Chapter II: Look Next at the Mode of Operation Hitherto Pursued by This (3)

"We have a particular case here before us, as a matter of
scandal against a great Judge, the _greatest Judge in the
kingdom_, in criminal causes [the Lord Chancellor Nottingham
was greater in _civil_ causes]; and it is a great and an
high charge upon him. And certainly there was never any age,
I think, more licentious than this in aspersing governors,
scattering of libels and _scandalous speeches against those
that are in authority_: and without all doubt _it doth
become the court to show their zeal in suppressing it_." [It
was 'resisting an officer.'] "That trial [of Dr. Wakeman]
was managed with _exact justice and perfect integrity_. And
therefore I do think it very fit that this person be
proceeded against by an information, that he may be made _a
public example_ to all such as shall presume to scandalize
the government, and the governors, with any false aspersions
and accusations."

Accordingly Mr. Radley, for that act, was convicted of speaking "scandalous words against the Lord Chief Justice Scroggs" and fined L200.[86]

[Footnote 86: 7 St. Tr. 701.]

Mr. Hudson says of the Star-Chamber, "So tender the court is of upholding the honor of the sentence, as they will punish them who speak against it with great severity."[87]

[Footnote 87: In 2 Collectanea Juridica, 228.]

6. In 1680 Benjamin Harris, a bookseller, sold a work called "An Appeal from the country to the city for the Preservation of his Majesty's Person, Liberty, Property, and the Protestant Religion." He was brought to trial for a libel, before Recorder Jeffreys and Chief Justice Scroggs who instructed the jury they were only to inquire _if Harris sold the book_, and if so, find him "guilty." It was for the court to determine what was a libel. He was fined five hundred pounds and placed in the pillory; the Chief Justice wished that he might be also whipped.[88]

[Footnote 88: 7 St. Tr. 925.]

7. The same year Henry Carr was brought to trial. He published a periodical--"the Weekly Packet of advice from Rome, or the History of Popery"--hostile to Romanism. Before the case came to court, Scroggs prohibited the publication on his own authority. Mr. Carr was prosecuted for a libel before the same authority, and of course found guilty. The character of that court also was judgment against natural right. Jane Curtis and other women were in like manner punished for speaking or publishing words against the same "great judge."[89] And it was held to be a "misdemeanor" to publish a book reflecting on the justice of the nation--the truer the book the worse the libel! It was "obstructing an officer," and of course it was a greater offence to "obstruct" him with Justice and Truth than with wrong and lies. The greater the justice of the act the more dangerous the "crime!" If the language did not hit any one person it was "malice against all mankind."

[Footnote 89: 7 St. Tr. 1111, 959; 4 Parl. Hist. 1274.]

8. In 1684 Sir Samuel Barnardiston was brought to trial charged with a "High Misdemeanor." He had written three private letters to be sent--it was alleged--by post to his friend, also a private man. The letters do not appear designed for any further publication or use; they related to matters of news, the events of the day and comments thereon, and spoke in praise of Algernon Sidney and Lord Russell who were so wickedly beheaded about the time the letters were written. It would require a microscopic eye to detect any evil lurking there. Jeffreys presided at the trial, and told the jury:--

"The letters are _factious, seditious, and malicious
letters, and as base as the worst of mankind could ever have
invented_." "And if he be guilty of it--the greater the man
is the greater the crime, and the more understanding he has,
the more malicious he seems to be; for your little ordinary
sort of people, that are of common mean understanding, they
may be wheedled and drawn in, and surprised into such
things; but men of a public figure and of some value in the
world that have been taken to be men of the greatest
interest and reputation in a party, it cannot be thought a
hidden surprise upon them; no, it is a work of time and
thought, it is a thing fixed in his very nature, and it
_shows so much venom as would make one think the whole mass
of his blood were corrupt_." "Here is the matter he is now
accused of, and here is in it malice against the king,
malice against the government, malice against both Church
and State, malice against any man that bears any share in
the government, indeed malice against all mankind that are
not of the same persuasion with these bloody miscreants."
"Here is ... the sainting of two horrid conspirators! Here
is the Lord Russell sainted, that blessed martyr; Lord
Russell, that good man, that excellent Protestant, he is
lamented! And here is Mr. Sidney sainted, what an
extraordinary man he was! Yes, surely he was a very good
man--and it is a shame to think that such bloody miscreants
should be sainted and lamented who had any hand in that
horrid murder [the execution of Charles I.] and treason ...
who could confidently bless God for their being engaged in
that good cause (as they call it) which was the rebellion
which brought that blessed martyr to his death. It is high
time for all mankind that have any Christianity, or fear of
Heaven or Hell, to bestir themselves, to rid the nation of
such caterpillars, such monsters of villany as those are!"

