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 Accession No. 7 J2, ^ d/ -^a^'sNo. 
 

EDWIN CHANNING LARNED 
 

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IN MEMORY 
 
 OF 
 
 Edwin Channing Larned 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY 
 
 1886 
 
3 
 ^3 
 
 7 20 6'/ 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Pagb 
 
 In Memory of Edwin C. Larned 7 
 
 Introductory Remarks 9 
 
 Memorial Address by Daniel Goqdwin, Jr. . ii 
 
 Address by Rt. Rev. S. S. Harris, D.D., LL.D., 
 
 Bishop of Michigan 37 
 
 Address by Judge Henry W. Blodgett ... 54 
 
 Address by Franklin MacVeagh, Esq. ... 60 
 
 Presentation of Portrait 6^ 
 
 Argument of E. C. Larned, Esq., on the 
 
 Trial of Joseph Stout • • • 73 
 
in i^etnorp 
 
 OP 
 
 EDWIN C. LARNED. 
 
 IV /TR. LARNED died at his son's home in 
 ■*-^ ^ Lake Forest, Illinois, on the eighteenth 
 day of September, in the year eighteen hundred 
 and eighty-four, in the sixty-fifth year of his 
 age. His death was sudden; but the disease 
 of the heart which caused it had been known 
 for a long time both to himself and his family. 
 One of the most impressive lessons of his life 
 could not be fully spoken of by those who have 
 written the pages that follow, because his 
 immediate family alone had the opportunity 
 to appreciate it, — I mean the perfect serenity 
 of his life for more than two years, while he 
 knew that death might come at any moment. 
 Though forced to remain quiet in body during 
 these last two years, his mind was as active as 
 
8 IN MEMORY OF EDWIN C. LARNED. 
 
 ever, and his mental work was continued almost 
 to the very last day of his life. He was more 
 cheerful during the two years preceding his 
 death than was usual even with him. Death 
 had no terrors for him, because his Christian 
 faith gave him the victory over it. He was 
 ready at all times, as he often said, either to go 
 or stay as the Heavenly Father willed it. The 
 more public events of his hfe are fully told by 
 those who delivered the following Memorial 
 Addresses. 
 
 W. C. L. 
 
THESE Memorial Addresses were delivered in the 
 hall of the Historical Society in Chicago, on Dear- 
 born Avenue, near the corner of Ontario Street, on the 
 evening of Tuesday, the sixteenth day of December, 
 eighteen hundred and eighty-four. The Hon. E. B. 
 Washburne was at that time President of the Society. 
 He presided, and spoke as follows : — 
 
 The current business of the evening having 
 been disposed of, we will now have the pleasure 
 of listening to memorial addresses in respect of 
 our late distinguished associate and honored 
 friend, the Hon. EDWIN C. Larned. 
 
 Mr. Larned was one of the oldest and most 
 useful members of our Society, and always inter- 
 ested in all that appertained to our progress and 
 well-being. 
 
 I can assume that the members of the Society 
 and all others present will listen with interest 
 and emotion to what may be said of Mr. Larned 
 here to-night. 
 
 Long a resident of Chicago, by his honor and 
 probity, by his intelligence and sagacity, by the 
 
lO INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 conspicuous virtues which adorned his public 
 and private character, Mr. Larned had illus- 
 trated the history of our great city, and left a 
 name and a memory which will be cherished 
 with gratitude by all who knew him. 
 
 We will now listen to Mr. Goodwin's address. 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 BY DANIEL GOODWIN, Jr. 
 
 Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 The members of this Society can "readily un- 
 derstand and appreciate the profound emotion 
 with which I appear before them to-night. One 
 year ago, by the courtesy of your then Presi- 
 dent, I here presented to you a memorial of 
 that old hero. General Dearborn, for whom this 
 settlement was named in its first infancy. With- 
 in the past month, the last male descendant 
 bearing his name has been laid beside the old 
 General, on the summit of Mount Dearborn in 
 Forest Hills Cemetery. I saw him at his home 
 in Roxbury, in September, in apparent health ; 
 and he expressed great gratification that this 
 Historical Society had celebrated the eightieth 
 anniversary of the first settlement here by 
 placing upon its walls a portrait of his grand- 
 father. 
 
 On the twenty-first day of November, in the 
 seventy-sixth year of his age, Henry G. R. 
 
12 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 Dearborn passed away ; but so long as the city 
 of Chicago survives the elements, the name of 
 the old hero of our two wars for independence 
 will be remembered upon some beautiful ave- 
 nue, some park, some noble building, some 
 living society. 
 
 Nor can I stand here and forget him who 
 presided here a year ago with such grace and 
 dignity. He was an enthusiast for the fullest 
 historical record of his beloved country, for which 
 he had devoted so much of the best efforts of his 
 life. He, too, has passed from earth ; and these 
 walls have scarcely ceased to echo the eloquent 
 and appreciative eulogy upon our dead Presi- 
 dent from the lips of his successor, who strug- 
 gled by his side for more than a generation in 
 placing his country upon the adamantine corner- 
 stone of freedom and righteousness. 
 
