6. The sixth time,—Gentlemen,—it is the present, whereof I shall erelong have much to say.
At the first visit I found only scholarly and philanthropic gentlemen, coming out of sympathy with a Polish exile, a defeated soldier of freedom, from his broken English to learn sound Roman Law. On each of the other visits I have been in quite different company. I have invariably met this Honorable Court, its kinsfolk and its most intimate friends,—some member of the family of the distinguished Judge, now fitly presiding over this trial.
1. It was Mr. George T. Curtis, the only brother of the honorable Justice now on the bench,—born of the same mother and father,—who had the glory of kidnapping Mr. Sims; it was he who seized Shadrach, and gave such witness against one of the Angels of the Deliverance, and then came back and enlarged his testimony; it was he who declared the rescue an act of "treason;" he who hung the court house in chains, and brought down the pliant neck of the Massachusetts Judges beneath that symbolic line of linked fetters long drawn out. To what weak forces will such necks bow when slavery commands!
2. It was the honorable Judge now on the distinguished bench who tried men for the rescue of Shadrach. How he tried them is well known.
3. It was Edward G. Loring, another of this family so distinguished, who kidnapped Mr. Burns and held him in irons; he whose broom swept up together the marshal's guard; he who advised Mr. Burns's counsel to make no defence,—"put no obstructions in the way of his going back, as he probably will;" he who, in the darkness of midnight, sought to sell his victim, before he had examined the evidence which might prove him a free man; he who delivered him up as a slave, against evidence as against law.
4. Another of the same family, William W. Greenough, brother-in-law of Hon. Judge Curtis, was one of the grand-jury which found the indictment against me, and "the most active of all in that work."
5. When I came here on the 29th of last November, the Hon. Judge Curtis sat on the bench and determined the amount of my bail, and the same eye which had frowned with such baleful aspect on the rescuers of Shadrach, quailed down underneath my look and sought the ground.
In thus mentioning my former visits to the court, I but relate the exploits of the Hon. Justice Curtis, of his kinsfolk and friends, adding to their glory and their renown. Their chief title to distinction rests on their devotion to the fugitive slave bill. It and their honor are "one and inseparable." Once only humanity and good letters brought me here, I met only scholars and philanthropists; on five other occasions, when assaults on freedom compelled my attendance, I have been confronted and surrounded with the loyalty of the distinguished Judge and his kinsfolk and friends, valiantly and disinterestedly obeying the fugitive slave bill "with alacrity;" patriotically conquering their prejudices against man-stealing—if such they ever had;—and earning for themselves an undying reputation by "saving the Union" from Justice, Domestic Tranquillity, general Welfare, and the Blessings of Liberty.