Of course the packed jury found him guilty; he was fined L10,000.[90]

[Footnote 90: 7 St. Tr. 1333.]

Gentlemen of the Jury, such judges, with such kings and cabinets, have repeatedly brought the dearest rights of mankind into imminent peril. Sad indeed is the condition of a nation where Thought is not free, where the lips are sewed together, and the press is chained! Yet the evil which has ruined Spain and made an Asia Minor of Papal Italy, once threatened England. Nay, Gentlemen of the Jury, it required the greatest efforts of her noblest sons to vindicate for you and me the right to print, to speak, to think. Milton's "Speech for the Liberty of unlicensed Printing" is one monument of the warfare which lasted from Wicliffe to Thomas Carlyle. But other monuments are the fines and imprisonment, the exile and the beheading of men and women! Words are "sedition," "rebellion," "treason;" nay, even now at least in New England, a true word is a "Misdemeanor," it is "obstructing an officer." At how great cost has our modern liberty of speech been purchased! Answer John Lilburne, answer William Prynn, and Selden, and Eliot, and Hampden, and the other noble men who

----"in the public breach devoted stood,
And for their country's cause were prodigal of blood."

Answer Fox and Bunyan, and Penn and all the host of Baptists, Puritans, Quakers, martyrs, and confessors--it is by your stripes that we are healed! Healed! are we healed? Ask the court if it be not a "misdemeanor" to say so!

A despotic government hates implacably the freedom of the press. In 1680 the Lord Chief Justice of England declared the opinion of the twelve judges "indeed all subscribe that to _print or publish any news-books, or pamphlets of news whatsoever, is illegal; that it is a manifest intent to the breach of the peace_, and they may be proceeded against by law for an illegal thing." "And that is for a public notice to all people, and especially printers and booksellers, that _they ought to print no book or pamphlet of news whatsoever without authority;" "they shall be punished if they do it without authority_, though there is nothing reflecting on the government."[91] Judge Scroggs was right--it was "resisting an officer," at least "obstructing" him in his wickedness. In England, says Lord Campbell, the name and family of Scroggs are both extinct. So much the worse for you and me, Gentlemen. The Scroggses came over to America; they settled in Massachusetts, they thrive famously in Boston; only the name is changed.

[Footnote 91: 7 St. Tr. 1127.]

In 1731 Sir Philip Yorke, attorney-general, solemnly declared that an editor is "_not to publish any thing reflecting on the character and reputation and administration of his Majesty or his Ministers_;" "if he breaks that law, or exceeds that liberty of the press he is to _be punished for it_." Where did he get his law--in the third year of Edward I., in A.D. 1275! But that statute of the Dark Ages was held good law in 1731; and it seems to be thought good law in 1855! And the attorney who affirmed the atrocious principle, soon became Chief Justice, a "consummate judge," a Peer, Lord Hardwicke, and Lord Chancellor![92] Lord Mansfield had not a much higher opinion of the liberty of the press; indeed, in all libel cases, he assumed it was exclusively the function of the judges to determine whether the words published contained malicious or seditious matter, the jury were only to find the fact of publication.[93] Thus the party in power with their Loughboroughs, their Thurlows, their Jeffreys, their Scroggs--shall I add also American names--are the exclusive judges as to what shall be published relating to the party in power--their Loughboroughs, their Thurlows, their Jeffreys and their Scroggs, or their analogous American names! It was the free press of England--Elizabeth invoked it--which drove back the "invincible Armada;" this which stayed the tide of Papal despotism; this which dyked the tyranny of Louis XIV. out from Holland. Aye, it was this which the Stuarts, with their host of attendants, sought to break down and annihilate for ever;[94] which Thurlow and Mansfield so formidably attacked, and which now in America--but the American aspect of the matter must not now be looked in the face.

