matter which was to determine whether the prisoner should be a free man or only a thing which might be sold and beaten as a beast, the "court" allowed him forty-eight hours' delay! It really gave him time to breathe a little. Let us be grateful to the commissioner ! He gave more favour than any Fugitive Slave BiU Commissioners have done before, I believe.
You know the rest. He was on trial ten days. He was never in a court; all this time he has not seen a jury; he has not even seen a judge; the process is "summary," not "summary in time," as Mr. Loring declares; but it is "without due form of law." The Democratic chargé d'affaires at Turin says "the negro is the connecting link between the human and brute creation."[1] Why do you want a court to make a negro a slave in Boston? Surely, a commissioner is enough in such a case. Let him proceed as swiftly as he will:—the kidnapper's lawyers said—"forthwith;" not in a hurry, but "immediately."
You remember what followed. You have seen the streets crowded with armed men. You have read the newspapers, the handbills, and the posters. You remember the Faneuil Hall meeting, when all the influence of the platform scarce kept the multitude from tearing the Court House that night to the ground. You remember the attack on the Court House—a man killed and twelve citizens in gaol, charged with crimes of an atrocious character. You recollect the conventions—Free Soil and Anti-Slavery. You call to mind the aspect of Court Square last Monday. Boston never saw such an Anniversary week. There were meetings of theological societies, philanthropic societies, reformatory societies, literary societies: and Boston was in a state of siege—the Court House full of United States soldiers—marines from the navy yard, troops from the forts, from New York, from Portsmouth, from Rhode Island. The courts sat with muskets at their backs, or swords at their bosoms; drunken soldiers charged bayonet on the witnesses, on counsel, and on strangers, who had rights where the soldier had none. The scene last Friday you will never forget—business suspended, the shops shut, the streets blocked up, all the "citizen-soldiery" under arms. Ball cartridges were made for the city government on
- ↑ See above, vol. i. p. 394.
