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.

no child could think it

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- 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 arbirary 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 AngloSaxon what it would have been impossible not to do with Spaniards. or Italians. Even warlike Swiss Teutonic tribes I 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.

(1.) 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.

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 "Let me make the Judges," said he, "and I care not, who makes the laws."

man.

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."1 Hobart had resisted some illegal monopolies of the all-powerful Buckingham, and he was "unfit for promo

tion."

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."2 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."

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 boldspirited enough, except they meddle with the King's Prerogative." "That which concerns the mysterie of the King's Power is not lawful 2 2 Campbell, 368, 374; 3 Howell State Trials, 824.

12 Campbell, 372, 374.

to be disputed."1 Gentlemen, that was worthy of some judicial charges which you and I have heard.

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 petrage. 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 AttorneyGeneral 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

1 1 Speache in the Starre-Chamber, London, 1616.