[Footnote 92: 17 St. Tr. 674; 5 Campbell, 57; Hildreth's Despotism, 199.]

[Footnote 93: 20 St. Tr. 900. But see 28 St. Tr. 595, and 16 Parl. Hist. 1211.]

[Footnote 94: For the frequency of trials for words spoken in Charles II.'s reign of terror, see the extracts from Narcissus Luttrel's Brief Historical Relation, 10 St. Tr. 125.]

* * * * *

But spite of all these impediments in the way of liberty, the voice of humanity could not be forever silenced. Now and then a virtuous and high-minded judge appeared in office--like Hale or Holt, Camden or Erskine. Even in the worst times there were noble men who lifted up their voices. Let me select two examples from men not famous, but whose names, borne by other persons, are still familiar to this court.

In 1627 Sir Robert Phillips, member for Somersetshire, in his place in Parliament, thus spoke against the advance of despotism:[95]--

[Footnote 95: 1 Rushworth, 502.]

"I read of a custom among the old Romans, that once every
year they had a solemn feast for their slaves; at which they
had liberty, without exception, to speak what they would,
thereby to ease their afflicted minds; which being finished,
they severally returned to their former servitude. This may,
with some resemblance and distinction, well set forth our
present state; where now, after the revolution of some time,
and grievous sufferance of many violent oppressions, we
have, as those slaves had, a day of liberty of speech; but
shall not, I trust, be hereafter slaves, for we are free:
yet what new illegal proceedings our estates and persons
have suffered under, my heart yearns to think, my tongue
falters to utter. They have been well represented by divers
worthy gentlemen before me; yet one grievance, and the main
one, as I conceive, hath not been touched, which is our
Religion: religion, Mr. Speaker, made vendible by
commission, and men, for pecuniary annual rates, dispensed
withal; Judgments of law against our liberty there have been
three; each latter stepping forwarder than the former, upon
the Rights of the Subject; aiming, in the end, to tread and
trample underfoot our law, and that even in the form of
law."

"The first was the Judgment of the Postnati, (the Scots,)
... The second was the Judgment upon Impositions, in the
Exchequer Court by the barons; which hath been the source
and fountain of many bitter waters of affliction unto our
merchants." "The third was that fatal late Judgment against
the Liberty of the Subject imprisoned by the king, argued
and pronounced but by one judge alone." "I can live,
although another who has no right be put to live with me;
nay, I can live although I pay excises and impositions more
than I do; but to have my liberty, which is the soul of my
life, taken from me by power; and to have my body pent up in
a gaol, without remedy by law, and to be so adjudged: O
improvident ancestors! O unwise forefathers! To be so
curious in providing for the quiet possession of our lands,
and the liberties of Parliament; and to neglect our persons
and bodies, and to let them lie in prison, and that _durante
bene placito_, remediless! If this be law, why do we talk of
liberties? Why do we trouble ourselves with a dispute about
law, franchises, property of goods, and the like? What may
any man call his own, if not the Liberty of his Person? I am
weary of treading these ways."[96]

[Footnote 96: 2 Parl. Hist. 232. See also 441, 471. He had been thrown into the Tower by James in 1624. Cabbala (3d Ed.), 311.]

