Sims had able defenders,--I speak now only of such as appeared on
+his behalf, others not less noble and powerful, aided by their
+unrecorded service--Mr. Sewall, Mr. Rantoul, men always on the side of
+Liberty, and one more from whose subsequent conduct, Gentlemen of the
+Jury, I grieve to say it, you would not expect such magnanimity then,
+Mr. Charles G. Loring. But of what avail was all this before such a
+Commissioner? Thomas Sims was declared "a chattel personal to all
+intents, uses, and purposes whatsoever." After it became plain that he
+would be decreed a slave, the poor victim of Boston kidnappers asked
+one boon of his counsel, "I cannot go back to Slavery," said he, "give
+me a knife, and when the Commissioner declares me a slave I will stab
+myself to the heart, and die before his eyes! I will not be a slave."
+The knife was withheld! At the darkest hour of the night Mayor Bigelow
+and Marshal Tukey, suitable companions, admirably joined by nature as
+by vocation, with two or three hundred police-men armed, some with
+bludgeons, some with drawn swords and horse pistols, took the poor boy
+out of his cell, chained, weeping, and bore him over the spot where,
+on the 5th of March, 1770, the British tyrant first shed New England
+blood; by another spot where your fathers and mine threw to the ocean
+the taxed tea of the oppressor. They put him on board a vessel, the
+"_Acorn_," and carried him off to eternal bondage. "And this is
+Massachusetts liberty!" said he, as he stepped on board. Boston sent
+her Delegates to escort him back, and on the 19th of April, 1851, she
+delivered him up to his tormentors in the jail at Savannah, where he
+was scourged till human nature could bear no more, while his captors
+were feasted at the public cost. Seventy-six years before there was
+another 19th of April, also famous!
+
+(4.) Then came the examination and "trial" of the Shadrach Rescuers in
+February and the following months. Some of these trials took place
+before his Honor Judge Peleg Sprague. Therefore, you will allow me,
+Gentlemen, to refresh your memories with a word or two respecting the
+antecedents of this Judge--his previous history.
+
+In 1835 the abolition of Slavery in the British West Indies and the
+efforts of the friends of Freedom in the Northern States, excited
+great alarm at the South, lest the "peculiar institution" should
+itself be brought into peril. Fear of a "general insurrection of the
+slaves" was talked about and perhaps felt. The mails were opened in
+search of "incendiary publications;" a piano-forte sent from Boston to
+Virginia, was returned because the purchaser found an old copy of the
+"Emancipator" in the case which contained it. Public meetings for the
+promotion of American Slavery were held. There was one at Boston in
+Faneuil Hall, August 21, 1835, at which a remarkable speech was made
+by a lawyer who had graduated at Harvard College in 1812, a man no
+longer young, of large talents and great attainments in the law. He
+spoke against discussion, and in behalf of Slavery and Slaveholders:
+he could see no good, but only unmixed evil "consequent upon agitating
+this subject here." He said:--
+
+     "When did fear ever induce a man to relax his power over the
+     object that excited it? No, he will hold him down with a
+     stronger grasp, he will draw the cords tighter, he will make
+     the chains heavier and sink his victim to a still deeper
+     dungeon."
+
+     "The language and measures of the abolitionists clearly tend
+     to insurrection and violence." "They [the slaves] hear that
+     their masters have no legal or moral authority over them.
+     That every moment's exercise of such dominion is sin, and
+     that the laws that sanction it are morally void: that they
+     are entitled to immediate emancipation, and that their
+     masters are to be regarded as kidnappers and robbers for
+     refusing it." "It is deluding these unfortunate beings to
+     their own destruction, we should not aid them. The
+     Constitution provides for the suppressing of insurrections
+     ... we should respond to its call [if the slaves attempted
+     to recover their liberty]; nay, we should not wait for such
+     a requisition, but on the instant should rush forward with
+     fraternal emotions to defend our brethren from desolation
+     and massacre."
+
+     "The South will not tolerate our interference with their
+     slaves, [by our discussing the matter in the newspapers and
+     elsewhere]." "The Union then, if used to disturb this
+     institution of Slavery, will be then as the 'spider's web; a
+     breath will agitate, a blast will sweep it away forever.'"
+
+     "If, then, these abolitionists shall go on ... the fate of
+     our government is sealed.... And who will attempt to fathom
+     the immeasurable abyss of a dissolution of the Union?"
+
+     "Tell the abolitionists this; present to them in full array
+     the consequences of their attempts at immediate
+     emancipation, and they meet all by a cold abstraction. They
+     answer, '_We must do right regardless of consequences._'"
+     "They assume that such a course [undoing the heavy burthens
+     and letting the oppressed go free, and loving your neighbor
+     as yourself] _is_ right. When that is the very point in
+     controversy, and when inevitable consequences demonstrate
+     that it must be wrong."
+
+     "They [the abolitionists] insist upon immediate,
+     instantaneous emancipation.... No man, say they, can be
+     rightfully restrained of his liberty except for crime."
+     "They come to the conclusion that no laws that sanction or
+     uphold it [Slavery] can have any moral obligation. The
+     Constitution is the Supreme law of the land. It does
+     sanction, it does uphold Slavery; and if this doctrine be
+     true, that sacred compact has always been [so far] morally
+     null and void." "He [Washington] THAT SLAVEHOLDER ... came
+     with other Slaveholders to drive the British myrmidons from
+     this city and this Hall. Our fathers did not refuse to hold
+     communion with him or with them. With Slaveholders they
+     formed the Confederation ... with them they made the
+     Declaration of Independence." "And in the original draft of
+     the Declaration was contained a most _eloquent passage upon
+     this very topic of negro Slavery, which was stricken out in
+     deference to the wishes of members from the South_."
+     "Slavery existed then as now." "Our fathers were not less
+     devoted friends of liberty, not less pure as philanthropists
+     or pious as Christians than any of their children of the
+     present day." [Therefore _we_ must not attempt to emancipate
+     a slave!]
+
+Here is the passage which the speaker thought it so praiseworthy in
+the Revolutionary Congress to strike out from the Declaration of
+Independence:--
+
+     "He [the king] has waged cruel war against human nature
+     itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty
+     in the persons of a distant people who never offended him,
+     captivating and carrying them into slavery in another
+     hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their
+     transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the
+     opprobrium of INFIDEL nations, is the warfare of the
+     CHRISTIAN King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a
+     market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has
+     prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative
+     attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce.
+     And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of
+     distinguished dye, he is now exciting those very people to
+     rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which
+     he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he
+     also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed
+     against the LIBERTIES of one people with crimes which he
+     urges them to commit against the LIVES of another."
+
+Mr. Jefferson says, "It was struck out in _compliance to South
+Carolina and Georgia_, who had never attempted to restrain the
+importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, still wished to
+continue it. Our Northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little
+tender under it, for though their people have very few slaves
+themselves, yet they have been pretty considerable carriers of them to
+others."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But the orator went on protesting against righteousness:--
+
+     "I would beseech them [the Abolitionists] to discard their
+     dangerous abstractions [that men are endowed by their
+     Creator with certain natural, equal, and unalienable
+     Rights--to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness]
+     which they [in common with the Declaration of Independence]
+     adopt as universal rules of human conduct--without regard to
+     time, condition, or circumstances; which _darken the
+     understanding and mislead the judgment_, and urge them
+     forward to consequences from which they will shrink back
+     with horror. I would ask them to reflect that ... the
+     religion they profess is not to be advanced by forgetting
+     the precepts and the example of their Divine Master. Upon
+     that example I would ask them to pause. He found Slavery,
+     Roman Slavery, an institution of the country in which he
+     lived. Did he denounce it? Did he attempt its immediate
+     abolition? Did he do any thing, or say any thing which could
+     in its remotest tendency encourage resistance and violence?
+     No, his precept was, 'Servants (Slaves) obey your
+     Masters.'"[183] "It was because _he would not interfere with
+     the administration of the laws, or abrogate their
+     authority_."
+
+[Footnote 183: The learned counsel for the slaveholders probably
+referred to Eph. vi. 5; or Coloss. iii. 22; or Tit. ii. 9; or 1 Pet.
+ii. 18.]
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, this alleged precept of the "Divine Master"
+does not occur in any one of the four canonical Evangelists of the New
+Testament; nor have I found it in any of those Spurious and Apocryphal
+Records of old time. It appears originally in the Gospel according to
+the Hon. Peleg Sprague. "Slaves, obey your masters," "a comfortable
+Scripture" truly; a beatitude for the stealers of men!
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, that was the language of Mr. Peleg Sprague at
+the time when the State of Georgia offered $5,000 for the head of Mr.
+Garrison; when the Governors of Virginia and other Slave States, sent
+letters to the Governor of Massachusetts asking for "penal statutes"
+to prohibit our discussion in Boston; it was the very year that a mob
+of "Gentlemen of Property and Standing" in Boston broke up a meeting
+of women assembled to endeavor to abolish Slavery. Gentlemen of the
+Jury, Mr. Sprague had his reward--he sits on the bench to try me for a
+"misdemeanor"--"obstructing, resisting, and opposing an officer of the
+United States," "while in the discharge of his duty" to steal a man in
+Boston, that his "owner" might sell him in Richmond. The "chief
+commandment" of the New Testament is, "Slaves, obey your masters;" on
+that commandment he would now hang all the law, and the Abolitionists.
+
+It would take a long time to tell the dark, sad tale of the trial of
+the Shadrach Rescuers; how the Judge constructed and charged the Jury;
+how he constructed his "law." It was the old story of the Stuart
+despotism, wickedness in the name of the law and with its forms.
+Gentlemen, in that trial you saw the value of the jury. The Judges of
+Massachusetts went under the chain which the kidnappers placed about
+the Court House in 1851. The Federal Judges sought to kidnap the
+citizens of Boston and to punish all such as opposed man-stealing. The
+Massachusetts Judges allowed the law, which they had sworn to execute,
+to be struck down to the ground; nay, themselves sought to strike it
+down. The Federal Judges perverted the law to make it an instrument of
+torture against all such as love mankind. But the jury held up the
+Shield of Justice, and the poisoned weapons of the court fell blunted
+to the ground. The government took nothing by that motion--nothing but
+defeat. There was no conviction. One of the jurors said, "You may get
+one Hunker on any panel; it is not easy to get twelve. There was no
+danger of a conviction." But still it is painful to think in what
+peril our lives and our liberties then were.
+
+(5.) At length came the "Burns case." You know it too well. On the
+night of Wednesday, May 26, 1854, in virtue of Commissioner Loring's
+warrant, Anthony Burns was arrested on the charge of burglary, and
+thrust into jail. The next morning he was brought up for condemnation.
+Two noble men, Mr. Dana and my friend Mr. Ellis, defended Mr. Burns.
+There was to be no regular trial before Commissioner Loring.
+
+On the evening of Friday, May 28th, there was a meeting at Faneuil
+Hall, and an attack on the Court House where Mr. Burns was illegally
+held in duress. In the attack a Mr. Batchelder was killed,--a man
+hired to aid in this kidnapping, as he had been in the stealing of Mr.
+Sims. To judge from the evidence offered before the Grand-Jury of the
+Massachusetts Court, and especially from the testimony of Marshal
+Freeman, it appears he was accidentally killed by some of his own
+confederates in that wickedness, and before the door of the Court
+House was broken through. But that is of no consequence: as Mr. Dana
+has said, "He went in for his pay, and has got his _corn_." On Friday,
+June 4th, Mr. Burns was declared a slave by Commissioner Loring and
+delivered up to eternal bondage.
+
+It seems to be in consequence of my connection with this case that I
+am indicted; so you now approach the end of this long defence. I come
+to the last part of it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+(III.) Of the Indictment against Theodore Parker.
+
+I am indicted, gentlemen, for "resisting an officer" who was engaged
+in kidnapping Mr. Burns; and it is charged that I, at Boston, May
+26th, "with force and arms did knowingly and wilfully, obstruct,
+resist, and oppose, ... Watson Freeman, then and there being an
+officer of the United States, to the great damage of the said Watson
+Freeman; to the great hinderance and obstruction of justice, [to wit,
+of the kidnapping of Anthony Burns,] to the evil example of all others
+in like case offending, against the peace and dignity of the said
+United States and contrary to the form of the statute made and
+provided."
+
+It is also charged that "one Theodore Parker of Boston, ... with
+force and arms in and upon the said Watson Freeman, then and there, in
+the peace of the said United States being, an assault did make, he the
+said Freeman also then and there being an officer of the said United
+States, to wit, Marshal of the United States, ... and then and there
+also being in the due and lawful discharge of his duties as such
+officer" [to wit, stealing and kidnapping one Anthony Burns]. These
+and various other pleasant charges, Mr. Hallett, in the jocose manner
+of indictments, alleges against me; wherefrom I must defend myself, as
+best I may.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now, Gentlemen, that you may completely understand the accusation
+brought against me, I must go back a little, and bring up several
+other matters of fact that have straggled away from this long column
+of argument which I have led into the field thus far;--and also rally
+some new forces not before drawn into the line of defence. I must
+speak of the Hon. Justice Curtis; of his conduct in relation to
+Slavery in general, to this particular prosecution, and to this
+special case, _United States_ vs. _Theodore Parker_.
+
+First, Gentlemen, let me speak of some events which preceded Mr.
+Curtis's elevation to his present distinguished post. To make the
+whole case perfectly clear, I must make mention of some others
+intimately connected with him.
+
+There is a family in Boston which may be called the Curtis family. So
+far as it relates to the matter in hand, it may be said to consist of
+six persons, namely, Charles P. Curtis, lawyer, and Thomas B. Curtis,
+merchant, sons of the late Thomas Curtis; Benjamin R. Curtis, by birth
+a kinsman, and by marriage a son-in-law of Charles P. Curtis, late a
+practising lawyer, now this Honorable Judge of the Supreme Court of
+the United States, and his brother, George T. Curtis, lawyer, and
+United States Commissioner for the District of Massachusetts; Edward
+G. Loring, a step-son of the late Thomas Curtis, and accordingly
+step-brother of Charles P. and Thomas B. Curtis, lawyer, Judge of
+Probate for Boston, United States Commissioner, and, until recently,
+Lecturer at the Cambridge Law School; and also William W. Greenough,
+son-in-law of Charles P. Curtis, merchant.
+
+This family, though possessing many good qualities, has had a
+remarkably close and intimate connection with all, or most, of the
+recent cases of kidnapping in Boston. Here are some of the facts, so
+painful for me to relate, but so indispensable to a full understanding
+of this case.
+
+1. In 1836 Charles P. Curtis and Benjamin R. Curtis appeared as
+counsel for the slave-hunters in the famous case of the girl Med,
+originally a slave in the West Indies, and brought to Boston by her
+mistress. Med claimed her freedom on the ground that slavery was not
+recognized by the laws of Massachusetts, and could not exist here
+unless it were in the special case, under the Federal Constitution, of
+fugitives from the slave States of this Union. The Messrs. Curtis
+contended with all their skill--_totis viribus_, as lawyers say--that
+slavery might, by legal comity, exist in Massachusetts--that slaves
+were property by the law of nations; and that an ownership which is
+legal in the West Indies continued in Boston, at least so far as to
+leave the right to seize and carry away.
+
+Mr. Charles P. Curtis had already appeared as counsel for a
+slave-hunter in 1832, and had succeeded in restoring a slave child,
+only twelve or fourteen years of age, to his claimant who took him to
+Cuba with the valuable promise that he should be free in the Spanish
+West Indies.[184]
+
+[Footnote 184: Daily Advertiser, Dec. 7th, 1832. Mr. Sewall, the early
+and indefatigable friend of the slave, asked the Court to appoint a
+guardian _ad litem_ for the child, who was not 14, who should see that
+he was not enslaved. But the slaveholder's counsel objected, and the
+Judge (Shaw) refused; yet to his honor be it said in a similar case in
+1841, when Mr. Sewall was counsel for a slave child under the same
+circumstances, he delivered him to a guardian appointed by the Probate
+Court. 3 Metcalf, 72.]
+
+In the Med case Mr. Benjamin R. Curtis made a long and elaborate
+argument to show that "a citizen of a slaveholding State, who comes to
+Massachusetts for a temporary purpose of business or pleasure and
+brings his slave as a personal attendant, may restrain that slave for
+the purpose of carrying him out of the State and returning him to the
+domicil of his owner." To support this proposition, he made two
+points:--
+
+"1. That this child by the law of Louisiana is _now_ a slave."
+
+"2. That the law of Massachusetts will so far recognize and give
+effect to the law of Louisiana, as to allow the master to exercise
+this restricted power over his slave." That is, the power to keep her
+here as a slave, to remove her to Louisiana, and so make her a slave
+for ever and her children after her.
+
+To prove this last point he says by quotation, "we always _import_,
+together with their persons, _the existing relations of foreigners
+between themselves_." So as we "import" the natural relation of
+husband and wife, or parent and child, in the Irish immigrants, and
+respect the same, we ought equally to import and respect the unnatural
+and forcible relation of master and slave in our visitors from Cuba or
+Louisiana.
+
+     "It will be urged," he said, "that though we claim to
+     exercise only a qualified and limited right over the slave,
+     namely the right to remove him from the State, yet if this
+     is allowed, all the rights of the master must be allowed,
+     ... and thus Slavery will be introduced into the
+     Commonwealth. To this I answer,
+
+     "(1.) There is no practical difficulty in giving this
+     qualified effect to the law of Louisiana, [allowing the
+     master to bring and keep his slaves here and remove them
+     when he will]. The Constitution of the United States has
+     settled this question. That provides for and secures to the
+     master, the exercise of his right to the very extent claimed
+     in this case."
+
+     "(2.) Neither is there any theoretical difficulty."
+
+To do this, he thinks, will "promote harmony and good feeling, where
+it is extremely desirable to promote it, encourage frequent
+intercourse, and soften prejudices by increasing acquaintance, and
+tend to peace and union and good-will." "It will work no injury to the
+State [Massachusetts], by violating any public law of the State. The
+only law in the statute-book applicable to the subject of Slavery is
+the law against kidnapping." "It will work no direct injury to the
+citizens of this State for, ... it respects only strangers." "It is
+consistent with the public policy of Massachusetts, to permit this ...
+right of the master." "_It may be perfectly consistent with our policy
+not only to recognize the validity and propriety of those
+institutions_ [of Slavery] _in the States where they exist_, but _even
+to interfere actively to enable the citizens of those States to enjoy
+those institutions at home._" That is, it may be the duty of
+Massachusetts, "to interfere actively" in Louisiana for the
+establishment and support of Slavery there!
+
+Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, he adds, have
+made laws allowing the slaveholder this right: "The legislatures of
+those States are the legitimate and highest authority in regard to
+their public policy; what they have declared on this subject, must be
+deemed to be true.... We are not at liberty to suppose that it is
+contrary to their public policy, that the master should exercise this
+right within their territory. I respectfully ask what difference there
+is between the policy of Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island, and New
+Jersey, and the policy of Massachusetts, on the subject of Slavery."
+
+"I shall now attempt," he adds, "to prove that _Slavery is not
+immoral_." How do you think he proved that? Did he cite the Bible? No,
+he left that to lower law divines. Did he manufacture Bible? No, the
+Hon. Peleg Sprague had sufficiently done that a year before. He took a
+shorter cut--he denied there was any morality but Legality. "I take it
+to be perfectly clear," said this young man in all the moral
+enthusiasm of his youth, "that the Standard of Morality by which
+Courts of Justice are to be guided is that which the law prescribes.
+Your Honors' Opinion as Men or as Moralists has no bearing on the
+question. Your Honors are to declare what the Law deems moral or
+immoral."
+
+Gentlemen, that needs no comment; this trial is comment enough. But
+according to that rule no law is immoral. It was "not immoral" in 1410
+to hang and burn thirty-nine men in one day for reading the Bible in
+English; the Catholic Inquisition in Spain was "not immoral;" the
+butchery of Martyrs was all right soon as lawful! There is no Higher
+Law!
+
+It was "not immoral" for the servants of King Pharaoh to drown all the
+new-born Hebrew boys; nor for Herod's butchers to murder the Innocents
+at Bethlehem. Nay, all the atrocities of the Saint Bartholomew
+Massacres, Gentlemen, they were "not immoral," for "the Standard of
+Morality" is "that which the law prescribes." So any legislature that
+can frame an act, any tyrant who can issue a decree, any court which
+can deliver an "opinion," can at once nullify the legislation of the
+Universe and "dissolve the union" of Man and God: "Religion has
+nothing to do with politics; there it makes men mad." Is that the
+doctrine of Young Massachusetts? Hearken then to the Old. In 1765 her
+House of Representatives unanimously resolved that "there are certain
+essential Rights ... which are founded on the Law of God and Nature,
+and are the Common Rights of Mankind, and that the inhabitants of this
+Province are unalienably entitled to these essential Rights in common
+with all men, and _that no law of Society ... can divest them of these
+Rights_." No "Standard of Morality" but Law! A thousand years before
+Jesus of Nazareth taught his Beatitudes of Humanity, the old Hebrews
+knew better. Hearken to a Psalm nearly three thousand years old.
+
+     Among the assemblies of the great,
+     A Greater Ruler takes his seat;
+     The God of Heaven, as Judge, surveys
+     Those Gods on earth, and all their ways.
+     Why will ye, then, frame wicked laws?
+     Or why support the unrighteous cause?
+     When will ye once defend the poor,
+     That sinners vex the Saints no more?
+     Arise, oh Lord, and let thy Son
+     Possess his universal Throne,
+     And rule the nations with his rod;
+     He is our Judge, and he our God.
+
+"By the _law of this Commonwealth_," added Mr. Curtis, "_Slavery is
+not immoral._ By the Supreme law of this Commonwealth Slavery is not
+only recognized as a valid institution, but to a certain extent is
+incorporated into our own law. Before you [the court] rise from your
+seats, you may be called upon by the master of a fugitive slave, to
+grant a certificate ... which _will put the whole force of the
+Commonwealth at his disposal, to remove his slave from our
+Territory_."
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, that was conquering his prejudices "with
+alacrity;" it was obeying the fugitive slave bill fourteen years
+before it was heard of.
+
+He adds still further, by quotation, "I have no doubt but the citizen
+of a Slave State has a right to pass, upon business or pleasure,
+through any of the States attended by his slaves--and his right to
+reclaim his slave would be unquestioned. An escape from the attendance
+upon the person of his master, while on a journey through a free
+State, should be considered as an escape from the State where the
+master had a right of citizenship."
+
+Mr. Charles P. Curtis thus sustained his kinsman:--
+
+     "Is that to be considered immoral which the Court is bound
+     to assist in doing? _It is not for us to denounce as_
+     legally _immoral a practice which is permitted_ and
+     sanctioned _by the supreme law of the land_!" "It is said
+     the practice of Slavery is corrupting in its influence on
+     public morals. But the practice of bringing slaves here was
+     much more common thirty years ago than now. If this practice
+     be so corrupting, why is it tolerated in other States?"...
+     "The law of New York allows even foreigners to go there with
+     their slaves; and have the morals of that State suffered in
+     consequence? In Pennsylvania the law is similar, but where
+     is the evidence of its pernicious influence?" "As to the
+     _right to using them_, [the slaves voluntarily brought here
+     by their masters,] _notwithstanding the supposed horror at
+     such an admission_, the legislatures of New York and
+     Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and New Jersey, have actually
+     enacted statutes allowing precisely that privilege."[185]
+
+[Footnote 185: Med. Case, 1836.]
+
+But the Supreme Court of Massachusetts held otherwise. Med was
+declared free. Chief Justice Shaw covered himself with honor by his
+decision. And soon after, (Aug. 29,) the Daily Advertiser, the "organ"
+of the opinions of this family, said:--
+
+     "In some of the States there is ... legislative provision
+     for cases of this sort, [allowing masters to bring and hold
+     slaves therein,] and it would seem that _some such provision
+     is necessary in this State_, unless we would prohibit
+     citizens of the Slave States from travelling in this State
+     with their families, and unless we would permit such of them
+     as wish to emancipate their slaves, to throw them, at their
+     pleasure, upon the people of this State."
+
+Gentlemen, Mr. Curtis in 1836 contended for all which Mr. Toombs
+boasts he shall get--the right of the slaveholder to sit down at the
+foot of Bunker Hill monument with his slaves! Nay, Mr. Curtis granted
+more: it may be the duty of Massachusetts "to interfere actively," and
+establish slavery in Louisiana, or in Kansas. It may be said, this was
+only a lawyer pleading for his client. It was--a lawyer asking the
+Supreme Court of Massachusetts to establish slavery in this
+Commonwealth. Is it innocent in a lawyer to ask the court to do a
+wicked thing, to urge the court to do it? Then is it equally innocent
+to ask the Treasurer of a Railroad to forge stock, or an editor to
+publish lies, or a counterfeiter to make and utter base coin, or an
+assassin to murder men. Surely it is as innocent to urge men to kidnap
+blacks in Africa as in Boston.
