Chapter IV: Of the Circumstances of This Special Case, United States Versus (4)

Gentlemen, I am no lawyer, and may easily be mistaken in this matter, but as I studied Judge Curtis's charge and cast about for the sources of its doctrines and phraseology, I thought I traced them all back to Kelyng's opinions in that famous case, where he made treason out of a common riot among apprentices; and to Judge Chase's "opinions" and "rulings" in the trial of Mr. Fries,--opinions and rulings which shocked the public at the time, and brought legislative judgment on his head. Let any one compare the documents, I think he will find the whole of Curtis in those two impeached Judges, in Kelyng and in Chase.[202]

[Footnote 202: 1 Wharton, 636; Kelyng, 1-24, 70-77; 6 St. Tr. 879.]

Here then is the law,--derived from the memorandum of the charge to a grand-jury made in 1634, by a judge so corrupt that he did not hesitate to violate Magna Charta itself; not published till more than seventy years after the charge was given; cited as law by a single authority, and that authority impeached for unrighteously and corruptly violating the laws he was set and sworn to defend, impeached even in that age--of Charles II.;--that is the law! Once before an attempt was made to apply it in Massachusetts, and inflict capital punishment on a man for advising a condemned murderer to anticipate the hangman and die by his own hand in private--and the jury refused. But to such shifts is this Honorable Court reduced! Gentlemen of the Jury, the fugitive slave bill cannot be executed in Massachusetts, not in America, without reviving the worst despotism of the worst of the Stuarts; not without bringing Twysden and Jones and Kelyng on the Bench; no, not without Saunders and Finch, and Jeffreys and Scroggs!

Gentlemen, such was Judge Curtis's charge. I have been told it was what might have been expected from the general character and previous conduct of the man; but I confess it did surprise me: it was foolish as it was wicked and tyrannical. But it all came to nought.

For, alas! there was a grand-jury, and the Salmonean thunder of the fugitive slave bill judge fell harmless--quenched, conquered, disgraced, and brutal,--to the ground. Poor fugitive slave bill Court! It can only gnash its teeth against freedom of speech in Faneuil Hall; only bark and yelp against the unalienable rights of man, and howl against the Higher Law of God! it cannot bite! Poor, imbecile, malignant Court! What a pity that the fugitive slave bill judge was not himself the grand-jury, to order the indictment! what a shame that the attorney was not a petty jury to convict! Then New England, like Old, might have had her "bloody assizes," and Boston streets might have streamed with the heart's gore of noble men and women; and human heads might have decked the pinnacles all round the town; and Judge Curtis and Attorney Hallett might have had their place with Judge Jeffreys and John Boilman of old. What a pity that we have a grand-jury and a traverse jury to stand between the malignant arm of the Slave-hunter and the heart of you and me![203]

[Footnote 203: 2 Parker's Additional, p. 281.]

The grand-jury found no bill and were discharged. In a Fourth of July Sermon "Of the Dangers which Threaten the Rights of Man in America," I said:--

"Perhaps the Court will try again, and find a more pliant
Grand-Jury, easier to intimidate. Let me suggest to the
Court that the next time it should pack its Jury from the
Marshal's 'Guard.' Then there will be Unity of Idea; of
action too,--the Court a figure of equilibrium."

The audacious Grand-Jury was discharged. A new one was summoned; this time it was constructed out of the right material. Before that, Gentlemen, we had had the Judge or his kinsmen writing for the fugitive slave bill in the newspapers; getting up public meetings in behalf of man-stealing in Boston; writing letters in support of the same; procuring opinions in favor of the constitutionality of the fugitive slave bill; nay, kidnapping men and sending them into eternal bondage, and in the newspapers defending the act; but we had none of them in the Jury box. On the new Grand-Jury appeared Mr. William W. Greenough, the brother-in-law of Hon. Judge Curtis--each married a daughter of Mr. Charles P. Curtis. Mr. Greenough "was very active in his endeavors to procure an indictment" against me; and a bill was found.

How came the Brother-in-law of the Judge on the Grand-Jury summoned to 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.

