Year: 1859

been misled both by your Honor, and by
the prevalent received opinion.


at is said that they had warrant.
Why then should they not establish its
validity before the proper officers? And
| stand here to-day, sir, to say that with
an exception of which | shall soon speak,
to procure such laegfM investigation of
the authority u1sder aclich they claimed 10
act, acaS the part 1 took IN that days pre-
ceedings, and the only part. supposed
it to be my duty as citizen of Ohio
excuse me for saying that, sir-as an out
lar Of the United States much sensation)
to do what l could to secure at least this
form of Justice to my brother whose liberty
was in peril. Whatever more than that
has been Sac0rn TO on this trial, as an act of
mine, IS false, ridic@lousIy .talse. When
| found these men refusing to go, accord
ing to the law, as | apprehended it, and
subject their claim to an official inspection,
and that nothing short of a habeuS corpus
would oblige such an inspection, / was
willing to go even thus far, supposing in
that county Sheriff, might, perhaps, be
found with nerve enough to serve it. In
this l again failed.-Nothing then was
left to me, nothing to the boy in custody,
but the confirmation of my first belief that
the pretended authority was worthless,
and the employment of those means of
Liberation which belong to us. With re-
gard to the part | took in the forcible
rescue, which followed, | have nothing to
say, further than have already said. The
evidence is before you. 1t is alleged that
| said, We will have him anyhow This
1 NEVER sud. did say to Mr. Lowe,
what honestly believed to be the truth,
that the crowd were very much excited,
many of them averse to longer delay, and
bent upon a rescue at all hazards and
that he being an old acquaintance and
him from the dangerous position he occu-
pied, and therefore advised that he urge
Jennings to give the boy up. Further
than this | did not say, either to him or
any one else.


"The law under which / am arraigned
is an unjust one, one made to crush the
colored man, and one that outrages every
feeling of humanity, as we'll as every rule
of right. l have nothing to do with its
constitutionality ; about that | care but
little. / have often heard it said by learn
ed and good men that it was unconstitu-
tional | remember the excitement that
prevailed throughout all the free States
when it was passed and | remember how
often it has been said by individuals, con-
VPntIOnS. legislatures. and .T1/TIU0S -
that it never could be, never should be,
and never was meant to be enforced |
had always believed, until the contrary
appeared in the actual institution of pro-
ceedings, that the provisions of this odious
statute would never be enforced within
the bounds of this State.


" But have another reason to offer why
[ should not be sentenced, and one that
| think pertinent to the case. l have not
had trial before jury of my peers.
The common law of England-and you
will excuse me for referring to that, since
| am but private citizen-was that every
man should be tried before jury of men
occupying the same position in the social
scale with himself. That lords should be
tried before jury of lords that peers
of the realm should be tried before peers
of the realm vassals before vassals, and
aliens before aliens, and they must not
come from the district where the crime was
committed, lest the prejudices of either per-
sonal friends or foes should affect the ac-
cused The Constitution of the United
States guarantees, not merely to its citi-
zens, but to all persons, a trial before an
impartial jury. I have had no such trial.


"The colored man is oppressed by cer-
tain universal and deeply fixed PrgatdtceS.
Those Jurors are well known to have shar-
ed largely in these prejudices, and | there
fore consider that they were neither i'm
partial, nor were they a jury of my peers.
And the prejudices which white people
have against colored men, grow out of the
facts that we have as people consented
for two hundred years to be StareS of the
whites We have been scourged, crushed,
and cruelty oppressed, and have submitted
to it all tamely, meekly, peaceably |
mean as people, and with rare individual
EXCEPTIONS and today you see us thus,
meekly submitting to the penalties of an
infamous law Now the Americans have
this feeling, and it is an honorable one,
that they will respect those who will rebel
at oppression, but despise those who tame
ly submit to outrage and wrong and
while our people, as people, submit, they
will as people be despised. Why, they


The following resolutions were reported to
and adopted by an Indignation meeting, held in
Cleveland soon after the passage of the Fugitive
Slave Law, Judge Hiram V. Wilson being on the
Committee on Resolutions


|. Resolscd, That the passage of the Fugitive
Law an act unauthorized by the Constitution,
hostile to every principle of justice and humanity,
and, if persevered in, fatal to Human Freedom.


2 Resolred, That the law strikes down some
of the dearest principles upon which our fathers
predcated their right to assert and maintain their
independence, and is characterized by the most
tyrannical exercise of power; and that it cannot
be sustained without repudiating the doctrines of
the Declaration of Independence, and the principles
upon which all free governments rest.


g. Resolved That tyranny consists in the will
fully violating, by those in power. of mans natural
right his personal security, personal liberty, and
private property; and it matters not whether the