+
+Gentlemen, That declaration--that the Statute supersedes natural
+Justice, and that the only "Standard of Morality" by which the courts
+are to be guided is "that which the law prescribes"--deserves your
+careful consideration. "He that squares his conscience by the law is a
+scoundrel"--say the proverbs of many nations. What do you think of a
+man who knows no lawgiver but the General Court of Massachusetts, or
+the American Congress: no Justice but the Statutes? If Mr. Curtis's
+doctrine is correct, then Franklin, Hancock, Adams, Washington, were
+only Rebels and Traitors! They refused that "Standard of Morality."
+Nay, our Puritan Fathers were all "criminals;" the twelve Apostles
+committed not only "misdemeanors" but sins; and Jesus of Nazareth was
+only a malefactor, a wanton disturber of the public peace of the
+world!
+
+The slave child Med, poor, fatherless, and unprotected, comes before
+the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, claiming her natural and
+unalienable Right to Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,--if not
+granted she is a slave for ever. In behalf of her wealthy "owner" Mr.
+Curtis resists the girl's claim; tells the court she "is now a slave;"
+there is "no practical difficulty" in allowing the master to keep her
+in that condition, no "theoretical difficulty;" "slavery is not
+immoral;" it may be the duty of Massachusetts not only to recognize
+slavery at home, but also "even to interfere actively" to support
+slavery abroad; the law is the only "Standard of Morality" for the
+courts; that establishes slavery in Massachusetts! Gentlemen, what do
+mankind say to such sophistry? Hearken to this Hebrew Bible: "Wo unto
+them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness
+which they have prescribed, to turn aside the needy from judgment, and
+to take away the Right from the poor of my people, that widows may be
+their prey, and _that they may rob the fatherless_." Let the stern
+Psalm of the Puritans still further answer from the manly bosom of the
+Bible.
+
+     "Judges who rule the world by laws,
+     Will ye despise the righteous cause,
+       When the injured poor before you stands?
+     Dare ye condemn the righteous poor
+     And let rich sinners 'scape secure,
+       While Gold and Greatness bribe your hands?
+
+     "Have ye forgot, or never knew,
+     That God will judge the judges too?
+       High in the Heavens his Justice reigns;
+     Yet you invade the rights of God,
+     And send your bold decrees abroad,
+       To bind the Conscience in your chains.
+
+     "Break out their teeth, eternal God,
+     Those teeth of lions dy'd in blood;
+       And crush the serpents in the dust;
+     As empty chaff, when whirlwinds rise,
+     Before the sweeping tempest flies,
+       So let their hopes and names be lost.
+
+     "Thus shall the Justice of the Lord
+     Freedom and peace to men afford;
+       And all that hear shall join and say,
+     Sure there's a God that rules on high,
+     A God that hears his children cry,
+       And all their sufferings will repay."
+
+2. After Mr. Webster had made his speech of March 7, 1850, pledging
+himself and his State to the support of the fugitive slave bill, then
+before Congress, "to the fullest extent," Thomas B. Curtis, with the
+help of others, got up a letter to Mr. Webster, dated March 25, 1850,
+signed, it is said, by 987 persons, who say: "We desire to express to
+you our deep obligations for what this speech has done and is doing."
+"You have pointed out to a whole people the path of duty, have
+convinced the understanding and touched the conscience of the nation."
+"We desire, therefore, to express to you our entire concurrence in the
+sentiments of your speech."
+
+3. A little later, Mr. Webster returned to Boston, and was
+"rapturously received" at the Revere House, April 29, 1850, by a
+"great multitude," when Benjamin R. Curtis made a public address, and
+expressed his "abounding gratitude for the ability and fidelity" which
+Mr. Webster had "brought to the defence of the Constitution and of the
+Union," and commended him as "_eminently vigilant, wise, and faithful
+to his country, without a shadow of turning_."
+
+4. Presently, after the passage of the fugitive slave bill, at a
+dinner party, at the house of a distinguished counsellor of Boston,
+Charles P. Curtis declared that he hoped the first fugitive slave who
+should come to Boston would be seized and sent back!
+
+5. Charles P. Curtis and his step-brother Edward G. Loring, and George
+T. Curtis, defended the fugitive slave bill by writing articles in the
+_Boston Daily Advertiser_.
+
+6. In November, 1850, the slave-hunters, thus invited and encouraged,
+came to Boston, seeking to kidnap William and Ellen Craft: but they in
+vain applied to Commissioner Benj. F. Hallett, and to Judges Woodbury
+and Sprague, for a warrant to arrest their prey. Finally, they betook
+themselves to Commissioner George T. Curtis, who at once agreed to
+grant a warrant; but, according to his own statement, in a letter to
+Mr. Webster, Nov. 23, 1850, as he anticipated resistance, and
+considered it very important that the Marshal should have more support
+than it was in his power as a Commissioner to afford, he procured a
+meeting of the Commissioners, four in number, and with their aid
+succeeded in persuading the Circuit Court, then in session, to issue
+the warrant.
+
+Gentlemen, as that letter of Mr. George T. Curtis contains some
+matters which are of great importance, you will thank me for
+refreshing your memory with such pieces of history.
+
+     "An application [for a warrant to arrest Mr. Craft] had
+     already been made to the judges [Messrs. Woodbury and
+     Sprague] privately ... they could not grant a warrant on
+     account of the pendency of an important Patent Cause then on
+     trial before a jury." "To this I replied, that ... the
+     ordinary business of the Court ought to give way for a
+     sufficient length of time, to enable the judges to receive
+     this application and to hear the case." "On a private
+     intimation to the presiding judge of our desire to confer
+     with him [the desire of the kidnapping commissioners, Mr.
+     B.F. Hallett, Mr. Edward G. Loring, Mr. C.L. Woodbury, and
+     Mr. G.T. Curtis] the jury were dismissed at _an earlier hour
+     than usual, ... and every person present except the
+     Marshal's deputies left the room, and the doors were
+     closed_." "The learned Judge said ... that he would attend
+     at half past eight the next morning, to grant the warrant."
+     "A process was placed in the hands of the Marshal ... in the
+     execution of which he might be called upon to _break open
+     dwelling-houses, and perhaps take life_, by quelling
+     resistance, actual or _threatened_." "I devoted at once a
+     good deal of time to the necessary investigations of the
+     subject." "There is a great deal of legislation needed to
+     make the general government independent of State control,"
+     says this "Expounder of the Constitution," "and independent
+     of the power of mobs, whenever and wherever its measures
+     chance to be unpopular." "The office of United States
+     Marshal is by no means organized and fortified by
+     legislation as it should be to encounter popular
+     disturbance."
+
+7. The warrant having been issued for the seizure of Mr. Craft,
+Marshal Devens applied to Benjamin R. Curtis for legal advice as to
+the degree of force he might use in serving it, and whether it ought
+to be regarded as a civil or a criminal process. George T. Curtis was
+employed by his brother to search for authorities on these points.
+They two, together, as appears from the letter of George T. Curtis to
+Mr. Webster, induced Marshal Devens to ask a further question, which
+gave Benjamin R. Curtis an opportunity to come out with an elaborate
+opinion in favor of the constitutionality of the fugitive slave bill,
+dated November 9, 1850. This was published in the newspapers. In order
+to maintain the constitutionality of this act, Benjamin R. Curtis was
+driven to assume, as all its defenders must, that the Commissioner, in
+returning the fugitive, performs none of the duties of a Judge; that
+the hearing before him is not "a case arising under the laws of the
+United States;" that he acts not as a judicial, but merely as an
+executive and "ministerial" officer--not deciding him to be a slave,
+but merely giving him up, to enable that point to be tried
+elsewhere.[186] But, spite of this opinion, public justice and the
+Vigilance Committee forced the (Southern) slave-hunters to flee from
+Boston, after which, Mr. and Mrs. Craft left America to find safety in
+England, the evident rage and fierce threats of the disappointed
+Boston slave-hunters making it unsafe for them to remain.
+
+[Footnote 186: On this see Hildreth's Despotism, 262, 280.
+Commissioner Loring considers that the fugitive slave bill
+commissioners have "_judicial_ duties." Remonstrance to General Court,
+2.]
+
+8. After the failure of this attempt to arrest Mr. Craft, Thomas B.
+Curtis got up a "Union Meeting" at Faneuil Hall, November 26,
+1850.[187] The call was addressed to such as "regard with disfavor all
+further popular agitation" of the subject of Slavery. Thomas B. Curtis
+called the meeting to order: William W. Greenough, from the "Committee
+of Arrangements," presented the resolutions, which you have already
+heard.[188] It was said at the time that they were written, wholly or
+in part, by Mr. Benjamin R. Curtis, who moved their adoption and made
+a long and elaborate speech thereon.
+
+[Footnote 187: See Mr. Curtis's letter in Daily Advertiser of February
+7, 1855.]
+
+[Footnote 188: See above, p. 148, 149.]
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, as I just now gave you some passages from Mr.
+Hallett's speech on that occasion, allow me now to read you some
+extracts from Mr. Curtis's address. The general aim of the speech was
+to reconcile the People to kidnapping; the rhetorical means to this
+end were an attempt to show that kidnapping was expedient; that it was
+indispensable; that it had been long since agreed to; that the Slaves
+were foreigners and had no right in _Massachusetts_. He said:--
+
+     "We have come here not to consider particular measures of
+     government but to assert that we have a government, not to
+     determine whether this or that law be wise or just, but to
+     declare that there is law, and its duties and power."
+
+     "Every sovereign State has and must have the right to judge
+     _what persons from abroad_ shall be admitted."
+
+     "Are not these persons [fugitive slaves] foreigners as to
+     us--and what right have they to come here at all, _against
+     the will of the legislative power of the State_.
+     [Massachusetts had no legislation forbidding them!] And if
+     their coming here or remaining here, is not consistent with
+     the safety of the State and the welfare of the citizens _may
+     we not_ prohibit their coming, or _send them back_ if they
+     come?" "_To deny this_ is to deny the right of
+     self-preservation to a State.... It ... _throws us back at
+     once into a condition below the most degraded savages who
+     have a semblance of government_." "You know that the great
+     duty of justice could not otherwise be performed, [that is
+     without the fugitive-from-labor clause in the Constitution];
+     that our peace at home and our safety from foreign
+     aggression could not otherwise be insured; and that only by
+     this means could we obtain 'the Blessings of Liberty' to the
+     people of Massachusetts and their posterity." "In no other
+     way could we become an example of, and security for, the
+     capacity of man, safely and peacefully and wisely to govern
+     himself under free and popular institutions."
+
+So the fugitive slave bill is an argument against human depravity,
+showing the capacity of man to govern himself "safely and peacefully
+and wisely."
+
+He adds, as early as 1643 the New England colonies found it necessary
+"to insert an article substantially like this one," for the rendition
+of fugitive servants, and in 1789 the Federal government demanded that
+the Spaniards should surrender the fugitive slaves of Georgia.
+Injustice, Gentlemen, has never lacked a precedent since Cain killed
+Abel. Mr. Curtis continues:--
+
+     "When I look abroad over 100,000 happy homes in
+     Massachusetts and see a people, such as the blessed sun has
+     rarely shone upon, so intelligent and educated, moral,
+     religious, progressive, and free to do every thing but
+     wrong--I fear to say that I should not be in the wrong to
+     put all this at risk, because our _passionate will_ impels
+     us to break a promise our wise and good fathers made, not to
+     allow a _class of foreigners_ to come here, or to _send them
+     back if they came_."
+
+So the refusal to kidnap Ellen and William Craft came of the
+"_passionate will_" of the people, and is likely to ruin the happy
+homes of a moral and religious people!
+
+     "_With the rights of these persons_ I firmly believe
+     _Massachusetts has nothing to do_. It is enough for us that
+     they have no right to be _here_. Whatever natural rights
+     they have--and I admit these natural rights to their fullest
+     extent--this is not the _soil_ on which to vindicate them.
+     This is _our_ soil, sacred to _our_ peace, on which we
+     intend to perform _our_ promises, and work out for the
+     benefit of ourselves and our posterity and the world, the
+     destiny which our Creator has assigned to _us_."
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, it is written of that Creator that He is "no
+Respecter of Persons;" and "hath made of one blood all nations of men
+for to dwell on all the face of the earth." The "Our Creator" of Mr.
+Curtis is also the Father of William and Ellen Craft; and that great
+Soul who has ploughed his moral truths deep into the history of
+mankind, represents the final Judge of us all as saying to such as
+scorned his natural Law of Justice and Humanity, "INASMUCH AS YE DID
+IT NOT TO ONE OF THE LEAST OF THESE YE DID IT NOT TO ME."
+
+Massachusetts is "our soil," is it; "sacred to _our_ peace," which is
+to be made sure of by stealing our brother men, and giving to
+Commissioners George T. Curtis and Edward G. Loring ten dollars for
+making a slave, and only five for setting free a man! Peace and the
+fugitive slave bill! No, Gentlemen of the Jury, it is vain to cry
+Peace, Peace--when there is no peace! Ay, there _is_ no peace to the
+wicked; and though the counsel of the ungodly be carried, it is
+carried headlong!
+
+In that speech, Gentlemen, Mr. Curtis made a special attack upon me:--
+
+     "There has been made within these walls," said he, "the
+     declaration that an article of the Constitution [the
+     rendition clause] of the United States 'shall not be
+     executed, _law or no law_.' A gentleman offered a resolve
+     ... that 'constitution or no constitution, law or no law, we
+     will not allow a fugitive slave to be taken from
+     Massachusetts.' The chairman of a public meeting [Hon.
+     Charles Francis Adams, on October 14th] declared here that
+     'the law will be resisted, and if the fugitive resists, and
+     if he slay the slave-hunter, or even the Marshal, and if he
+     therefor be brought before a Jury of Massachusetts men, that
+     Jury will not convict him.' And as if there should be
+     nothing wanting to exhibit the madness which has possessed
+     men's minds, _murder and perjury_ have been enacted into
+     virtues, and in this city preached from the sacred desk. I
+     must not be suspected of exaggerating in the least degree. I
+     read therefore the following passage from a sermon preached
+     and published in this city:--
+
+     "'Let me suppose a case which may happen here and before
+     long. A woman flies from South Carolina to Massachusetts to
+     escape from bondage. Mr. Greatheart aids her in her escape,
+     harbors and conceals her, and is brought to trial for it.
+     The punishment is a fine of one thousand dollars and
+     imprisonment for six months. I am drawn to serve as a juror
+     and pass upon this offence. I may refuse to serve and be
+     punished for that, leaving men with no scruples to take my
+     place, or I may take the juror's oath to give a verdict
+     according to the law and the testimony. The law is plain,
+     let us suppose, and the testimony conclusive. Greatheart
+     himself confesses that he did the deed alleged, saving one
+     ready to perish. The judge charges that if the jurors are
+     satisfied of that fact then they must return that he is
+     guilty. This is a nice matter. Here are two questions. The
+     one put to me in my official capacity as juror, is this:
+     "Did Greatheart aid the woman?" The other, put to me in my
+     natural character as man, is this: "Will you help punish
+     Greatheart with fine and imprisonment for helping a woman
+     obtain her unalienable rights?" If I have extinguished my
+     manhood by my juror's oath, then I shall do my official
+     business and find Greatheart guilty, and I shall seem to be
+     a true man; but if I value my manhood I shall answer after
+     my natural duty to love man and not hate him, to do him
+     justice, not injustice, to allow him the natural rights he
+     has not alienated, and shall say, "Not guilty." Then men
+     will call me forsworn and a liar, but I think human nature
+     will justify the verdict.'"
+
+"I should like to ask," he continued, "the reverend gentleman in what
+capacity he expects to be punished for his _perjury_?" Gentlemen of
+the Jury, I rose and said, "Do you want an answer to your question,
+sir?" He had charged me with preaching murder and perjury; had asked,
+How I expected to be punished for my own "PERJURY?" When I offered to
+answer his question he refused me the opportunity to reply! Thus,
+Gentlemen, he charged me with recommending men to commit perjury! Did
+he think I advised men to take an oath and break it? On the other side
+of the page which he read there stood printed:--
+
+     "Suppose a man has sworn to keep the Constitution of the
+     United States, and the Constitution is found to be wrong in
+     certain particulars; then his oath is not morally binding,
+     for before his oath, by his very existence, he is morally
+     bound to keep the law of God as fast as he learns it. No
+     oath can absolve him from his natural allegiance to God. Yet
+     I see not how a man can knowingly, and with a good
+     Conscience, swear to keep what he deems it wrong to keep,
+     and will not keep, and does not intend to keep."
+
+Gentlemen, when that speech came to be printed--there was no charge of
+"perjury" at all, but a quite different sentence![189]
+
+[Footnote 189: See the speech in Boston Courier of November 27th, with
+the editorial comment, and in Daily Advertiser of 28th, _Thanksgiving
+Day_. See also the Atlas of November 27th. The Sermon is in 2 Parker's
+Speeches, 241.]
+
+9. In February, 1851, George T. Curtis issued the warrant for the
+seizure of Shadrach, who was "hauled" in to the court house before
+that Commissioner; but "the Lord delivered him out of their hands,"
+and he also escaped out of the United States of America.
+
+10. After the escape or rescue of Shadrach, George T. Curtis
+telegraphed the news to Mr. Webster, at Washington, declaring "it is
+levying war;" thus constructing high treason out of the rescue of a
+prisoner by unarmed men, from the hands of a sub-deputy officer of the
+United States.
+
+11. George T. Curtis also officiated as Commissioner in the kidnapping
+of Thomas Sims, in April, 1851; and under the pretence of
+"extradition," sent him to be scourged in the jail of Savannah, and
+then to suffer eternal bondage. It was rumored at the time that
+Charles P. Curtis and Benjamin R. Curtis, his law-partner and
+son-in-law, were the secret legal advisers and chamber-counsel of the
+Southern slave-hunters in this case. I know not how true the rumor
+was, nor whether it was based on new observation of facts, or was
+merely an inference from their general conduct and character.
+
+12. When Mr. Sims was brought before Judge Woodbury, on _habeas
+corpus_, Benjamin R. Curtis appeared as counsel for the Marshal, and
+also assisted Judge Woodbury in strengthening his opinion against
+Sims, by a written note transmitted by an officer of the Court to the
+Judge, while he was engaged in delivering his opinion.
+
+13. Gentlemen of the Jury, I have shown you how, in Britain, the
+Government, seeking to oppress the people and to crush down freedom of
+speech, put into judicial offices such men as were ready to go all
+lengths in support of profitable wickedness. You do not forget the men
+whom the Stuarts made judges: surely you remember Twysden, and Kelyng,
+and Finch, and Saunders, and Scroggs. You will not forget Edmund
+Thurlow and John Scott. Well, Gentlemen, in 1851, Judge Woodbury died,
+and on the recommendation of Mr. Webster, Mr. Benjamin R. Curtis was
+raised to the dignity he now holds. Of course, Gentlemen, the country
+will judge of the cause and motive of the selection. No lawyer in New
+England had laid down such southern "Principles" for foundation of
+law; he outwent Mr. Sprague. None had rendered such service to the
+Slave Power. In 1836, he had sought to restore slavery to
+Massachusetts, and to accomplish that had denied the existence of any
+Higher Law,--the written statute was the only standard of judicial
+morals. In 1850, he had most zealously defended the fugitive slave
+bill,--coming to the rescue of despotism when it seemed doubtful which
+way the money of Boston would turn, and showing most exemplary
+diligence in his attempts to kidnap William and Ellen Craft.
+Gentlemen, if such services were left unpaid, surely "the Union would
+be in danger!" But I must go on with my sad chronicle.
+
+14. As Circuit Judge of the United States, Benjamin R. Curtis, as well
+in the construction of juries, as in the construction of the law,
+exerted all his abilities against the parties indicted for the rescue
+of Shadrach, though Mr. Hale says his conduct was far better than
+Judge Sprague's. He did this especially in the case of Elizur Wright,
+who appeared without counsel, and thus afforded a better opportunity
+to procure a conviction. But it was in vain--all escaped out of his
+hands.
+
+15. In 1851, George T. Curtis brought an action for libel against
+Benjamin B. Mussey, bookseller, who had just published a volume of
+speeches by the Hon. Horace Mann, one of which was against the
+business of kidnapping in Boston, wherein George T. Curtis found, as
+he alleged, matter libellous of himself. That suit remains yet
+undisposed of; but in it he will doubtless recover the full value of
+his reputation, on which kidnapping has affixed no stain.
+
+16. In May, 1854, Edward G. Loring issued a warrant for the seizure of
+Mr. Burns; decided the case before he heard it, having advised the
+counsel not to oppose his rendition, for he would probably be sent
+back; held him ironed in his "court," and finally delivered him over
+to eternal bondage. But in that case, it is said, Mr. Loring, who has
+no Curtis blood in his veins, did not wish to steal a man; and
+proposed to throw up his commission rather than do such a deed; but he
+consulted his step-brother, Charles P. Curtis, who persuaded him it
+would be dishonorable to decline the office of kidnapping imposed upon
+him as a United States Commissioner by the fugitive slave bill.
+Benjamin R. Curtis, it is said, I know not how truly--himself can
+answer, aided Mr. Loring in forming the "opinion" by which he
+attempted to justify the "extradition" of Mr. Burns; that is to say,
+the giving him up as a slave without any trial of his right to
+liberty, merely on a presumptive case established by his claimant.
+
+17. After Commissioner Loring had seized Mr. Burns, Mr. George T.
+Curtis, by a communication published in the newspapers, informed the
+public that he still continued the business of man-hunting at the old
+stand, where all orders for kidnapping would be promptly attended to.
+For, he says, there was a statement "that I had declined, or was
+unwilling or afraid to act. I did not choose that any one whatever
+should have an excuse for believing that Judge Loring was willing to
+sit in a case that I had declined." "I thought proper to place myself
+as it were by his side." "But I never took a fee [for kidnapping], and
+I never shall take one."[190] Did he remember the fate of the Hebrew
+Judas, who "betrayed the Innocent Blood," and then cast down the
+thirty pieces?
+
+[Footnote 190: See Boston Journal of May 29, and Boston Courier of
+June 7, 1854.]
+
+Hitherto the kidnapping commissioners, though both members of the same
+family, had pursued their game separately, each on his own account.
+After this it appears these two are to hunt in couples: Commissioner
+Loring and Commissioner Curtis "as it were by his side:"--
+
+     "Swift in pursuit, but matched in mouth like bells,
+     _Each under each_."
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, it is a very painful thing for me to deliver
+this very sad chronicle of such wicked deeds. But do not judge these
+men wholly by those acts. I am by no means stingy of commendation, and
+would rather praise than blame. The two elder Messrs. Curtis have many
+estimable and honorable qualities,--in private relations it is
+said--and I believe it--they are uncommonly tender and delicate and
+refined in the elegant courtesies of common life. I know that they
+have often been open-handed and generous in many a charity. In the
+ordinary intercourse of society, where no great moral principle is
+concerned, they appear as decorous and worthy men. Hon. Benj. R.
+Curtis,--he will allow me to mention his good qualities before his
+face,--though apparently destitute of any high moral instincts, is yet
+a man of superior powers of understanding, and uncommon industry; as a
+lawyer he was above many of the petty tricks so common in his
+profession. Strange as it may seem, I have twice seen Mr. George T.
+Curtis's name among others who contributed to purchase a slave; Mr.
+Loring's good qualities I have often mentioned, and always with
+delight.
+
+But this family has had its hand in all the kidnapping which has
+recently brought such misery to the colored people and their friends;
+such ineffaceable disgrace upon Boston, and such peril to the natural
+Rights of man. These men have laid down and advocated the principles
+of despotism; they have recommended, enforced, and practised
+kidnapping in Boston, and under circumstances most terribly atrocious.
+Without their efforts we should have had no man-stealing here. They
+cunningly, but perhaps unconsciously, represented the low Selfishness
+of the Money Power at the North, and the Slave Power at the South, and
+persuaded the controlling men of Boston to steal Mr. Sims and Mr.
+Burns. In 1836 they sought to enslave a poor little orphan girl, and
+restore bondage to Massachusetts; in 1851 they succeeded in
+enthralling a man. Now, Gentlemen, they are seeking to sew up the
+mouth of New England; there is a sad consistency in their public
+behavior.
+
+Gentlemen, they are not ashamed of this conduct; when "A Citizen of
+Boston," last January, related in the New York Tribune some of the
+facts I have just set forth, "One of the name" published his card in
+that paper and thanked the "Citizen" for collecting abundant evidence
+that the "Curtis Family" "have worked hard to keep the _law_ superior
+to fanaticism, disloyalty, and the _mob_," and declared that "they
+feel encouraged to continue in the same course and _their children
+after them_."[191] Mr. Thomas B. Curtis considers some of the acts I
+have just mentioned "among the most meritorious acts" of his
+life.[192] Mr. Loring, in his "Remonstrance," justifies Kidnapping!
+
+[Footnote 191: New York Tribune, January 15, 1855.]
+
+[Footnote 192: Daily Advertiser, February 7, 1855.]
+
+They may, indeed, speak well of the bridge which carries them safe
+over. Three of the family are fugitive slave bill commissioners; one
+of them intellectually the ablest, perhaps morally the blindest, who
+so charged me with "Perjury," is the Honorable Judge who is to try me
+for a "Misdemeanor." Of course he is perfectly impartial, and has no
+animosity which seeks revenge,--the history of courts forbids the
+supposition!
