Charles G. Davis

“ All evidence of identity having failed, the government is driven to its last shift. Col. Thomas is called in, and he testifies that the agent of Mr. Debree said to him, in the Court-room, when the prisoner was brought in, "That is my boy!" This is hearsay evidence upon hearsay evidence. It is monstrous! Yet on this slender thread of illegal testimony, hung all the evidence of the facts of identity, slavery and escape. If it is enough to prove that the man rescued was the man in custody, and upon whom the Court was sitting in fact, no one denies it. ”

“ We feel it everywhere. We know that we make sacrifices when we act in this cause. We feel that we suffer under it. And if this course is persevered in, I believe that if a man stands at that bar charged with being a fugitive slave, he will find it difficult to obtain counsel in this city of Boston, except from a small body of men peculiarly situated.
I think that two years ago no man could have stood before this bar, with perpetual servitude impending over him, but almost the entire bar would have come forward for his defence. No man would have dared to decline. ”

“ Therefore it is that I think it somewhat unfortunate the District Attorney should have thought it necessary to arrest counsel. If there be a person against whom no intimidation should be used, it is the counsel for a poor, unprotected fugitive from captivity.—The question is, whether a man and his posterity forever, the fruit of his body, shall be slave or free. It is to be decided on legal principles. If there is a case in the world that calls for legal knowledge and ability—that calls for counsellors to come in and labor without money or price, it is a case like this. ”

“ And therefore I say, by resistance to the law, I mean combined, systematic, forcible resistance to the law for the purpose of overcoming all law, or a particular law in all cases; defying the government to arms, and not for the purpose of raising a constitutional issue. For this is within the power, nay, it is sometimes the duty of a citizen. I do not know a position in which a person does a greater good to his fellow citizens than when he does, as John Hampden did on the question of ship money, raise, by refusal to obey, the constitutional issue. ”

“ I will proceed at once to the evidence. The question here is, has a law of the United States been violated? I throw to the winds every question except whether this defendant is guilty; high or low, it matters not; the higher in station, the more amenable. I do not suppose for a moment that the Commissioner has any prejudice. We cannot, and we never will regard, the office, which the counsel seems to consider sacred. The sacredness of an office depends upon the sacredness of character. ”

“ I think it is a time, this day, when it becomes a judicial tribunal to see to it, that this extraordinary combination of Executive power and patronage; this alarm and this anxiety at head quarters, does not lead to a violation of private rights and personal liberty. I think there is a pressure brought to bear against the free expression of popular opinion, against the exercise of private judgment—a pressure felt even in the courts of law, intimidating counsel, overawing witnesses, and making the defence of liberty a peril. ”

“ There is no need of standing armies in Boston! And, above all, we trust that the Commissioner will be able to say to the world, to the President, and to Congress, that this effort was the unpremeditated, irresistible impulse of a small body of men, acting under the sense and sight of oppression and impending horrid calamities, against the advice of some of their own number; and that no gentleman of education, no counsellor of this court sworn to obey the law, has instigated these poor men to its overthrow. ”

“ If a man claims another, without process, by putting his hand on his shoulder, though the man may be as free as you or I, if he resists, or his friends aid him in resisting, the offence is committed. A man claimed as a Fugitive Slave, has been rescued or aided in his escape. You cannot refuse to deliver up a colored boy or girl born in your house, of free parents, to any man who knocks at your door and claims the child, with or without a warrant, without incurring the penalties of this act. ”

“ Not the hair of a man's head is injured. The prisoner walks off with his friends, straight out of this Court-House, and no more than twenty or thirty persons have done the deed. Three men outside of the door could have prevented the rescue. Mr. Riley did not suspect it. Mr. Warren did not suspect it. Mr. Homer did not suspect it. Mr. Wright did not suspect it. Nobody suspected it. The sudden action of a small body of men, unexpected, and only successful because unexpected, accomplished it. He is out of the reach of the officers in a moment, and there's the end of the whole business. ”

“ And I take it, no citizen has the right forcibly to violate the law, unless he is prepared for revolution. I know that these nice metaphysic rays, as Burke says, piercing into the dense medium of common life, are refracted and distorted from their course. But an educated man, with a disciplined mind, knows that he has no right to encourage others to forcible resistance, unless he is ready to take the risks of bringing upon the community all the consequences of civil war. We talk about a higher law on the subject of resistance to the law. ”

“ A political party is to be put under the ban. There is nothing so rash as fear. There is nothing so indiscriminating as fear. There is nothing so cruel as fear, unless it be mortified pride—and here they both concurred.
Instructions come from a distant Executive power that knows nothing of the facts. And the fear of that power and patronage is the reason, may it please the Commissioner, why suddenly, on Saturday or Sunday, before the subject can be examined and the truth ascertained, a warrant is got out against a person of the character and position of Mr. Davis. ”

“ It will be well for us, as citizens, to remember, that the attempt is making to establish this act, passed by the vote of less than half of the Representatives of the people, as the unalterable law of the country; to treat as treason and disaffection to government, all attempts to rouse the public to efforts for its repeal; and, by unprecedented coalitions, that might almost be called conspiracies, of public men, to destroy the character and means of influence of all who lend their aid in these efforts. Even a public discussion of the subject, is cause for suspicion and inquiry. ”