In 1641 Sir Philip Parker, Knight of the Shire for Suffolk, in his place in Parliament, thus spoke:--

"The cries of the people have come up to me; the voice of
the whole nation tingles in my ears." "'Tis true, I confess,
we have tormented ourselves with daily troubles and
vexations, and have been very solicitous for the welfare of
the Commonwealth; but what have we performed, what have we
perfected? Mr. Speaker, excuse my zeal in this case; for my
mouth cannot imprison what my mind intends to let out;
neither can my tongue conceal what my heart desires to
promulge. Behold the Archbishop [Laud], that great
incendiary of this kingdom, lies now like a firebrand raked
up in the embers; but if ever he chance to blaze again I am
afraid that what heretofore he had but in a spark, he will
burn down to the ground in a full flame. Wherefore let us
begin, for the kingdom is pregnant with expectation on this
point. I confess there are many more delinquents, for the
judges and other knights walk _in querpo_; but they are only
thunderbolts forged in Canterbury's fire."[97]

[Footnote 97: Parl. Hist. 867.]

Six of the wicked judges were soon brought to trial.[98]

[Footnote 98: 1 Rushworth, 502.]

* * * * *

This same threefold experiment of despotism which was attempted in England, was tried also in America by the same tyrannical hand. Here, also, the encroaching power put creatures of its arbitrary will in judicial offices; they then by perverting the laws, punished the patriots, and next proceeded to destroy the best institutions of the land itself. Here I shall take but a few examples, selected from the colonial history of our own New England.

After capturing the great fortress of freedom at home, by taking away the charter of London, Charles proceeded to destroy the freedom of the colonies; the Charter of Massachusetts was wrested from us on a _quo warranto_ in 1683,[99] and the colony lay at the feet of the monarch. In privy council it had already been determined that our rights should be swept into the hands of some greedy official from the court.[100] In 1686 James II. sent Sir Edmund Andros to New England as a "Commissioner" to destroy the liberty of the people. He came to Boston in the "Kingfisher, a fifty gun ship," and brought two companies of British soldiers, the first ever stationed in this town to dragoon the people into submission to an unrighteous law. Edward Randolph, the most determined enemy of the colony, greedily caressing the despotic hands that fed him, was his chief coadjutor and assistant, his secretary, in that wicked work. Andros was authorized to appoint his own council, and with their consent enact laws, levy taxes, to organize and command the militia. He was to enforce the hateful "Acts of Trade." He appointed a council to suit the purpose of his royal master, to whom no opposition was allowed. Dudley, the new Chief Justice, told the people who appealed to Magna Charta, "they must not think the privileges of Englishmen would follow them to the end of the world." Episcopacy was introduced; no marriages were to "be allowed lawful but such as were made by the minister of the Church of England." Accordingly, all must come to Boston to be married, for there was no Episcopal minister out of its limits. It was proposed that the Puritan Churches should pay the Episcopal salary, and the Congregational worship be prohibited. He threatened to punish any man "who gave two pence" toward the support of a Non-conformist minister. All fees to officers of the new government were made exorbitantly great. Only one Probate office was allowed in the Province, that was in Boston; and one of the creatures of despotic power was, prophetically, put in it. Andros altered the old form of oaths, and made the process of the courts to suit himself.

[Footnote 99: See the steps of the process in 1 Hutchinson, (Salem, 1795,) 297; 8 St. Tr. 1068, note.]

[Footnote 100: Barillon to Louis XIV. in Fox's Appendix, p. vii., _et seq._ In 1685 Halifax, who had been friendly to the rights of the colonies, was dismissed from his office; Sunderland, their enemy, had a pension from Louis XIV. of L5,000 or L6,000 a year; p. cxxvii., cxxx. _et seq._, cxliii., cxlviii. Not the last instance of a high functionary pensioned by a foreign hand!]

He sought to wrest the charters from the Colonies; that of Rhode Island fell into his hands; Connecticut escaped by a "miracle:"

"The Charter-Oak--it was the tree
That saved our sacred Liberty."