+
+Such, Gentlemen, are the antecedents of the Hon. Judge Curtis, such
+his surroundings. You will presently see what effect they have had in
+procuring this indictment. It a sad tale that I have presented. He
+told it, not I; he did the deeds, and they have now found words.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, I shall next speak of Judge Curtis's charge to
+the grand-jury, delivered in Boston, June 7, 1854--only five days
+after his kinsman had sent Mr. Burns into Slavery. Here is that part
+of the charge which relates to our case.
+
+     "There is another criminal law of the United States to which
+     I must call your attention, and give you in charge. It was
+     enacted on the 13th of April, 1790, and is in the following
+     words:--
+
+     "'If any person shall knowingly or wilfully obstruct,
+     resist, or oppose any officer of the United States, in
+     serving, or attempting to serve, or execute any mesne
+     process, or warrant, or any rule or order of any of the
+     courts of the United States, or any other legal writ or
+     process whatever, or shall assault, beat, or wound any
+     officer, or other person duly authorized, in serving or
+     executing any writ, rule, order, process, or warrant,
+     aforesaid, such person shall, on conviction, be imprisoned
+     not exceeding twelve months, and fined not exceeding three
+     hundred dollars.'
+
+     "You will observe, Gentlemen, that this law makes no
+     provision for a case where an officer, or other person duly
+     authorized, is killed by those unlawfully resisting him.
+     That is a case of murder, and is left to be tried and
+     punished under the laws of the State, within whose
+     jurisdiction the offence is committed. Over that offence
+     against the laws of the State of Massachusetts we have here
+     no jurisdiction. It is to be presumed that the duly
+     constituted authorities of the State will, in any such case,
+     do their duty; and if the crime of murder has been
+     committed, will prosecute and punish all who are guilty.
+
+     "Our duty is limited to administering the laws of the United
+     States; and by one of those laws which I have read to you,
+     to obstruct, resist, or oppose, or beat, or wound any
+     officer of the United States, or other person duly
+     authorized, in serving or executing any legal process
+     whatsoever, is an offence against the laws of the United
+     States, and is one of the subjects concerning which you are
+     bound to inquire.
+
+     "It is not material that the same act is an offence both
+     against the laws of the United States and of a particular
+     State. Under our system of government the United States and
+     the several States are distinct sovereignties, each having
+     its own system of criminal law, which it administers in its
+     own tribunals; and the criminal laws of a State can in no
+     way affect those of the United States. The offence,
+     therefore, of obstructing legal process of the United States
+     is to be inquired of and treated by you as a misdemeanor,
+     under the Act of Congress which I have quoted, without any
+     regard to the criminal laws of the State, or the nature of
+     the crime under these laws.
+
+     "This Act of Congress is carefully worded, and its meaning
+     is plain. Nevertheless, there are some terms in it, and some
+     rules of law connected with it, which should be explained
+     for your guidance. And first, as to the process, the
+     execution of which is not to be obstructed.
+
+     "The language of the Act is very broad. It embraces every
+     legal process whatsoever, whether issued by a court in
+     session, or by a judge, or magistrate, or commissioner
+     acting in the due administration of any law of the United
+     States. You will probably experience no difficulty in
+     understanding and applying this part of the law.
+
+     "As to what constitutes an obstruction--it was many years
+     ago decided, by Justice Washington, that to support an
+     indictment under this law, it was not necessary to prove the
+     accused used or even threatened active violence. Any
+     obstruction to the free action of the officer, or his lawful
+     assistants, wilfully placed in his or their way, for the
+     purpose of thus obstructing him or them, is sufficient. And
+     it is clear that if a multitude of persons should assemble,
+     even in a public highway, with the design to stand together,
+     and thus prevent the officer from passing freely along the
+     way, in the execution of his precept, and the officer should
+     thus be hindered or obstructed, this would of itself, and
+     without any active violence, be such an obstruction as is
+     contemplated by this law. If to this be added use of any
+     active violence, then the officer is not only obstructed,
+     but he is resisted and opposed, and of course the offence is
+     complete, for either of them is sufficient to constitute it.
+
+     "If you should be satisfied that an offence against this law
+     has been perpetrated, you will then inquire by whom; and
+     this renders it necessary for me to instruct you concerning
+     the kind and amount of participation which brings
+     individuals within the compass of this law.
+
+     "And first, all who are present and actually obstruct,
+     resist, or oppose, are of course guilty. So are all who are
+     present leagued in the common design, and so situated as to
+     be able, in case of need, to afford assistance to those
+     actually engaged, though they do not actually obstruct,
+     resist, or oppose. If they are present for the purpose of
+     affording assistance in obstructing, resisting, or opposing
+     the officers, and are so situated as to be able in any event
+     which may occur, actually to aid in the common design,
+     though no overt act is done by them, they are still guilty
+     under this law. The offence defined by this act is a
+     misdemeanor; and it is rule of law that whatever
+     participation, in case of felony, would render a person
+     guilty, either as a principal in the second degree, or as an
+     accessory before the fact, does, in a case of misdemeanor,
+     render him guilty as a principal; in misdemeanors all are
+     principals. And, therefore, in pursuance of the same rule,
+     not only those who are present, but those who, though absent
+     when the offence was committed, did procure, counsel,
+     command, or abet others to commit the offence, are
+     indictable as principal.
+
+     "Such is the law, and it would seem that no just mind could
+     doubt its propriety. If persons having influence over others
+     use that influence to induce the commission of crime, while
+     they themselves remain at a safe distance, that must be
+     deemed a very imperfect system of law which allows them to
+     escape with impunity. Such is not our law. It treats such
+     advice as criminal, and subjects the giver of it to
+     punishment according to the nature of the offence to which
+     his pernicious counsel has led. If it be a case of felony,
+     he is by the common law an accessory before the fact, and by
+     the laws of the United States and of this State, is
+     punishable to the same extent as the principal felon. If it
+     be a case of misdemeanor, the adviser is himself a principal
+     offender, and is to be indicted and punished as if he
+     himself had done the criminal act. It may be important for
+     you to know what, in point of law, amounts to such an
+     advising or counselling another as will be sufficient to
+     constitute this legal element in the offence. It is laid
+     down by high authority, that though a mere tacit
+     acquiescence, or words, which amount to a bare permission,
+     will not be sufficient, yet such a procurement may be,
+     either by direct means, as by hire, counsel, or command, or
+     indirect, by evincing an express liking, approbation, or
+     assent to another's criminal design. From the nature of the
+     case, the law can prescribe only general rules on this
+     subject. My instruction to you is, that language addressed
+     to persons who immediately afterwards commit an offence,
+     actually intended by the speaker to incite those addressed
+     to commit it, and adapted thus to incite them, is such a
+     counselling or advising to the crime as the law
+     contemplates, and the person so inciting others is liable to
+     be indicted as a principal.
+
+     "In the case of the _Commonwealth_ v. _Bowen_ (13 Mass. R.
+     359), which was an indictment for counselling another to
+     commit suicide, tried in 1816, Chief Justice Parker
+     instructing the jury, and speaking for the Supreme Court of
+     Massachusetts, said:--
+
+     "'The government is not bound to prove that Jewett would not
+     have hung himself, had Bowen's counsel never reached his
+     ear. The very act of advising to the commission of a crime
+     is of itself unlawful. The presumption of law is that advice
+     has the influence and effect intended by the adviser, unless
+     it is shown to have been otherwise; as that the counsel was
+     received with scoff, or was manifestly rejected and
+     ridiculed at the time it was given. It was said in the
+     argument that Jewett's abandoned and depraved character
+     furnishes ground to believe that he would have committed the
+     act without such advice from Bowen. Without doubt he was a
+     hardened and depraved wretch; but it is in man's nature to
+     revolt at self-destruction. When a person is predetermined
+     upon the commission of this crime, the seasonable
+     admonitions of a discreet and respected friend would
+     probably tend to overthrow his determination. On the other
+     hand, the counsel of an unprincipled wretch, stating the
+     heroism and courage the self-murderer displays, might
+     induce, encourage, and fix the intention, and ultimately
+     procure the perpetration of the dreadful deed; and if other
+     men would be influenced by such advice, the presumption is
+     that Jewett was so influenced. He might have been influenced
+     by many powerful motives to destroy himself. Still the
+     inducements might have been insufficient to procure the
+     actual commission of the act, and one word of additional
+     advice might have turned the scale.'
+
+     "When applied--as this ruling seems to have been here
+     applied--to a case in which the advice was nearly connected,
+     in point of time, with the criminal act, it is, in my
+     opinion, correct. If the advice was intended by the giver to
+     stir or incite to a crime--if it was of such a nature as to
+     be adapted to have this effect, and the persons incited
+     immediately afterwards committed that crime--it is a just
+     presumption that they were influenced by the advice or
+     incitement to commit it. The circumstances, or direct proof,
+     may or may not be sufficient to control this presumption;
+     and whether they are so, can duly be determined in each
+     case, upon all its evidence.
+
+     "One other rule of law on this subject is necessary to be
+     borne in mind--the substantive offence to which the advice
+     or incitement applied must have been committed; and it is
+     for that alone the adviser or procurer is legally
+     accountable. Thus if one should counsel another to rescue
+     one prisoner, and he should rescue another, unless by
+     mistake; or if the incitement was to rescue a prisoner, and
+     he commit a larceny, the inciter is not responsible. But it
+     need not appear _that the precise time, or place, or means
+     advised_, were used. Thus if one incite A. to murder B., but
+     advise him to wait until B. shall be at a certain place at
+     noon, and A. murders B. at a different place in the morning,
+     the adviser is guilty. So if the incitement be to poison,
+     and the murderer shoots, or stabs. So if the counsel be to
+     beat another, and he is beaten to death, the adviser is a
+     murderer; for having incited another to commit an unlawful
+     act, he is responsible for all that ensues upon its
+     execution.
+
+     "These illustrations are drawn from cases of felonies,
+     because they are the most common in the books and the most
+     striking in themselves; but the principles on which they
+     depend are equally applicable to cases of misdemeanor. In
+     all such cases the real question is, whether the accused did
+     procure, counsel, command, or abet the substantive offence
+     committed. If he did, it is of no importance that his advice
+     or directions were departed from in respect to the time, or
+     place, or precise mode or means of committing it.
+
+     "Gentlemen: The events which have recently occurred in this
+     city, have rendered it my duty to call your attention to
+     these rules of law, and to direct you to inquire whether in
+     point of fact the offence of obstructing process of the
+     United States has been committed; if it has, you will
+     present for trial all such persons as have so participated
+     therein as to be guilty of that offence. And you will allow
+     me to say to you that if you or I were to begin to make
+     discriminations between one law and another, and say this we
+     will enforce and that we will not enforce, we should not
+     only violate our oaths, but so far as in us lies, we should
+     destroy the liberties of our country, which rest for their
+     basis upon the great principle that our country is governed
+     by laws, constitutionally enacted, and not by men.
+
+     "In one part of our country the extradition of fugitives
+     from labor is odious; in another, if we may judge from some
+     transactions, the law concerning the extradition of
+     fugitives from justice has been deemed not binding; in
+     another still, the tariff laws of the United States were
+     considered oppressive, and not fit to be enforced.
+
+     "Who can fail to see that the government would cease to be a
+     government if it were to yield obedience to those local
+     opinions? While it stands, all its laws must be faithfully
+     executed, or it becomes the mere tool of the strongest
+     faction of the place and the hour. If forcible resistance to
+     one law be permitted practically to repeal it, the power of
+     the mob would inevitably become one of the constituted
+     authorities of the State, to be used against any law or any
+     man obnoxious to the interests and passions of the worst or
+     most excited part of the community; and the peaceful and the
+     weak would be at the mercy of the violent.
+
+     "It is the imperative duty of all of us concerned in the
+     administration of the laws to see to it that they are
+     firmly, impartially, and certainly applied to every offence,
+     whether a particular law be by us individually approved or
+     disapproved. And it becomes all to remember, that forcible
+     and concerted resistance to any law is civil war, which can
+     make no progress but through bloodshed, and can have no
+     termination but the destruction of the government of our
+     country, or the ruin of those engaged in such resistance. It
+     is not my province to comment on events which have recently
+     happened. They are matters of fact which, so far as they are
+     connected with the criminal laws of the United States, are
+     for your consideration. I feel no doubt that, as good
+     citizens and lovers of our country, and as conscientious
+     men, you will well and truly observe and keep the oath you
+     have taken, diligently to inquire and true presentment make
+     of all crimes and offences against the laws of the United
+     States given you in charge."[193]
+
+[Footnote 193: Law Reporter, August, 1854.]
+
+Now gentlemen look at some particulars of this charge.
+
+1. "If a multitude of persons shall assemble _even in a public
+highway_, with the design to _stand together, and thus prevent the
+officer from passing freely along that way_, in the execution of his
+precept, and the officer should thus be _hindered and obstructed_,
+this would, of itself, and without any active violence, be such an
+obstruction as is contemplated by this law." Of course, all persons
+thus assembled in the public highway were guilty of that offence, and
+liable to be punished with imprisonment for twelve months and a fine
+of three hundred dollars: "_All who are present_, and obstruct,
+resist, or oppose, _are of course guilty_." Their "design" is to be
+inferred from "the fact" that the officer was obstructed.
+
+That is not all, this offence in technical language the Judge calls a
+"misdemeanor," and in "misdemeanors," he says, "all are principals."
+So, accordingly, not only are all guilty who _actually obstruct_ but
+likewise all who are "leagued in the common design, and _so situated
+as to be able_ in case of need _to afford assistance to those actually
+engaged_, though they do not actually obstruct, resist, or oppose."
+These are obstructors by construction No. 1; they must have been
+several thousands in number.
+
+But even that is not all; the judicial logic of deduction goes further
+still, and he adds, "Not only those who are present, but _those who_
+though _absent_ when the offence was committed, _did procure, counsel,
+command, or abet_ others to commit the offence are indictable as
+principals." These are obstructors by construction No. 2.
+
+2. Next he determines what it is which "amounts to _such advising or
+counselling_ another as will be sufficient to constitute this legal
+element in the offence." First he constructs the physical act which is
+the misdemeanor, namely, standing in the high road and thereby
+hindering a kidnapper from "passing freely along that way; or being so
+situated as to be able to afford assistance to others thus standing;
+or advising another thus to stand, or be situated:" next he constructs
+the _advice_, the metaphysical act, which is equally a "misdemeanor."
+This is the square root of construction No. 2. Look at this absurd
+quantity.
+
+"_Such a procurement may be_, either by direct means, as by hire,
+counsel, or command, or indirect, _by evincing an express liking,
+approbation, or assent_." Thus the mere casual expression, "I wish
+Burns would escape, or I wish somebody would let him out," is a
+"Misdemeanor;" it is "evincing an express liking." Nodding to any
+other man's similar wish is a misdemeanor. It is "approbation." Even
+smiling at the nod is a crime--it is "assent." Such is the threefold
+shadow of this constructive shade. But even that is not all. A man is
+held responsible for what he evinced no _express_ or implied _liking_
+for: "_it need not appear that the precise time, or place, or means
+advised, were used_." Accordingly, he that "evinces an express
+liking," "_is responsible for all that ensues upon its execution_." He
+evinces his assent to the End and is legally responsible for any Means
+which any hearer thereof shall, at any time, or in any place, make use
+of to attain that end!
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, this charge is a _quo warranto_ against all
+Freedom of Speech. But suppose it were good law, and suppose the
+Grand-Jury obedient to it, see how it would apply.
+
+All who evinced an express liking, approbation, or assent to the
+rescue of Mr. Burns are guilty of a misdemeanor; if they "evinced an
+express liking" that he should be rescued by a miracle wrought by
+Almighty God,--and some did express "approbation" of that
+"means,"--they are indictable, guilty of a "misdemeanor;" "it need not
+appear that the precise time, or place, or means advised, were used!"
+If any colored woman during the wicked week--which was ten days
+long--prayed that God would deliver Anthony, as it is said his angel
+delivered Peter, or said "Amen" to such a prayer, she was "guilty of a
+misdemeanor;" to be indicted as a "principal."
+
+So every man in Boston who, on that bad Friday, stood in the streets
+of Boston between Court Square and T Wharf, was "guilty of a
+misdemeanor," liable to a fine of three hundred dollars, and to
+jailing for twelve months. All who at Faneuil Hall stirred up the
+minds of the people in opposition to the fugitive slave bill; all who
+shouted, who clapped their hands at the words or the countenance of
+their favorites, or who expressed "approbation" by a whisper of
+"assent," are "guilty of a misdemeanor." The very women who stood for
+four days at the street corners, and hissed the infamous Slave-hunters
+and their coadjutors; they, too, ought to be punished by fine of three
+hundred dollars and imprisonment for a year! Well, there were fifteen
+thousand persons "assembled" "in the highway" of the city of Boston
+that day opposed to kidnapping; half the newspapers in the country
+towns of Massachusetts "evinced an express liking" for freedom, and
+opposed the kidnapping; they are all "guilty of a misdemeanor;" they
+are "Principals." Nay, the ministers all over the State, who preached
+that kidnapping was a sin; those who read brave words out of the Old
+Testament or the New; those who prayed that the victim might escape;
+they, likewise, were "guilty of a misdemeanor," liable to be fined
+three hundred dollars and jailed for twelve months.[194]
+
+[Footnote 194: 2 Parker's Additional, 280.]
+
+But where did Judge Curtis find his right to levy Ship-money, Tonnage,
+and Poundage on the tongues of men; where did he find his "law?"
+Surely not in the statute. When the bill was pending in 1790, suppose
+his construction of the statute had been declared to Congress--who
+would have voted for a law so monstrous? The statute lay in the
+Law-book for nearly seventy years, and nobody ever applied it to a
+case like this.
+
+Gentlemen, I have shown you already how British judges in the time of
+the Jameses and Charleses perverted the law to the basest of purposes.
+I mentioned, amongst others, the work of Twysden and Kelyng and Jones.
+This is a case like those. Just now I spoke of the action of Chief
+Justice Parker who said it was not for the jury to judge whether a law
+_were harsh or not_; I showed how he charged the jury in the case of
+Bowen, and how the jury returned a verdict of "not guilty," thus
+setting his inhuman charge at nought.[195] But Judge Curtis, for his
+law, relies upon Judge Parker's charge. It is not a Statute made by
+the legislature that Judge Curtis relies on for his law; it is not a
+Custom of the Common law; it is not an Opinion of the Court solemnly
+pronounced after mature deliberation; it is only the charge of a
+single judge to a jury in a special case, and one which the jury
+disregarded even then!
+
+[Footnote 195: See above, p. 112.]
+
+But where did Judge Parker, an estimable man, find his law? Mr. Perez
+Morton, the Attorney-General, found it in Kelyng's Reports. In the
+case of Bowen only one authority is referred to for that odious
+principle on which the judge sought to hang him; that authority is
+taken from "9 Charles I.;" from the year 1634--the worst age of the
+Stuart tyranny! But even that authority was not a Statute law, not a
+Custom of the People, not the Opinion of a Court solemnly pronounced.
+It was the charge of a single judge--a charge to a jury, made by an
+inferior judge, of an inferior court, in a barbarous age, under a
+despotic king! Hearken to this,--from the volume of Kelyng's
+Reports.[196] "_Memorandum_, That my Brother Twysden shewed me a
+Report which he had of the Charge given by Justice Jones to the
+grand-jury at the King's Bench Barr, in Michaelmas Term, 9 Carl. I."
+Gentlemen of the Jury, that charge no more settled the law even in
+1634, than Judge Sprague's charge telling the _grand-jury to "obey
+both"_ the law of God and the law of man which is exactly opposite
+thereto, settled the law of the United States and the morality of the
+People. But yet that is all the law the government had to hang Bowen
+with. The jury made nothing of it.[197]
+
+[Footnote 196: Page 52. See above, p. 112.]
+
+[Footnote 197: Jones's "opinion" relates to a case of _murder_ by the
+advice of an absent person, not at all to _suicide by the advice of
+another_, so it could not apply to the case of Bowen.]
+
+But Kelyng's Reports are of no value as authority. Here is what Lord
+Campbell, now Chief Justice of the King's Bench, says of them and
+their author. I read it to you long ago. "I ought to mention that
+among his other vanities he had the ambition to be an author; and he
+compiled a folio volume of decisions in criminal laws, _which are of
+no value whatever except to make us laugh at some of the silly
+egotisms with which they abound_."[198] Twysden, who showed him the
+Report of the charge, is of little value, and of no authority. I
+mentioned his character before.
+
+[Footnote 198: 2 Campbell's Justices, 406.]
+
+Justice Jones, who made the charge, would hardly be an authority in
+the English courts in a nice question of construction. He allowed the
+king to levy ship-money, as I have shown before,[199] and dared not
+perform the duties of his office and so protect the Liberty of the
+Subject when the king smote thereat. He was brought before the House
+of Commons to answer for his conduct, in 1628. "His memory," says
+Echard, "suffers upon the account of his open judgment for the
+ship-money, the unhappy consequence of which he did not live to
+see."[200]
+
+[Footnote 199: Above, p. 23.]
+
+[Footnote 200: Parl. Hist. 290; 3 St. Tr. 844, 1181, 162; 2 Echard,
+186.]
+
+Judge Kelyng, the great authority in this case, was notorious for
+violating alike Justice and the law. Out of a riot committed by some
+apprentices he constructed the crime of High Treason, and sentenced
+thirteen men to death. He fined and imprisoned jurors because they
+refused to return the wicked, illegal verdict he demanded. With
+language too obscene to utter in this century, he mocked at the Great
+Charter of English Liberty. But at last the scandal was too great even
+for the reign of Charles II., and in 1667 the "Grand Committee of
+Justice" in the House of Commons, after examining witnesses and
+hearing him on his own behalf, reported:--
+
+     1. "That the proceedings of the Lord Chief Justice in the
+     cases referred to us are innovations in the trial of men for
+     their lives and liberties, and that he hath used an
+     arbitrary and illegal power which is of dangerous
+     consequence to the lives and liberties of the people of
+     England."
+
+     2. "That in place of Judicature, the Lord Chief Justice hath
+     undervalued, vilified, and condemned MAGNA CHARTA, the great
+     preserver of our lives, freedom, and property."
+
+     3. "That the Lord Chief Justice be brought to trial, in
+     order to condign punishment, in such manner as the House
+     shall judge most fit and requisite."[201]
+
+[Footnote 201: See above, p. 23, 39, 113, 125; 1 Campbell, _Ibid._
+406; 6 St. Tr. 76, 229, 171, 532, 769, 879, 992; Pepys' Diary, 17
+Oct., 1667; Commons Journal, 16th Oct., 1667.]
+
+Some of the lawyers whom he had browbeaten, generously interceded for
+him. He made an abject submission "with great humility and reverence,"
+and the House desisted from prosecution. "He was abundantly tame for
+the rest of his days," says Lord Campbell, "fell into utter contempt,"
+"and _died to the great relief of all who had any regard for the due
+administration of justice_."
+
+Gentlemen, I am no lawyer, and may easily be mistaken in this matter,
+but as I studied Judge Curtis's charge and cast about for the sources
+of its doctrines and phraseology, I thought I traced them all back to
+Kelyng's opinions in that famous case, where he made treason out of a
+common riot among apprentices; and to Judge Chase's "opinions" and
+"rulings" in the trial of Mr. Fries,--opinions and rulings which
+shocked the public at the time, and brought legislative judgment on
+his head. Let any one compare the documents, I think he will find the
+whole of Curtis in those two impeached Judges, in Kelyng and in
+Chase.[202]
+
+[Footnote 202: 1 Wharton, 636; Kelyng, 1-24, 70-77; 6 St. Tr. 879.]
+
+Here then is the law,--derived from the memorandum of the charge to a
+grand-jury made in 1634, by a judge so corrupt that he did not
+hesitate to violate Magna Charta itself; not published till more than
+seventy years after the charge was given; cited as law by a single
+authority, and that authority impeached for unrighteously and
+corruptly violating the laws he was set and sworn to defend, impeached
+even in that age--of Charles II.;--that is the law! Once before an
+attempt was made to apply it in Massachusetts, and inflict capital
+punishment on a man for advising a condemned murderer to anticipate
+the hangman and die by his own hand in private--and the jury refused.
+But to such shifts is this Honorable Court reduced! Gentlemen of the
+Jury, the fugitive slave bill cannot be executed in Massachusetts, not
+in America, without reviving the worst despotism of the worst of the
+Stuarts; not without bringing Twysden and Jones and Kelyng on the
+Bench; no, not without Saunders and Finch, and Jeffreys and Scroggs!
+
+Gentlemen, such was Judge Curtis's charge. I have been told it was
+what might have been expected from the general character and previous
+conduct of the man; but I confess it did surprise me: it was foolish
+as it was wicked and tyrannical. But it all came to nought.
+
+For, alas! there was a grand-jury, and the Salmonean thunder of the
+fugitive slave bill judge fell harmless--quenched, conquered,
+disgraced, and brutal,--to the ground. Poor fugitive slave bill Court!
