State failed to procure money to carry on the
public works. I then opened a prairie farm to get bread for my family,
and I am one of the men who have made Chicago what it is to-day,
having shipped some of the first grain that was exported from this
city. I am, Sir, one of the pioneers of Illinois, who have gone
through the many hardships of the settlement of a new country. I have
spent upon it my best days, the strength of my manhood. I have eleven
children, who are natives of this my adopted country. No living man,
Sir, has greater interest in its welfare; and it is because I am
opposed to carrying out wicked and ungodly laws, and love the freedom
of my country, that I stand before you to-day.

Again, Sir, I ought not to be sentenced because, as has been argued by
the prosecution, I am an Abolitionist. I have no apologies to make for
being an Abolitionist. When I came to this country, like the mass from
beyond the sea, I was a Democrat; there was a charm in the name. But,
Sir, I soon found that I had to go beyond the name of a party in this
country, in order to know any thing of its principles or practice. I
soon found that however much the great parties of my adopted country
differed upon banks, tariffs and land questions, in one thing they
agreed, in trying which could stoop the lowest to gain the favor of
the most cursed system of slavery that ever swayed an iron rod over
any nation, the Moloch which they had set up, to which they offered as
human sacrifice millions of the children of toil. As a man who had
fled from the crushing aristocracy of my native land, how could I
support a worse aristocracy in this land? I was compelled to give my
humble name and influence to a party who proposed, at least, to
embrace in its sympathies all classes of men, from all quarters of the
globe. In this choice, I found myself in the company of Clarkson and
Wilberforce in my native land, and of Washington and Franklin, and
many such, in this boasted land of the free; and more than all these,
the Redeemer in whom I humbly trust for acceptance with my God, who
came to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the
captives, to set at liberty those who were bruised; yea, this very
religion binds me to those in bonds as bound with them. Tell me, Sir,
with these views, can I be any thing but an Abolitionist? Surely, for
this I ought not to be sentenced.

Again, Sir, I ought not to be sentenced, because the Fugitive Slave
Law, un