The Charter government of Plymouth was suspended. Massachusetts was put under arbitrary despotism. Towns were forbidden to meet, except for the choice of officers; there must be no deliberation; "discussion must be suppressed." He was to levy all the taxes; he assessed a penny in the pound in all the towns. Rev. John Wise, one of the ministers of Ipswich, advised the people to resist the tax. "Democracy," said he, "is Christ's government in Church and State; we have a good God and a good king; we shall do well to stand to our privileges." One of the Council said, "_You have no privileges left you, but not to be sold as slaves._" Even that was not likely to last long. The town of Ipswich refused to pay the tax, because invalid; the governor having no authority to tax the people: "they will petition the King for liberty of an assembly before they make any rates." The minister and five others were arrested; they had "obstructed an officer." The Rev. Mr. Wise was guiltiest of all; he did it with a word, an idea. They were brought to Boston, and thrown into jail, "for contempt and high misdemeanors." They claimed the _habeas corpus_; Chief Justice Dudley refused it, on the ground that it did not extend to America! They were tried before a packed jury, and such a court as James II. was delighted to honor. The patriots plead the laws of England and Magna Charta. It was all in vain. "I am glad," said the judge to his packed jury, "there be so many worthy gentlemen of the jury, so capable to do the king service; and we expect a good verdict from you, seeing the matter hath been so sufficiently proved against the _criminals_." The jury of course found them guilty. They were fined from L15 to L50 a piece. The whole cost to the six was over L400. "It is not for his majesty's interest that you should thrive," said one of those petty tyrants,--a tide-water of despotism.[101]

[Footnote 101: 1 Hutch. 316; 2 Hildreth, Hist. 108; 2 Bancroft, 425; Washburn, Judicial Hist. of Mass. 105; Drake's Boston, ch. L.]

Andros denied the colonial title to lands, claiming that as the charter was declared void, all the lands held under its authority escheated to the crown,--"The calf died in the cow's belly." A deed of purchase from the Indians was "worth no more than the scratch of a bear's paw." "The men of Massachusetts did much quote Lord Coke" for their titles: but Rev. John Higginson, minister of the first church in Salem, the son of the first minister ever ordained in New England,--and ancestor of this noble-hearted man [Rev. T.W. Higginson] who is now also indicted for a "misdemeanor,"--found other laws for their claim, and insisted on the citizens' just and natural right to the lands they had reclaimed from the wilderness.[102] Andros said, "You are either subjects, or else you are rebels;" and in either case, their lands would be forfeit.

[Footnote 102: 1 Felt's Salem, 24; 2 Ib. 542; Felt's Ipswich, 123, _et seq._; Gage's Rowley, 157, _et seq._; Sullivan's Land Titles, 54.]

Andros hated freedom of speech and of thought. He was to allow no unlicensed printing. Randolph was appointed censor of the press, and ordered the printer to publish nothing without his approbation, nor "any almanac whatever." There must be but one town meeting in a year, and no "deliberation" at that; no "agitation," no discussion of grievances. There must be no preaching on the acts of the government. Rev. Dr. Increase Mather, one of the ablest men in the Colonies, was the special object of his hate. Randolph advised the authorities to forbid any non-conformist minister to land in New England without the special consent of the governor, and that he should restrain such as he saw fit to silence. The advice was not lost on such willing ears. John Gold, of Topsfield, was tried for "treasonable words," and fined fifty pounds--a great deal more at Topsfield in 1687, than "three hundred dollars" is now in Boston. Rev. Increase Mather had opposed the surrender of the Charter of Massachusetts, and published his reasons; but with such prudence, for he was careful how he "evinced an express liking" for justice, that it was difficult to take hold of him. So the friends of government forged a letter with his name, to a person in Amsterdam. Randolph showed the letter to persons whom he wished to prejudice against the alleged writer. When Mr. Mather learned the facts, he wrote a letter to a friend, clearing himself, and charging the forgery on Randolph or his brother. Randolph brought his action for a libel, claiming L500 damages. But it came to nothing--then. Now times are changed!

Col. Pynchon, of Springfield, one of the officers in this new state of things, was empowered to bind over all persons suspected of riots, "outrageous or abusive _reflecting words and speeches against the government_." "The spirit of justice was banished from the courts that bore the name."[103]

[Footnote 103: Hutch. 327; Washburn, ibid.]