+It can only gnash its teeth against freedom of speech in Faneuil Hall;
+only bark and yelp against the unalienable rights of man, and howl
+against the Higher Law of God! it cannot bite! Poor, imbecile,
+malignant Court! What a pity that the fugitive slave bill judge was
+not himself the grand-jury, to order the indictment! what a shame that
+the attorney was not a petty jury to convict! Then New England, like
+Old, might have had her "bloody assizes," and Boston streets might
+have streamed with the heart's gore of noble men and women; and human
+heads might have decked the pinnacles all round the town; and Judge
+Curtis and Attorney Hallett might have had their place with Judge
+Jeffreys and John Boilman of old. What a pity that we have a
+grand-jury and a traverse jury to stand between the malignant arm of
+the Slave-hunter and the heart of you and me![203]
+
+[Footnote 203: 2 Parker's Additional, p. 281.]
+
+The grand-jury found no bill and were discharged. In a Fourth of July
+Sermon "Of the Dangers which Threaten the Rights of Man in America," I
+said:--
+
+     "Perhaps the Court will try again, and find a more pliant
+     Grand-Jury, easier to intimidate. Let me suggest to the
+     Court that the next time it should pack its Jury from the
+     Marshal's 'Guard.' Then there will be Unity of Idea; of
+     action too,--the Court a figure of equilibrium."
+
+The audacious Grand-Jury was discharged. A new one was summoned; this
+time it was constructed out of the right material. Before that,
+Gentlemen, we had had the Judge or his kinsmen writing for the
+fugitive slave bill in the newspapers; getting up public meetings in
+behalf of man-stealing in Boston; writing letters in support of the
+same; procuring opinions in favor of the constitutionality of the
+fugitive slave bill; nay, kidnapping men and sending them into eternal
+bondage, and in the newspapers defending the act; but we had none of
+them in the Jury box. On the new Grand-Jury appeared Mr. William W.
+Greenough, the brother-in-law of Hon. Judge Curtis--each married a
+daughter of Mr. Charles P. Curtis. Mr. Greenough "was very active in
+his endeavors to procure an indictment" against me; and a bill was
+found.
+
+How came the Brother-in-law of the Judge on the Grand-Jury summoned to
+punish men who spoke against kidnapping? Gentlemen of the Jury, I do
+not know. Of course it was done honestly; nobody suspects the Mayor of
+Boston of double-dealing, of intrigue, or of any indirection! Of
+course there was no improper influence used by the Marshal, or Mr.
+Curtis, or Mr. Hallett, who had all so much at stake; of course Mr.
+Greenough "did not wish to be on the Jury;" of course Judge Curtis
+"was very sorry he was there," and of course "all the family was
+sorry!" Of course "he went and asked Judge Sprague to excuse him, and
+the Judge wouldn't let him off!" Well, Gentlemen, I suppose it was a
+"miracle;" such a miracle as delivered the old or the new Shadrach; a
+"singular coincidence;" a "very remarkable fact." You will agree with
+me, Gentlemen, that it was a _very remarkable_ FACT. In all the
+judicial tyranny I have related, we have not found a case before in
+which the judge had his brother on the Grand-Jury. Even Kelyng affords
+no precedent for that.
+
+Last summer I met Mr. Greenough in a Bookstore and saluted him as
+usual; he made no return to my salutation, but doubled up his face and
+went out of the shop! That was the impartial Grand-Juror, who took the
+oath to "present no man for envy, hatred, or malice."
+
+"After the impanelling of the new Grand-Jury,"--I am reading from a
+newspaper,[204] "Judge Curtis charged them in reference to their
+duties at considerable length. In regard to the Burns case he read the
+law of 1790 respecting opposition to the United States Marshals and
+their deputies while in discharge of their duty, enforcing the laws of
+the United States, and referred for further information as to the law
+upon the point to his charge delivered at a previous term of the
+Court, and now in the possession _of the District Attorney_." Thus he
+delegated the duty of expounding the law to a man who is not a
+judicial officer of the United States.
+
+[Footnote 204: Evening Traveller, Oct. 16.]
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, look at the facts. I am indicted by a
+Grand-Jury summoned for that purpose after one Grand-Jury--which had
+been drawn before the kidnapping of Mr. Burns--had refused to find a
+bill; a member of the family which has been so distinguished for
+kidnapping ever since 1832, the Brother-in-law of the Judge, is made
+one of that Grand-Jury; he is so hostile and malignant as to refuse my
+friendly salutation when offered as usual; and on the jury is "most
+active of all in his efforts to procure an indictment," so that "but
+for his efforts," as one of the Grand-Jury informed me, "no bill would
+have been found that time;" and "it was obvious that an outside
+influence affected him." Out of court Mr. Hallett, it is said,
+jocosely offers to bet ten dollars that he "will get Mr. Parker
+indicted." I am to be tried before two judges deeply committed to the
+Slave Power, now fiercely invading our once free soil; they owe their
+appointment to their hostility against Freedom. Twenty years ago, in
+the Old Cradle of Liberty, Mr. Sprague could find for Washington no
+epithet so endearing as "THAT SLAVEHOLDER;" he defended Slavery with
+all his legal learning, all his personal might. Yes, when other
+weapons failed him he extemporized a new gospel, and into the mouth of
+Jesus of Nazareth,--who said, "Thou shalt love thy Neighbor as
+thyself," and pointed out the man who had "fallen among thieves" as
+neighbor to the Samaritan--he put this most unchristian precept,
+"SLAVES, OBEY YOUR MASTERS!" Nay, only four years ago, in this very
+Court, he charged the jury that if they thought there was a
+contradiction between the Law of God and the Statutes of men they must
+"obey both."
+
+Gentlemen, the other judge, Mr. Curtis, began his career by asking the
+Supreme Court of Massachusetts to restore Slavery to Lexington and
+Bunker Hill; he demanded that our own Supreme Court should grant all
+that wickedness which Toombs and Hangman Foote, and Atchison and
+Stringfellow, and Grier and Kane have since sought to perpetuate! He
+denied the existence of any Law of God to control the Court, there is
+nothing but the Statutes of men; and declared "Slavery is not
+immoral;" Massachusetts may interfere actively to establish it abroad
+as well as at home. In Faneuil Hall, in a meeting which he and his
+kinsmen had gathered and controlled, a meeting to determine upon
+kidnapping the citizens of Boston, he charged me with perjury, asked a
+question, and did not dare listen to my reply! Gentlemen, it is a very
+proper Court to try me. A fugitive slave bill Court--with a fugitive
+slave bill Attorney, a fugitive slave bill Grand-Jury, two fugitive
+slave bill Judges--which scoffs at the natural law of the Infinite
+God, is a very suitable tribunal to try a Minister of the Christian
+religion for defending his own parishioners from being kidnapped,
+defending them with a word in Faneuil Hall!
+
+"No tyranny so secure,--none so intolerable,--none so dangerous,--none
+so remediless, as that of Executive Courts." "This is a truth all
+nations bear witness to--all history confirms." These were the words
+of Josiah Quincy, Jr., in 1772.--Gentlemen, in 1855 you see how true
+they are! "So sensible are all tyrants of the importance of such
+courts--that to advance and establish their system of oppression,
+_they never rest until they have completely corrupted or bought the
+judges of the land_. I could easily show that the most deep laid and
+daring attacks upon the rights of a people might, in some measure, be
+defeated, or evaded by upright judicatories; bad laws with good judges
+make little progress."[205]
+
+[Footnote 205: Quincy's Quincy, 68.]
+
+But Gentlemen,--when the fugitive slave bill is "_law_," when the
+judges are selected for their love of Slavery and their hatred of
+freedom--men who invent Scripture to justify bondage, or who as
+Lawyers beseech the courts to establish Slavery in Massachusetts; who
+declare it is not immoral, that it may be the duty of Massachusetts to
+interfere actively and establish slavery abroad, nay, that there is no
+morality but only legality, the statute the only standard of right
+and wrong--what are you to expect? What you see in Philadelphia, New
+York; aye, in Boston at this hour. I will add with Mr. Quincy, "Is it
+possible this should not rouse us and drive us not to desperation but
+to our duty! The blind may see; the callous must feel; the spirited
+will act."[206]
+
+[Footnote 206: Gazette, Feb. 10, 1772.]
+
+It would be just as easy for the Judge to make out divers other crimes
+from my words, as to construct a misdemeanor therefrom. To charge me
+with "treason," he has only to vary a few words and phrases; to cite
+Chase, and not Judge Parker, and to refer to other passages of
+Kelyng's Reports. James II.'s judges declared it was treason in the
+seven Bishops to offer their petition to the King. Mr. Webster said,
+it is only the "clemency of the Government which indicted the Syracuse
+rescuers for misdemeanors and not for a capital crime!" How easy for a
+fugitive slave bill judge to hang men for a word against his brother
+kidnapper--if there were no jury; if, like the New York sheriff in
+1735, he could order "his own negro" to do it! Here is a remarkable
+case of constructive crime, worthy of this Honorable Court. It is the
+famous case of _Dux_ v. _Conrade et Boracio_. Honorable Judge Dogberry
+thus delivered his charge to the Grand Inquest, "Masters, I charge you
+accuse these men,"--one policeman testified that Conrade said "that
+Don John, the prince's Brother, was a _villain_." Judge Dogberry
+ruled, "This is flat perjury to call a prince's Brother, _villain_."
+The next member of the Marshal's guard deposed that Boracio had said,
+"That he had received a thousand ducats of Don John for accusing the
+Lady Hero wrongfully." Chief Justice Dogberry decided, "Flat Burglary
+as ever was committed." Sentence accordingly.[207]
+
+[Footnote 207: 2 Singer's Shakspeare, 192.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gentlemen, the indictment is so roomy and vague, that before I came
+into court, I did not know what special acts of mine would be brought
+up against me--for to follow out the Judge's charge, all my life is a
+series of constructive misdemeanors. Nay, I think my mother--the
+violet has bloomed over that venerable and well-beloved head for more
+than thirty summers now--I think my mother might be indicted for
+constructive treason, only for bearing me, her youngest son.
+Certainly, it was "obstructing an officer," and in "misdemeanors all
+are principals." I have committed a great many misdemeanors; all my
+teachings evince an express liking for Piety, for Justice, for
+Liberty; all my life is obstructing, opposing, and resisting the
+fugitive slave bill Court, its Commissioners, its Judges, its Marshals
+and its Marshal's guard. Gentlemen of the jury, you are to judge me.
+Look at some of my actions and some of my words.
+
+In 1850, on the 25th of March, a fortnight after Mr. Webster made his
+speech against Humanity, there was a meeting of the citizens of
+Boston, at Faneuil Hall; Gentlemen, I helped procure the meeting.
+First, I tried to induce the leading Whigs to assemble the people. No,
+that could not be done; "the Bill would not pass, there was no
+danger!" Then I tried the leading Free Soilers; "No, it was not quite
+time, and we are not strong enough." At last the old abolitionists
+came together. Mr. Phillips made a magnificent speech. Here are some
+things which I also said.
+
+     "There were three fugitives at my house the other night.
+     Ellen Craft was one of them. You all know Ellen Craft is a
+     slave; she, with her husband, fled from Georgia to
+     Philadelphia, and is here before us now. She is not so dark
+     as Mr. Webster himself, if any of you think freedom is to be
+     dealt out in proportion to the whiteness of the skin. If
+     Mason's bill passes, I might have some miserable postmaster
+     from Texas or the District of Columbia, some purchased agent
+     of Messrs. Bruin & Hill, the great slave-dealers of the
+     Capital, have him here in Boston, take Ellen Craft before
+     the caitiff, and on his decision hurry her off to bondage as
+     cheerless, as hopeless, and as irremediable as the grave!
+
+     "Let me interest you in a scene which might happen. Suppose
+     a poor fugitive, wrongfully held as a slave--let it be Ellen
+     Craft--has escaped from Savannah in some northern ship. No
+     one knows of her presence on board; she has lain with the
+     cargo in the hold of the vessel. Harder things have
+     happened. Men have journeyed hundreds of miles bent double
+     in a box half the size of a coffin, journeying towards
+     freedom. Suppose the ship comes up to Long Wharf, at the
+     foot of State Street. Bulk is broken to remove the cargo;
+     the woman escapes, emaciated with hunger, feeble from long
+     confinement in a ship's hold, sick with the tossing of the
+     heedless sea, and still further etiolated and blanched with
+     the mingling emotions of hope and fear. She escapes to land.
+     But her pursuer, more remorseless than the sea, has been
+     here beforehand; laid his case before the official he has
+     brought with him, or purchased here, and claims his slave.
+     She runs for her life, fear adding wings. Imagine the
+     scene--the flight, the hot pursuit through State Street,
+     Merchants' Row--your magistrates in hot pursuit. To make the
+     irony of nature still more complete, let us suppose this
+     shall take place on some of the memorable days in the
+     history of America--on the 19th of April, when our fathers
+     first laid down their lives 'in the sacred cause of God and
+     their country;' on the 17th of June, the 22d of December, or
+     on any of the sacramental days in the long sad history of
+     our struggle for our own freedom! Suppose the weary fugitive
+     takes refuge in Faneuil Hall, and here, in the old Cradle of
+     Liberty, in the midst of its associations, under the eye of
+     Samuel Adams, the bloodhounds seize their prey! Imagine Mr.
+     Webster and Mr. Winthrop looking on, cheering the
+     slave-hunter, intercepting the fugitive fleeing for her
+     life. Would not that be a pretty spectacle?
+
+     "Propose to support that bill to the fullest extent, with
+     all its provisions! Ridiculous talk! Does Mr. Webster
+     suppose that such a law could be executed in Boston? that
+     the people of Massachusetts will ever return a single
+     fugitive slave, under such an act as that? Then he knows his
+     constituents very little, and proves that he needs
+     'Instruction.'
+
+     "Perpetuate Slavery, we cannot do it. Nothing will save it.
+     It is girt about by a ring of fire which daily grows
+     narrower, and sends terrible sparkles into the very centre
+     of the shameful thing. 'Joint resolutions' cannot save it;
+     annexations cannot save it--not if we reannex all the West
+     Indies; delinquent representatives cannot save it;
+     uninstructed senators, refusing instructions, cannot save
+     it, no, not with all their logic, all their eloquence, which
+     smites as an earthquake smites the sea. No, slavery cannot
+     be saved; by no compromise, no non-intervention, no Mason's
+     Bill in the Senate. It cannot be saved in this age of the
+     world until you nullify every ordinance of nature, until you
+     repeal the will of God, and dissolve the union He has made
+     between righteousness and the welfare of a people. Then,
+     when you displace God from the throne of the world, and
+     instead of His eternal justice, reenact the will of the
+     Devil, then you may keep Slavery; keep it for ever, keep it
+     in peace. Not till then.
+
+     "The question is, not if slavery is to cease, and soon to
+     cease, but shall it end as it ended in Massachusetts, in New
+     Hampshire, in Pennsylvania, in New York; or shall it end as
+     in St. Domingo? Follow the counsel of Mr. Webster--it will
+     end in fire and blood. God forgive us for our cowardice, if
+     we let it come to this, that three millions or thirty
+     millions of degraded human beings, degraded by us, must wade
+     through slaughter to their unalienable rights."[208]
+
+[Footnote 208: 2 Occasional Speeches, 164, 165, and 172.]
+
+Gentlemen, that speech was a "seditious libel" by construction!
+
+On the 29th of May, I spoke at the New England Anti-Slavery
+Convention, and said:--
+
+     "Let us not be deceived about the real question at issue. It
+     is not merely whether we shall return fugitive slaves
+     without trial by jury. We will not return them with trial by
+     jury! neither 'with alacrity,' nor with the 'solemnity of
+     judicial proceedings!' It is not merely whether slavery
+     shall be extended or not. By and by there will be a
+     political party with a wider basis than the free soil party,
+     who will declare that the nation itself must put an end to
+     slavery in the nation; and if the Constitution of the United
+     States will not allow it, there is another Constitution that
+     will. Then the title, Defender and expounder of the
+     Constitution of the United States, will give way to
+     this,--'Defender and expounder of the Constitution of the
+     Universe,' and we shall reaffirm the ordinance of nature,
+     and reenact the will of God. You may not live to see it, Mr.
+     President, nor I live to see it; but it is written on the
+     iron leaf that it must come; come, too, before long. Then
+     the speech of Mr. Webster, and the defence thereof by Mr.
+     Stuart, the letter of the retainers and the letters of the
+     retained, will be a curiosity; the conduct of the whigs and
+     democrats an amazement, and the peculiar institution a
+     proverb amongst all the nations of the earth. In the turmoil
+     of party politics, and of personal controversy, let us not
+     forget continually to move the previous question, whether
+     Freedom or Slavery is to prevail in America. There is no
+     attribute of God which is not on our side; because, in this
+     matter, we are on the side of God."[209]
+
+[Footnote 209: Ibid., 207, 208.]
+
+After the death of General Taylor on the 14th of July, I lifted up my
+voice in a funeral sermon thus:--
+
+     "If he could speak to us from his present position, methinks
+     he would say: Countrymen and friends! You see how little it
+     availed you to agitate the land and put a little man in a
+     great place. It is not the hurrah of parties that will 'save
+     the Union,' it is not 'great men.' It is only Justice.
+     Remember that Atheism is not the first principle of a
+     Republic; remember there is a law of God, the higher law of
+     the universe, the Everlasting Right: I thought so once, and
+     now I know it. Remember that you are accountable to God for
+     all things; that you owe justice to all men, the black not
+     less than the white; that God will demand it of you, proud,
+     wicked nation, careful only of your gold, forgetful of God's
+     high law! Before long each of you shall also come up before
+     the Eternal. Then and there it will not avail you to have
+     compromised truth, justice, love, but to have kept them.
+     Righteousness only is the salvation of a State; that only of
+     a man."[210]
+
+[Footnote 210: 2 Occasional Sermons, 239, 240.]
+
+All that was before the bill passed, but how easy it would be for
+Judge Jeffreys or Judge Curtis, Judge Sprague or Judge Scroggs, to
+construct it into a "misdemeanor," "resisting an officer!"
+
+After the fugitive slave bill passed, on the 22d of September, 1850,
+not forty-eight hours after the Judge's friends had fired their
+jubilant cannon at the prospect of kidnapping the men who wait upon
+their tables, I preached a "Sermon of the Function and Place of
+Conscience in relation to the Laws of Man, a sermon for the times." I
+said this:--
+
+     "If a man falls into the water and is in danger of drowning,
+     it is the natural duty of the bystanders to aid in pulling
+     him out, even at the risk of wetting their garments. We
+     should think a man a coward who could swim, and would not
+     save a drowning girl for fear of spoiling his coat. He would
+     be indictable at common law. If a troop of wolves or tigers
+     were about to seize a man, and devour him, and you and I
+     could help him, it would be our duty to do so, even to peril
+     our own limbs and life for that purpose. If a man undertakes
+     to murder or steal a man, it is the duty of the bystanders
+     to help their brother, who is in peril, against wrong from
+     the two-legged man, as much as against the four-legged
+     beast. But suppose the invader who seizes the man is an
+     officer of the United States, has a commission in his
+     pocket, a warrant for his deed in his hand, and seizes as a
+     slave a man who has done nothing to alienate his natural
+     rights--does that give him any more natural right to enslave
+     a man than he had before? Can any piece of parchment make
+     right wrong, and wrong right?
+
+     "The fugitive has been a slave before: does the wrong you
+     committed yesterday, give you a natural right to commit
+     wrong afresh and continually? Because you enslaved this
+     man's father, have you a natural right to enslave his child?
+     The same right you would have to murder a man because you
+     butchered his father first. The right to murder is as much
+     transmissible by inheritance as the right to enslave! It is
+     plain to me that it is the natural duty of citizens to
+     rescue every fugitive slave from the hands of the marshal
+     who essays to return him to bondage; to do it peaceably if
+     they can, forcibly if they must, but by all means to do it.
+     Will you stand by and see your countrymen, your
+     fellow-citizens of Boston, sent off to slavery by some
+     commissioner? Shall I see my own parishioners taken from
+     under my eyes and carried back to bondage, by a man whose
+     constitutional business it is to work wickedness by statute?
+     Shall I never lift an arm to protect him? When I consent to
+     that, you may call me a hireling shepherd, an infidel, a
+     wolf in sheep's clothing, even a defender of slave-catching
+     if you will; and I will confess I was a poor dumb dog,
+     barking always at the moon, but silent as the moon when the
+     murderer comes near.
+
+     "I am not a man who loves violence. I respect the sacredness
+     of human life. But this I say, solemnly, that I will do all
+     in my power to rescue any fugitive slave from the hands of
+     any officer who attempts to return him to bondage. I will
+     resist him as gently as I know how, but with such strength
+     as I can command; I will ring the bells, and alarm the
+     town; I will serve as head, as foot, or as hand to any body
+     of serious and earnest men, who will go with me, with no
+     weapons but their hands, in this work. I will do it as
+     readily as I would lift a man out of the water, or pluck him
+     from the teeth of a wolf, or snatch him from the hands of a
+     murderer. What is a fine of a thousand dollars, and jailing
+     for six months, to the liberty of a man? My money perish
+     with me, if it stand between me and the eternal law of God.
+     I trust there are manly men enough in this house to secure
+     the freedom of every fugitive slave in Boston, without
+     breaking a limb or rending a garment.
+
+     "One thing more I think is very plain, that the fugitive has
+     the same natural right to defend himself against the
+     slave-catcher, or his constitutional tool, that he has
+     against a murderer or a wolf. The man who attacks me to
+     reduce me to slavery, in that moment of attack alienates his
+     right to life, and if I were the fugitive, and could escape
+     in no other way, I would kill him with as little compunction
+     as I would drive a mosquito from my face. It is high time
+     this was said. What grasshoppers we are before the statute
+     of men! what Goliaths against the law of God! What
+     capitalist heeds your statute of usury when he can get
+     illegal interest? How many banks are content with _six per
+     cent._ when money is scarce? Did you never hear of a
+     merchant evading the duties of the custom-house? When a
+     man's liberty is concerned, we must keep the law, must we?
+     betray the wanderer, and expose the outcast?"[211]
+
+[Footnote 211: 2 Occasional Sermons, 256, 257, 258.]
+
+Gentlemen, you know what Mr. Commissioner Hallett said of such
+language, said at the Union Meeting in Faneuil Hall.[212] He was only
+fugitive slave bill commissioner then; in consequence of his denial of
+the Higher Law of God he is now fugitive slave bill Attorney. You know
+what Mr. Curtis said of the Sermon; now, in consequence he is Judge
+Curtis--the fugitive slave bill Judge.
+
+[Footnote 212: See above, p. 149.]
+
+On the 14th of October there was another meeting at Faneuil Hall--the
+Freesoilers came that time. The old flame of Liberty burnt anew in
+Charles Francis Adams, who presided. Perhaps some of you remember the
+prayer of the venerable Dr. Lowell which lifted up our souls to the
+"Father of all men!" I proposed the appointment of a "Committee of
+Vigilance and Safety to take such measures as they shall deem just and
+expedient to protect the colored people of this city in the enjoyment
+of their lives and liberties." I was appointed one of the Committee,
+and subsequently Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Vigilance
+Committee; a very responsible office, Gentlemen. At that meeting I
+told of a fugitive from Boston, who that day had telegraphed to his
+wife here, asking if it was safe for him to come back from Canada. I
+asked the meeting, "Will you let him come back; how many will defend
+him to the worst?" "Here a hand vote was taken," said the newspapers,
+"a forest of hands was held up." Surely that was "evincing an express
+liking" for an obstruction of the kidnappers. But did it violate the
+law of 1790?
+
+All this you might easily have known before. Here is something you did
+not know. That Meeting, its Resolutions, its Speeches, its Action,
+were brought up in the cabinet of the United States and discussed.
+_Mr. Webster_, then Secretary of State, _wished to have Mr. Adams,
+president of the meeting, presented to the grand-jury and indicted for
+treason_! But the majority thought otherwise.
+
+Gentlemen, when the kidnappers came to Boston I did some things of
+which this court has not taken notice, and so I will not speak of them
+now, but only tell your grandchildren of, if I live long enough.
+Others did more and better than I could do, however. In due time they
+will have their reward. One thing let me say now. When the two
+brothers Curtis, with their kinsfolk and coadjutors, were seeking to
+kidnap the Crafts, I took Ellen to my own house, and kept her there so
+long as the (Southern) kidnappers remained in the city. For the first
+time I armed myself, and put my house in a state of defence. For two
+weeks I wrote my sermons with a sword in the open drawer under my
+inkstand, and a pistol in the flap of the desk, loaded, ready, with a
+cap on the nipple. Commissioner Curtis said "a process was in the
+hands of the marshal ..." in the execution of which, he _might be
+called upon to break open dwelling-houses, and perhaps to take life_,
+by quelling resistance actual or "_threatened_." I was ready for him.
+I knew my rights.