 To-night we have assembled to do honor to 
 the memory of one who was a very Warwick 
 behind the throne of these leaders and law- 
 makers. So long as the history of Chicago is 
 read and admired, many of the most striking 
 and interesting events in its career to the present 
 year of grace will find the names of ISAAC N. 
 Arnold and Edwin C. Larned hnked together 
 in fraternal accord. 
 
 It seems to me but yesterday since I came to 
 Chicago, in November, 1858, and entered Mr. 
 Larned's office in the old Parker Building on 
 Washington Street. The gifted Dr. William 
 Dennison ; the much loved Dr. M. O. Heydock ; 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 13 
 
 the well-born and well-bred J. Mason Parker; 
 Stephen A. Goodwin, with his learning and elo- 
 quence; Edward S. Stickney, so full of every 
 kind of culture ; and Edwin C. Earned, the ora- 
 tor and the philanthropist, — were all then under 
 the same roof; but, in the words of the gentle 
 Elia, — 
 
 " All, all are gone, — the old familiar faces." 
 
 But they have left us with memories we would 
 not willingly let die; and it has been thought 
 best that this Society should place upon its 
 records some memorial of the noble life which 
 has so recently ended. 
 
 Twenty years have elapsed since my partner- 
 ship with Mr. Earned. If I had been called 
 upon at that time to pronounce a eulogy upon 
 his character and services, it might have been 
 thought by some, whose knowledge of him was 
 limited, that the sentiments expressed were col- 
 ored by the warm friendship engendered by daily 
 courtesies and mutual interests, and that the judg- 
 ment was blinded by the too near influence of 
 his brilliant conversation. But the years which 
 have passed since then have brought many other 
 brilliant and able men upon the stage and before 
 the view ; and, take him all in all, I remember 
 Edwin C. Earned as the peer of the best and 
 noblest men our era has produced. Not to speak 
 of the living, since my estimate of Mr. Earned was 
 formed, I have listened to Eincoln and Browning, 
 to Eovejoy and Carpenter, to Arrington and 
 
14 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 Fuller in our own city, and to a host of able 
 men from all parts of the country ; and I re- 
 member now the war speeches of -Mr. Larned, 
 his arguments in cases involving personal rights, 
 and his pleas for the sick and the wounded and 
 the destitute, and the imperilled children, as 
 among the finest and most effective appeals ever 
 addressed to the reason and the heart. 
 
 We have known many men in this wonderful 
 city who were great in some particular direc- 
 tions ; Mr. Larned was remarkable for his even 
 and full development in every sphere and in 
 every department of intellectual labor. 
 
 Mr. Larned was born in Providence, R. L, 
 July 14, 1820, and died at Lake Forest, 111., on 
 the 1 8th day of September, 1884. 
 
 He was the son of John S. Larned, a promi- 
 nent and influential merchant of Providence, and 
 Lucinda Martin, his wife. His grandfather, Wil- 
 liam Larned, served with distinction in the Revo- 
 lutionary War. His father died when he was 
 young ; and his home training was by his mother, 
 who was highly educated, and the author of 
 several published books. He was educated at 
 private schools in Providence, and graduated at 
 Brown University in 1840; was Professor of 
 Mathematics in Kemper College, Mo., for one 
 year, and then studied law with the Hon. Albert 
 C. Greene, who was attorney general for Rhode 
 Island for seventeen years, and for a time United 
 States Senator. He first distinguished himself 
 by preparing the evidence and briefs in the 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 15 
 
 celebrated Lexington case, 6 How. U. S. 344, in 
 which Richard W. Greene and Daniel Webster 
 were of counsel, and so acquitted himself as to 
 be taken into partnership by Mr. Greene, who was 
 for many years afterward Chief Justice of Rhode 
 Island. 
 
 Mr. Larned resolved to try his fortune in the 
 West; and he settled in Chicago in September, 
 1847. He was at that time very tall and slender, 
 but enjoyed good health ; had a voice of great 
 volume and power, and exceedingly rich and mel- 
 low in tone ; and was possessed of an exuberant 
 imagination and great command of language. 
 
 Mr. Larned was by nature and education an 
 enthusiastic anti-slavery man, and acquired his 
 first celebrity by a popular speech in the old 
 Market House on State Street, in 185 1, in an- 
 swer to one by Stephen A. Douglas, on the Fugi- 
 tive Slave Law, which was published in pamphlet 
 form, and which Mr. Douglas complimented as 
 the best on that side of the question. 
 
 Mr. Larned identified himself, soon after he 
 became a citizen of Chicago, with as many 
 public interests as any man could, with justice 
 to his own private business. 
 
