Mr. Mann. (Holding up the paper and pointing to its heading.) From Mr. Ritchie’s Washington Union, of April 20th. Isn’t that good authority on this subject?
Mr. Key. From whose speech does the gentleman read?
Mr. Mann. From the speech of the Hon. Henry S. Foote, a senator in Congress from the State of Mississippi.
Mr. Key. The gentleman cannot read a paper to the jury, unless he expects to prove it.
Mr. Mann. I deny that as a principle; but, if required, will call Mr. Foote to swear to his speech.
Judge Crawford. Mr. Mann knows Mr. Foote did not mean his language for our slaves. (A suppressed laugh around the bar.)
Mr. Mann. May it please your honor, while nothing, on the one hand, will ever deter me from doing my duty to a client, yet, on the other hand, I am moved to say that I have been trained from my youth to such respect for a court of justice, that I would say nothing to it or before it which should not be fitting and appropriate, as apples of gold in pictures of silver. Let me then restate my argument, that we may see whether, and by whom, this rule has been departed from. I reiterate, then, if slaves are property, they are a peculiar kind of property. They are instinct with the common desires of humanity, and among them one of the deepest and strongest is the love of liberty. And just in proportion as their value is increased by intelligence and development, just in that proportion is the bond weakened by which they are held. In all places slaves hear something, but in this place they hear much, of what is said in behalf of human liberty and of human rights. If they hear this, and are above the condition of brutes, they will apply it to themselves. Every Fourth of July oration, if understood, is a torch to light up another St. Domingo. If they hear the word “slave” used in reference to those who have been deprived of their natural rights in other countries, they will apply that word to their own condition in this. If they hear the word “tyrants” used in reference to one who deprives others of their rights, for “tyrants” they will read “masters;” and no mortal power, or law, or art, can help it, but by blotting out all that is human within them. The slaves in this city are constantly hearing what must remind them that they are slaves; and therefore they are constantly incited to escape from their bondage. The torchlight procession, with its speeches and parade, was one among ten thousand of these incitements. The slaves, therefore, who went on board the Pearl, might have obtained the idea of escape from some other person than from the prisoner,—from some orator who lays down rules for the meridian of Europe, which do not quite suit the meridian of America. Hence they might have gone and applied to the prisoner for a passage. To this he might have assented. And if so, then his offence can be nothing beyond the offence of “transporting,” and is not the offence of stealing, as charged in this indictment.
And, as to the inflammatory language which the court charges me with having used: every word which was uttered by me, and which the court characterizes and denounces as “inflammatory,” and thinks not proper to be spoken in this court room, because it may endanger the institutions of this city, was the exact language of the Hon. Mr. Foote, senator in Congress from the State of Mississippi, uttered by him from the rostrum, on Pennsylvania Avenue, the most public place in this city, on the evening of the 13th of April last, to thousands of people there assembled, men, women, children, negroes and all.
I had marked, may it please the court, several other passages,—for this purpose most pungent and piercing,—in the speeches of that evening, to be read on this occasion; but as I think both court and jury are already pretty well apprised of the pertinency and force of my argument under this head, I shall content myself with reading one passage more. It is from the speech of the Hon. Frederick P. Staunton, representative in Congress from Tennessee, delivered on the same occasion, and printed in the same paper:—
“It has been truly said here this evening, that our example has been of essential service to France. Who can doubt it? How different would have been the struggle for liberty to be secured by republicanism, if there had been no example of a stable republican government to which the patriot could point, for the encouragement of his people! It is said we are propagandists. We do not, indeed, propagate our principles with the sword of power; but there is one sense in which we are propagandists. We cannot help being so. Our example is contagious. In the section of this great country where I live, on the banks of the mighty Mississippi river, we have the true emblem of the tree of liberty. There you may see the giant cottonwood spreading his branches widely to the winds of heaven. Sometimes the current lays bare his roots, and you behold them extending far around and penetrating to an immense depth in the soil. When the season of maturity comes, the air is filled with a cotton-like substance, which floats in every direction, bearing, on its light wings, the living seeds of the mighty tree. They lodge upon every bank of sand which emerges from the bosom of the receding tide, and soon a young forest is seen to lift its head from the surface of the barren waste. Thus the seeds of freedom have emanated from the tree of our liberties. They fill the air. They are wafted to every part of the habitable globe. And even in the barren sands of tyranny they are destined to take root. The tree of liberty will spring up every where, and nations shall recline in its shade.”