+
+I went also and looked after William Craft. I inspected his weapons;
+"his powder had a good kernel, and he kept it dry; his pistols were of
+excellent proof; the barrels true, and clean, the trigger went easy,
+the caps would not hang fire at the snap. I tested his poignard; the
+blade had a good temper, stiff enough and yet springy withal; the
+point was sharp."[213] After the immediate danger was over and Knight
+and Hughes had avoided the city, where they had received such welcome
+from the friends of this Court, such was the tone of the political
+newspapers and the commercial pulpit that William and Ellen must needs
+flee from America. Long made one by the wedlock of mutual and plighted
+faith, their marriage in Georgia was yet "null and void" by the laws
+of that "Christian State." I married them according to the law of
+Massachusetts. As a symbol of the husband's peculiar responsibility
+under such circumstances, I gave William a Sword--it lay on the table
+in the house of another fugitive, where the wedding took place--and
+told him of his manly duty therewith, if need were, to defend the life
+and liberty of Ellen. I gave them both a Bible, which I had bought for
+the purpose, to be a symbol of their spiritual culture and a help for
+their soul, as the sword was for their bodily life. "With this sword I
+thee wed," suited the circumstances of that bridal.
+
+[Footnote 213: 1 Parker's Additional Speeches, 55.]
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Craft were parishioners of mine, and besides I have been
+appointed "minister at large in behalf of all fugitive slaves in
+Boston." I have helped join men and women in wedlock according to the
+customs of various sects and nations. There is one wedlock, a
+sacrament, but many forms. Never before did I marry two lovers with
+the Sword and the Bible--the form of matrimony for fugitive slaves:
+out of that fact perhaps Mr. Attorney can frame an indictment that
+will hold water. "If it only resists law and obstructs its officers,"
+quoth he, "it is treason, and he who risks it must risk hanging for
+it!"
+
+At the great Union meeting, November 26, when Mr. Curtis said "I
+should like to ask the Reverend Gentleman in what capacity he expects
+to be punished for his _perjury_," I said, "Do you want an answer to
+your question, Sir?" No doubt that was obstructing a (prospective)
+"officer," then preparing for process. How easily could Scroggs make a
+"misdemeanor," or "a seditious libel," out of that question! Allybone
+would call it "treason," "levying war."
+
+Thirty-six hours after the Union meeting, on Thanksgiving day, 28th
+November, 1850, in a "Sermon of the State of the Nation," I said:--
+
+     "I have sometimes been amazed at the talk of men who call on
+     us to keep the fugitive slave law, one of the most odious
+     laws in a world of odious laws--a law not fit to be made or
+     kept. I have been amazed that they should dare to tell us
+     the law of God, writ on the heavens and our hearts, never
+     demanded we should disobey the laws of men! Well, suppose it
+     were so. Then it was old Daniel's duty at Darius' command to
+     give up his prayer; but he prayed three times a day, with
+     his windows up. Then it was John's and Peter's duty to
+     forbear to preach of Christianity; but they said, 'Whether
+     it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more
+     than unto God, judge ye.' Then it was the duty of Amram and
+     Jochebed to take up their new-born Moses and cast him into
+     the Nile, for the law of king Pharaoh, commanding it, was
+     'constitutional,' and 'political agitation' was
+     discountenanced as much in Goshen as in Boston. But Daniel
+     did not obey; John and Peter did not fail to preach
+     Christianity; and Amram and Jochebed refused 'passive
+     obedience' to the king's decree! I think it will take a
+     strong man all this winter to reverse the judgment which the
+     world has passed on these three cases. But it is 'innocent'
+     to try.
+
+     "However, there is another ancient case, mentioned in the
+     Bible, in which the laws commanded one thing and conscience
+     just the opposite. Here the record of the law:--'Now both
+     the chief priests and the Pharisees had given a commandment,
+     that if any one knew where he [Jesus] were, he should show
+     it, that they might take him.' Of course, it became the
+     official and legal business of each disciple who knew where
+     Christ was, to make it known to the authorities. No doubt
+     James and John could leave all and follow him, with others
+     of the people who knew not the law of Moses, and were
+     accursed; nay, the women, Martha and Mary, could minister
+     unto him of their substance, could wash his feet with their
+     tears, and wipe them with the hairs of their head. They did
+     it gladly, of their own free will, and took pleasure
+     therein, I make no doubt. There was no merit in that--'Any
+     man can perform an agreeable duty.' But there was found one
+     disciple who could 'perform a disagreeable duty.' He went,
+     perhaps 'with alacrity,' and betrayed his Saviour to the
+     marshal of the district of Jerusalem, who was called a
+     centurion. Had he no affection for Jesus? No doubt; but he
+     could conquer his prejudices, while Mary and John could
+     not.
+
+     "Judas Iscariot has rather a bad name in the Christian
+     world: he is called 'The son of perdition,' in the New
+     Testament, and his conduct is reckoned a 'transgression;'
+     nay, it is said the devil 'entered into him,' to cause this
+     hideous sin. But all this it seems was a mistake; certainly,
+     if we are to believe our 'republican' lawyers and statesmen,
+     Iscariot only fulfilled his 'constitutional obligations.' It
+     was only 'on that point,' of betraying his Saviour, that the
+     constitutional law required him to have any thing to do with
+     Jesus. He took his 'thirty pieces of silver'--about fifteen
+     dollars; a Yankee is to do it for ten, having fewer
+     prejudices to conquer--it was his legal fee, for value
+     received. True, the Christians thought it was 'The wages of
+     iniquity,' and even the Pharisees--who commonly made the
+     commandment of God of none effect by their traditions--dared
+     not defile the temple with this 'price of blood;' but it was
+     honest money. Yes, it was as honest a fee as any American
+     commissioner or deputy will ever get for a similar service.
+     How mistaken we are! Judas Iscariot is not a traitor! he was
+     a great patriot; he conquered his 'prejudices,' performed 'a
+     disagreeable duty,' as an office of 'high morals and high
+     principle;' he kept the 'law' and the 'Constitution,' and
+     did all he could to 'save the Union;' nay, he was a saint,
+     'not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles.' 'The law of
+     God never commands us to disobey the law of man.' _Sancte
+     Iscariote ora pro nobis._
+
+     "Talk of keeping the fugitive slave law! Come, come, we know
+     better. Men in New England know better than this. We know
+     that we ought not to keep a wicked law, and that it must not
+     be kept when the law of God forbids!
+
+     "One of the most awful spectacles I ever saw, was this: A
+     vast multitude attempting, at an orator's suggestion [Hon.
+     Mr. Hallett], to howl down the 'Higher law,' and when he
+     said, Will you have this to rule over you? they answered,
+     'Never!' and treated the 'Higher law' to a laugh and a howl!
+     It was done in Faneuil Hall; under the eyes of the three
+     Adamses, Hancock, and Washington; and the howl rung round
+     the venerable arches of that hall! I could not but ask, 'Why
+     do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?
+     the rulers of the earth set themselves, and kings take
+     counsel against the Lord and say, Let us break his bands
+     asunder, and cast off his yoke from us.' Then I could not
+     but remember that it was written, 'He that sitteth in the
+     heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision.'
+     'He taketh up the isles as a very little thing, and the
+     inhabitants of the earth are as grasshoppers before Him.'
+     Howl down the law of God at a magistrate's command! Do this
+     in Boston! Let us remember this--but with charity."
+
+     "I do not believe there is more than one of the New England
+     men who publicly helped the law into being, but would
+     violate its provisions; conceal a fugitive; share his loaf
+     with a runaway; furnish him golden wings to fly with. Nay, I
+     think it would be difficult to find a magistrate in New
+     England, willing to take the public odium of doing the
+     official duty. I believe it is not possible to find a
+     regular jury, who will punish a man for harboring a slave,
+     for helping his escape, or fine a marshal or commissioner
+     for being a little slow to catch a slave. Men will talk loud
+     in public meetings, but they have some conscience after all,
+     at home. And though they howl down the 'Higher law' in a
+     crowd, yet conscience will make cowards of them all, when
+     they come to lay hands on a Christian man, more innocent
+     than they, and send him into slavery for ever! One of the
+     commissioners of Boston talked loud and long, last Tuesday,
+     in favor of keeping the law. When he read his litany against
+     the law of God, and asked if men would keep the 'Higher
+     law,' and got 'Never' as the welcome, and amen for
+     response--it seemed as if the law might be kept, at least by
+     that commissioner, and such as gave the responses to his
+     creed. But slave-hunting Mr. Hughes, who came here for two
+     of our fellow-worshippers, in his Georgia newspaper, tells a
+     different story. Here it is from the 'Georgia Telegraph,' of
+     last Friday. 'I called at eleven o'clock at night, at his
+     [the commissioner's] residence, and stated to him my
+     business, and asked him for a warrant, saying that if I
+     could get a warrant, I could have the negroes [William and
+     Ellen Craft] arrested. He said the law did not authorize a
+     warrant to be issued: that it was my duty to go and arrest
+     the negro without a warrant, and bring him before him!' This
+     is more than I expected. 'Is Saul among the prophets?' The
+     men who tell us that the law must be kept, God willing, or
+     against His will--there are Puritan fathers behind them
+     also; Bibles in their houses; a Christ crucified, whom they
+     think of; and a God even in their world, who slumbers not,
+     neither is weary, and is as little a respecter of parchments
+     as of persons! They know there is a people, as well as
+     politicians, a posterity not yet assembled, and they would
+     not like to have certain words writ on their tomb-stone.
+     'Traitor to the rights of mankind,' is no pleasant epitaph.
+     They, too, remember there is a day after to-day; aye, a
+     forever; and 'Inasmuch as ye have not done it unto one of
+     the least of these my brethren, ye have not done it unto
+     me,' is a sentence they would not like to hear at the day of
+     judgment."[214]
+
+[Footnote 214: 2 Parker's Occasional Sermons, pp. 298-300, 301, 302,
+304, 305.]
+
+Gentlemen, you see by the faces of this Honorable Court, and you know
+by what these honorable functionaries and their coadjutors have done
+out of its limit, how much I was mistaken in the notion that no Boston
+Commissioner would ever kidnap a man! Perhaps you will pardon me for
+the mistake. I will soon explain it by a quotation.
+
+After the rescue of Shadrach, in my Sunday prayer I publicly gave God
+the thanks of the congregation for the noble deed. Perhaps that was a
+crime. I think Judge Saunders could make it appear that I was an
+"accessory after the fact," and then Judge Curtis could call the
+offence not a felony but a "misdemeanor," and "in misdemeanors all are
+principals." Nay, it might be "levying war" "with force and arms."
+
+After the Hon. Judge Sprague had made himself glorious by charging the
+jury "to obey both" the will of God and the laws of men, which forbid
+that will; and after Commissioner Curtis had kidnapped Mr. Sims, while
+he still had him in his unlawful jail, on Fast-day, April 10, 1851, I
+preached a sermon "of the Chief Sins of the People," and said,--
+
+     "He [Judge Sprague] supposes a case: that the people ask
+     him, 'Which shall we obey, the law of man or the will of
+     God?' He says, 'I answer, obey both. The incompatibility
+     which the question assumes does not exist.'
+
+     "So, then, here is a great general rule, that between the
+     'law of man' and the 'will of God' there is no
+     incompatibility, and we must 'obey both.' Now let us see how
+     this rule will work.
+
+     "If I am rightly informed, King Ahab made a law that all the
+     Hebrews should serve Baal, and it was the will of God that
+     they should serve the Lord. According to this rule of the
+     judge, they must 'obey both.' But if they served Baal, they
+     could not serve the Lord. In such a case, 'what is to be
+     done?' We are told that Elijah gathered the prophets
+     together: 'and he came unto all the people, and said, How
+     long halt ye? If the Lord be God, follow him; but if Baal,
+     then follow him.' Our modern prophet says, 'Obey both. The
+     incompatibility which the question assumes does not exist.'
+     Such is the difference between Judge Elijah and Judge Peleg.
+
+     "Let us see how this rule will work in other cases; how you
+     can make a compromise between two opposite doctrines. The
+     king of Egypt commanded the Hebrew nurses, 'When you do the
+     office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, if it be a son ye
+     shall kill him.' I suppose it is plain to the Judge of the
+     Circuit Court that this kind of murder, killing the new-born
+     infants, is against 'the will of God;' but it is a matter of
+     record that it was according to 'the law of man.' Suppose
+     the Hebrew nurses had come to ask Judge Sprague for his
+     advice. He must have said, 'Obey both!' His rule is a
+     universal one.
+
+     "Another decree was once made, as it is said in the Old
+     Testament, that no man should ask any petition of any God
+     for thirty days, save of the king, on penalty of being cast
+     into the den of lions. Suppose Daniel--I mean the old
+     Daniel, the prophet--should have asked him, What is to be
+     done? Should he pray to Darius or pray to God? 'Obey both!'
+     would be the answer. But he cannot, for he is forbid to pray
+     to God. We know what Daniel did do.
+
+     "The elders and scribes of Jerusalem commanded the
+     Christians not to speak or to teach at all in the name of
+     Jesus; but Peter and John asked those functionaries,
+     'Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you
+     more than unto God, judge ye.' Our judge must have said,
+     There is no 'incompatibility;' 'obey both!' What 'a
+     comfortable Scripture' this would have been to poor John
+     Bunyan! What a great ethical doctrine to St. Paul! He did
+     not know such Christianity as that. Before his time a
+     certain man had said, 'No man can serve two masters.' But
+     there was one person who made the attempt, and he also is
+     eminent in history. Here was 'the will of God,' to do to
+     others as you would have others do to you: 'Love thy
+     neighbor as thyself.' Here is the record of 'the law of
+     man:' 'Now both the chief priests and the Pharisees had
+     given a commandment, that, if any man knew where he [Jesus]
+     were, he should show it that they might take him.' Judas, it
+     seems, determined to 'obey both,'--'the law of man' and 'the
+     will of God.' So he sat with Jesus at the Last Supper,
+     dipped his hand in the same dish, and took a morsel from the
+     hand of Christ, given him in token of love. All this he did
+     to obey 'the will of God.' Then he went and informed the
+     Commissioner or Marshal where Jesus was. This he did to obey
+     'the law of man.' Then he came back, and found Christ,--the
+     agony all over, the bloody sweat wiped off from his brow
+     presently to bleed again,--the Angel of Strength there with
+     him to comfort him. He was arousing his sleeping disciples
+     for the last time, and was telling them, 'Pray, lest ye
+     enter into temptation.' Judas came and gave him a kiss. To
+     the eleven it seemed the friendly kiss, obeying 'the will of
+     God.' To the Marshal it also seemed a friendly
+     kiss,--obeying 'the law of man.' So, in the same act, he
+     obeys 'the law of God' and 'the will of man,' and there is
+     no 'incompatibility!'
+
+     "Of old it was said, 'Thou canst not serve God and mammon.'
+     He that said it, has been thought to know something of
+     morals,--something of religion.
+
+     "Till the fugitive slave law was passed, we did not know
+     what a great saint Iscariot was. I think there ought to be a
+     chapel for him, and a day set apart in the calendar. Let him
+     have his chapel in the navy yard at Washington. He has got a
+     priest there already. And for a day in the calendar--set
+     apart for all time the seventh of March!"
+
+     "Last Thanksgiving day, I said it would be difficult to find
+     a magistrate in Boston to take the odium of sending a
+     fugitive back to slavery. I believed, after all, men had
+     some conscience, although they talked about its being a duty
+     to deliver up a man to bondage. Pardon me, my country, that
+     I rated you too high! Pardon me, town of Boston, that I
+     thought your citizens all men! Pardon me, lawyers, that I
+     thought you had been all born of mothers! Pardon me,
+     ruffians, who kill for hire! I thought you had some animal
+     mercy left, even in your bosom! Pardon me, United States'
+     commissioners, marshals, and the like, I thought you all had
+     some shame! Pardon me, my hearers, for such mistakes. One
+     commissioner was found to furnish the warrant [Mr. George T.
+     Curtis]! Pardon me, I did not know he was a commissioner; if
+     I had, I never would have said it!
+
+     "Spirits of tyrants, I look down to you! Shade of Cain, you
+     great first murderer, forgive me that I forgot your power,
+     and did not remember that you were parent of so long a line!
+     And you, my brethren, if hereafter I tell you that there is
+     any limit of meanness or wickedness which a Yankee will not
+     jump over, distrust me, and remind me of this day, and I
+     will take it back!
+
+     "Let us look at the public conduct of any commissioner who
+     will send an innocent man from Boston into slavery. I would
+     speak of all men charitably; for I know how easy it is to
+     err, yea, to sin. I can look charitably on thieves, prowling
+     about in darkness; on rum-sellers, whom poverty compels to
+     crime; on harlots, who do the deed of shame that holy
+     woman's soul abhors and revolts at; I can pity the pirate,
+     who scours the seas doing his fiendish crimes--he is
+     tempted, made desperate by a gradual training in wickedness.
+     The man, born at the South, owning slaves, who goes to
+     Africa and sells adulterated rum in exchange for men to
+     retail at Cuba,--I cannot understand the consciousness of
+     such a man; yet I can admit that by birth and by breeding he
+     has become so imbruted he knows no better. Nay, even that he
+     may perhaps justify his conduct to himself. I say I think
+     his sin is not so dreadful as that of a commissioner in
+     Boston who sends a man into slavery. A man commits a murder,
+     inflamed by jealousy, goaded by desire of great gain,
+     excited by fear, stung by malice, or poisoned by revenge,
+     and it is a horrid thing. But to send a man into slavery is
+     worse than to murder him. I should rather be slain than
+     enslaved. To do this, inflamed by no jealousy, goaded by no
+     desire of great gain,--only ten dollars!--excited by no
+     fear, stung by no special malice, poisoned by no revenge,--I
+     cannot comprehend that in any man, not even in a hyena.
+     Beasts that raven for blood do not kill for killing's sake,
+     but to feed their flesh. Forgive me, O ye wolves and hyenas!
+     that I bring you into such company. I can only understand it
+     in a devil!
+
+     "When a man bred in Massachusetts, whose Constitution
+     declares that 'All men are born free and equal;' within
+     sight of Faneuil Hall, with all its sacred memories; within
+     two hours of Plymouth Rock; within a single hour of Concord
+     and Lexington; in sight of Bunker Hill,--when he will do
+     such a deed, it seems to me that there is no life of crime
+     long enough to prepare a man for such a pitch of depravity;
+     I should think he must have been begotten in sin, and
+     conceived in iniquity, and been born 'with a dog's head on
+     his shoulders;' that the concentration of the villany of
+     whole generations of scoundrels would hardly be enough to
+     fit a man for a deed like this!"
+
+     "Last Thursday night,--when odious beasts of prey, that dare
+     not face the light of heaven, prowl through the
+     woods,--those ruffians of the law seized on their brother
+     man. They lie to the bystanders, and seize him on a false
+     pretence. There is their victim--they hold him fast. His
+     faithless knife breaks in his hand; his coat is rent to
+     pieces. He is the slave of Boston. Can you understand his
+     feelings? Let us pass by that. His 'trial!' Shall I speak of
+     that? He has been five days on trial for more than life, and
+     has not seen a judge! A jury? No,--only a commissioner! O
+     justice! O republican America! Is this the liberty of
+     Massachusetts?
+
+     "Where shall I find a parallel with men who will do such a
+     deed,--do it in Boston? I will open the tombs, and bring up
+     most hideous tyrants from the dead. Come, brood of monsters,
+     let me bring you up from the deep damnation of the graves
+     wherein your hated memories continue for all time their
+     never-ending rot. Come, birds of evil omen! come, ravens,
+     vultures, carrion-crows, and see the spectacle! come, see
+     the meeting of congenial souls! I will disturb, disquiet,
+     and bring up the greatest monsters of the human race!
+     Tremble not, women; tremble not, children; tremble not, men!
+     They are all dead! They cannot harm you now! Fear the
+     living, not the dead!
+
+     "Come hither, Herod the wicked! Thou that didst seek after
+     that young child's life, and destroyed the Innocents! Let me
+     look on thy face! No; go! Thou wert a heathen! Go, lie with
+     the Innocents thou hast massacred. Thou art too good for
+     this company!
+
+     "Come, Nero! Thou awful Roman Emperor! Come up! No; thou
+     wast drunk with power! schooled in Roman depravity. Thou
+     hadst, besides, the example of thy fancied gods! Go, wait
+     another day. I will seek a worser man.
+
+     "Come hither, St. Dominic! come, Torquemada!--Fathers of the
+     Inquisition! Merciless monsters, seek your equal here! No;
+     pass by! You are no companions for such men as these! You
+     were the servants of atheistic popes, of cruel kings. Go to,
+     and get you gone. Another time I may have work for you,--not
+     now; lie there and persevere to rot. You are not yet quite
+     wicked and corrupt enough for this comparison. Go, get ye
+     gone, lest the sun turn back at sight of ye!
+
+     "Come up, thou heap of wickedness, George Jeffreys!--thy
+     hands deep purple with the blood of thy murdered fellow men!
+     Ah, I know thee! awful and accursed shade! Two hundred years
+     after thy death, men hate thee still, not without cause! Let
+     me look upon thee! I know thy history. Pause and be still,
+     while I tell it to these men.
+
+     "Brothers, George Jeffreys 'began in the sedition line.'
+     'There was no act, however bad, that he would not resort to
+     to get on.' 'He was of a bold aspect, and cared not for the
+     countenance of any man.' 'He became the avowed, unblushing
+     slave of the court, and the bitter persecutor and
+     unappeasable enemy of the principles he had before
+     supported.' 'He was universally insolent and overbearing.'
+     'As a judge, he did not consider the decencies of his post,
+     nor did he so much as affect to be impartial, as became a
+     judge.' His face and voice were always unamiable. 'All
+     tenderness for the feelings of others, all self-respect were
+     obliterated from his mind.' He had 'a delight in misery,
+     merely as misery,' and 'that temper which tyrants require in
+     their worst instruments.' 'He made haste to sell his
+     forehead of brass and his tongue of venom to the court.' He
+     had 'more impudence than ten carted street-walkers;' and was
+     appropriately set to a work 'which could be trusted to no
+     man who reverenced law, or who was sensible of shame.' He
+     was a 'Commissioner' in 1685. You know of the 'Bloody
+     assizes' which he held, and how he sent to execution three
+     hundred and twenty persons in a single circuit. 'The whole
+     country was strewed with the heads and limbs of his
+     victims.' Yet a man wrote that 'A little more hemp might
+     have been usefully employed.' He was the worst of the
+     English judges. 'There was no measure, however illegal, to
+     the execution of which he did not devotedly and recklessly
+     abandon himself.' 'During the Stuart reigns, England was
+     cursed by a succession of ruffians in ermine, who, for the
+     sake of court favor, wrested the principles of law, the
+     precepts of religion, and the duties of humanity; but they
+     were all greatly outstripped by Jeffreys.' Such is his
+     history.
+
+     "Come, shade of a judicial butcher! Two hundred years thy
+     name has been pilloried in face of the world, and thy memory
+     gibbeted before mankind. Let us see how thou wilt compare
+     with those who kidnap men in Boston! Go seek companionship
+     with them! Go claim thy kindred, if such they be! Go tell
+     them that the memory of the wicked shall rot,--that there is
+     a God; an Eternity; ay! and a Judgment too! where the slave
+     may appeal against him that made him a slave, to Him that
+     made him a man.
+
+     "What! Dost thou shudder? Thou turn back! These not thy
+     kindred! Why dost thou turn pale, as when the crowd
+     clutched at thy life in London Street? It is true, George
+     Jeffreys, and these are not thy kin. Forgive me that I
+     should send thee on such an errand, or bid thee seek
+     companionship with such--with Boston hunters of the slave!
+     Thou wert not base enough! It was a great bribe that tempted
+     thee! Again I say, pardon me for sending thee to keep
+     company with such men! Thou only struckst at men accused of
+     crime; not at men accused only of their birth! Thou wouldst
+     not send a man into bondage for two pounds! I will not rank
+     thee with men who, in Boston, for ten dollars, would enslave
+     a negro now! Rest still, Herod! Be quiet, Nero! Sleep, St.
+     Dominic, and sleep, O Torquemada! in your fiery jail! Sleep,
+     Jeffreys, underneath 'the altar of the church' which seeks
+     with Christian charity to hide your hated bones."
+
+     "Well, my brethren, these are only the beginning of sorrows.
+     There will be other victims yet; this will not settle the
+     question. What shall we do? I think I am a calm man and a
+     cool man, and I have a word or two to say as to what we
+     shall do. Never obey the law. Keep the law of God. Next I
+     say, resist not evil with evil; resist not now with
+     violence. Why do I say this? Will you tell me that I am a
+     coward? Perhaps I am; at least I am not afraid to be called
+     one. Why do I say, then, do not now resist with violence?
+     Because it is not time just yet; it would not succeed. If I
+     had the eloquence that I sometimes dream of, which goes into
+     a crowd of men, and gathers them in its mighty arm, and
+     sways them as the pendent boughs of yonder elm shall be
+     shaken by the summer breeze next June, I would not give that
+     counsel. I would call on men, and lift up my voice like a
+     trumpet through the whole land, until I had gathered
+     millions out of the North and the South, and they should
+     crush slavery for ever, as the ox crushes the spider
+     underneath his feet. But such eloquence is given to no man.
