I refer to the Fugitive Slave act, so called; and I trust this will not be deemed an unfitting occasion to lay bare a portion of its enormities.

It struck me that if new and oppressive measures were to be taken to carry back alleged slaves to bondage, something should also be done to restore freemen to liberty.

While the south were seeking new guaranties for men who claim to own other men, it was a time for the north to demand new guaranties for men who own themselves.

But all debate was suppressed; property vanquished liberty; and a pure pro-slavery law was enacted, unadulterated by any alloy of freedom.

In regard to this Fugitive Slave act, is it not astonishing that men should ever ask the question, Does the constitution demand the trial by jury? instead of the question, Will the constitution allow it?

The first is the tyrant’s question, granting no more than he is compelled to give.

The last is the republican’s question, volunteering all that he can grant.

In a free government, where the trial by jury is held to be the surest safeguard of personal liberty, the inquiry ought never to be, whether the constitution secures or necessitates this form of trial; for it is enough, if the constitution…

Instead of seeking evasions, and close constructions, and hunting among the musty precedents of darker times, in order to shut out the jury trial in cases of personal liberty, the true lover of freedom would ask only for an interpretation…

It has been discussed as though the jury trial, to protect a man’s right to himself, were an evil; and as though the sudden seizure, “summary” adjudication, and speedy consignment of a fellow-being to bondage, were too precious a blessing…

It provides for the creation of scores and hundreds of officers called “commissioners,” and upon these, it is said on high authority, to confer original and final jurisdiction on questions of human liberty.

The constitution declares in whom “the judicial power of the United States shall be vested.” It shall be vested in “one supreme court, and in such inferior courts as Congress may from time to time establish.” No commissioner, nor any…

He is to decide that a man owes life-long service from himself, and from all the children of his loins.

But the south grew bolder and bolder, until a law was passed, by which one class of men have less security for their freedom than another class have for their cattle.

I say, then, that, in effect, the commissioner, by this act, has original, final, and exclusive jurisdiction of a “case” “in law,” “arising under the constitution and laws of the United States.” This is the very function of judges and…

This is the identical power which the constitution of the United States vests in judges who are to be nominated by the President, confirmed by the Senate, to hold office during good behavior, and to be compensated by fixed salaries.

Again, the act consigns a man to bondage, without crime, on evidence which he has had no opportunity to controvert.

This proof may be procured against the alleged fugitive without any notice to him, actual or constructive; without the possibility of his encountering it, or disproving it, however false it may be.

If this be not depriving a person of his “liberty” “without due process of law,” what can be?

Why not make the whole case provable behind the man’s back,--in another state,--a thousand miles off,--and spurn the forms of justice, after having spurned its substance?

This binding of a man by evidence obtained without his knowledge, is unknown to the common law, and abhorrent to it.

It is never permitted, not even to deprive the worst man of the humblest right.

Who is under so great a disability as he who knows nothing, and can know nothing, of what is going on against him?

Such an act violates the first principles of justice.

All securities for the life, liberty and property of us all, are swept away if such principles can be established.