I went also and looked after William Craft. I inspected his weapons; "his powder had a good kernel, and he kept it dry; his pistols were of excellent proof; the barrels true, and clean, the trigger went easy, the caps would not hang fire at the snap. I tested his poignard; the blade had a good temper, stiff enough and yet springy withal; the point was sharp."[213] After the immediate danger was over and Knight and Hughes had avoided the city, where they had received such welcome from the friends of this Court, such was the tone of the political newspapers and the commercial pulpit that William and Ellen must needs flee from America. Long made one by the wedlock of mutual and plighted faith, their marriage in Georgia was yet "null and void" by the laws of that "Christian State." I married them according to the law of Massachusetts. As a symbol of the husband's peculiar responsibility under such circumstances, I gave William a Sword--it lay on the table in the house of another fugitive, where the wedding took place--and told him of his manly duty therewith, if need were, to defend the life and liberty of Ellen. I gave them both a Bible, which I had bought for the purpose, to be a symbol of their spiritual culture and a help for their soul, as the sword was for their bodily life. "With this sword I thee wed," suited the circumstances of that bridal.

[Footnote 213: 1 Parker's Additional Speeches, 55.]

Mr. and Mrs. Craft were parishioners of mine, and besides I have been appointed "minister at large in behalf of all fugitive slaves in Boston." I have helped join men and women in wedlock according to the customs of various sects and nations. There is one wedlock, a sacrament, but many forms. Never before did I marry two lovers with the Sword and the Bible--the form of matrimony for fugitive slaves: out of that fact perhaps Mr. Attorney can frame an indictment that will hold water. "If it only resists law and obstructs its officers," quoth he, "it is treason, and he who risks it must risk hanging for it!"

At the great Union meeting, November 26, when Mr. Curtis said "I should like to ask the Reverend Gentleman in what capacity he expects to be punished for his _perjury_," I said, "Do you want an answer to your question, Sir?" No doubt that was obstructing a (prospective) "officer," then preparing for process. How easily could Scroggs make a "misdemeanor," or "a seditious libel," out of that question! Allybone would call it "treason," "levying war."

Thirty-six hours after the Union meeting, on Thanksgiving day, 28th November, 1850, in a "Sermon of the State of the Nation," I said:--

"I have sometimes been amazed at the talk of men who call on
us to keep the fugitive slave law, one of the most odious
laws in a world of odious laws--a law not fit to be made or
kept. I have been amazed that they should dare to tell us
the law of God, writ on the heavens and our hearts, never
demanded we should disobey the laws of men! Well, suppose it
were so. Then it was old Daniel's duty at Darius' command to
give up his prayer; but he prayed three times a day, with
his windows up. Then it was John's and Peter's duty to
forbear to preach of Christianity; but they said, 'Whether
it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more
than unto God, judge ye.' Then it was the duty of Amram and
Jochebed to take up their new-born Moses and cast him into
the Nile, for the law of king Pharaoh, commanding it, was
'constitutional,' and 'political agitation' was
discountenanced as much in Goshen as in Boston. But Daniel
did not obey; John and Peter did not fail to preach
Christianity; and Amram and Jochebed refused 'passive
obedience' to the king's decree! I think it will take a
strong man all this winter to reverse the judgment which the
world has passed on these three cases. But it is 'innocent'
to try.

"However, there is another ancient case, mentioned in the
Bible, in which the laws commanded one thing and conscience
just the opposite. Here the record of the law:--'Now both
the chief priests and the Pharisees had given a commandment,
that if any one knew where he [Jesus] were, he should show
it, that they might take him.' Of course, it became the
official and legal business of each disciple who knew where
Christ was, to make it known to the authorities. No doubt
James and John could leave all and follow him, with others
of the people who knew not the law of Moses, and were
accursed; nay, the women, Martha and Mary, could minister
unto him of their substance, could wash his feet with their
tears, and wipe them with the hairs of their head. They did
it gladly, of their own free will, and took pleasure
therein, I make no doubt. There was no merit in that--'Any
man can perform an agreeable duty.' But there was found one
disciple who could 'perform a disagreeable duty.' He went,
perhaps 'with alacrity,' and betrayed his Saviour to the
marshal of the district of Jerusalem, who was called a
centurion. Had he no affection for Jesus? No doubt; but he
could conquer his prejudices, while Mary and John could
not.