+     It was not given to the ancient Greek who 'shook the arsenal
+     and fulmined over Greece.' He that so often held the nobles
+     and the mob of Rome within his hand, had it not. He that
+     spoke as never man spake, and who has since gathered two
+     hundred millions to his name, had it not. No man has it. The
+     ablest must wait for time! It is idle to resist here and
+     now. It is not the hour. If in 1765 they had attempted to
+     carry out the Revolution by force, they would have failed.
+     Had it failed, we had not been here to-day. There would have
+     been no little monument at Lexington 'sacred to liberty and
+     the rights of mankind' honoring the men who 'fell in the
+     cause of God and their country.' No little monument at
+     Concord; nor that tall pile of eloquent stone at Bunker
+     Hill, to proclaim that 'Resistance to tyrants is obedience
+     to God.' Success is due to the discretion, heroism,
+     calmness, and forbearance of our fathers: let us wait our
+     time. It will come--perhaps will need no sacrifice of
+     blood."[215]
+
+[Footnote 215: 2 Parker's Occasional Sermons, p. 334-337, 343-348,
+351, 352.]
+
+Gentlemen, I think Judge Finch could construct a misdemeanor out of
+these words; you will find in them nothing but the plain speech of a
+minister of the Christian religion.
+
+On the 6th of July, 1851, I preached "Of the three chief Safeguards of
+Society," and said:--
+
+     "Nowhere in the world is there a people so orderly, so much
+     attached to law, as the people of these Northern States. But
+     one law is an exception. The people of the North hate the
+     fugitive slave law, as they have never hated any law since
+     the stamp act. I know there are men in the Northern States
+     who like it,--who would have invented slavery, had it not
+     existed long before. But the mass of the Northern people
+     hate this law, because it is hostile to the purpose of all
+     just human law, hostile to the purpose of society, hostile
+     to the purpose of individual life; because it is hostile to
+     the law of God,--bids the wrong, forbids the right. We
+     disobey that, for the same reason that we keep other laws:
+     because we reverence the law of God. Why should we keep that
+     odious law which makes us hated wherever justice is loved?
+     Because we must sometimes do a disagreeable deed to
+     accomplish an agreeable purpose? The purpose of that law is
+     to enable three hundred thousand slaveholders to retake on
+     our soil the men they once stole on other soil! Most of the
+     city churches of the North seem to think that is a good
+     thing. Very well; is it worth while for fifteen million
+     freemen to transgress the plainest of natural laws, the most
+     obvious instincts of the human heart, and the plainest
+     duties of Christianity, for that purpose? The price to pay
+     is the religious integrity of fifteen million men; the thing
+     to buy is a privilege for three hundred thousand
+     slaveholders to use the North as a hunting field whereon to
+     kidnap men at our cost. Judge you of that bargain."
+
+     "I adjure you to reverence a government that is right,
+     statutes that are right, officers that are right; but to
+     disobey every thing that is wrong. I intreat you by your
+     love for your country, by the memory of your fathers, by
+     your reverence for Jesus Christ, yea, by the deep and holy
+     love of God which Jesus taught, and you now feel."[216]
+
+[Footnote 216: 2 Parker's Occasional Sermons, p. 392-394.]
+
+You will say all this is but indispensable duty; but the judge who
+hanged a man for treason because he promised to make his son "heir to
+the Crown"--meaning the "Crown Tavern" that he lived in--would
+doubtless find treason in my words also.
+
+On the 12th of April, 1852, I delivered an address to commemorate the
+first anniversary of the Kidnapping of Thomas Sims, and said:--
+
+     "But when the rulers have inverted their function, and
+     enacted wickedness into a law which treads down the
+     unalienable rights of man to such a degree as this, then I
+     know no ruler but God, no law but natural Justice. I tear
+     the hateful statute of kidnappers to shivers; I trample it
+     underneath my feet. I do it in the name of all law; in the
+     name of Justice and of Man; in the name of the dear God."
+
+     "You remember the decision of the Circuit judge,--himself
+     soon to be summoned by death before the Judge who is no
+     respecter of persons,--not allowing the destined victim his
+     last hope, 'the great writ of right.' The decision left him
+     entirely at the mercy of the other kidnappers. The
+     Court-room was crowded with 'respectable people,' 'gentlemen
+     of property and standing:' they received the decision with
+     'applause and the clapping of hands.' Seize a lamb out of a
+     flock, a wolf from a pack of wolves, the lambs bleat with
+     sympathy, the wolves howl with fellowship and fear; but when
+     a competitor for the Presidency sends back to eternal
+     bondage a poor, friendless negro, asking only his limbs,
+     wealthy gentlemen of Boston applaud the outrage.
+
+          "'O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
+          And men have lost their reason!'"
+
+     "When the Fugitive Slave Bill passed, the six New England
+     States lay fast asleep: Massachusetts slept soundly, her
+     head pillowed on her unsold bales of cotton and of woollen
+     goods, dreaming of 'orders from the South.' Justice came to
+     waken her, and whisper of the peril of nine thousand
+     citizens; and she started in her sleep, and, being frighted,
+     swore a prayer or two, then slept again. But Boston
+     woke,--sleeping, in her shop, with ears open, and her eye on
+     the market, her hand on her purse, dreaming of goods for
+     sale,--Boston woke broadly up, and fired a hundred guns for
+     joy. O Boston, Boston! if thou couldst have known, in that
+     thine hour, the things which belong unto thy peace! But no:
+     they were hidden from her eyes. She had prayed to her god,
+     to Money; he granted her the request, but sent leanness into
+     her soul."
+
+     "Yet one charge has been made against the Government, which
+     seems to me a little harsh and unjust. It has been said the
+     administration preferred low and contemptible men as their
+     tools; judges who blink at law, advocates of infamy, and men
+     cast off from society for perjury, for nameless crimes, and
+     sins not mentionable in English speech; creatures 'not so
+     good as the dogs that licked Lazarus's sores; but, like
+     flies, still buzzing upon any thing that is raw.' There is a
+     semblance of justice in the charge: witness Philadelphia,
+     Buffalo, Boston; witness New York. It is true, for
+     kidnappers the Government did take men that looked 'like a
+     bull-dog just come to man's estate;' men whose face declared
+     them, 'if not the devil, at least his twin-brother.' There
+     are kennels of the courts wherein there settles down all
+     that the law breeds most foul, loathsome, and hideous and
+     abhorrent to the eye of day; there this contaminating puddle
+     gathers its noisome ooze, slowly, stealthily, continually,
+     agglomerating its fetid mass by spontaneous cohesion, and
+     sinking by the irresistible gravity of rottenness into that
+     abhorred deep, the lowest, ghastliest pit in all the
+     subterranean vaults of human sin. It is true the Government
+     has skimmed the top and dredged the bottom of these kennels
+     of the courts, taking for its purpose the scum and sediment
+     thereof, the Squeers, the Fagins, and the Quilps of the law,
+     the monsters of the court. Blame not the Government; it took
+     the best it could get. It was necessity, not will, which
+     made the selection. Such is the stuff that kidnappers must
+     be made of. If you wish to kill a man, it is not bread you
+     buy: it is poison. Some of the instruments of Government
+     were such as one does not often look upon. But, of old time,
+     an inquisitor was always 'a horrid-looking fellow, as
+     beseemed his trade.' It is only justice that a kidnapper
+     should bear 'his great commission in his look.'"
+
+     "I pity the kidnappers, the poor tools of men almost as
+     base. I would not hurt a hair of their heads; but I would
+     take the thunder of the moral world, and dash its bolted
+     lightning on this crime of stealing men, till the name of
+     kidnapping should be like Sodom and Gomorrah. It is piracy
+     to steal a man in Guinea; what is it to do this in Boston?
+
+     "I pity the merchants who, for their trade, were glad to
+     steal their countrymen; I wish them only good. Debate in
+     yonder hall has shown how little of humanity there is in the
+     trade of Boston. She looks on all the horrors which
+     intemperance has wrought, and daily deals in every street;
+     she scrutinizes the jails,--they are filled by rum; she
+     looks into the alms-houses, crowded full by rum; she walks
+     her streets, and sees the perishing classes fall, mowed down
+     by rum; she enters the parlors of wealthy men, looks into
+     the bridal chamber, and meets death: the ghosts of the slain
+     are there,--men slain by rum. She knows it all, yet says,
+     'There is an interest at stake!'--the interest of rum; let
+     man give way! Boston does this to-day. Last year she stole a
+     man; her merchants stole a man! The sacrifice of man to
+     money, when shall it have an end? I pity those merchants who
+     honor money more than man. Their gold is cankered, and their
+     soul is brass,--is rusted brass. They must come up before
+     the posterity which they affect to scorn. What voice can
+     plead for them before their own children? The eye that
+     mocketh at the justice of its son, and scorneth to obey the
+     mercy of its daughter, the ravens of posterity shall pick it
+     out, and the young eagles eat it up!
+
+     "But there is yet another tribunal: 'After the death the
+     judgment!' When he maketh inquisition for the blood of the
+     innocent, what shall the stealers of men reply? Boston
+     merchants, where is your brother, Thomas Sims? Let Cain
+     reply to Christ."[217]
+
+[Footnote 217: 1 Parker's Additional Speeches, p. 50, 70, 88, 89, 92,
+93, 100, 101.]
+
+The Sunday after Mr. Webster's death, Oct. 31, 1852, I spoke of that
+powerful man; listen to this:--
+
+     "Mr. Webster stamped his foot, and broke through into the
+     great hollow of practical atheism, which undergulfs the
+     State and Church. Then what a caving in was there! The
+     firm-set base of northern cities quaked and yawned with
+     gaping rents. 'Penn's sandy foundation' shook again, and
+     black men fled from the city of brotherly love, as doves,
+     with plaintive cry, flee from a farmer's barn when summer
+     lightning stabs the roof. There was a twist in Faneuil Hall,
+     and the doors could not open wide enough for Liberty to
+     regain her ancient Cradle; only soldiers, greedy to steal a
+     man, themselves stole out and in. Ecclesiastic quicksand ran
+     down the hole amain. Metropolitan churches toppled, and
+     pitched, and canted, and cracked, their bowing walls all out
+     of plumb. Colleges, broken from the chain which held them in
+     the stream of time, rushed towards the abysmal rent. Harvard
+     led the way, '_Christo et Ecclesiae_' in her hand. Down
+     plunged Andover, 'Conscience and the Constitution' clutched
+     in its ancient, failing arm. New Haven began to cave in.
+     Doctors of Divinity, orthodox, heterodox, with only a doxy
+     of doubt, 'no settled opinion,' had great alacrity in
+     sinking, and went down quick, as live as ever, into the pit
+     of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, the bottomless pit of lower
+     law,--one with his mother, cloaked by a surplice, hid
+     beneath his sinister arm, and an acknowledged brother
+     grasped by his remaining limb. Fossils of theology, dead as
+     Ezekiel's bones, took to their feet again, and stood up for
+     most arrant wrong. 'There is no higher law of God,' quoth
+     they, as they went down; 'no golden rule, only the statutes
+     of men.' A man with mythologic ear might fancy that he heard
+     a snickering laugh run round the world below, snorting,
+     whinnying, and neighing, as it echoed from the infernal spot
+     pressed by the fallen monsters of ill-fame, who, thousands
+     of years ago, on the same errand, had plunged down the
+     self-same way. What tidings the echo bore, Dante nor Milton
+     could not tell. Let us leave that to darkness, and to
+     silence, and to death.
+
+     "But spite of all this, in every city, in every town, in
+     every college, and in each capsizing church, there were
+     found Faithful Men, who feared not the monster, heeded not
+     the stamping;--nay, some doctors of divinity were found
+     living. In all their houses there was light, and the
+     destroying angel shook them not. The word of the Lord came
+     in open vision to their eye; they had their lamps trimmed
+     and burning, their loins girt; they stood road-ready.
+     Liberty and Religion turned in thither, and the slave found
+     bread and wings. 'When my father and my mother forsake me,
+     then the Lord will hold me up!'
+
+     "After the 7th of March, Mr. Webster became the ally of the
+     worst of men, the forefront of kidnapping. The orator of
+     Plymouth Rock was the advocate of slavery; the hero of
+     Bunker Hill put chains round Boston Court House; the
+     applauder of Adams and Jefferson was a tool of the
+     slaveholder, and a keeper of slavery's dogs, the associate
+     of the kidnapper, and the mocker of men who loved the right.
+     Two years he lived with that rabble rout for company, his
+     name the boast of every vilest thing.
+
+          "'Oh, how unlike the place from whence he fell!'"
+
+     "Do men mourn for him? See how they mourn! The streets are
+     hung with black. The newspapers are sad colored. The shops
+     are put in mourning. The Mayor and Aldermen wear crape.
+     Wherever his death is made known, the public business stops,
+     and flags drop half-mast down. The courts adjourn. The
+     courts of Massachusetts--at Boston, at Dedham, at Lowell,
+     all adjourn; the courts of New Hampshire, of Maine, of New
+     York; even at Baltimore and Washington, the courts adjourn;
+     for the great lawyer is dead, and Justice must wait another
+     day. Only the United States Court, in Boston, trying a man
+     for helping Shadrach out of the furnace of the
+     kidnappers,--the court which executes the Fugitive Slave
+     Bill,--that does not adjourn; that keeps on; its worm dies
+     not, and the fire of its persecution is not quenched, when
+     death puts out the lamp of life! Injustice is hungry for its
+     prey, and must not be balked. It was very proper! Symbolical
+     court of the Fugitive Slave Bill--it does not respect life,
+     why should it death? and, scorning liberty, why should it
+     heed decorum?"[218]
+
+[Footnote 218: 1 Parker's Additional Speeches, 235-37, 246-47.]
+
+On the 12th of February, 1854, I preached "Some Thoughts on the new
+Assault upon Freedom in America."
+
+     "Who put Slavery in the Constitution; made it Federal? who
+     put it in the new States? who got new soil to plant it in?
+     who carried it across the Mississippi--into Louisiana,
+     Florida, Texas, Utah, New Mexico? who established it in the
+     Capital of the United States? who adopted Slavery and
+     volunteered to catch a runaway, in 1793, and repeated the
+     act in 1850,--in defiance of all law, all precedent, all
+     right? Why, it was the North. 'Spain armed herself with
+     bloodhounds,' said Mr. Pitt, 'to extirpate the wretched
+     natives of America.' In 1850, the Christian Democracy set
+     worse bloodhounds afoot to pursue Ellen Craft; offered them
+     five dollars for the run, if they did not take her; ten if
+     they did! The price of blood was Northern money; the
+     bloodhounds--they were Kidnappers born at the North, bred
+     there, kennelled in her church, fed on her sacraments,
+     blessed by her priests! In 1778, Mr. Pitt had a yet harsher
+     name for the beasts wherewith despotic Spain hunted the red
+     man in the woods--he called them '_Hell Hounds_.' But they
+     only hunted 'savages, heathens, men born in barbarous
+     lands.' What would he say of the pack which in 1851 hunted
+     American Christians, in the 'Athens of America,' and stole a
+     man on the grave of Hancock and Adams--all Boston looking
+     on, and its priests blessing the deed!"
+
+     "See what encourages the South to make new encroachments.
+     She has been eminently successful in her former demands,
+     especially with the last. The authors of the fugitive slave
+     bill did not think that enormity could be got through
+     Congress: it was too atrocious in itself, too insulting to
+     the North. But Northern men sprang forward to defend
+     it--powerful politicians supported it to the fullest extent.
+     The worse it was, the better they liked it. Northern
+     merchants were in favor of it--it 'would conciliate the
+     South.' Northern ministers in all the churches of commerce
+     baptized it, defended it out of the Old Testament, or the
+     New Testament. The Senator of Boston gave it his mighty
+     aid,--he went through the land a huckster of Slavery,
+     peddling Atheism: the Representative of Boston gave it his
+     vote. Their constituents sustained both! All the great
+     cities of the North executed the bill. The leading Journals
+     of Boston advised the merchants to withhold all commercial
+     intercourse from Towns which opposed Kidnapping. There was a
+     'Union Meeting' at Faneuil Hall. You remember the men on the
+     platform: the speeches are not forgotten. The doctrine that
+     there is a Law of God above the passions of the multitude
+     and the ambition of their leaders, was treated with scorn
+     and hooting: a loud guffaw of vulgar ribaldry went up
+     against the Justice of the Infinite God! All the great
+     cities did the same. Atheism was inaugurated as the first
+     principle of Republican government; in politics, religion
+     makes men mad! Mr. Clay declared that 'no Northern gentleman
+     will ever help return a fugitive Slave!' What took place at
+     Philadelphia? New York? Cincinnati?--nay, at Boston? The
+     Northern churches of commerce thought Slavery was a
+     blessing, Kidnapping a 'grace.' The Democrats and Whigs vie
+     with each other in devotion to the fugitive slave bill. The
+     'Compromises' are the golden rule. The North conquered her
+     prejudices. The South sees this, and makes another demand.
+     Why not? I am glad of it. She serves us right."
+
+     "In 1775, what if it had been told the men all red with
+     battle at Lexington and Bunker Hill,--'your sons will gird
+     the Court House with chains to kidnap a man; Boston will
+     vote for a Bill which puts the liberty of any man in the
+     hands of a Commissioner, to be paid twice as much for making
+     a Slave as for declaring a freeman; and Boston will call out
+     its soldiers to hunt a man through its streets!' What if on
+     the 19th of April, 1775, when Samuel Adams said, 'Oh! what a
+     glorious morning is this!' as he heard the tidings of war in
+     the little village where he passed the night,--what if it
+     had been told him,--'On the 19th of April, seventy-six years
+     from this day, will your City of Boston land a poor youth at
+     Savannah, having violated her own laws, and stained her
+     Magistrates' hands, in order to put an innocent man in a
+     Slave-master's jail?' What if it had been told him that
+     Ellen Craft must fly out of Democratic Boston, to Monarchic,
+     Theocratic, Aristocratic England, to find shelter for her
+     limbs, her connubial innocence, and the virtue of her
+     woman's heart? I think Samuel would have cursed the day in
+     which it was said a man-child was born, and America was
+     free! What if it had been told Mayhew and Belknap, that in
+     the pulpits of Boston, to defend kidnapping should be
+     counted to a man as righteousness? They could not have
+     believed it. They did not know what baseness could suck the
+     Northern breast, and still be base."[219]
+
+[Footnote 219: 1 Parker's Additional Speeches, p. 351, 352, 357-359,
+368, 369.]
+
+You will think all this is good morality; but Mr. Curtis in 1836,
+maintained that kidnapping in Massachusetts, would "promote harmony
+and good-will where it is extremely desirable to promote it, encourage
+frequent intercourse, and soften prejudice by increasing acquaintance,
+and tend to peace and good-will." Nay, that it may be "perfectly
+consistent with our policy ... _to interfere actively to enable the
+citizens of those States_ [the slave States] _to enjoy those
+institutions at home_." "Slavery is not immoral;" "By the law of this
+Commonwealth slavery is not immoral."[220]
+
+[Footnote 220: Med Case, p. 9, 11.]
+
+After Commissioner Loring had kidnapped Anthony Burns, I attended the
+meeting at Faneuil Hall, and spoke. Gentlemen, I did not finish the
+speech I had begun, for news came that an attack was made on the Court
+House, and the meeting was thrown into confusion. I did not speak in a
+corner, but in the old Cradle of Liberty. Here is the report of the
+speech which was made by a phonographer, and published in the
+newspapers of the time--I have no other notes of it. You shall see if
+there be a misdemeanor in it. Here is the speech:--
+
+"FELLOW-SUBJECTS OF VIRGINIA--[Loud cries of 'No,' 'no,' and 'you must
+take that back!'] FELLOW-CITIZENS OF BOSTON, then--['Yes,' 'yes,']--I
+come to condole with you at this second disgrace which is heaped on
+the city made illustrious by _some_ of those faces that were once so
+familiar to our eyes. [Alluding to the portraits which _once hung_
+conspicuously in Faneuil Hall, but which had been removed to obscure
+and out-of-the-way locations.] Fellow-citizens--A deed which Virginia
+commands has been done in the city of John Hancock and the 'brace of
+Adamses.' It was done by a Boston hand. It was a Boston man who issued
+the warrant; it was a Boston Marshal who put it in execution; they are
+Boston men who are seeking to kidnap a citizen of Massachusetts, and
+send him into slavery for ever and ever. It is our fault that it is
+so. Eight years ago, a merchant of Boston 'kidnapped a man on the high
+road between Faneuil Hall and Old Quincy,' at 12 o'clock,--at the noon
+of day,--and the next day, mechanics of this city exhibited the
+half-eagles they had received for their share of the spoils in
+enslaving a brother man. You called a meeting in this hall. It was as
+crowded as it is now. I stood side by side with my friend and former
+neighbor, your honorable and noble Chairman to-night [George R.
+Russell, of West Roxbury], [Loud Cheers,] while this man who had
+fought for liberty in Greece, and been imprisoned for that sacred
+cause in the dungeons of Poland, [Dr. Samuel G. Howe,] stood here and
+introduced to the audience that 'old man eloquent,' John Quincy Adams.
+[Loud Cheers.]
+
+"It was the last time he ever stood in Faneuil Hall. He came to defend
+the unalienable rights of a friendless negro slave, kidnapped in
+Boston. There is even no picture of John Quincy Adams to-night.
+
+"A Suffolk Grand-Jury would find no indictment against the Boston
+merchant for kidnapping that man. ['Shame,' 'shame.'] If Boston had
+spoken then, we should not have been here to-night. We should have had
+no fugitive slave bill. When that bill passed, we fired a hundred
+guns.
+
+"Don't you remember the Union meeting held in this very hall? A man
+stood on this platform,--he is a Judge of the Supreme Court now,--and
+he said--When a certain 'Reverend gentleman' is indicted for perjury,
+I should like to ask him how he will answer the charge? And when that
+'Reverend gentleman' rose, and asked, 'Do you want an answer to your
+question?' Faneuil Hall cried out,--'No,' 'no,'--'Throw him over!' Had
+Faneuil Hall spoken then on the side of Truth and Freedom, we should
+not now be the subjects of Virginia.
+
+"Yes, we are the vassals of Virginia. She reaches her arm over the
+graves of our mothers, and kidnaps men in the city of the Puritans;
+over the graves of Samuel Adams and John Hancock. [Cries of 'Shame!']
+'Shame!' so I say; but who is to blame? 'There is no north,' said Mr.
+Webster. There is none. The South goes clear up to the Canada line.
+No, gentlemen, there is no Boston to-day. There _was_ a Boston once.
+Now, there is a North suburb to the city of Alexandria,--that is what
+Boston is. [Laughter.] And you and I, fellow-subjects of the State of
+Virginia--[Cries of 'no,' 'no.' 'Take that back again.']--I will take
+it back when you show me the fact is not so.--Men and brothers,
+(brothers, at any rate,) I am not a young man; I have heard hurrahs
+and cheers for liberty many times; I have not seen a great many deeds
+done for liberty. I ask you, are we to have deeds as well as words?
+['Yes,' 'yes,' and loud cheers.]
+
+"Now, brethren, you are brothers at any rate, whether citizens of
+Massachusetts or subjects of Virginia--I am a minister--and,
+fellow-citizens of Boston, there are two great laws in this country;
+one of them is the LAW OF SLAVERY; that law is declared to be a
+'finality.' Once the Constitution was formed 'to establish justice,
+promote tranquillity, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves
+and our posterity.' _Now_, the Constitution is not to secure liberty;
+it is to extend slavery into Nebraska. And when slavery is established
+there, in order to show what it is, there comes a sheriff from
+Alexandria, to kidnap a man in the city of Boston, and he gets a Judge
+of Probate, in the county of Suffolk, to issue a writ, and another
+Boston man to execute that writ! [Cries of 'shame,' 'shame.']
+
+"Slavery tramples on the Constitution; it treads down State Rights.
+Where are the Rights of Massachusetts? A fugitive slave bill
+Commissioner has got them all in his pocket. Where is the trial by
+jury? Watson Freeman has it under his Marshal's staff. Where is the
+great writ of personal replevin, which our fathers wrested, several
+hundred years ago, from the tyrants who once lorded it over Great
+Britain? Judge Sprague trod it under his feet! Where is the sacred
+right of _habeas corpus_? Deputy Marshal Riley can crush it in his
+hands, and Boston does not say any thing against it. Where are the
+laws of Massachusetts forbidding State edifices to be used as prisons
+for the incarceration of fugitives? They, too, are trampled underfoot.
+'Slavery is a finality.'
+
+"These men come from Virginia, to kidnap a man here. Once, this was
+Boston; now, it is a Northern suburb of Alexandria. At first, when
+they carried a fugitive slave from Boston, they thought it was a
+difficult thing to do it. They had to get a Mayor to help them; they
+had to put chains round the Court House; they had to call out the
+'Sims Brigade'; it took nine days to do it. Now, they are so confident
+that we are subjects of Virginia, that they do not even put chains
+round the Court House; the police have nothing to do with it. I was
+told to-day that one of the officers of the city said to twenty-eight
+police-men, 'If any man in the employment of the city meddles in this
+business, he will be discharged from service, without a hearing.'
