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DECEMBER, 1860.     DOUGLASS' MONTHLY.     380
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SPEECH OF JOHN HOSSACK
CONVICTED OF VIOLATION OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW, BEFORE JUDGE DRUMMOND, OF THE UNITED STATES DISCTRICT COURT OF CHICAGO
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May it please the court: I have a few words to say why sentence should not be pronounced against me.  I am found guilty of the Fugitive Slave law, and it may appear strange to your Honor that I have no sense of guilt.  I came, sir, from the tyranny of the Old World when but a lad, landed upon the American shores, having left my kindred and native land in pursuit of some place where men of toil would not be crushed by the property-holding class.  Commencing the struggle of life at the tender age of twelve years, a stranger in a strange land, having to earn my bread by the sweat of my brow, your Honor will bear with me, unaccustomed as I am to appear in Courts, much less to address them.  I have feared that I might fail in bearing myself on this occasion worthy of the place and position I occupy, and the great principles involved in the case before you.  I saw to your Honor, therefore, if I fail in observing the usual forms of the place, it will be from a want of judgment and error of the head, and not of the hear.  Therefore I do not think I shall fare worse at the hands of your Honor, if I state plainly my views and feelings on the great question of the age - the rights of man.  I feel that it is a case that will be referred to long after you and I have gone to meet the great Judge of all the earth.

It has been argued by the prosecution that I, a foreigner, protected by the laws of my adopted country, should be the last to disobey those laws; but in this I find nothing that should destroy my sympathy for the crushed, struggling children of toil in all lands.

Surely I have been protected. The fish in the rivers, the quail in the stubble, the deer in the forest, have been protected. Shall I join hands with those who make wicked laws, in crushing out the poor black man, for whom there is no protection but in the grave, where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest?

It is true, sir – I am a foreigner. I first saw the light among the rugged but free hills of Scotland; a land, sir, that never was conquered, and where a slave never breathed. Let a slave set foot on that shore, and his chains fall off forever, and he becomes what God made him – a man. In this far-off land I heard of your free institutions, your prairie lands, your projected canals, is one growing towns. Twenty-two years ago I landed in the 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 that 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 the new country. I have spent 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 masts from beyond the sea, I was a Democrat; there was a charm in the name. But, sir, I soon found I had to go beyond the name of a party in this country, in order to know anything 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
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trying which could stoop the lowest to gain the favor of the most accursed 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 can 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 of 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 anything but an Abolitionist? Truly 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 subtle tools of the Slave Power, the slave-breeder and the slave-hunter, is at variance with both the spirit and letter of the Constitution. Sara, I place myself upon the Constitution in the presence of the 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 is clear from the blood of men, and from a tyranny that would make crowned heads blush. The parties who prostitute 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, 'E, 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 that had proclaimed to the world that [[italics]]all[[/italics]] 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 under the whole heavens has ever done? This dreadful power that has compelled the great political parties of the country to creep in the dust for its power; that has debauched, to a large extent, the Christianity of the nation; that bids a craven priesthood stand with golden rule in hand, and defend the robbing of mothers of their babes, and husbands of their wives; that bids Courts decree injustice. Sir, I plant myself upon the Constitution, and demand justice and liberty, and say to this bloody Moloch, away! Sir, the world has never furnished so great a congregation of hypocrites as those that form the Constitution, if they designed to make it the greatest slaveholder, slave-breeder, and slave-catcher on earth. – He is a great slaveholder that has a thousand slaves; but if this law is a true exponent of the Constitution, this Government, ordained for justice and liberty, holds four millions of slaves.
No, sir! no! for the honor of the fathers of my country, I appeal from the bloody slaveholding statute to the liberty-loving Constitution. While these fathers lived, State after State, in carrying out the spirit of the Constitution, put an end to the dreadful system. The great Washington, in his last will and testament, carried out the spirit of
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the Constitution. But, sir, the law under which you may sentence me, violates both the letter and spirit of the Constitution. I have a word to say upon the articles of the Constitution which it is claimed the Fugitive Slave law is designed to carry out. 'No person held to service or labor in one State under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on the claim of the party to whom such service or labor is due.' That is the provision that is claimed transforms the government into a monster of iniquity.I have read, over and over, that article interpreted by all laws of language known to a plain man. How these three or four lines can transform this government, ordained to secure justice, into a mean tool to aid the plunderers of cradles, the destroyers or homes, the ravishers of women and the oppressors of men, to carry on their hellish work—how it can do this thing, I cannot see. That article binds the several States separately not to pass a certain law, but where in it do we find a Fugitive Slave law? Where do you find a Commissioner? Where do you find that the government is to hunt up and return at its own expense a slave that flees from his cruel and bloody master? Where in those lines is the authority to compel me to be a partaker in the crimes of the man-stealer? The General Government is not once mentioned; but the States in their separate sovereignties are named. But, sir, this article expressly provides that the party making the claim shall have owed him service or labor due from the party claimed. If Jim Gray owed service or labor, or money, to Phillips, I am the last man in the world to raise my voice or hand to prevent Phillips, or any man, from obtaining their dues. What I would grant to the devil himself, I would not withhold even from the slaveholder—his due. Jim Gray claim that he does not owe Phillips a day's work or a dollar of money. Phillips claims that he owes him every day's work that has been deposited in his bones and sinews; yea, the toil of his body and mind both, till death shall end the period of stipulated toil. Here is a question for legal examination and judicial discussion. Does the man Gray owe this man Phillips anything? The Constitution is very clear and very plain in pointing out the way this question is to be settled.

Article——provides that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. That Jim Gray is a person, is admitted on all hands. Phillips admits it; that bloodhounds, marshals and attorneys that hunt him, say he is a person—a person held to service. The amount in dispute is the liberty and life-long toil of a man just entering into the full maturity of manhood. A great question lies between these men. But Gray, standing on soil covered by this Constitution, can be robbed of liberty, or the wages of his toil, only by due process of law.

Article——says, expressly, in suits at common law, when the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollar, 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 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 taskmaster—had he been born in Canada, or anywhere 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.
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