"Judas Iscariot has rather a bad name in the Christian
world: he is called 'The son of perdition,' in the New
Testament, and his conduct is reckoned a 'transgression;'
nay, it is said the devil 'entered into him,' to cause this
hideous sin. But all this it seems was a mistake; certainly,
if we are to believe our 'republican' lawyers and statesmen,
Iscariot only fulfilled his 'constitutional obligations.' It
was only 'on that point,' of betraying his Saviour, that the
constitutional law required him to have any thing to do with
Jesus. He took his 'thirty pieces of silver'--about fifteen
dollars; a Yankee is to do it for ten, having fewer
prejudices to conquer--it was his legal fee, for value
received. True, the Christians thought it was 'The wages of
iniquity,' and even the Pharisees--who commonly made the
commandment of God of none effect by their traditions--dared
not defile the temple with this 'price of blood;' but it was
honest money. Yes, it was as honest a fee as any American
commissioner or deputy will ever get for a similar service.
How mistaken we are! Judas Iscariot is not a traitor! he was
a great patriot; he conquered his 'prejudices,' performed 'a
disagreeable duty,' as an office of 'high morals and high
principle;' he kept the 'law' and the 'Constitution,' and
did all he could to 'save the Union;' nay, he was a saint,
'not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles.' 'The law of
God never commands us to disobey the law of man.' _Sancte
Iscariote ora pro nobis._

"Talk of keeping the fugitive slave law! Come, come, we know
better. Men in New England know better than this. We know
that we ought not to keep a wicked law, and that it must not
be kept when the law of God forbids!

"One of the most awful spectacles I ever saw, was this: A
vast multitude attempting, at an orator's suggestion [Hon.
Mr. Hallett], to howl down the 'Higher law,' and when he
said, Will you have this to rule over you? they answered,
'Never!' and treated the 'Higher law' to a laugh and a howl!
It was done in Faneuil Hall; under the eyes of the three
Adamses, Hancock, and Washington; and the howl rung round
the venerable arches of that hall! I could not but ask, 'Why
do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?
the rulers of the earth set themselves, and kings take
counsel against the Lord and say, Let us break his bands
asunder, and cast off his yoke from us.' Then I could not
but remember that it was written, 'He that sitteth in the
heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision.'
'He taketh up the isles as a very little thing, and the
inhabitants of the earth are as grasshoppers before Him.'
Howl down the law of God at a magistrate's command! Do this
in Boston! Let us remember this--but with charity."

"I do not believe there is more than one of the New England
men who publicly helped the law into being, but would
violate its provisions; conceal a fugitive; share his loaf
with a runaway; furnish him golden wings to fly with. Nay, I
think it would be difficult to find a magistrate in New
England, willing to take the public odium of doing the
official duty. I believe it is not possible to find a
regular jury, who will punish a man for harboring a slave,
for helping his escape, or fine a marshal or commissioner
for being a little slow to catch a slave. Men will talk loud
in public meetings, but they have some conscience after all,
at home. And though they howl down the 'Higher law' in a
crowd, yet conscience will make cowards of them all, when
they come to lay hands on a Christian man, more innocent
than they, and send him into slavery for ever! One of the
commissioners of Boston talked loud and long, last Tuesday,
in favor of keeping the law. When he read his litany against
the law of God, and asked if men would keep the 'Higher
law,' and got 'Never' as the welcome, and amen for
response--it seemed as if the law might be kept, at least by
that commissioner, and such as gave the responses to his
creed. But slave-hunting Mr. Hughes, who came here for two
of our fellow-worshippers, in his Georgia newspaper, tells a
different story. Here it is from the 'Georgia Telegraph,' of
last Friday. 'I called at eleven o'clock at night, at his
[the commissioner's] residence, and stated to him my
business, and asked him for a warrant, saying that if I
could get a warrant, I could have the negroes [William and
Ellen Craft] arrested. He said the law did not authorize a
warrant to be issued: that it was my duty to go and arrest
the negro without a warrant, and bring him before him!' This
is more than I expected. 'Is Saul among the prophets?' The
men who tell us that the law must be kept, God willing, or
against His will--there are Puritan fathers behind them
also; Bibles in their houses; a Christ crucified, whom they
think of; and a God even in their world, who slumbers not,
neither is weary, and is as little a respecter of parchments
as of persons! They know there is a people, as well as
politicians, a posterity not yet assembled, and they would
not like to have certain words writ on their tomb-stone.
'Traitor to the rights of mankind,' is no pleasant epitaph.
They, too, remember there is a day after to-day; aye, a
forever; and 'Inasmuch as ye have not done it unto one of
the least of these my brethren, ye have not done it unto
me,' is a sentence they would not like to hear at the day of
judgment."[214]

[Footnote 214: 2 Parker's Occasional Sermons, pp. 298-300, 301, 302, 304, 305.]

Gentlemen, you see by the faces of this Honorable Court, and you know by what these honorable functionaries and their coadjutors have done out of its limit, how much I was mistaken in the notion that no Boston Commissioner would ever kidnap a man! Perhaps you will pardon me for the mistake. I will soon explain it by a quotation.

