Speech of John Hossack, Convicted of a Violation of the Fugitive Slave Law | Page 4

exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall
be preserved. Here, sir, is a case involving the question of liberty, and
hundreds of dollars of money. The law, Sir, under which I appear
before you, overrides these plain provisions, and commits this whole
question to one man, and offers him a bribe to trample right and liberty
under foot. I know, Sir, it may be said that Jim Gray was a slave, and
not entitled to these humane provisions. Had he never worn the chain
of the oppressor, nor felt the lash of the bloody task-master--had he
been born in Canada, or any where else on the globe--had he been a

citizen of one of the States of this Union, and never been enslaved, it
would have been all the same. His liberty would have been stricken
down, and he been given to the party claiming his life-long toil, and
your Commissioner would have pocketed the bribe offered by this law
for doing such a crime against humanity and the plainest provisions of
the Constitution.
No sir; in a Court of the United States, where the Constitution provides
for trial by jury, I ought not to be sentenced for raising my hand to
rescue a fellow-man from a mob that would strip him of his liberty and
life-long toil without due process of law, without trial by jury. Sir, this,
law tramples so flagrantly upon the spirit and letter of the Constitution,
that I ought not to be sentenced.
Before passing from the Constitutional objections to this law, I would
call the attention of your Honor to the partiality of the law, which is so
at variance with the designs of the Fathers in organizing this
Government. No man can read the Constitution--in which the word
slave cannot be found; from which the idea that a man could be reduced
to a thing, and held as property, was carefully excluded--no man, I say,
can read that Constitution, and come to the conclusion that slavery was
to be fostered, guaranteed and protected far beyond every thing else in
the country. Admit that Jim Gray was Phillips's property, how comes it
that that particular property is more sacred than any other property?
Phillips's horse escapes from him, and is found in a distant State; but
the President of the United States, and every department of
Government, are not put on the track to find the horse, and return him
to Phillips's stable, and then pay the whole bill from the National
Treasury. No, Sir. But his slave escapes--he runs away, and, for some
reason, his property in man is so much more holy and sacred, that the
whole Government is bound to take the track and hunt, the poor
panting fugitive down, and carry him back to his chains and bondage at
the Government's expense.
Sir, under a Constitution unstained by the word slave, we have a law
magnifying slave property above all other property in the nation--a law
giving it guarantees that no other property could possibly obtain. Sir,

the partiality of this law is so great, that it stands opposed to a
Constitution that guarantees equal justice and protection to all.
John G. Fee is driven out of his Kentucky home, and robbed of the
fruits of his life-long toil. There is no power to secure him his home, or
protect him in his rights of property or opinion. But had John G. Fee
only owned a slave, and his slave escaped, the Government, under this
law, would have followed his slave to the utmost limit of the United
States, and returned his slave to him at its own expense. Your Honor
will pardon me, (if I need pardon,) but I cannot, for the life of me, see
what there is in robbing a man of his inalienable rights and enslaving
him for life, that should entitle it to the special and peculiar protection
of national law.
I am aware, Sir, that I shall be reminded that judges, marshals,
attorneys, and many citizens, regard this law as Constitutional, and
stand ready to execute it, though it trample every principle of the
Declaration of Independence in the dust. Sir, no law can be enacted so
bad but that it will find men deluded or base enough to execute it. The
law of Egypt that consigned the new-born babe to the slaughter found
tools for its execution. The bloody decree of Herod found men ready to
obey the law of the country, though it commanded the slaughter of the
innocents of a province, Sir, tell me not of men ready and willing to
execute the law! My Redeemer, whose name I am hardly worthy to
speak, and yet whose name is all my trust, although he knew no sin, yet
he was