 In 1850 he assisted in the preparation of the 
 act to incorporate the Chicago City Hydrauhc 
 Company, under which the Chicago Water 
 Works were constructed, and which are now 
 the largest pumping-works in the world. 
 
 He was secretary to the Board of Education 
 in 1852-54, and was one of the founders and 
 
l6 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 trustees of Dearborn Seminary. In 1854 he 
 was the master spirit in originating and putting 
 into operation that vast system of sewerage 
 which has converted a great swamp into the 
 healthiest of all the large cities of the world 
 which maintain and publish records of vital sta- 
 tistics. He called the first meeting, was chair- 
 man of the committee to prepare a bill to 
 remedy the evil, drew the bill, and when it be- 
 came a law, was the attorney for the board, and 
 aided in securing for the city the priceless ser- 
 vices of E. S. Chesbrough and Gen. J. D. Web- 
 ster. He became inspector of public schools, 
 and studied into its system, probed into its 
 weak points, drew the ordinance for the office 
 of superintendent, and aided to perfect a sys- 
 tem so admirable that he deliberately selected 
 it in after years as the best preparation for his 
 own son for Harvard University. 
 
 Believing that every citizen owes a duty to 
 that class of whom his great Exemplar had de- 
 clared, " The poor ye have always with you," he 
 as early as 1857 helped to organize, and was the 
 first incorporator of, the Chicago Relief and Aid 
 Society, which has since then performed a work 
 never equalled except by the United States San- 
 itary Commission during our great war; a char- 
 ity the record of whose good deeds has travelled 
 around the habitable globe. 
 
 He was one of the first to appreciate the value 
 of a charitable Eye and Ear Infirmary, where 
 those too poor to employ a physician might 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 1 7 
 
 procure the most speedy relief, in many cases 
 saving a useful laborer from becoming a pauper, 
 and consequently a charge upon the State ; and 
 he not only gave of his means, but for a while 
 was one of the trustees of such an institution. 
 
 To St. Luke's Hospital he was an early and 
 constant donor, has been one of its trustees, and 
 supported there a bed where some poor sufferer 
 is to-day, blessing the memory of him who pro- 
 videth for the sick. 
 
 He was one of the earHest and most liberal 
 contributors, in money and work and public 
 speech, to the Training School for Nurses, one 
 of the most important of our city charities. As 
 early as 1856 he became profoundly impressed 
 with the idea, that bread ought to be made and 
 furnished at a reduced cost to the millions who 
 live as it were from hand to mouth; and in 
 connection with his brother-in-law, the late 
 Joseph T. Ryerson, who was identified with 
 him in most of his utilitarian and philanthropic 
 efforts, he organized a mechanical bakery, and 
 was its president for several years; and during 
 the first year of the war it furnished bread and 
 crackers to our soldiers in the West, which 
 could not have reached them by the ordinary 
 avenues. 
 
 Grasping early the conviction that this city 
 was to be made the chief metropolis of the West 
 by the means of railroads, he took a warm in- 
 terest In projecting, and as early as 1849 became 
 one of the directors of, the Aurora Branch of the 
 
i8 
 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and was 
 subsequently offered the attorneyship of the main 
 road. 
 
 Mr. Larned also took an active interest in the 
 religious world ; was one of the first to move in 
 the effort to procure a resident bishop for this 
 diocese, and to procure the funds for the build- 
 ing of a cathedral church. He was one of the 
 vestry of the Church of the Holy Communion, 
 started as a missionary church in the heart of 
 the city by his intimate friend, the Rev. Henry 
 B. Whipple, who from that field of city work be- 
 came one of the most eminent of the House of 
 Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church in 
 America. In this connection it may be said that 
 Mr. Larned's public religious work only ceased 
 with his loss of health. Many of us have seen 
 him going, through whole winters of storm and 
 snow, to a poor church on the North Side, to 
 teach his Bible class; and he not infrequently 
 read the service and a sermon both in our city 
 churches and in the villages in our vicinity. He 
 was a broad churchman, holding distinctly and 
 reverently the fundamental doctrines of Chris- 
 tianity, and was personally attached to the sim- 
 ple and unadulterated worship set forth in the 
 Book of Common Prayer of the Protestant Epis- 
 copal Church. 
 
 Mr. Larned has taken an active interest and 
 made many public speeches in favor of control- 
 ling the sale of liquor to children; has taken 
 public pains to purify the stage ; and upon every 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 19 
 
 question of reform, his clarion voice has been 
 heard in public and his active pen been busy for 
 that great multitude which can be reached only 
 through the daily papers. His published let- 
 ters and articles in the newspapers would fill a 
 considerable volume. 
 
 Not the least among Mr. Larned's contribu- 
 tions to the literature of this city were the nu- 
 merous tributes he paid to the memory of his 
 friends. His speeches, in memory of Colonel 
 Hamilton, Judge Baron, Judge McLean, Stephen 
 A. Douglas, Judge Manierre, Carlos Haven, 
 Judge Arrington, Abraham Lincoln, Stephen A. 
 Goodwin, James M. Walker, and scores of oth- 
 ers, were models of discriminating eulogy and 
 feeling eloquence. 
 