But notwithstanding the attempt to stifle speech, a great tall minister at Rowley, called Andros "a wicked man!" For that offence he was seized and put in prison! He, also, like Higginson, is represented in this court by one of his own name; and the same inextinguishable religious fire which burned in the bosom of Robert in Old England, and from Samuel in New England flashed into the commissioned face of Andros, now lightens at this bench from the eyes of WENDELL PHILLIPS, who confers new glory on his much-honored ancestor.

* * * * *

Gentlemen of the Jury, you know how this wickedness was brought to an end. If the courts would not decree Justice, there was a rougher way of reaching it, and having it done. Civil war, revolution by violence, came in place of the simple forms of equity, which the judges had set at nought. William of Orange, a most valiant son-in-law, drove the foul tyrant of Old England from that Island, where the Stuarts have ever since been only "Pretenders;" and on the 19th of April, 1689, the people of Massachusetts had the tyrant of New England put solemnly in jail! We were rid of that functionary for ever, and all such "commissioners" have been held odious in New England ever since the days of Andros. Eighty-six years later came another 19th of April, also famous. Well said Secretary Randolph, "Andros has to do with a perverse people,"--they would not bow to such tyranny in 1689. But he afterwards became a quite acceptable governor in Virginia,--where, I doubt not, he has descendants in African bondage at this day.

Catholic James II. sought to establish arbitrary power in America, as in England, by his prerogative--the Omnipotence of the King; he failed; the high-handed despotism of the Stuarts went to the ground. The next attempt at the same thing was by the legislature--the Omnipotence of Parliament--for a several-headed despotism took the place of the old, and ruled at home with milder sway. It tried its hand in America; there were no more requisitions from a king hostile to the Colonies, but acts of Parliament took their place. After the French power in North America had given way, the British government sought to tame down and break in the sturdy son, who had grown up in the woods so big and rough, as obstinate as his father. Here are three measures of subjugation, all flowing from the same fountain of Principle--vicarious government by a feudal superior.

1. All the chief colonial officers were to be appointed by the king, to hold office during his pleasure, to receive their pay from him. Such was the tenure of the executive officers who had a veto on all colonial legislation, and of the judicial officers. Thus the power of making and administering the laws fell from the people distributed everywhere, into the hands of the distant government centralized in the King.

2. A standing army of British soldiers must be kept in the Colonies to overawe the people, and enforce the laws thus made and administered.

3. A revenue was to be raised from the Colonies themselves--from which the King would pay his officers and provide for his army that enforced his laws. The eagle is to feather the arrow which shoots him in mid heaven.

Thus law was a threefold cord wherewith to bind the strong Puritan. But his eyes were not put out--not then. Blindness came at a later day--when he had laid his head in the lap of a not attractive Delilah. With such judges and governors, backed by a standing army of hirelings--how soon would her liberty go down, and the Anglo-American States resemble Spanish America!

In 1760 Francis Bernard was made governor of Massachusetts, and thus officially put at the head of the Judiciary, a man wholly devoted to the Crown, expecting to be made a baronet! He did not wish an annual election of councillors, but wanted the sovereign power to enforce its decrees by violent measures. Thus Thomas Hutchinson was made Chief Justice in 1760, and afterwards Lieutenant-Governor,--continually hostile to the constitution of his native land. Thus Andrew Oliver--"Governor Oliver," "hungry for office and power," was appointed Secretary, Commissioner of Stamps and Lieutenant-Governor; and Peter Oliver--"Judge Oliver"--though not bred a lawyer, was made Chief Justice, the man who refused to receive his salary from the treasury of Massachusetts, preferring the money of the crown which owned him. In the revolutionary times of the _five Judges of Massachusetts four were Tories_!

