In the case of seizure, the fugitive, reversing the proceedings, might institute process against his master, and appeal to a Court and Jury.

In the case of process by the master, the watchful law secured to the fugitive the same protection.

By no urgency of force, by no device of process, could any person claimed as a slave be defrauded of this Trial.

If its early boast, that there could be no slaves in England, fails to be true, this at least may be its pride,--that, according to its indisputable principles, the liberty of every man was placed under the guard of Trial by Jury.

And thus, by the letter of the Constitution, in harmony with the requirements of the Common Law, all such persons, when claimed by their masters, are entitled to Trial by Jury.

Such, Sir, is the argument, briefly uttered, against the constitutionality of the Slave Act.

Opposing this Act as doubly unconstitutional from the want of power in Congress and from the denial of Trial by Jury, I find myself again encouraged by the example of our Revolutionary Fathers, in a case which is a landmark of history.

Its passage was the signal for a general flame of opposition and indignation throughout the Colonies.

It was denounced as contrary to the British Constitution, on two principal grounds: first, as a usurpation by Parliament of powers not belonging to it, and an infraction of rights secured to the Colonies; and, secondly, as a denial of…

The unconstitutional Stamp Act was welcomed in the Colonies by the Tories of that day precisely as the unconstitutional Slave Act is welcomed by large and imperious numbers among us.

In the face of an awakened community, where discussion has free scope, no men, though supported by office and wealth, can long maintain injustice.

By resolutions of legislatures and of town meetings, by speeches and writings, by public assemblies and processions, the country was rallied in peaceful phalanx against the execution of the Act.

To this great object, within the bounds of Law and the Constitution, were bent all the patriot energies of the land.

Three millions of people, so dead to all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest....

The Americans have been wronged; they have been driven to madness by injustice....

In the charnel-house of history, with unclean things of the Past, it now rots.

No freeman could be seized under it as a slave.

Both infringe important rights: one, of property; the other, the vital right of all, which is to other rights as soul to body,--the right of a man to himself.

As Freedom is more than property, as Man is above the dollar that he earns, as heaven, to which we all aspire, is higher than earth, where every accumulation of wealth must ever remain, so are the rights assailed by an American Congress…

And just in this degree must history condemn the Slave Act more than the Stamp Act.

All legislation hostile to the fundamental law of the land should be repealed without delay.

Even if this Act could claim any validity or apology under the Constitution, which it cannot, it lacks that essential support in the Public Conscience of the States, where it is to be enforced, which is the life of all law, and without…

I do not mean that the cordial support of every man or of every small locality is necessary; but I do mean that the public feelings, the public convictions, the public conscience, must not be touched, wounded, lacerated, by every endeavor…

If this be true as a general rule, if the public support and sympathy be essential to the life of all law, this is especially the case in an enactment which concerns the important and sensitive rights of Personal Liberty.

Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.