 Mr. Larned was peculiarly qualified for a 
 prominent place on what some would consider 
 the broadest field of national labor at Wash- 
 ington, and his friends repeatedly urged him 
 to accept a nomination for Congress ; but he was 
 never willing to give up the charm of his private 
 domestic life, and insisted that there was work 
 enough to do for morals and society, for litera- 
 ture and the arts, for charity and religion, in a 
 city like Chicago. And yet the position which 
 he filled from i860 to 1865 might truly be called 
 a national one. Mr. Larned had been for sev- 
 eral years the law partner of our late brother 
 Isaac N. Arnold, in a lucrative business; and the 
 time had come when Mr. Arnold felt that he had 
 acquired a sufficient fortune and had achieved a 
 
20 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 sufficient success at the bar, and owed his future 
 time and labor to the legislation and government 
 of the nation at large. He resolved in 1858 to 
 go to Congress ; and Mr. Lamed canvassed this 
 district, which was then a large one, for his 
 friend. 
 
 FUGITIVE SLAVE CASES. 
 
 In March, i860, Mr. Larned extended his 
 name and fame as an orator in the fugitive slave 
 cases. Looking back upon our past lives, we 
 find that all we have seen, as well as all we 
 have read or heard, which has made a vivid im- 
 pression upon us, is grouped or crystallized into 
 certain distinct pictures. Who that has ever 
 seen Trumbull's picture of the death of General 
 Warren, at the battle of Bunker Hill, can ever 
 forget it ? Who that has visited the National 
 Gallery, on Trafalgar Square, will ever forget 
 the fall of Lord Chatham, in the House of 
 Lords ? Who that has visited Faneuil Hall 
 will not recall the picture of Webster, in the 
 act of closing his grand oration for the Union 
 and against the doctrine of disunion, in the pres- 
 ence of Calhoun and Clay and the other great 
 Senators of 1830? 
 
 Every lawyer carries with him upon the illu- 
 minated sheets of memory the most vivid pic- 
 tures of the striking scenes he has witnessed in 
 court, — scenes which, by reason of their actual 
 personality, the present visible objects of excite- 
 ment, of hope or joy, of triumph or despair, far 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 21 
 
 surpass, in their influence upon the feelings, any 
 tragedy of fiction or history even by a Booth, 
 an Irving, or a Jefferson. 
 
 Among such pictures on my own brain is that 
 of the Freeman murder trial in Auburn, N. Y. 
 William H. Seward, assisted by Samuel Blatch- 
 ford, now of the United States Supreme Court, 
 battled for the life of an insane negro for weeks 
 against the wit and eloquence of the Attorney 
 General, John Van Buren, in the presence of 
 a community clamoring for the blood of the 
 murderer. 
 
 Another such picture is that of the first fugi- 
 tive slave case which occurred in western New 
 York shortly after the passage of the law of 1850. 
 It was in that same court-house in Auburn, N. Y. 
 The stately and venerable Conkling was upon 
 the bench; Senator Seward and his nephew 
 Clarence, and Blatchford and Pomeroy, were 
 interested listeners. Henry A. Foster, for many 
 years judge of the Court of Appeals, but then 
 United States attorney under Pierce, had the un- 
 popular task of prosecuting a law most repug- 
 nant to the citizens of western New York ; and 
 the brilliant Ganson, of Buffalo, in words of fire 
 argued against the constitutionality of the law. 
 
 Other such pictures were the Busch murder 
 case, where our Mr. Arnold and the late Thomas 
 Hoyne successfully fought for the young lawyer 
 who, in defending his father's possession of his 
 property, unintentionally killed a trespasser; 
 and the Jumpertz case, the Hodge case, and the 
 
22 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 North Shore accretion case, where for days I 
 watched the witty and persistent John A. Wills 
 badger Abraham Lincoln until every one in the 
 court-room lost patience except Mr. Lincoln 
 himself, who never for an instant betrayed the 
 slightest resentment or annoyance. 
 
 But of all the court pictures I now recall, that 
 which seems to transcend all others in impor- 
 tance was the fugitive slave case of i860 in this 
 city, before his Honor Judge Drummond. 
 
 A prominent lawyer once said of Mr. Larned 
 that he never heard him in a case when he did 
 not seem to him to make the best speech which 
 the subject admitted. Here was a limitless field ! 
 The entire South and the conservative men of 
 all parties at the North were clamoring for con- 
 victions. Southern slaveholders and their news- 
 papers were arousing the most bitter irritations 
 among their people by declaring that Northern 
 juries would not sustain the law which Chief 
 Justice Taney and a majority of the Supreme 
 Court had decided was constitutional. The 
 aged and justly venerated Justice McLean, pre- 
 siding justice of this circuit, had declared against 
 the constitutionality of the law in unanswerable 
 logic, and shown that many of the statements 
 of facts in the opinion of Taney were entirely 
 erroneous. 
 
