ch are the acts charged. Gentlemen of the Jury, you are summoned
here to declare them a Crime, and then to punish me for this
"offence!" You are the Axe which the Government grasps with red hand
to cleave my head asunder. It is a trial where Franklin Pierce,
transiently President of the United States, and his official
coadjutors,--Mr. Caleb Cushing, Mr. Benj. R. Curtis, and Mr. Benj. F.
Hallett,--are on one side, and the People of the United States on the
other. As a Measure, your decision may send me to jail for twelve
months; may also fine me three hundred dollars. To me personally it is
of very small consequence what your verdict shall be. The fine is
nothing; the imprisonment for twelve months--Gentlemen, I laugh at it!
Nay, were it death, I should smile at the official gibbet. A verdict
of guilty would affix no stain to my reputation. I am sure to come out
of this trial with honor--it is the Court that is sure to suffer
loss--at least shame. I do not mean the Court will ever feel remorse,
or even shame, for this conduct; I am no young man now, I know these
men,--but the People are sure to burn the brand of shame deep into
this tribunal. The blow of that axe, if not parried, will do me no
harm.

But it is not I, merely, now put to trial. Nay, it is the unalienable
Rights of Humanity, it is truths self-evident. For on the back of that
compliant Measure, unseen, there rides a Principle. The verdict
expected of you condemns liberal institutions: all Religion but
priestcraft--the abnegation of religion itself; all Rights but that to
bondage--the denial of all rights. The word which fines me, puts your
own purse in the hands of your worst enemies; the many-warded key
which shuts me in jail, locks your lips forever--your children's lips
forever. No complaint against oppression hereafter! Kidnapping will go
on in silence, but at noonday, not a minister stirring. Meeting-houses
will be shut; all court houses have a loaded cannon at their door,
chains all round them, be stuffed with foreign soldiers inside, while
commissioners swear away the life, the liberty, and even the Estate of
the subjected "citizens." All Probate Judges will belong to the family
of man-stealers. Faneuil Hall will be shut, or open only for a "Union
Meeting," where the ruler calls together his menials to indorse some
new act of injustice,--only creatures of the Government, men like the
marshal's guard last June, allowed to speak words paid for by the
P