III. The Question of the Application of the Law to the Fact. To determine this Question you are to ask:—

1. Does the law itself, the act of 1790, apply to such acts, that is, to such words, thoughts, wishes, feelings, consent, assent, approbation, express liking, and punish them with fine and imprisonment? If not, the consideration ends: but if it does, you will next ask:—

2. Is it according to the Constitution of the United States—its Purpose, its Means—thus to punish such acts? If not satisfied thereof, you stop there; but if you accept Judge Curtis's opinion then you will next inquire:—

3. Is it expedient in this particular case to apply this law, under the circumstances, to this man, and punish him with fine and imprisonment? If you say "yes" you will then proceed to the last part of the whole investigation, and will ask:—

4. Is it just and right; that is according to the Natural Law of God, the Constitution of the Universe? Here you will consider several things.

(1.) What was the Marshal legally, constitutionally, and justly doing at the time he was obstructed? He was stealing, kidnapping, and detaining an innocent man, Anthony Burns, with the intention of depriving him of what the Declaration of Independence calls his natural and unalienable Right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Mr. Burns had done no wrong or injury to any one—but simply came to Massachusetts, to possess and enjoy these natural rights. Marshal Freeman had seized him on the false charge of burglary, had chained him in a dungeon contrary to Massachusetts law,—there were irons on his hands.

It is said he was a slave: now a slave is a person whom some one has stolen from himself, and by force keeps from his natural rights. Mr. Burns sought to rescue himself from the thieves who held him; Marshal Freeman took the thieves' part.

(2.) Was there any effectual mode of securing to Mr. Burns his natural and unalienable Right except the mode of forcible rescue? Gentlemen of the Jury, it is very clear there was none at all. The laws of Massachusetts were of no avail. Your own Supreme Court, which in 1832, at the instigation of Mr. Charles P. Curtis, sent a little boy not fourteen years old into Cuban Slavery to gratify a slave-hunting West Indian, in 1851, had voluntarily put its neck under the Southern chain. Your Chief Justice, who acquired such honorable distinction in 1836 by setting free the little girl Med from the hands of the Curtises, in 1851 spit in the face of Massachusetts, and spurned her laws with his judicial foot. It was plain that Commissioner Loring did not design to allow his victim a fair trial—for he had already prejudged the case; he advised Mr. Phillips "to make no defence, put no 'obstruction' in the way of the man's going back, as he probably will," and, before hearing the defence sought to settle the matter by a sale of Mr. Burns.

Gentlemen, the result showed there was no chance of what the United States law reckons justice being done in the case—for Commissioner Loring not only decided the fate of Mr. Burns against law, and against evidence, but communicated his decision to the slave-hunters nearly twenty-four hours before he announced it in open court! No, Gentlemen, when a man claimed as a fugitive is brought before either of these two members of this family of kidnappers—who run now in couples, hunting men and seeking whom they may devour—there is no hope for him: it is only a mock-trial, worse than the Star-chamber inquisition of the Stuart kings. Place no "obstructions in the way of the man's going back," said the mildest of the two, "as he probably will." Over that door, historic and actual, as over that other, but fabulous, gate of Hell should be written:—

"Through me they go to the city of sorrow;
Through me they go to endless agony;
Through me they go among the nations lost:
Leave every hope, all ye that enter here!"