 The United States Marshal for this district ad- 
 hered to the Buchanan wing of the Democracy ; 
 and the jury was composed almost entirely of 
 Democrats, the only two Republicans being 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 23 
 
 original corporators of this Society, Edward I. 
 Tinkham and Gen. Joseph D. Webster. In the 
 first case tried, Mr. Larned took no active part, 
 but kept notes and listened. Isaac N. Arnold, 
 Stephen A. Goodwin, and the eloquent Joseph 
 Knox had all made remarkable speeches for 
 the defendant. They felt that momentous is- 
 sues were at stake, and that the eyes of the 
 country were upon them. 
 
 The Government had called in the services 
 of Judge Arrington, whose massive intellect, ex- 
 uberant fancy, and fascinating oratory were used 
 at their best ; and the " Press and Tribune " of 
 the 8th of March admitted that his argument 
 was one of the most able and eloquent forensic 
 efforts in the annals of our bar. 
 
 Among the witnesses were our associate mem- 
 bers, — Chief Justice John D. Caton, to prove 
 the acts of the defendants ; and B. C. Cook and 
 W. D. Houghteling, to testify to their blameless 
 and exemplary lives and reputations. The first 
 case resulted in a conviction. In the second case 
 (United States v. Joseph Stout) Mr. Larned took 
 the lead. He was then less than forty years of 
 age ; but the subject was part of his existence, 
 and incorporated into the very fibre of his 
 moral and emotional nature. No epitome or 
 description of, or extracts from, his argument 
 could do any justice to the fervor of his appeal 
 or the thrilling effect of his eloquence, held in 
 control ever by his loving respect for Judge 
 Drummond, and his absolute command on all 
 
24 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 occasions of his own temper and his own rea- 
 son. It was an elaboration of his old speech 
 at the Market House, where he had first exhib- 
 ited his remarkable powers with the same kind 
 of eloquence which first notified the conserva- 
 tives of Faneuil Hall that the times demanded 
 and had created a Wendell Phillips, who there 
 thundered forth the rights of man as James Otis 
 and Joseph Warren and John Adams had done 
 in 1775. 
 
 Such was its effect upon the jury, that though 
 they were kept out for parts of three days and 
 two whole nights, they would not return a ver- 
 dict of guilty. Mr. Larned's argument was 
 published in the columns of " The Chicago 
 Press and Tribune" on the 19th of March, and 
 was read by thousands of people all over our 
 great Northwest less than fifty days before that 
 convention which nominated Abraham Lincoln, 
 and adopted a platform which declared that 
 slavery was local and not national, — the creation 
 of local law alone, — and should not be extended 
 into any free territory of these United States. 
 
 The balance of the year i860 was largely 
 spent by Mr. Larned in active campaign labor 
 and speeches for Lincoln and Arnold ; and from 
 that time on until 1865, during those terrible 
 years, he was one of the powers which upheld 
 our great fabric of constitutional liberty and 
 saved the nation. 
 
 Mr. Larned was one of the most earnest and 
 active members of the famous Union Defence 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 25 
 
 Committee during the war, — a committee com- 
 posed of such leaders of men as Judge Thomas 
 Drummond, Judge John M. Wilson, Judge Mani- 
 erre, Thomas Hoyne, Captain George Schneider, 
 and others, — a committee which accomplished 
 for our nation what the Committees of Safety 
 and Correspondence did for our colonies in 
 I yys-yS. It was in constant communication with 
 Lincoln, Seward, Cameron, Trumbull, Arnold, 
 Washburne, Fremont, and other authorities, both 
 here and at Washington, Kentucky, and St. 
 Louis, guiding and directing popular opinion, 
 formulating proper legislation for the new order 
 of things, raising and equipping troops, creating 
 defences for our northern frontiers, selecting 
 proper ambassadors to undeceive the people of 
 Europe taught to believe that the Southern 
 Confederacy was fighting only for liberty, and 
 in raising supplies and nurses for our sick and 
 wounded soldiers. The history of that Union 
 Defence Committee has never yet been written, 
 but would make one of the most interesting 
 chapters in the history of the Northwest 
 
 There are still living many members of this 
 Society who will remember their trip to Cairo in 
 April, 1861, headed by Judge Drummond and 
 Mr. Larned. 
 
 He was with Lincoln and Arnold in Wash- 
 ington during the month of May, 1861, when 
 our gallant Ellsworth fell at the very threshold 
 and gateway of those awful fields of slaughter 
 which swallowed up a million lives, and his were 
 
26 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 among the tender hands which carried our brave 
 boy from Washington to his Hudson home ; and 
 that scene of blood and tears, more touching 
 from its isolation than the future destruction of 
 thousands, crystallized his hitherto ardent hope 
 that slavery should be obliterated from our whole 
 country.^ 
 
 1 A few entries in an old office book kept in 1861, and saved 
 from the fire in 1871, will illustrate the kind of life Mr. Lamed 
 led, not only in 1861, but all through the war. 
 
