We all know against whom this judicial iniquity was directed—against men who at Faneuil Hall, under the pictured and sculptured eyes of John Hancock and the three Adamses, appealed to the spirit of humanity, not yet crushed out of your heart and mine, and lifted up their voices in favour of freedom and the eternal law of God. If he had called us by our names he could not have made the thing plainer. You know the zeal of the United States Attorney, you have heard of the swearing before the Grand Jury and at the Grand Jury. Did the Judge's lightning only glow with judicial ardour and zeal for the Fugitive Slave Bill?—or was it also red with personal malignity and family spleen? Judge you!
But, alas! there was a Grand Jury, and the Salmonean thunder of the Fugitive Slave Bill Judge fell harmless—quenched, conquered, disgraced, and brutal—to the ground. Poor Fugitive Slave Bill Court! it can only gnash its teeth against freedom of speech in Faneuil Hall; only bark and yelp against the unalienable rights of man, and howl against the Higher Law of God! it cannot bite! Poor imbecile, malignant Court! What a pity that the Fugitive Slave Bill Judge was not himself the Grand Jury, to order the indictment! what a shame that the Attorney was not a petty jury to convict! Then New England, like Old, might have had her " bloody assizes," and Boston streets might have streamed with the hearths gore of noble men and women; and himian heads might have decked the pinnacles all round the town; and Judge Curtis and Attorney Hallett might have had their place with Judge Jeffreys and John Boilman of old. What a pity that we have a Grand Jury and a traverse jury to stand between the malignant arm of the slave-hunter and the heart of you and me! Perhaps the Court will try again, and find a more pliant Grand Jury, easier to intimidate. Let me suggest to the Court, that the next time-it should pack its jurors om the Marshal's "guard." Then there will be unity of idea; of action, too—the Court a figure of equilibrium.[1]
At a Fugitive Slave Bill meeting in Faneuil Hall, it is easy to ask a minister a question designed to be insulting,
- ↑ The experiment was made; the brother-in-law of the Fugitive Slave Bill Judge was put on the jury, and indictments were found in October and November.
