"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