 Jan. 17, 1861. Mr. Lamed presented resolutions of the bar on 
 the death of Colonel Hamilton to the Superior Court. 
 
 March 28. Mr. Larned appointed United States Attorney, and 
 Mr. Scripps, postmaster. 
 
 April 5. Judge McLean died. 
 
 April 6. Bar meeting at United States Cotirt. Resolutions drawn 
 by S. A. Goodwm. Mr. Lamed presented them to the court in a 
 beautiful speech, and Judge Drummond made a feeling reply. 
 
 April 10. Mr. Lamed circulated petition to appoint Drummond to 
 the Supreme Court in place of McLean. 
 
 April I ^. News came of the evaaiation of Fort Sumter and the 
 arming of various Northem States. Great meeting at Metropolitan 
 Hall. Speeches by Lovejoy, Blackwell, Arnold, Larned, Hoffman, and 
 others. 
 
 April 20. All Chicago in a fever of excitement about the war ; 
 courts all closed, crowds of lawyers enlisting. 
 
 April 24. Mr. Lamed and more than twenty of us lawyers joined 
 Company C, Sixtieth regiment, and drilled all the evening at Board of 
 Trade rooms, under John Van Arman. 
 
 May 10. Went to Cairo with Judges Drummond and Baron, 
 Messrs. Lamed, Hickok (of the " Tribune,") Eastman, Gregory, Wil- 
 liams, Hapgood, Smith, Tucker, Stockton, Bradley, Bishop, and 
 others. 
 
 May II. Visited the camp, and talked with Colonels Webster, 
 Prentiss, Bayne, Wallis, Dr. Semmes, and Haven and others. Mr. 
 Lamed took one thousand copies of Beecher's sermon on the flag, and 
 distributed them among the soldiers. 
 
 May 19. Mr. Larned went to Washington with Amold to confer 
 with the authorities about war measures. He was there when Ellsworth 
 was killed, and was one of the escorts from Washington to New York. 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 27 
 
 And here let me read a letter I have just re- 
 ceived from Robert Collyer, that original genius 
 who so long and so well represented the great 
 
 May 29. The " Tribune " published Mr. Lamed's letter describing 
 his Washington visit 
 
 June 5. Mr. Lamed announced the death of Stephen A, Douglas 
 in the United States Court. 
 
 August 10. Mr. Lamed made a great war speech at the Union 
 meeting. 
 
 August 14. News received of the battle in which General Lyon 
 and L. L. Jones were killed, also of Hyatt's death. 
 
 August 16. Mr. Lamed worked all day on the Union Defence Com- 
 mittee. They are authorized to equip four regiments. Democrats like 
 Thomas Hoyne and John Van Arman at work also. 
 
 August 24. Mr. Lamed made a great war speech at Bryan Hall. 
 
 August 27. Mr. Lamed before Judge Goodrich all day, in matter 
 of habeas corJ>us of Captain Crofton for killing Kraffts. 
 
 Attgusi 28. Mr. Lamed went to Washington with Judge John M. 
 Wilson, on Union Defence Committee. They had a long interview 
 with Lmcoln, Cameron, Blair, and others. Returned September 7. 
 
 September 11. Mr. Larned went to St. Louis on war business. 
 Returned i6th. 
 
 September 27. Mr. Lamed making stump speeches in the country 
 for enlistments. 
 
 October 29. Clark, Arnold, Bryan, Brainerd, Coolidge, Semmes, 
 and others in all day with Larned, and agreed upon a memorial to 
 Congress. 
 
 November 28. Lamed at Pine case all day in United States Court. 
 
 1862. January 8. Judge Baron killed. Mr. Larned's speech at 
 the bar meeting very eloquent. 
 
 February 12. Mr. Larned went to Washington, and was there 
 when the news came of the capture of Fort Donelson and twelve thou- 
 sand prisoners. Returned 28th. 
 
 March 17. Mr. Larned argued the Chickering and Ludington case. 
 
 April I. Mr. Lamed has been with the United States grand jury- 
 several days. 
 
 April 10. Mr. Lamed read Senator TmmbuU's confiscation speech. 
 
 May 5. Mr. Lamed made fine eulogy upon Carlos Haven, at a bar 
 meeting. 
 
 July 19. Mr. Lamed made a war speech at Bryan Hall. 
 
 The name of Mr. Hyatt recalls a case which strikingly 
 exhibited the power of Mr. Larned's eloquence. In 1859 a 
 
28 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 emotions and the noble charities of this Western 
 country, but who has taken his ripened powers 
 to a still larger field : — 
 
 New York, Dec. 9, 1884. 
 