Accordingly, when the Stamp Act was passed--22d March, 1765--there were Judicial officers in the Colonies ready to declare it "constitutional;" executive magistrates ready to carry out any measures intrusted to them. "I will cram the stamps down their throat with the end of my sword," said an officer at New York. Governor Bernard wanted soldiers sent to Boston to enforce submission; so did Hutchinson and "Governor Oliver." The Governor of New York thought, "if _Judges be sent from England_, with an able attorney-general and solicitor-general to _make examples of some very few_, the Colony will remain quiet."[104]

[Footnote 104: 5 Bancroft, 358.]

In 1768 John Hancock was arrested at Boston--for a "misdemeanor;" I suppose, "obstructing an officer," or some such offence.[105] The government long sought to procure indictments against James Otis--who was so busy in fencing out despotism--Samuel Adams, and several other leading friends of the colony. But I suppose the judge did not succeed in getting his brother-in-law put on the grand-jury, and so the scheme fell through. No indictment for that "misdemeanor" then. Boston had the right men to do any thing for the crown, but they did not contrive to get upon the grand-jury.

[Footnote 105: 6 Bancroft, 213.]

The King, it was George III., in his parliament, spoke of the Patriots of Boston, as "those turbulent and seditious persons." In the House of Commons, Stanley called Boston an "insolent town;" its inhabitants "must be treated as aliens;" its "charter and laws must be so changed as to give the King the appointment of the Council, and to the _sheriffs the sole power of returning jurors_;" then the Stamp Act could be carried out, and a revenue raised without the consent of the people. The plan was admirably laid; an excellent counsel! Suppose, as a pure conjecture, an hypothesis of illustration--that there were in Boston a fugitive slave bill court, eager to kidnap men and so gain further advancement from the slave power, which alone distributes the federal offices; suppose the court should appoint its creatures, relatives, nay, its uterine brother--its brother in birth--as fugitive slave bill commissioners to hunt men; and then should get its matrimonial brother--its brother-in-law--on the grand-jury to indict all who resisted the fugitive slave bill! You see, gentlemen, what an admirable opportunity there would be to accomplish most manifold and atrocious wickedness. This supposed case exactly describes what was contemplated by the British authorities in the last century! Only, Gentlemen, it was so unlucky as not to succeed; nay, Gentlemen, as to fail--then! Such accidents will happen in the best of histories!

It was moved in Parliament to address the king "to bring to condign punishment" such men as Otis and Adams and Hancock. Chief Justice Hutchinson declared Samuel Adams "_the greatest incendiary in the king's dominions_." Hutchinson was right for once. Samuel Adams lit a fire which will burn on Boston Common on the Fourth day of next July, Gentlemen, and on many other commons besides Boston. Aye, in the heart of many million men--and keep on burning long after Hutchinson ceases to be remembered with hate, and Adams with love. "The greatest incendiary!" so he was. Hutchinson also thought there must be "an Abridgment of what are called English Liberties," doubtless the liberty of speaking in Faneuil Hall, and other meeting-houses was one "of what are called English Liberties" that needed speedy abridgment. He wished the law of treason to be extended so that it might catch all the patriots of Boston by the neck. He thought it treasonable to deny the authority of Parliament.[106] Men suspected of "misdemeanors" were to be sent to England for trial! What a "trial" it would have been--Hancock and Adams in Westminster Hall with a jury packed by the government; Thurlow acting as Attorney-General, and another Thurlow growling on the bench and expecting further office as pay for fresh injustice! Truly there would have been an "abridgment of English Liberties." Gentlemen of the Jury, Mr. Phillips and Mr. Higginson in this case are charged with "obstructing an officer." Suppose they were sent to South Carolina to be tried by a jury of Slaveholders, or still worse, without change of place, to be tried by a court deadly hostile to freedom,--wresting law and perverting justice and "enlarging testimony," personally inimical to these gentlemen; suppose that the Slave-hunter whose "process" was alleged to be resisted, was kinsman to the court, and the judge had a near relation put on the jury--what opportunity would there be for justice; what expectation of it? Gentlemen of the Jury, that is the state of things which the despots of England wanted to bring about by sending Hancock and Adams over seas for trial! Bernard, Oliver, and Hutchinson were busy in getting evidence against the Patriots of New England, especially against Adams. Affidavits were sent out to England to prove that he was a fit subject to be transported for "trial" there. And an old statute was found from the enlightened reign of Henry VIII. authorizing that mode of trial in case of such "misdemeanor." Commissary Chew wished that two thirds of the lawyers and printers were shipped off to Africa "for at least seven years." Edes and Gill, patriotic printers in Boston, and "all the authors of numberless treasonable and seditious writings," were to go with them.[107] They were all guilty, very guilty! Gentlemen of the Jury, they committed "misdemeanors," they "obstructed officers," they resisted the process of despotism! But alas--