After the rescue of Shadrach, in my Sunday prayer I publicly gave God the thanks of the congregation for the noble deed. Perhaps that was a crime. I think Judge Saunders could make it appear that I was an "accessory after the fact," and then Judge Curtis could call the offence not a felony but a "misdemeanor," and "in misdemeanors all are principals." Nay, it might be "levying war" "with force and arms."

After the Hon. Judge Sprague had made himself glorious by charging the jury "to obey both" the will of God and the laws of men, which forbid that will; and after Commissioner Curtis had kidnapped Mr. Sims, while he still had him in his unlawful jail, on Fast-day, April 10, 1851, I preached a sermon "of the Chief Sins of the People," and said,--

"He [Judge Sprague] supposes a case: that the people ask
him, 'Which shall we obey, the law of man or the will of
God?' He says, 'I answer, obey both. The incompatibility
which the question assumes does not exist.'

"So, then, here is a great general rule, that between the
'law of man' and the 'will of God' there is no
incompatibility, and we must 'obey both.' Now let us see how
this rule will work.

"If I am rightly informed, King Ahab made a law that all the
Hebrews should serve Baal, and it was the will of God that
they should serve the Lord. According to this rule of the
judge, they must 'obey both.' But if they served Baal, they
could not serve the Lord. In such a case, 'what is to be
done?' We are told that Elijah gathered the prophets
together: 'and he came unto all the people, and said, How
long halt ye? If the Lord be God, follow him; but if Baal,
then follow him.' Our modern prophet says, 'Obey both. The
incompatibility which the question assumes does not exist.'
Such is the difference between Judge Elijah and Judge Peleg.

"Let us see how this rule will work in other cases; how you
can make a compromise between two opposite doctrines. The
king of Egypt commanded the Hebrew nurses, 'When you do the
office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, if it be a son ye
shall kill him.' I suppose it is plain to the Judge of the
Circuit Court that this kind of murder, killing the new-born
infants, is against 'the will of God;' but it is a matter of
record that it was according to 'the law of man.' Suppose
the Hebrew nurses had come to ask Judge Sprague for his
advice. He must have said, 'Obey both!' His rule is a
universal one.

"Another decree was once made, as it is said in the Old
Testament, that no man should ask any petition of any God
for thirty days, save of the king, on penalty of being cast
into the den of lions. Suppose Daniel--I mean the old
Daniel, the prophet--should have asked him, What is to be
done? Should he pray to Darius or pray to God? 'Obey both!'
would be the answer. But he cannot, for he is forbid to pray
to God. We know what Daniel did do.

"The elders and scribes of Jerusalem commanded the
Christians not to speak or to teach at all in the name of
Jesus; but Peter and John asked those functionaries,
'Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you
more than unto God, judge ye.' Our judge must have said,
There is no 'incompatibility;' 'obey both!' What 'a
comfortable Scripture' this would have been to poor John
Bunyan! What a great ethical doctrine to St. Paul! He did
not know such Christianity as that. Before his time a
certain man had said, 'No man can serve two masters.' But
there was one person who made the attempt, and he also is
eminent in history. Here was 'the will of God,' to do to
others as you would have others do to you: 'Love thy
neighbor as thyself.' Here is the record of 'the law of
man:' 'Now both the chief priests and the Pharisees had
given a commandment, that, if any man knew where he [Jesus]
were, he should show it that they might take him.' Judas, it
seems, determined to 'obey both,'--'the law of man' and 'the
will of God.' So he sat with Jesus at the Last Supper,
dipped his hand in the same dish, and took a morsel from the
hand of Christ, given him in token of love. All this he did
to obey 'the will of God.' Then he went and informed the
Commissioner or Marshal where Jesus was. This he did to obey
'the law of man.' Then he came back, and found Christ,--the
agony all over, the bloody sweat wiped off from his brow
presently to bleed again,--the Angel of Strength there with
him to comfort him. He was arousing his sleeping disciples
for the last time, and was telling them, 'Pray, lest ye
enter into temptation.' Judas came and gave him a kiss. To
the eleven it seemed the friendly kiss, obeying 'the will of
God.' To the Marshal it also seemed a friendly
kiss,--obeying 'the law of man.' So, in the same act, he
obeys 'the law of God' and 'the will of man,' and there is
no 'incompatibility!'

"Of old it was said, 'Thou canst not serve God and mammon.'
He that said it, has been thought to know something of
morals,--something of religion.

"Till the fugitive slave law was passed, we did not know
what a great saint Iscariot was. I think there ought to be a
chapel for him, and a day set apart in the calendar. Let him
have his chapel in the navy yard at Washington. He has got a
priest there already. And for a day in the calendar--set
apart for all time the seventh of March!"