“ There has been a law passed in the year 1850, by the Congress of the United States, which subjects certain persons, if they be fugitive slaves, or whether they be or not, subjects them to be arrested and brought into Court, to have the question of their liberty and that of their seed forever, tried by a so called judicial tribunal. ”

“ As a matter of law, as a matter of vital importance to every citizen, as a great question of constitutional law, I earnestly protest against the issuing of warrants on the mere formal oaths of official persons, representing a party in the proceedings, and utterly ignorant of the facts they swear to. ”

“ Sawin to be an officer of the Court. He knew him as a city constable; and supposed he had let himself out by the day as a catcher of fugitive slaves. I know something of the feelings of Southern gentlemen as to this class of men. They are necessary evils. They use them as we use spies, informers and deserters in war; they use them, but they despise them. I remember being in one of the chief cities of Virginia, and passing a large, handsome house, when my friend said to me, "There lives perhaps the richest man in our town, but he visits nowhere, nobody notices him. ”

“ But as a citizen, within constitutional limits, addressing his fellow-citizens at Faneuil Hall, (where I think we have still a right to go,) discouraging his fellow-citizens from violence, writing in the newspapers and arguing in the courts of law to the same purpose, saying to the poor trembling negro, I will give you a habeas corpus! I will give you a writ of personal replevin! I will aid in your defence! There is no need of violence! That is the position of the defendant. ”

“ He attached certain property which he thought belonged to the defendant. He showed his warrant, but the true owners put him, neck and heels, out of the house. They were indicted, but the Court sustained them in their act.
In a civil action, if the wrong person, the wrong horse, or the wrong slave, is taken, then the owner of the property may defend it, or the man seized may defend himself if he chooses. There is a different statute on the subject of interfering with the process of the courts, interfering with judicial processes, under which this respondent is not held to answer. ”

“ This is a case of great political importance, and the deputy Marshal thinks it his duty, (I think in rather an extraordinary manner,) instantly, before any charge is made against him, before any official inquiry is started, to issue a long affidavit, sent post haste to every newspaper, and hurried on to Washington,—Congress in session,—a delicate question there,—Northern and Southern men arrayed against each other. Then comes an alarm. Then the Executive shrieks out a proclamation.
A standing army is to be ordered to Boston. All good citizens are to be commanded to sustain the laws. ”

“ It will be well for every reader to bear in mind that this is the tribunal to which the late Act of Congress gives final jurisdiction in deciding whether a man found a free inhabitant of a free state, shall be exiled, and sent into endless slavery.
The Commissioner tries an issue, on the result of which, all the hopes of a fellow man for the life that is, and that which is to come, are suspended ”

“ It is the right to passive submission to penalties, or, it is the active ultimate right of revolution. It is the right our fathers took to themselves, as an ultimate remedy for unsupportable evils. It means, war and bloodshed. ”

“ Lunt. I propose to show that Shadrach admitted he was a slave, and owned by De Bree, and that his name was Shadrach.
Mr. Dana. It is true the Commissioner has admitted Col. Thomas to testify to the declaration of De Bree's agent, as evidence that De Bree claimed the man; but this evidence is still more remote. This is a criminal prosecution. Is a man to be bound by statements of others? This matter was not adjudicated. How can the man's admission that his name is Shadrach affect us? He is not placed upon the stand. He is not under oath. ”

“ Our ancestors have eaten sour grapes, and their childrens' teeth are set on edge. We are all under the same condemnation. We are all responsible for these laws—for slavery, in some form or other. Our constitutional compact makes us responsible, and we cannot escape from our share of the evil and the wrong. ”

“ Something has been attempted to be made out of Mr. Davis' conversation with the officers in the room. A man engaged in a plot for a rescue, would not be likely to expose himself to suspicion by violent remarks to officers. But take the evidence as it stands. At the request of Mr. List, he asked Sawin, whom he knew, if the man next Shadrach was a Southern man. This was proper. The counsel did not wish a man to sit next the prisoner, who might converse with him for the purpose of getting admissions from him. They feared he might be an agent of the claimant. ”

“ The defendant knows that the cause in which he is engaged, by a strange revulsion of public feeling, is unpopular. It is unprofitable, and whatever is unprofitable is unpopular. It is not genteel, and persons doubtful of their gentility ridicule it. Now Mr. Davis being engaged in this unpopular cause, Byrnes makes a remark which Mr. Minns thought was intended to irritate Mr. Davis.
He did not hear the first part, but it ended with "killing the negroes." Mr. Davis felt that it was intended as a taunt to him. ”

“ It is in the hands of the people. It is not in standing behind and urging on poor men to put themselves in the cannon's mouth. It is political courage that is wanted. Courage shown in speech, through the pen, and through the ballot-box. ”

“ By the courtesy of the Marshal, the counsel were permitted to remain here, because the Marshal had not yet determined where to keep his prisoner. They remained until the time for the prisoner's meal. When the business is over, they leave. Some one must go out first, and somebody must go out last. It is nothing more nor less than the old rule of "The Devil take the hindermost." Mr. List leaves the Court-room—Mr. Warren goes out. All the officers are to go to dinner, and the door is to be opened and closed each time. Dinner is to be brought in. Twenty times that door is to be opened. ”