+[Great applause.] Well, gentlemen, how do you think they received
+that declaration? They shouted, and hurrahed, and gave three cheers.
+[Renewed applause.] My friend here would not have had the honor of
+presiding over you to-night, if application had been made a little
+sooner to the Mayor. Another gentleman told me that, when that man
+(the Mayor) was asked to preside at this meeting, he said that he
+regretted that all his time to-night was previously engaged. If he had
+known it earlier, he said, he might have been able to make
+arrangements to preside. When the man was arrested, he told the
+Marshal he regretted it, and that his sympathies were wholly with the
+slave. [Loud applause.] Fellow-citizens, remember that word. Hold your
+Mayor to it, and let it be seen that he has got a background and a
+foreground, which will authorize him to repeat that word in public,
+and act it out in Faneuil Hall. I say, so confident are the slave
+agents now, that they can carry off their slave in the daytime, that
+they do not put chains round the Court House; they have got no
+soldiers billeted in Faneuil Hall, as in 1851. They think they can
+carry this man off to-morrow morning in a cab. [Voices--'They can't do
+it.' 'Let's see them try.']
+
+"I say, there are two great laws in this country. One is the slave
+law. That is the law of the President of the United States; it is the
+law of the Commissioner; it is the law of every Marshal, and of every
+meanest ruffian whom the Marshal hires to execute his behests.
+
+"There is another law, which my friend, Mr. Phillips, has described in
+language such as I cannot equal, and therefore shall not try; I only
+state it in its plainest terms. It is the Law of the People when they
+are sure they are right and determined to go ahead. [Cheers and much
+confusion.]
+
+"Now, gentlemen, there was a Boston once, and you and I had
+fathers--brave fathers; and mothers who stirred up those fathers to
+manly deeds. Well, gentlemen, once it came to pass that the British
+Parliament enacted a 'law'--_they_ called it law--issuing stamps here.
+What did your fathers do on that occasion? They said, in the language
+of Algernon Sydney, quoted in your resolutions, 'that which is not
+just is not law, and that which is not law ought not to be
+obeyed.'--[Cheers.] They did not obey the stamp act. They did not call
+it law, and the man that did call it a law, here, eighty years ago,
+would have had a very warm coat of tar and feathers on him. They
+called it an 'act,' and they took the Commissioner who was here to
+execute it, took him solemnly, manfully,--_they didn't hurt a hair of
+his head_; they were non-resistants, of a very potent sort,
+[Cheers,]--and made him take a solemn oath that he would not issue a
+single stamp. He was brother-in-law of the Governor of the State, the
+servant of a royal master, 'exceedingly respectable,' of great
+wealth, and once very popular; but they took him, and made him swear
+not to execute his commission; and he kept his oath, and the stamp act
+went to its own place, and you know what that was. [Cheers.] That was
+an instance of the people going behind a wicked law to enact Absolute
+Justice into their statute, and making it Common Law. You know what
+they did with the tea.
+
+"Well, gentlemen, in the South there is a public opinion, it is a very
+wicked public opinion, which is stronger than law. When a colored
+seaman goes to Charleston from Boston, he is clapped instantly into
+jail, and kept there until the vessel is ready to sail, and the Boston
+merchant or master must pay the bill, and the Boston black man must
+feel the smart. That is a wicked example, set by the State of South
+Carolina. When Mr. Hoar, one of our most honored and respected
+fellow-citizens, was sent to Charleston to test the legality of this
+iniquitous law, the citizens of Charleston ordered him off the
+premises, and he was glad to escape to save himself from further
+outrage. There was no violence, no guns fired. That was an instance of
+the strength of public opinion--of a most unjust and iniquitous public
+opinion."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well, gentlemen, I say there is one law--slave law; it is everywhere.
+There is another law, which also is a finality; and that law, it is in
+your hands and your arms, and you can put it in execution, just when
+you see fit.
+
+"Gentlemen, I am a clergyman and a man of peace; I love peace. But
+there is a means, and there is an end; Liberty is the end, and
+sometimes peace is not the means towards it. [Applause.] Now, I want
+to ask you what you are going to do. [A voice--'shoot, shoot.'] There
+are ways of managing this matter without shooting anybody. Be sure
+that these men who have kidnapped a man in Boston, are cowards, every
+mother's son of them; and if we stand up there resolutely, and declare
+that this man shall not go out of the city of Boston, _without
+shooting a gun_--[cries of 'that's it,' and great applause,]--then he
+won't go back. Now, I am going to propose that when you adjourn, it be
+to meet at _Court Square, to-morrow morning at nine o'clock_. As many
+as are in favor of that motion will raise their hands. [A large number
+of hands were raised, but many voices cried out, 'Let's go to-night,'
+'let's pay a visit to the slave-catchers at the Revere House,' etc.
+'Put that question.'] Do you propose to go to the Revere House
+to-night, then show your hands. [Some hands were held up.] It is not a
+vote. We shall meet at _Court Square, at nine o'clock to-morrow
+morning_."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the following Sunday, May 28, in place of the usual Scripture
+passages, I extemporized the following "Lesson for the Day," which on
+Monday appeared in the newspapers:--
+
+"Since last we came together, there has been a man stolen in the city
+of our fathers. It is not the first; it may not be the last. He is now
+in the great slave-pen in the city of Boston. He is there against the
+law of the Commonwealth, which, if I am rightly informed, in such
+cases prohibits the use of State edifices as United States jails."
+
+"A man has been killed by violence. Some say he was killed by his own
+coadjutors: I can easily believe it; there is evidence enough that
+they were greatly frightened. They were not United States soldiers,
+but volunteers from the streets of Boston, who, for their pay, went
+into the Court House to assist in kidnapping a brother man. They were
+so cowardly that they could not use the simple cutlasses they had in
+their hands, but smote right and left, like ignorant and frightened
+ruffians as they are. They may have slain their brother or not--I
+cannot tell."
+
+"Why is Boston in this confusion to-day? The fugitive slave bill
+Commissioner has just now been sowing the wind, that we may reap the
+whirlwind. The old fugitive slave bill Commissioner stands back; he
+has gone to look after his 'personal popularity.' But when
+Commissioner Curtis does not dare appear in this matter, another man
+comes forward, and for the first time seeks to kidnap his man also in
+the city of Boston."
+
+"But he has sown the wind, and we are reaping the whirlwind. All this
+confusion is his work. He knew he was stealing a Man born with the
+same unalienable right to 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of
+happiness,' as himself. He knew the slaveholders had no more right to
+Anthony Burns than to his own daughter. He knew the consequences of
+stealing a man. He knew that there are men in Boston who have not yet
+conquered their prejudices--men who respect the Higher Law of God. He
+knew there would be a meeting at Faneuil Hall, gatherings in the
+streets. He knew there would be violence."
+
+"Edward Greeley Loring, Judge of Probate for the County of Suffolk, in
+the State of Massachusetts, fugitive slave bill Commissioner of the
+United States, before these citizens of Boston, on Ascension Sunday,
+assembled to worship God, I charge you with the death of that man who
+was killed on last Friday night. He was your fellow-servant in
+kidnapping. He dies at your hand. You fired the shot which makes his
+wife a widow, his child an orphan. I charge you with the peril of
+twelve men, arrested for murder, and on trial for their lives. I
+charge you with filling the Court House with one hundred and
+eighty-four hired ruffians of the United States, and alarming not only
+this city for her liberties that are in peril, but stirring up the
+whole Commonwealth of Massachusetts with indignation, which no man
+knows how to stop--which no man can stop. You have done it all!"[221]
+
+[Footnote 221: 2 Parker's Additional, 74, 75, 81, 83.]
+
+June 4th, I preached "of the New Crime against Humanity," and said:--
+
+"Wednesday, the 24th of May, the city was all calm and still. The poor
+black man was at work with one of his own nation, earning an honest
+livelihood. A Judge of Probate, Boston born and Boston bred, a man in
+easy circumstances, a Professor in Harvard College, was sitting in his
+office, and with a single spurt of his pen he dashes off the liberty
+of a man--a citizen of Massachusetts. He kidnaps a man endowed by his
+Creator with the unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit
+of happiness. He leaves the writ with the Marshal, and goes home to
+his family, caresses his children, and enjoys his cigar. The frivolous
+smoke curls round his frivolous head, and at length he lays him down
+to sleep, and, I suppose, such dreams as haunt such heads. But when he
+wakes next morn, all the winds of indignation, wrath, and honest
+scorn, are let loose. Before night, they are blowing all over this
+commonwealth--ay, before another night they have gone to the
+Mississippi, and wherever the lightning messenger can tell the tale.
+So have I read in an old mediaeval legend that one summer afternoon,
+there came up a 'shape, all hot from Tartarus,' from hell below, but
+garmented and garbed to represent a civil-suited man, masked with
+humanity. He walked quiet and decorous through Milan's stately
+streets, and scattered from his hand an invisible dust. It touched the
+walls; it lay on the streets; it ascended to the cross on the
+minster's utmost top. It went down to the beggar's den. Peacefully he
+walked through the streets, vanished and went home. But the next
+morning, the pestilence was in Milan, and ere a week had sped half her
+population were in their graves; and half the other half, crying that
+hell was clutching at their hearts, fled from the reeking City of the
+Plague!"
+
+"I have studied the records of crime--it is a part of my ministry. I
+do not find that any College Professor has ever been hanged for murder
+in all the Anglo-Saxon family of men, till Harvard College had that
+solitary shame. Is not that enough? Now she is the first to have a
+Professor that kidnaps men. 'The Athens of America' furnished both!
+
+"I can understand how a man commits a crime of passion, or
+covetousness, or rage, nay, of revenge, or of ambition. But for a man
+in Boston, with no passion, no covetousness, no rage, with no ambition
+nor revenge, to steal a poor negro, to send him into bondage,--I
+cannot comprehend the fact. I can understand the consciousness of a
+lion, not a kidnapper's heart."
+
+"But there is another court. The Empsons and the Dudleys have been
+summoned there before: Jeffreys and Scroggs, the Kanes, and the
+Curtises, and the Lorings, must one day travel the same unwelcome
+road. Imagine the scene after man's mythological way. 'Edward, where
+is thy brother, Anthony?' 'I know not; am I my brother's keeper,
+Lord?' 'Edward, where is thy brother, Anthony?' 'Oh, Lord, he was
+friendless, and so I smote him; he was poor, and I starved him of more
+than life. He owned nothing but his African body. I took that away
+from him, and gave it to another man!'
+
+"Then listen to the voice of the Crucified--'Did I not tell thee, when
+on earth, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy understanding
+and thy heart?"' 'But I thought thy kingdom was not of this world.'
+
+"'Did I not tell thee that thou shouldst love thy neighbor as thyself?
+Where is Anthony, thy brother? I was a stranger, and you sought my
+life; naked, and you rent away my skin; in prison, and you delivered
+me to the tormentors--fate far worse than death. Inasmuch as you did
+it to Anthony Burns, you did it unto me.'"[222]
+
+[Footnote 222: Parker's Additional, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gentlemen, I suppose the honorable Judge had the last three addresses
+in his mind while concocting his charge to the Grand-Jury which
+refused to find a bill. I infer this partly from what took place in
+the room of the next Grand-Jury which found this indictment, and
+partly also from another source which you will look at for a moment.
+
+I preach on Sundays in the Music Hall, which is owned by a Corporation
+who rent it to the 28th Congregational Society for their religious
+meetings. Mr. Charles P. Curtis, father-in-law of the Hon. Judge
+Curtis, and step-brother of Commissioner Loring, and a more distant
+relation but intimate friend of George T. Curtis, was then president
+of that Corporation, and one of its directors. At a meeting of the
+corporation, held presently after the kidnapping of Mr. Burns, Mr.
+Charles P. Curtis and his family endeavored to procure a vote of the
+Corporation to instruct the directors "to terminate the lease of the
+28th Congregational Society as soon as it can be legally done, and not
+to renew it." Mr. Charles P. Curtis managed this matter clandestinely,
+but not with his usual adroitness, for at the meeting he disclosed the
+cause of his act,--that _Mr. Parker had called his brother a
+murderer_, probably referring to the passage just read from the
+"Lesson for the Day." But he took nothing by that motion.[223]
+
+[Footnote 223: See the communications of Messrs. Chas. P. Curtis and
+Thomas B. Curtis, in the Boston Daily Advertiser of June, 1854; and
+the other articles setting forth the facts of the case.]
+
+What influence this private and familistic disposition had in framing
+the Judge's charge, I leave it for you and the People of America to
+determine. You also can conjecture whether it had any effect on Mr.
+Greenough, the other son-in-law of Mr. Charles P. Curtis, who refused
+to return my salutation, and who, "by a miracle," was put on the new
+Grand-Jury after the old one was discharged, and then was so "very
+anxious to procure an indictment" against me. I leave all that with
+you. You can easily appreciate the efforts made to silence not only my
+Sunday preaching, but also the magnificent eloquence of Wendell
+Phillips; yes, to choke all generous speech, in order that kidnappers
+might pursue their vocation with none to molest or make them afraid.
+
+But, Gentlemen, I fear you do not yet quite understand the arrogance
+of our Southern masters, and the fear and hatred they bear towards all
+who dare speak a word in behalf of the Rights of outraged Humanity.
+The gag-law of Congress which silenced the House of Representatives
+till John Quincy Adams, that noble son of a noble sire, burst through
+the Southern chain; the violation of the United States mails to detect
+"incendiary publications;" the torturing of men and women for an
+opinion against Slavery--all these are notorious; but they and all
+that I have yet stated of the action of the Federal Courts in the
+fugitive slave bill cases, with the "opinions" of Northern Judges
+already mentioned, do not fill up the cup of bitterness and poison
+which is to be poured down our throats. Let me, therefore, here give
+you one supplementary piece of evidence to prove how intensely the
+South hates the Northern Freedom of Speech. I purposely select this
+case from a period when Southern arrogance and Northern servility were
+far less infamous than now.
+
+About twenty years ago Mr. R.G. Williams of New York published this
+sentence in a newspaper called the Emancipator,--"God commands and all
+nature cries out, that man should not be held as property. The system
+of making men property has plunged 2,250,000 of our fellow countrymen
+into the deepest physical and moral degradation, and they are every
+moment sinking deeper."
+
+For this he was indicted by a Grand-Jury of the State of Alabama, and
+the Governor of that State made a demand on the Executive of New York
+insisting that Mr. Williams should be delivered up to take his trial
+in Alabama--a State where he had never been! But the New York
+Governor, after consulting with his law-advisers, did not come to the
+conclusion that it was consistent with the public policy of New York
+to "interfere actively" and promote Slavery in Alabama. _So he refused
+to deliver up Mr. Williams!_[224]
+
+[Footnote 224: Med Case, p. 25.]
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, before you can convict me of the crime charged,
+you must ask three several sets of questions, and be satisfied of all
+these things which I will now set forth.
+
+I. THE QUESTION OF FACT. Did I do the deed charged, and obstruct
+Marshal Freeman while in the peace of the United States, and
+discharging his official duty? This is a quite complicated question.
+Here are the several parts of it:--
+
+1. Was there any illegal obstruction or opposition at all made to the
+Marshal? This is not clear. True, an attack was made on the doors and
+windows of the Court House, but that is not necessarily an attack on
+the Marshal or his premises. He has a right in certain rooms of the
+Court House, and this he has in virtue of a lease. He has also a right
+to use the passage-ways of the house, in common with other persons and
+the People in general. His rights as Tenant are subject to the terms
+of his lease and to the law which determines the relation of Tenant
+and Landlord. Marshal Freeman as tenant has no more rights than
+Freeman Marshal, or John Doe, or Rachel Roe would have under the same
+circumstances. Of course he had a legal right to defend himself if
+attacked, and to close his own doors, bar and fortify the premises he
+rented against the illegal violence of others. But neither his lease
+nor the laws of the land authorized him to close the other doors, or
+to obstruct the passages, no more than to obstruct the Square or the
+Street. No lease, no law gave him that right.
+
+Now there have been three secret examinations of witnesses relative to
+this assault, before three Grand-Juries. No evidence has been offered
+which shows _that any attack was made on the premises of the Marshal_.
+The Supreme Court of Massachusetts was in session at the moment the
+attack was made on the Court House; the venerable Chief Justice was on
+the Bench; the jury had retired to consider the capital case then
+pending, and were expected to return with their verdict. The People
+had a right in the court-room, a right in the passage-ways and doors
+which lead thither. That court had not ordered the room to be cleared
+or the doors to be shut. Marshal Freeman closed the outer doors of the
+Court House, and thus debarred men of their right to enter a
+Massachusetts Court of Justice solemnly deciding a capital case. You
+are to consider whether an attack on the outer doors of the Court
+House, is an illegal attack on the Marshal who had shut those doors
+without any legal authority. If you decide this point as the
+government wishes, then you will proceed to the next question.
+
+2. Did I actually obstruct him? If not, then the inquiry stops here.
+You answer "not guilty." But if I did, then it is worth while to
+consider how I obstructed him. (1.) Was it by a physical act, by
+material force; or, (2.) by a metaphysical act, immaterial or
+spiritual force--a word, thought, a feeling, a wish, approbation,
+assent, consent, "evincing an express liking."
+
+3. Was Marshal Freeman, at the time of the obstruction, in the peace
+of the United States, or was he himself violating the law thereof? For
+if he were violating the law and thereby injuring some other man, and
+I obstructed him in that injury, then I am free from all legal guilt,
+and did a citizen's duty in obstructing his illegal conduct. Now it
+appears that he was kidnapping and stealing Anthony Burns for the
+purpose of making him the slave of one Suttle of Virginia, who wished
+to sell him and acquire money thereby; and that Mr. Freeman did this
+at the instigation of Commissioner Loring who was entitled to receive
+ten dollars if he enslaved Mr. Burns, and five only for setting him
+free. It appears also that Marshal Freeman was to receive large,
+official money for this kidnapping, and such honor as this
+Administration, and the Hunker newspapers, and lower law divines can
+bestow.
+
+Now you are to consider whether a man so doing was in the peace of the
+United States. He professes to have acted under the fugitive slave
+bill which authorizes him to seize, kidnap, steal, imprison, and carry
+off any person whatsoever, on the oath of any slaveholder who has
+fortified himself with a piece of paper of a certain form and tenor
+from any court of slaveholders in the slave States. Is that bill
+Constitutional? The Constitution of the United States is the People's
+Power of Attorney by which they authorize certain servants, called
+Legislative, Judicial, and Executive officers, to do certain matters
+and things in a certain way, but prohibit them from doing in the name
+of the People, any thing except those things specified, or those in
+any but the way pointed out. Does the fugitive slave bill attempt
+those things and only those, in the way provided for in that Power of
+Attorney; or other things, or in a different way?
+
+To determine this compound question you will look (1.) at the ultimate
+Purpose of the Constitution, the End which the People wanted to
+attain; and (2.) at the provisional Means, the method by which they
+proposed to reach it. Here of course the Purpose is more important
+than the Means. The Preamble to this Power of Attorney clearly sets
+forth this Purpose aimed at: here it is, "to form a more perfect
+Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for
+the Common Defence, promote the General Welfare, and secure the
+Blessings of Liberty." Is the fugitive slave bill a Measure tending to
+that End?
+
+To answer that question you are to consult your own mind and
+conscience. You are not to take the opinion of the Court. For (1.) it
+would probably be their purchased _official_ opinion which the
+government pays for, and so is of no value whatever; or (2.) if it be
+their _personal_ opinion, from what Mr. Sprague and Mr. Curtis have
+said and done before, you know that their personal opinion in the
+matter would be of no value whatsoever. To me it is very plain that
+kidnapping a man in Boston and making him a slave, is not the way to
+form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic
+Tranquillity, provide for the Common Defence, promote the General
+Welfare, or secure the Blessings of Liberty. But you are to judge for
+yourselves. If you think the fugitive slave bill not a Means towards
+that End, which this national Power of Attorney proposes, then you
+will think it is unconstitutional, that Mr. Freeman was not in the
+peace of the United States, but acting against it; and then it was the
+Right of every citizen to obstruct his illegal wickedness and might be
+the Duty of some.
+
+But not only does the fugitive slave bill contravene and oppose the
+Purpose of the Constitution, it also transcends the Means which that
+Power of Attorney declares the People's agents shall make use of, and
+whereto it absolutely restricts them. The Constitution prescribes that
+"the Judicial power shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such
+inferior courts the Congress may ordain and establish." "The Judges
+... shall hold their offices during good behavior, and shall ...
+receive a compensation which shall not be diminished during their
+continuance in office." Now the Commissioner who kidnaps a man and
+declares him a slave, exercises _judicial power_. Commissioner Loring
+himself confesses it, in his Remonstrance against being removed from
+the office of Judge of Probate. You are to consider whether a
+Commissioner appointed by the Judge of the Court as a ministerial
+officer to take "bail and affidavits," and paid twice as much for
+stealing a victim as for setting free a man, is either such a
+"supreme" or such an "inferior court" as the Constitution vests the
+"judicial powers" in. If not, then the fugitive slave bill is
+unconstitutional because it does not use the Means which the People's
+Power of Attorney points out. Of course the inquiry stops at this
+point, and you return "not guilty."
+
+4. It is claimed that the fugitive slave bill is sustained by this
+clause in the Constitution, "No person held to service or labor in one
+State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in
+consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such
+service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to
+whom such service or labor may be due."[225] But if you try the
+fugitive slave bill by this rule, you must settle two questions. (1.)
+Who is meant by persons "held to service or labor?" and (2.) by whom
+shall they "be delivered up on claim?" Let us begin with the first.
+
+[Footnote 225: Art. iv. Sec. 2, P. 2.]
+
+(1.) Who are the persons "held to service or labor?" The preamble to
+this People's Power of Attorney, sets forth the matters and things
+which the People's agents are empowered to achieve. "They are to form
+a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity,
+provide for the common Defence, promote the General Welfare and secure
+the Blessings of Liberty." Now the fugitive-from-labor clause must be
+interpreted in part by the light of the Purpose of the Constitution.
+So it would appear that this Power of Attorney, requires the delivery
+of only such as are _justly_ "held to service or labor;" and only to
+those men to whom this "service" is _justly_ "due." Surely, it would
+be a monstrous act to deliver up to his master a person _unjustly_
+"held to service or labor," or one justly held to those to whom his
+service was not _justly_ due: it would be as bad to deliver up the
+_wrong fugitive_, as to deliver the right fugitive to the _wrong
+claimant_: it would be also monstrous to suppose that the People of
+the United States, with the Declaration of Independence in their
+memory, should empower their attorneys to deliver up a man _unjustly_
+held to service or labor, and that too by the very instrument which
+directs them to "establish Justice" and "secure the Blessings of
+Liberty." Whatsoever interpretation was at the time put on the
+Constitution, whatsoever the People thereby intended, two things are
+plain--namely, (1.) that the language implies only such as are
+_justly_ held to service, or labor, and (2.) that the People had no
+moral right to deliver up any except such as were _justly_ held, and
+had _unjustly_ escaped.
+
+If the opposite interpretation be accepted, and that clause be taken
+without restrictions, then see what will follow. South Carolina has
+already made a law by which she imprisons all _colored_ citizens of
+the free States who are found on her soil. Let us suppose she makes a
+new law for reducing to perpetual slavery all the white citizens of
+Massachusetts whom she finds on her soil; that a Boston vessel with
+500 Boston men and women--sailing for California,--is wrecked on her
+inhospitable coast, and those persons are all seized and reduced to
+slavery; but some ten or twenty of the most resolute escape from the
+"service or labor" to which they are held, and return to their
+business in Boston. But their "owners" come in pursuit; the kidnapping
+Commissioners, Curtis and Loring, with the help of the rest of the
+family of men-stealers, arrest them under the fugitive slave bill. On
+the mock trial, it is shown by the kidnapper that they were legally
+"held to service or labor," and according to the constitution "shall
+be delivered up;" that this enslavement is perfectly "legal" in South
+Carolina; and the constitution says that no "law or regulation" of
+Massachusetts shall set them free. They must go with Sims and Burns.
+Gentlemen, you see where you are going, if you allow the Constitution
+of parchment to override the Constitution of Justice.
+
+(2.) By whom shall they "be delivered up?" Either by the Federal
+Government, or else by the Government of the State into which they
+have escaped. Now the Federal Government has no constitutional power,
+except what the Constitution gives it. Gentlemen, there is not a line
+in that Power of Attorney by which the People authorize the Federal
+Government to make a man a slave in Massachusetts or anywhere else. I
+know the Government has done it, as the British Government levied
+ship-money, and put men to the rack, but it is against the
+Constitution of the land.
+
+Gentlemen, you will settle these constitutional questions according to
+your conscience, not mine. But if the fugitive slave bill demands the
+rendition of men from whom service is not _justly_ due--due by the Law
+of God, or if the Government unconstitutionally aims to do what the
+Constitution gave it no right to do--then the Marshal was not "in the
+peace of the United States." Your inquiry stops at this point.
+
+5. But, if satisfied on all which relates to this question of his
+being in the peace of the United States, you are next to inquire if
+Mr. Freeman, at the time of the obstruction was "Marshal of the United
+States," and "in the due and lawful discharge of his duties as such
+officer." There is no doubt that he was Marshal; but there may be a
+doubt that he was in the "lawful discharge of his duties as such
+officer." Omitting what I first said, (I. 1.) see what you must
+determine in order to make this clear.
