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.