 Dear Sir, — It is almost twenty-five years since my 
 
 hand first clasped the clean and strong hand of Edwin 
 
 C. Earned on a bitter winter morning, when he came 
 
 in very early to ask what he could do to help some 
 
 gentleman living in California sent an agent here to get pos- 
 session of his two sons, lads of seven and nine years, who 
 were living here with their mother. The father had some dis- 
 ease which made it impossible for him to live away from Cali- 
 fornia. His wife was young and handsome, and was unwilling 
 to leave her parents and friends and comforts to live in what 
 was then an uncultivated frontier. The wife procured a di- 
 vorce for desertion, and had married again and come here to 
 live, and her parents were living with her. 
 
 Mr. Lamed sued out a writ of habeas corpus, returnable 
 before Judge John M. Wilson; and the sheriff brought the 
 mother and boys into court, accompanied by both grand- 
 parents and Mr. Hyatt, their attorney. Mr. Hyatt was able 
 and eloquent, and had the advantage of the personal presence 
 of a beautiful client whose parents upheld her action and whose 
 children clung to her with great affection ; but when Mr. Lamed 
 took up the case and pictured the sick and miserable husband, 
 expatriated from his home and kindred by disease, practically 
 deserted by his wife in the hour of his sore trial, his words 
 were so earnest and tender that they brought streaming tears 
 down Judge Wilson's face. There was no jury and no audi- 
 ence beyond the officers of the court, and the parties and their 
 attorneys, and I thought the tears of that eminent chancellor, 
 pronounced by Judge Arrington the ablest judge in Illinois, 
 the most perfect tribute to Mr. Larned's eloquence and to 
 his character. I say character, for many lawyers could have 
 used the same or more eloquent words ; but there was that 
 moral sincerity in all Mr. Lamed said which carried respect 
 and conviction to the brain and the heart of the listener. 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 29 
 
 poor emigrants who were then on ray hands. He had 
 read an appeal for them in the " Press and Tribune," 
 and lost no time in offering to help me. So we took 
 hold together, set them on their feet, and from that day 
 we were stanch and true friends right on to the end. 
 I think I could lay my hands now on two or three men 
 on the North Side, Germans, who were poor children 
 in that hapless band and are now well to do. 
 
 It fell out not long after this that I was elected min- 
 ister of Unity Church ; and when we began to hold ser- 
 vices in our new meeting-house, he came in one Sunday 
 and sat near the pulpit. I can see his fine serious face 
 there as I write this line, and his steadfast eyes shining 
 through his spectacles. These were the days when the 
 ark of our covenant was smitten at Fort Sumter, and 
 we shook out our banners, bound them about our pul- 
 pits, sang " When Israel of the Lord beloved '* and 
 " America," and all the psalms we could lay our hands 
 on that rang out strong and true for the nation. 
 
 Mr. Lamed came at once to the front, did not stop 
 to pick out the gentlest words, and shot his arrows right 
 and left, tipped with white fire. We foregathered in 
 Washington when all was quiet on the Potomac, and 
 went among the camps together, speaking to the young 
 soldiers ; and I mind still an address he made to the 
 Second Rhode Island Regiment, blended all of fire and 
 tears, and full of hope and courage. His old friend 
 Bishop Clarke was there also, and spoke nobly and 
 well ; but Mr. Larned's speech was the best. It was as 
 when " deep calleth unto deep," and must have stayed 
 in the hearts of the boys as a very choice memory. 
 
 There was never the slightest jar in our friendship 
 and esteem ; and so it was right, on to the end. I saw 
 him here in New York for an instant one sweet fall 
 
30 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 Sunday, walking on the avenue, as I was going to a fun- 
 eral with no time to wait, and wist not I should never 
 see my good old friend again. 
 
 In my time we held on to the quiet assurance that 
 the North Side was the choicest and the best. The 
 West Side could boast of its teeming population, and 
 the South Side of its wealth and splendor; but we 
 prided ourselves on the possession of a certain love of 
 books and the fine arts, and the desire to preserve the 
 memorials of the past which bloomed out into the His- 
 torical Society, and ripened that seed which is to grow 
 into one of the noblest and best libraries in the world. 
 
 Edwin C. Lamed, William B. Ogden (the ablest 
 man he had ever met in the West, Mr. Emerson said 
 to me once), William Barry, William H. Clarke, and 
 others who are alive and remain, — these were the men 
 who stood within the finer life and more excellent, in 
 whom we nourished a quiet pride. We love, too, the 
 fine old quarter embowered in maples and elms, with 
 a great tree here and there which had survived from 
 the wilderness, and those fine old mansions standing in 
 open squares. The old things have passed away now, 
 and all things have become new ; but it is good to re- 
 member these fore-elders, whose lives were so full of 
 noble aspirations and endeavors ; and among these no 
 man is more worthy the reverence of the new genera- 
 tion than Edwin C. Lamed. 
 
 Yours always, 
 
 Robert Collyer. 
 To D. Goodwin. 
 