+
+(1.) Was Commissioner Loring, who issued the warrant to kidnap Mr.
+Burns, legally qualified to do that act. Gentlemen, there is no record
+of his appointment and qualification by the form of an oath. No
+evidence has been adduced to this point. Mr. Loring says he was duly
+appointed and qualified. There is no written line, no other word of
+mouth to prove it.
+
+(2.) Admitting that Mr. Loring had the legal authority to command Mr.
+Freeman to steal Mr. Burns, it appears that stealing was done
+feloniously. The Marshal's guard seized him on the charge of
+Burglary--a false charge. You are to consider whether Mr. Freeman had
+legally taken possession of his victim.
+
+(3.) If satisfied thus far, you are to inquire if he held him legally.
+It seems he was imprisoned in a public building of Massachusetts,
+which was by him used as a jail for the purpose of keeping a man
+claimed as a fugitive slave, contrary to the express words of a
+regular and constitutional statute of Massachusetts.
+
+If you find that Mr. Freeman was not in the lawful discharge of his
+duties as Marshal, then the inquiry stops here, and you return a
+verdict of "not guilty."
+
+But if you are convinced that an obstruction was made against a
+Marshal in the peace of the United States, and in the legal discharge
+of a legal, constitutional duty, then you settle the question of Fact
+against me, and proceed to the next point.
+
+II. _The Question of Law._
+
+1. Is there a law of the United States punishing this deed of mine?
+The answer will depend partly on the kind of opposition or obstruction
+which I made. If you find (1.) that I obstructed him, while in the
+legal discharge of his legal duties, with physical force, violence,
+then there is a law, clear and unmistakable, forbidding and punishing
+that offence. But if you find (2.) that I obstructed him with only
+metaphysical force,--"words," "thoughts," "feelings," "wishes,"
+"consent," "assent," "evincing an express liking," "or approbation,"
+then it may be doubtful to you whether the law of 1790, or any other
+law of the United States forbids that.
+
+2. But if you find there is such a law, punishing such metaphysical
+resistance--and the court by the charge to the Grand-Jury seems
+plainly of that opinion, which is fortified by the authority of Chief
+Justice Kelyng and Judge Chase, two impeached judges--then you will
+consider whether that law is constitutional. And here you will look at
+two things, (1.) The Purpose of the Constitution already set forth;
+and (2.) at the Means provided for by that Power of Attorney. For if
+the agents of the People--legislative, judiciary, or executive--have
+exceeded their delegated authority, then their act is invalid and
+binding on no man. If I, in writing, authorize my special agent to
+sell my Ink-stand for a dollar, I am bound by his act in obedience
+thereto. But if on that warrant he sells my Writing-Desk for that sum,
+I am not bound by his unauthorized act. Now I think there will be
+grave doubts, whether any law, which with fine and imprisonment
+punishes such words, thoughts, feelings, consent, assent, "express
+liking," approbation, is warranted by the People's Power of Attorney
+to their agents. The opinion of the Court on such a matter, Gentlemen,
+I think is worth as much as Bacon's opinion in favor of the rack; or
+Jones's opinion that Charles I. had the right to imprison members of
+Parliament for words spoken in the Commons' Debate; or the opinion of
+the ten judges that Ship-money was lawful; or of the two chief
+justices that the Seven Bishops' Petition to James II. was high
+treason; or Thurlow's opinion that a jury is the natural enemy of the
+King. Gentlemen, I think it is worth nothing at all. But if you think
+otherwise, you have still to ask:--
+
+3. Is this law just? That is does it coincide with the Law of God, the
+Constitution of the Universe? There your own conscience must decide.
+Mr. Curtis has told you there is no Morality but Legality, no standard
+of Right and Wrong but the Statute, your only light comes from this
+printed page, "Statutes of the United States," and through these
+sheepskin covers. Gentlemen, if your conscience is also bound in
+sheepskin you will think as these Honorable Judges, and recognize only
+Judge Curtis's "Standard of Morality,"--no Higher Law. But even if you
+thus dispose of the Question of Law, there will yet remain the last
+part of your function.
+
+III. _The Question of the Application of the Law to the Fact._ To
+determine this Question you are to ask:--
+
+1. Does the law itself, the act of 1790, apply to such acts, that is,
+to such words, thoughts, wishes, feelings, consent, assent,
+approbation, express liking, and punish them with fine and
+imprisonment? If not, the consideration ends: but if it does, you will
+next ask:--
+
+2. Is it according to the Constitution of the United States--its
+Purpose, its Means--thus to punish such acts? If not satisfied
+thereof, you stop there; but if you accept Judge Curtis's opinion then
+you will next inquire:--
+
+3. Is it expedient in this particular case to apply this law, under
+the circumstances, to this man, and punish him with fine and
+imprisonment? If you say "yes" you will then proceed to the last part
+of the whole investigation, and will ask:--
+
+4. Is it just and right; that is according to the Natural Law of God,
+the Constitution of the Universe? Here you will consider several
+things.
+
+(1.) What was the Marshal legally, constitutionally, and justly doing
+at the time he was obstructed? He was stealing, kidnapping, and
+detaining an innocent man, Anthony Burns, with the intention of
+depriving him of what the Declaration of Independence calls his
+natural and unalienable Right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
+Mr. Burns had done no wrong or injury to any one--but simply came to
+Massachusetts, to possess and enjoy these natural rights. Marshal
+Freeman had seized him on the false charge of burglary, had chained
+him in a dungeon contrary to Massachusetts law,--there were irons on
+his hands.
+
+It is said he was a slave: now a slave is a person whom some one has
+stolen from himself, and by force keeps from his natural rights. Mr.
+Burns sought to rescue himself from the thieves who held him; Marshal
+Freeman took the thieves' part.
+
+(2.) Was there any effectual mode of securing to Mr. Burns his natural
+and unalienable Right except the mode of forcible rescue? Gentlemen of
+the Jury, it is very clear there was none at all. The laws of
+Massachusetts were of no avail. Your own Supreme Court, which in 1832,
+at the instigation of Mr. Charles P. Curtis, sent a little boy not
+fourteen years old into Cuban Slavery to gratify a slave-hunting West
+Indian, in 1851, had voluntarily put its neck under the Southern
+chain. Your Chief Justice, who acquired such honorable distinction in
+1836 by setting free the little girl Med from the hands of the
+Curtises, in 1851 spit in the face of Massachusetts, and spurned her
+laws with his judicial foot. It was plain that Commissioner Loring did
+not design to allow his victim a fair trial--for he had already
+prejudged the case; he advised Mr. Phillips "to make no defence, put
+no 'obstruction' in the way of the man's going back, as he probably
+will," and, before hearing the defence sought to settle the matter by
+a sale of Mr. Burns.
+
+Gentlemen, the result showed there was no chance of what the United
+States law reckons justice being done in the case--for Commissioner
+Loring not only decided the fate of Mr. Burns against law, and against
+evidence, but communicated his decision to the slave-hunters nearly
+twenty-four hours before he announced it in open court! No, Gentlemen,
+when a man claimed as a fugitive is brought before either of these two
+members of this family of kidnappers--who run now in couples, hunting
+men and seeking whom they may devour--there is no hope for him: it is
+only a mock-trial, worse than the Star-chamber inquisition of the
+Stuart kings. Place no "obstructions in the way of the man's going
+back," said the mildest of the two, "as he probably will." Over that
+door, historic and actual, as over that other, but fabulous, gate of
+Hell should be written:--
+
+     "Through me they go to the city of sorrow;
+     Through me they go to endless agony;
+     Through me they go among the nations lost:
+     Leave every hope, all ye that enter here!"
+
+The only hope of freedom for Mr. Burns lay in the limbs of the People!
+Anarchy afforded him the only chance of Justice.
+
+(3.) Did they who it is alleged made the attack on the Marshal, or
+they who it is said instigated them to the attack, do it from any
+wicked, unjust, or selfish motive? Nobody pretends it--Gentlemen, we
+had much to lose--ease, honor--for with many persons in Boston it is a
+disgrace to favor the unalienable Rights of man, as at Rome to read
+the Bible, or at Damascus to be a Christian--ease, honor, money,
+liberty--if this Court have its way,--nay, life itself; for one of the
+family which preserves the Union by kidnapping men, counts it a
+capital crime to rescue a victim from their hands, and Mr. Hallett,
+when only a democratic expectant of office, declared "if it only
+resists law and obstructs its officers ... it is treason ... and he
+who risks it must risk hanging for it." No, Gentlemen, I had much to
+lose by my words. I had nothing to gain. Nothing I mean but the
+satisfaction of doing my duty to Myself, my Brother, and my God. And
+tried by Judge Sprague's precept, "Obey both," that is nothing; or by
+Judge Curtis's "Standard of Morality" it is a crime; and according to
+his brother it is "Treason;" and according to, I know not how many
+ministers of commerce, it is "infidelity"--"treasonable, damnable
+doctrine."
+
+No, Gentlemen, no selfish motive could move me to such conduct. The
+voice of Duty was terribly clear: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto
+the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."
+
+Put all these things together, Gentlemen. Remember there is a duty of
+the strong to help the weak: that all men have a common interest in
+the common duty to keep the Eternal Law of Justice; remember we are
+all of us to appear one day before the Court which is of purer eyes
+than to love iniquity. Ask what says Conscience--what says God. Then
+decide as you must decide.
+
+The eyes of the nation are upon you. The Judges of this Honorable
+Court hold their office in Petty Serjeantry on condition of wresting
+the Laws and Constitution to the support of the fugitive slave bill,
+and of preventing, as far as possible, all noble thought which opposes
+the establishment of Despotism, now so rapidly encroaching upon our
+once Free Soil: they hold by this Petty Serjeantry--a menial service
+not mentioned in any book even of "Jocular Tenures."
+
+If you could find me guilty--it is not possible, only conceivable with
+a contradiction,--you would delight the Slave Power--Atchison,
+Cushing, Stringfellow, and their Northern and Southern crew--for to
+them I seem identified with New England Freedom of Speech. "Aha," they
+will neigh and snicker out, "Judge Curtis has got the North under his
+feet! Mr. Webster knew what he was about when putting him in place!"
+
+English is the only tongue in which Freedom can speak her political or
+religious word. Shall that tongue be silenced; tied in Faneuil Hall;
+torn out by a Slave-hunter? The Stamp Act only taxed commercial and
+legal documents; the fugitive slave bill makes our words misdemeanors.
+The Revenue Act did but lay a tax on tea, three-pence only on a pound:
+the Slave-hunters' act taxes our thoughts as a crime. The Boston Port
+Bill but closed our harbor, we could get in at Salem; but the Judge's
+Charge shuts up the mouth of all New England, not a word against
+man-hunting but is a "crime,"--the New Testament is full of
+"misdemeanors." Andros only took away the Charter of Massachusetts;
+Judge Curtis's "law" is a _quo warranto_ against Humanity itself.
+"Perfidious General Gage" took away the arms of Boston; Judge Curtis
+_charges_ upon our Soul; he would wring all religion out of you,--no
+"Standard of Morality" above the fugitive slave bill; you must not,
+even to God in your prayers, evince "an express liking" for the
+deliverance of an innocent man whom his family seek to transform to a
+beast of burthen and then sacrifice to the American Moloch.
+
+Decide according to your own Conscience, Gentlemen, not after mine.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, I must bring this defence to a close. Already
+it is too long for your patience, though far too short for the mighty
+interest at stake, for it is the Freedom of a Nation which you are to
+decide upon. I have shown you the aim and purposes of the Slave
+Power--to make this vast Continent one huge Despotism, a House of
+Bondage for African Americans, a House of Bondage also for Saxon
+Americans. I have pointed out the course of Despotism in Monarchic
+England; you have seen how there the Tyrants directly made wicked
+laws, or when that resource failed, how they reached indirectly after
+their End, and appointed officers to pervert the law, to ruin the
+people. You remember how the King appointed base men as Attorneys and
+Judges, and how wickedly they used their position and their power,
+scorning alike the law of God and the welfare of Man. "The Judges in
+their itinerant Circuits," says an old historian,[226] "the more to
+enslave the people to obedience, being to speak of the king, would
+give him sacred titles as if their advancement to high places must
+necessarily be laid upon the foundation of the People's debasement."
+You have not forgotten Saunders, Kelyng, and Jeffreys and Scroggs;
+Sibthorpe and Mainwaring you will remember for ever,--denouncing
+"eternal damnation" on such as refused the illegal tax of Charles I.
+or evinced an express disapprobation of his tyranny.
+
+[Footnote 226: In 2 Kennett, 753.]
+
+Gentlemen, you recollect how the rights of the jury were broken
+down,--how jurors were threatened with trial for perjury, insulted,
+fined, and imprisoned, because they would be faithful to the Law and
+their Conscience. You remember how the tyrannical king clutched at the
+People's purse and their person too, and smote at all freedom of
+speech, while the purchased Judges were always ready, the tools of
+Despotism. But you know what it all came to--Justice could not enter
+upon the law through the doors of Westminster Hall; so she tried it at
+Naseby and Worcester and with her "Invincible Ironsides" took
+possession by means of pike and gun. Charles I. laid his guilty head
+on the block; James II. only escaped the same fate by timely flight.
+If Courts will not decree Justice, then Civil War will, for it must be
+done, and a battle becomes a "Crowning Mercy."
+
+Gentlemen, I have shown you what the Slave Power of America aims
+at,--a Despotism which is worse for this age than the Stuarts' tyranny
+for that time. You see its successive steps of encroachment. Behold
+what it has done within ten years. It has made Slavery perpetual in
+Florida; has annexed Texas, a Slave State as big as the kingdom of
+France; has fought the Mexican War, with Northern money, and spread
+bondage over Utah, New Mexico, and California; it has given Texas ten
+millions of Northern dollars to help Slavery withal; it has passed the
+fugitive slave bill and kidnapped men in the West, in the Middle
+States, and even in our own New England; it has given ten millions of
+dollars for a little strip of worthless land, the Mesilla valley,
+whereon to make a Slave Railroad and carry bondage from the Atlantic
+to the Pacific; it has repealed the Prohibition of Slavery, and spread
+the mildew of the South all over Kansas and Nebraska. Ask your
+capitalists, who have bought Missouri lands and railroads, how their
+stock looks just now; not only your Liberty but even their Money is in
+peril. You know the boast of Mr. Toombs. Gentlemen, you know what the
+United States Courts have done--with poisoned weapons they have struck
+deadly blows at Freedom. You know Sharkey and Grier and Kane. You
+recollect the conduct of Kidnappers' Courts at Milwaukie, Sandusky,
+Cincinnati, Philadelphia--in the Hall of Independence. But why need I
+wander so far? Alas! you know too well what has been done in Boston,
+our own Boston, the grave of Puritan piety. You remember the Union
+Meeting, Ellen Craft, Sims, chains around the Court House, the Judges
+crawling under, soldiers in the street, drunk, smiting at the
+citizens; you do not forget Anthony Burns, the Marshal's guard, the
+loaded cannon in place of Justice, soldiers again in the streets
+smiting at and wounding the citizens. You recollect all this--the 19th
+of April, 1851, Boston delivering an innocent man at Savannah to be a
+slave for ever, and that day scourged in his jail while the hirelings
+who enthralled him were feasted at their Inn;--Anniversary week last
+year--a Boston Judge of Probate, the appointed guardian of orphans,
+kidnapping a poor and friendless man! You cannot forget these things,
+no, never!
+
+You know who did all this: a single family--the Honorable Judge
+Curtis, with his kinsfolk and friends, himself most subtly active with
+all his force throughout this work. When Mr. Webster prostituted
+himself to the Slave Power this family went out and pimped for him in
+the streets; they paraded in the newspapers, at the Revere House, and
+in public letters; they beckoned and made signs at Faneuil Hall. That
+crime of Sodom brought Daniel Webster to his grave at Marshfield, a
+mighty warning not to despise the Law of the Infinite God; but that
+sin of Gomorrah, it put the Hon. Benj. R. Curtis on this Bench; gave
+him his judicial power to construct his "law," construct his "jury,"
+to indict and try me. Try me! No, Gentlemen, it is you, your wives and
+your children, who are up for swift condemnation this day. Will you
+wait, will you add sin to sin, till God shall rain fire and brimstone
+on your heads, and a Dead Sea shall cover the place once so green and
+blossoming with American Liberty? Decide your own fate. When the
+Judges are false let the Juries be faithful, and we have "a crowning
+mercy" without cannon, and the cause of Justice is secure. For "when
+wicked men seem nearest to their hopes, the godly man is furthest from
+his fears."
+
+You know my "offence," Gentlemen. I have confessed more than the
+government could prove. You are the "Country:" the Nation by twelve
+Delegates is present here to-day. In the name of America, of mankind,
+you are to judge of the Law, the Fact, and the Application of the Law
+to the Fact. You are to decide whether you will spread Slavery and the
+Consequences of Slavery all over the North; whether Boston, New
+England, all the North, shall kidnap other Ellen Crafts, other Thomas
+Sims, other Anthony Burns,--whether Sharkey and Grier, and Kane and
+Curtis, shall be Tyrants over you--forbidding all Freedom of Speech:
+or whether Right and Justice, the Christian Religion, the natural
+service of the Infinite God shall bless our wide land with the
+numberless Beatitudes of Humanity. Should you command me to be fined
+and go to jail, I should take it very cheerfully, counting it more
+honor to be inside of a jail in the austere silence of my dungeon,
+rather than outside of it, with a faithless Jury, guilty of such
+treason to their Country and their God. But, forgive me! you cannot
+commit such a crime against Humanity. Pardon the monstrous figure of
+my speech,--it is only conceivable, not also possible. These Judges
+could do it--their speeches, their actions, that Charge, this
+Indictment, proves all that--but you cannot;--not you. You are the
+Representatives of the People, the Country, not idiotic in Conscience
+and the Affections.
+
+Gentlemen, I am a minister of Religion. It is my function to teach
+what is absolutely true and absolutely right. I am the servant of no
+sect,--how old soever, venerable and widely spread. I claim the same
+religious Rights with Luther and Calvin, with Budha and Mohammed; yes,
+with Moses and Jesus,--the unalienable Right to serve the God of
+Nature in my own way. I preach the Religion which belongs to Human
+Nature, as I understand it, which the Infinite God imperishably writes
+thereon,--Natural Piety, love of the infinitely perfect God, Natural
+Morality, the keeping of every law He has written on the body and in
+the soul of man, especially by loving and serving his creatures. Many
+wrong things I doubtless do, for which I must ask the forgiveness of
+mankind. But do you suppose I can keep the fugitive slave bill, obey
+these Judges, and kidnap my own Parishioners? It is no part of my
+"Christianity" to "send the mother that bore me into eternal bondage."
+Do you think I can suffer Commissioner Curtis and Commissioner Loring
+to steal my friends,--out of my meeting-house? Gentlemen, when God
+bids me do right and this Court bids me do wrong, I shall not pretend
+to "obey both." I am willing enough to suffer all that you will ever
+lay on me. But I will not do such a wrong, nor allow such wickedness
+to be done--so help me God! How could I teach Truth, Justice, Piety,
+if I stole men; if I allowed Saunders, Jeffreys, Scroggs, or Sharkey,
+Grier, Kane, or in one word, Curtis, to steal them? I love my Country,
+my kindred of Humanity; I love my God, Father and Mother of the white
+man and the black; and am I to suffer the Liberty of America to be
+trod under the hoof of Slaveholders, Slave-drivers; yes, of the
+judicial slaves of slaveholders' slave-drivers? I was neither born nor
+bred for that. I drew my first breath in a little town not far off, a
+poor little town where the farmers and mechanics first unsheathed that
+Revolutionary sword which, after eight years of hewing, clove asunder
+the Gordian knot that bound America to the British yoke. One raw
+morning in spring--it will be eighty years the 19th of this
+month--Hancock and Adams, the Moses and Aaron of that Great
+Deliverance, were both at Lexington; they also had "obstructed an
+officer" with brave words. British soldiers, a thousand strong, came
+to seize them and carry them over sea for trial, and so nip the bud of
+Freedom auspiciously opening in that early spring. The town militia
+came together before daylight "for training." A great, tall man, with
+a large head and a high, wide brow, their Captain,--one who "had seen
+service,"--marshalled them into line, numbering but seventy, and bad
+"every man load his piece with powder and ball." "I will order the
+first man shot that runs away," said he, when some faltered; "Don't
+fire unless fired upon, but if they want to have a war,--let it begin
+here." Gentlemen, you know what followed: those farmers and mechanics
+"fired the shot heard round the world." A little monument covers the
+bones of such as before had pledged their fortune and their sacred
+honor to the Freedom of America, and that day gave it also their
+lives. I was born in that little town, and bred up amid the memories
+of that day. When a boy my mother lifted me up, one Sunday, in her
+religious, patriotic arms, and held me while I read the first
+monumental line I ever saw:--
+
+     "SACRED TO LIBERTY AND THE RIGHTS OF MANKIND."
+
+Since then I have studied the memorial marbles of Greece and Rome in
+many an ancient town; nay, on Egyptian Obelisks have read what was
+written before the Eternal roused up Moses to lead Israel out of
+Egypt, but no chiselled stone has ever stirred me to such emotions as
+those rustic names of men who fell
+
+     "IN THE SACRED CAUSE OF GOD AND THEIR COUNTRY."
+
+Gentlemen, the Spirit of Liberty, the Love of Justice, was early
+fanned into a flame in my boyish heart. That monument covers the bones
+of my own kinsfolk; it was their blood which reddened the long, green
+grass at Lexington. It is my own name which stands chiselled on that
+stone; the tall Captain who marshalled his fellow farmers and
+mechanics into stern array and spoke such brave and dangerous words as
+opened the War of American Independence,--the last to leave the
+field,--was my father's father. I learned to read out of his Bible,
+and with a musket he that day captured from the foe, I learned also
+another religious lesson, that
+
+     "REBELLION TO TYRANTS IS OBEDIENCE TO GOD."
+
+I keep them both, "Sacred to Liberty and the Rights of Mankind," to
+use them both "In the Sacred Cause of God and my Country."
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, and you my fellow-countrymen of the North, I
+leave the matter with you. Say "Guilty!" You cannot do it. "Not
+Guilty." I know you will, for you remember there is another Court, not
+of fugitive slave bill law, where we shall all be tried by the Justice
+of the Infinite God. Hearken to the last verdict, "INASMUCH AS YE HAVE
+DONE IT UNTO ONE OF THE LEAST OF THESE MY BRETHREN, YE HAVE DONE IT
+UNTO ME."
+
+
+END.
+
+
+
+
+ERRATA.
+
+
+Page 19, line 16 from  top,  instead of _rest_, read _government_.
+ "   23   "   10   "    "       "    "  1618, read 1215.
+ "   76   "    2   "    "       "    "  _Aoncilia_, read _Ancilia_.
+ "   78   "    3   "  bottom,   "    "  _not_, read _or_.
+ "   84   "   11   "    "       "    "  _promoting_, read _perverting_.
+ "   89   "   18   "    "        omit   _his_, before _vengeance_.
+
+
+
+
+OTHER WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
+
+
+A DISCOURSE OF MATTERS PERTAINING TO RELIGION. 1 Vol. 12mo.
+    New Edition will appear in December.                         $1.25
+
+AN INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. From the German of De
+    Wette. 2d edition. 2 Vols. 8vo.                               3.75
+
+CRITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 1 Vol. 12mo. New Edition
+    will soon appear.                                             1.25
+
+OCCASIONAL SERMONS AND SPEECHES. 2 Vols. 12mo.                    2.50
+
+TEN SERMONS OF RELIGION. 1 Vol. 12mo.                             1.00
+
+SERMONS OF THEISM, ATHEISM, AND THE POPULAR THEOLOGY. 1 Vol.
+    12mo.                                                         1.25
+
+ADDITIONAL SERMONS AND SPEECHES. 2 Vols. 12mo.                    2.50
+
+
+PAMPHLETS.
+
+TWO SERMONS ON LEAVING THE OLD AND ENTERING THE NEW PLACE
+OF WORSHIP. (1852.)                                                 20
+
+DISCOURSE OF DANIEL WEBSTER. (1853.) Cloth.                         50
+
+A SERMON OF OLD AGE. (1854.)                                        15
+
+THE NEW CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY. (1854.)                             20
+
+THE LAWS OF GOD AND THE STATUTES OF MAN. (1854.)                    15
+
+THE DANGERS WHICH THREATEN THE RIGHTS OF MAN IN AMERICA. (1854.)    20
+
+THE MORAL DANGERS INCIDENT TO PROSPERITY. (1855.)                   15
+
+CONSEQUENCES OF AN IMMORAL PRINCIPLE. (1855.)                       15
+
+FUNCTION OF A MINISTER. (1855.)                                     20
+
+TWO SERMONS IN PROCEEDINGS OF PROGRESSIVE FRIENDS. (1855.)          15
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Trial of Theodore Parker, by Theodore Parker
+
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