"Last Thanksgiving day, I said it would be difficult to find
a magistrate in Boston to take the odium of sending a
fugitive back to slavery. I believed, after all, men had
some conscience, although they talked about its being a duty
to deliver up a man to bondage. Pardon me, my country, that
I rated you too high! Pardon me, town of Boston, that I
thought your citizens all men! Pardon me, lawyers, that I
thought you had been all born of mothers! Pardon me,
ruffians, who kill for hire! I thought you had some animal
mercy left, even in your bosom! Pardon me, United States'
commissioners, marshals, and the like, I thought you all had
some shame! Pardon me, my hearers, for such mistakes. One
commissioner was found to furnish the warrant [Mr. George T.
Curtis]! Pardon me, I did not know he was a commissioner; if
I had, I never would have said it!

"Spirits of tyrants, I look down to you! Shade of Cain, you
great first murderer, forgive me that I forgot your power,
and did not remember that you were parent of so long a line!
And you, my brethren, if hereafter I tell you that there is
any limit of meanness or wickedness which a Yankee will not
jump over, distrust me, and remind me of this day, and I
will take it back!

"Let us look at the public conduct of any commissioner who
will send an innocent man from Boston into slavery. I would
speak of all men charitably; for I know how easy it is to
err, yea, to sin. I can look charitably on thieves, prowling
about in darkness; on rum-sellers, whom poverty compels to
crime; on harlots, who do the deed of shame that holy
woman's soul abhors and revolts at; I can pity the pirate,
who scours the seas doing his fiendish crimes--he is
tempted, made desperate by a gradual training in wickedness.
The man, born at the South, owning slaves, who goes to
Africa and sells adulterated rum in exchange for men to
retail at Cuba,--I cannot understand the consciousness of
such a man; yet I can admit that by birth and by breeding he
has become so imbruted he knows no better. Nay, even that he
may perhaps justify his conduct to himself. I say I think
his sin is not so dreadful as that of a commissioner in
Boston who sends a man into slavery. A man commits a murder,
inflamed by jealousy, goaded by desire of great gain,
excited by fear, stung by malice, or poisoned by revenge,
and it is a horrid thing. But to send a man into slavery is
worse than to murder him. I should rather be slain than
enslaved. To do this, inflamed by no jealousy, goaded by no
desire of great gain,--only ten dollars!--excited by no
fear, stung by no special malice, poisoned by no revenge,--I
cannot comprehend that in any man, not even in a hyena.
Beasts that raven for blood do not kill for killing's sake,
but to feed their flesh. Forgive me, O ye wolves and hyenas!
that I bring you into such company. I can only understand it
in a devil!

"When a man bred in Massachusetts, whose Constitution
declares that 'All men are born free and equal;' within
sight of Faneuil Hall, with all its sacred memories; within
two hours of Plymouth Rock; within a single hour of Concord
and Lexington; in sight of Bunker Hill,--when he will do
such a deed, it seems to me that there is no life of crime
long enough to prepare a man for such a pitch of depravity;
I should think he must have been begotten in sin, and
conceived in iniquity, and been born 'with a dog's head on
his shoulders;' that the concentration of the villany of
whole generations of scoundrels would hardly be enough to
fit a man for a deed like this!"

"Last Thursday night,--when odious beasts of prey, that dare
not face the light of heaven, prowl through the
woods,--those ruffians of the law seized on their brother
man. They lie to the bystanders, and seize him on a false
pretence. There is their victim--they hold him fast. His
faithless knife breaks in his hand; his coat is rent to
pieces. He is the slave of Boston. Can you understand his
feelings? Let us pass by that. His 'trial!' Shall I speak of
that? He has been five days on trial for more than life, and
has not seen a judge! A jury? No,--only a commissioner! O
justice! O republican America! Is this the liberty of
Massachusetts?

"Where shall I find a parallel with men who will do such a
deed,--do it in Boston? I will open the tombs, and bring up
most hideous tyrants from the dead. Come, brood of monsters,
let me bring you up from the deep damnation of the graves
wherein your hated memories continue for all time their
never-ending rot. Come, birds of evil omen! come, ravens,
vultures, carrion-crows, and see the spectacle! come, see
the meeting of congenial souls! I will disturb, disquiet,
and bring up the greatest monsters of the human race!
Tremble not, women; tremble not, children; tremble not, men!
They are all dead! They cannot harm you now! Fear the
living, not the dead!