"The Dog it was that died."

[Footnote 106: 6 Bancroft, 250, 251, 291; Sabine's Loyalists, 207, _et al._]

[Footnote 107: 6 Bancroft, 250, 251, 291; Sabine's Loyalists, 207, _et al._]

Edes and Gill never saw Africa; the patriotic lawyers and printers made no reluctant voyage to England.

"The Dog it was that died."

Bernard, Hutchinson, Oliver, and their coadjutors went over the seas for punishment after being tried at home by a Law older than the statute of Henry VIII.; a law not yet repealed, Gentlemen, the Higher Law which God wrote ineffaceably in the hearts of mankind; and indignant America pronounced sentence--Tories, Traitors! Commissary Chew learned a lesson at Saratoga in 1777. And the Franklins, the Mayhews, the Hancocks, the Adamses, they also were tried at home, and not found wanting; and the verdict! Gentlemen of the Jury, you know what verdict America has pronounced on these men and their kinsfolk! There is only one spot in the United States where the Hutchinsons, the Olivers, the Bernards are honored,--that is where the Adamses, the Hancocks, the Mayhews, and the Franklins, with the principles of justice they gave their lives to, are held in contempt! Where is the one spot, that speck of foreign dirt in the clean American garden? It is where the Democratic Herod and the Whig Pilate are made friends that they may crucify the Son of Man, the Desire of all nations, the Spirit of Humanity--it is the court of the Fugitive Slave Bill judges, the Gabbatha of the Kidnappers. Look there!

In 1765 it was too late to conquer America. What Andros and Randolph could accomplish in 1686 with their sixty soldiers, could not be done in 1768 with all the red coats Britain could send out: nor in 1778 with all the Hessians she could purchase. The 19th of April, 1689, foretold another 19th of April--as that many to-morrows after to-day! In the House of Lords Camden and Pitt thought Parliament not omnipotent.[108] Samuel Adams declared "Acts of Parliament against natural equity are void;" prayed that "Boston might become a Christian Sparta," and looked to the Law of an Omnipotence somewhat higher than a king or a court. He not only had Justice, but also the People on his side. What came of that last attempt of the last king of New England to establish a despotism here? The same, Gentlemen, which will ultimately come of all such attempts.

[Footnote 108: 16 Parl. Hist. 168, 195, 658.]

* * * * *

Gentlemen of the Jury, there is one great obstacle which despotism has found in Anglo-Saxon lands, steadily opposing its steady attempts to destroy the liberties of the People. It is easy for the controlling power, which represents the Centripetal Tendency of the Nation, to place its corrupt and servile creatures in judicial offices, vested with power to fine, to imprison, and to kill; it is then easy for them to determine on the destruction of all such friends of Justice and Humanity as represent the Centrifugal Tendency of the Nation; and with such judicial instruments it is not difficult to wrest and pervert law in order to crush the Patriots, and construct a word into "Treason," or "evincing express approbation" into a "Misdemeanor," "resisting an officer." And if the final decision rested with such a court, it would be exceeding easy to make way with any man whom the judge's private malignity or the public vengeance of his master, wished to smite and kill. But in the Anglo-Saxon people there is one institution, old, venerable, and well-beloved, which has stood for two thousand years, the great Fortress of Freedom. Thank God, Gentlemen, it still stands. Neither British Kings nor American Slave-drivers have yet brought it to the ground. Of this I must now say a word.