I am on trial because I hate Slavery, because I love freedom for the black man, for the white man, and for all the human Race. I am not arraigned because I have violated the statute on which the indictment is framed—no child could think it—but because I am an advocate of Freedom, because my Word, my Thoughts, my Feelings, my Actions, nay, all my Life, my very Existence itself, are a protest against Slavery. Despotism cannot happily advance unless I am silenced. It is very clear logic which indicts me. Private personal malice, deep, long cherished, rancorous, has doubtless jagged and notched and poisoned too the public sword which smites at my neck. Still it is the public sword of Slavery which is wielded against me. Against me? Against you quite as much—against your children. For as Boston could not venture to kidnap a negro woman, without bringing down that avalanche of consequences connected with the Principle of Slavery,—without chains on her Judges, falsehood in her officers, blood in her courts, and drunken soldiers in her streets, and hypocrisy in her man-hunting ministers,—no more can she put me to silence alone. The thread which is to sew my lips together, will make your mouths but a silent and ugly seam in your faces. Slavery is Plaintiff in this case; Freedom Defendant. Before you as Judges, I plead your own cause—for you as defendant. I will not insult you by the belief or the fear that you can do other than right, in a matter where the law is so plain, and the Justice clear as noonday light. But should you decide as the wicked wish, as the court longs to instruct you, you doom your mouths to silence; you bow your manly faces to the ground, destine your memories to shame, and your children to bondage worse than negro slavery.
Such, Gentlemen of the Jury, is the state of affairs leading to this Prosecution—such the past, present, and prospective Encroachments of a Power hostile to Democratic Institutions and the unalienable Rights they were designed to protect. Such also are the two Measures now in contemplation,—the Extension of African Bondage, and the Destruction of American Freedom.
II. Look next at the Mode of Operation hitherto pursued by this Encroaching Power, in other times and nations, and in our own, systematic corruption of the Judiciary.
Here I shall show the process by which that Principle of Slavery becomes a Measure of political ruin to the People.
In substance Despotism is always the same, Spanish or Carolinian, but the form varies to suit the ethnologic nature and historical customs of different people. I shall mention two forms—one to illustrate, the other to warn.
(I.) The open Assumption of Power by military violence. This method is followed in countries where love of Individual Liberty is not much developed in the consciousness of the people, and where democratic institutions are not fixed facts in their history; where the nation is not accustomed to local self-government, but wonted to a strong central power directed by a single will. This form prevails in Russia, Turkey, and among all the Romanic tribes in Europe, and their descendants in America. Military usurpation, military rule is indigenous in France,—where two Napoleons succeed thereby,—in Italy, in Spain, and most eminently in Spanish America. But no people of the Teutonic family for any length of time ever tolerated a usurping soldier at the head of affairs, or submitted to martial arbitrary rule, or military violence in the chief magistrate. It is against our habit and disposition.
Neither Cromwell nor William of Orange could do with the Anglo-Saxon what it would have been impossible not to do with Spaniards or Italians. Even warlike Swiss—Teutonic tribes—will have a government with due process of law, not by the abrupt violence of the soldier. Washington could not have established a military monarchy in America had he been so wickedly disposed. Even William the Conqueror must rule the Saxons by Saxon law.
(II.) The corruption of the acknowledged safeguards of public security. This is attempted in nations who have a well-known love of individual liberty, and institutional defences thereof, the habit of Local Self-government by Democratic Law-making and Law-administering. For example, this experiment has been repeatedly made in England. The monarch seeking to destroy the liberty of the people, accomplishes his violent measure by the forms of peaceful law, by getting the judicial class of men on the side of despotism. Then all the wickedness can be done in the name, with the forms, and by "due process" of law, by regular officers thereof—done solemnly with the assistance of slow and public deliberation.