Speech of John Hossack, Convicted of a Violation of the Fugitive Slave Law | Page 2

your projected canals, and your growing towns. Twenty-two years ago, I landed in this city. I immediately engaged on the public works, on the canal then building that connects this city with the great river of the West. In the process of time, the State failed to procure money to carry on the public works. I then opened a prairie farm to get bread for my family, and I am one of the men who have made Chicago what it is to-day, having shipped some of the first grain that was exported from this city. I am, Sir, one of the pioneers of Illinois, who have gone through the many hardships of the settlement of a new country. I have spent upon it my best days, the strength of my manhood. I have eleven children, who are natives of this my adopted country. No living man, Sir, has greater interest in its welfare; and it is because I am opposed to carrying out wicked and ungodly laws, and love the freedom of my country, that I stand before you to-day.
Again, Sir, I ought not to be sentenced because, as has been argued by the prosecution, I am an Abolitionist. I have no apologies to make for being an Abolitionist. When I came to this country, like the mass from beyond the sea, I was a Democrat; there was a charm in the name. But, Sir, I soon found that I had to go beyond the name of a party in this country, in order to know any thing of its principles or practice. I soon found that however much the great parties of my adopted country differed upon banks, tariffs and land questions, in one thing they agreed, in trying which could stoop the lowest to gain the favor of the most cursed system of slavery that ever swayed an iron rod over any nation, the Moloch which they had set up, to which they offered as human sacrifice millions of the children of toil. As a man who had fled from the crushing aristocracy of my native land, how could I support a worse aristocracy in this land? I was compelled to give my humble name and influence to a party who proposed, at least, to embrace in its sympathies all classes of men, from all quarters of the globe. In this choice, I found myself in the company of Clarkson and Wilberforce in my native land, and of Washington and Franklin, and many such, in this boasted land of the free; and more than all these, the Redeemer in whom I humbly trust for acceptance with my God, who came to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, to set at liberty those who were bruised; yea, this very religion binds me to those in bonds as bound with them. Tell me, Sir, with these views, can I be any thing but an Abolitionist? Surely, for this I ought not to be sentenced.
Again, Sir, I ought not to be sentenced, because the Fugitive Slave Law, under which I am torn from my family and business by the supple tools of the Slave Power, the slave-breeder and the slave-hunter, is at variance with both the spirit and letter of the Constitution. Sir, I place myself upon the Constitution, in the presence of a nation who have the Declaration of Independence read to them every Fourth of July, and profess to believe it. Yea, in the presence of civilized man, I hold up the Constitution of my adopted country as clear from the blood of men, and from a tyranny that would make crowned heads blush. The parties who prostitute the Constitution to the support of slavery are traitors--traitors not only to the liberties of millions of enslaved countrymen, but traitors to the Constitution itself which they have sworn to support. A foreigner upon your soil, I go not to the platforms of contending parties to find truth. I go, Sir, to the Constitution of my country: the word slave is not to be found. I read, "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice,"--yes, Sir, establish justice--"to promote the general welfare, and to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." These were the men who had proclaimed to the world that all men were created equal; that they were endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights---life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and contended even unto death for seven long years. Can it be, Sir, that these great men, under cover of those hallowed words, intended to make a government that should outrage justice and trample upon liberty as no other government