zens to
rescue every fugitive slave from the hands of the marshal
who essays to return him to bondage; to do it peaceably if
they can, forcibly if they must, but by all means to do it.
Will you stand by and see your countrymen, your
fellow-citizens of Boston, sent off to slavery by some
commissioner? Shall I see my own parishioners taken from
under my eyes and carried back to bondage, by a man whose
constitutional business it is to work wickedness by statute?
Shall I never lift an arm to protect him? When I consent to
that, you may call me a hireling shepherd, an infidel, a
wolf in sheep's clothing, even a defender of slave-catching
if you will; and I will confess I was a poor dumb dog,
barking always at the moon, but silent as the moon when the
murderer comes near.

"I am not a man who loves violence. I respect the sacredness
of human life. But this I say, solemnly, that I will do all
in my power to rescue any fugitive slave from the hands of
any officer who attempts to return him to bondage. I will
resist him as gently as I know how, but with such strength
as I can command; I will ring the bells, and alarm the
town; I will serve as head, as foot, or as hand to any body
of serious and earnest men, who will go with me, with no
weapons but their hands, in this work. I will do it as
readily as I would lift a man out of the water, or pluck him
from the teeth of a wolf, or snatch him from the hands of a
murderer. What is a fine of a thousand dollars, and jailing
for six months, to the liberty of a man? My money perish
with me, if it stand between me and the eternal law of God.
I trust there are manly men enough in this house to secure
the freedom of every fugitive slave in Boston, without
breaking a limb or rending a garment.

"One thing more I think is very plain, that the fugitive has
the same natural right to defend himself against the
slave-catcher, or his constitutional tool, that he has
against a murderer or a wolf. The man who attacks me to
reduce me to slavery, in that moment of attack alienates his
right to life, and if I were the fugitive, and could escape
in no other way, I would kill him with as little compunction
as I would drive a mosquito from my face. It is high time
this was said. What grasshoppers we are