Year: 1859

will hardly meet ON terms of equality with
us in whiskey shop, in a car, at /. table
or even at the altar of God-so thorough
and hearty a contempt have they for those
who will meekly lie still under the heel
of the oppressor. The jury came into the
box with that feeling. They knew they
had that feeling, and so the Court knows
now, and knew then. The gentleman who
prosecuted me, the Court itself, and even
the counsel who defended me, have that
feeling.


| was tried by jury who were pre-
JUDGED before a Court that was preiu-
diced prosecuted by an officer who was
prejudiced, and defended, though ably, by
counsel that were prejudiced. And there
fore it is, your Honor, that l urge by all
that is good and great in manhood, that l
should not be subjected to the pains and
penalties of this oppressive law, when /
have not been tried, either by jury OF
my peers, or by jury that were impair
| tial


One more word, sir, and have done.
| went to Wellington, knowing that color
ed men have no rights in the United States,
which white men are bound to respect
that the Courts had SO decided that Con-
gress had so enacted that the people had
so decreed.


"There is not spot in this wide coun-
try, not even by the altars of God, nor in
the shadow Of the shafts that tell the i'm
perishable fame and glory of the heroes
Of the Revolution no, nor in the old Phil
adelphia Hall, where any colored man
may dare to ask a mercy of white man.
Let me stand in that Hall and tell United
States Marshal that my father was Re-
volutionary soldier; that he served under
Lafayette, and fought through the whole
war, and that he fought for ny freedom as
much as for his own and he would sneer
at me, and clutch me with his bloody
fingers, and say he has 1tgJt to make
me a slave! And when appeal to Con
gress, they say he has right to make me
slave; when | appeal to the people, they
say he has a right to make me slave, and
when | appeal to your Honor, your Honor
says he has right to make me a slave,
and if any man, white or black, seeks an
investigation of that claim, they make
themselves amenable to the pains and pen
alties of the Fugitive Slave Act, for BLACK
MEN HAVE NO RIGHTS WHICH WHITE MEN ARE
BOUND TO RESPECT. Great Applause L,
going to Wellington with the full know
ledge of all this, knew that if that man
was taken to Columbus, he was hopelessly
gone. no matter Whethnr he bad ever been
in slavery before or not. knew unaI i
was in the same situation myself, and that
by the decision of your Honor, if any man
whatever were to claim me as his slave
and seize me, and my brother, being a
lawyer, should seek to get out a writ of
h0beas corpus to expose the falsity of the
claim, he would be thrust into prison under
one provision of the Fugitive Slave Law,
for interfering with the man claiming to
be in pursuit of a fugitive, and l, by the
perjury of solitary wretch, would by an
other of its provisions be helplessly DOOM
ed to lifelong bondage, without the posi-
bility of escape.


Some may say that there is no danger
of free persons being seized and carried off
as slaves. No one need labor under such
delusion. Sir, tour of the eight persons
who were first carried back under the act
of 1850, were afterwards proved to be free
men, They were free persons, but wholly
at the mercy of the oath of one man. And
but last Sabbath afternoon, letter came
to me from a gentleman in ST. Louis, in
forming me that young lady who was
formerly under my instructions at Colum-
bus, free person, is now lying in the
Jail at that place, claimed as the slave of
some wretch who never saw her before,
and waiting for testimony from relatives
at Columbus to establish her freedom /
could stand here by the hour and relate
such instances. In the very nature of the
case they must be constantly occurring.
A letter was not long since found upon the
person of counterfeiter when arrested,
addressed to him by some Southern gentle
man, in which the writer says :


"' Go among the niggers find out their
marks and scars make good descriptions
and send to me, and I'll find masters for
EN-


That is the way men are carried back
to slavery.


But in view ofall the facts, / say that if
ever again a man is seized near me, and is
about to be carried southwark as slave,
before any legal investigation has been
had, I shall hold it to be my duty, as l
held it that day, to secure for him, if pos
sible, a legal inquiry into the character of
the claim bysswhich he is held. And | go
further | say that if it is adjudged illegal
to procure even such an investigation, then
we are thrown back upon those last de-
fences of our rights which cannot be taken
from US, and which God gave us that we
need not be slaves. ask your Honor,
while l say this, to place yourself in my
situation, and you will say with me that if
your brother, if your friend, if your wife,
if your child, had been seized by men who
claimed them as fugitives, and the law of
the land forbade you to ask any investiga-