 When Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated President 
 of the United States, in March, 1861, he imme- 
 diately appointed Mr. Lamed district attorney 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 31 
 
 for this district. It was with real reluctance 
 Mr. Larned accepted this the only office he ever 
 filled; but his appointment was so manifestly 
 appropriate that the whole bar of our city, with- 
 out distinction of party, recommended it. Mr. 
 Arnold begged him to accept it as a personal 
 favor to himself, and both the " Press and Trib- 
 une " and the ** Chicago Times " applauded it 
 as a most honorable appointment. He was for 
 four years literally an attorney for the United 
 States, giving to the country during those 
 troubled times the best services of his life. 
 When his friend Mr. Arnold left Congress, Mr. 
 Larned resigned. Mr. Lincoln asked him to 
 continue in the office, but finally accepted his 
 resignation with expressions of great regret. 
 
 The canvass of 1862 was a most exciting one. 
 The war and the non-success of the army in Vir- 
 ginia, and the want of harmony between McClel- 
 lan and the administration created a reaction 
 against the Republican party. Horatio Sey- 
 mour was elected governor of New York. To 
 stem the tide in Illinois, Mr. Larned made every 
 effort of his great powers. Our congressional 
 district then reached as far as Aurora, and he 
 spoke to our people from the stump in every 
 part of the district. He believed that the defeat 
 of his friend and his party at that time, and in 
 this city where Lincoln was nominated, and the 
 chief city of the Northwest, meant the destruc- 
 tion of our Union and the useless sacrifice of 
 untold treasure and blood ; he worked day and 
 
32 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 night with almost delirious energy to sustain 
 the flag. 
 
 There were few to whom the victory was more 
 justly due, and it cost him a great price; it cost 
 him his health for a long and weary year. He 
 went to Europe for rest in April, 1863, accom- 
 panied by his son ; but rest to such brains as his 
 comes not by repose or inaction, it comes only 
 by change of work ; and the public press and the 
 clubs with which he has been associated have 
 profited by all his journeys in letters of vivid 
 description of men and things in foreign lands, 
 full of thought and observation, generally incul- 
 cating some moral principle or advocating some 
 public charity. 
 
 For some years before the fire of 1871 Mr. 
 Larned had retired from business and resided in 
 the East, but immediately after the fire he re- 
 turned and spent the whole winter at work in 
 the Relief and Aid Society. An extract from 
 his speech at the popular meeting in favor of 
 the Chicago Relief Bill pending before Congress 
 in 1872 will afford an example of his style and 
 sentiments : — 
 
 "I am not a free-trader. I am a protectionist on 
 principle ; but at the same time I am warmly in favor 
 of the Chicago Relief Bill, and think it ought to be- 
 come a law. It has been said that the bill is uncon- 
 stitutional. If I believed the bill to be unconstitu- 
 tional, however much my attachment to Chicago might 
 prompt me to wish to see it passed, I should be unwill- 
 ing to violate any of the principles of the Constitution 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 33 
 
 to secure that result. I feel very safe in following in 
 the steps of the chairman of the Judiciary Committee 
 in the Senate, Mr. Lyman Trumbull. Of the merits 
 of the bill, it seems to me there can be but one 
 opinion. It is a simple expedient to enable Chicago 
 to get building material at the normal prices ruling 
 throughout the country. It is not a bill to favor Chi- 
 cago, but it is a bill to prevent Chicago from being 
 disfavored. It is not to confer any great advantages 
 upon Chicago, but to relieve her from the enormous 
 disadvantages which will be thrown upon her in con- 
 sequence of the unparalleled calamity that has fallen 
 upon her. If we were in our natural position we 
 would want no favors ; but the fire has desolated our 
 city, and the very energy which is rebuilding it, and 
 which the world admires because it rushes forward with 
 such tremendous speed, makes an enormous demand 
 for building materials of all sorts and descriptions 
 within a very short space of time. 
 
 "The common sympathies of humanity, the com- 
 mon feeling between man and man that has manifested 
 itself in that magnificent charity which has poured its 
 bounties from all parts of the world for the relief of 
 human suffering, should extend itself into business 
 circles, and into Congress, and wherever men are 
 brought together." 
 
 With all Mr. Larned's work and sympathy for 
 the poor and oppressed, for the sick and the 
 troubled, for the dying and the dead, there was 
 no gloom in his nature, his smile, or his voice. 
 That bane of men called " irritability," which so 
 often robs the ofBce and the counting-house of 
 all pleasure and ease, and the domestic hearth 
 3 
 
34 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 of all peace and comfort when the master is 
 present, was unknown to him. Weary with 
 work, often distressed by disease, and worried 
 by a thousand cares and vexations, he ever 
 maintained the courtesy of Philip Sidney and 
 the long-suffering, uncomplaining patience of 
 Abraham Lincoln. To meet him on the street 
 on the darkest or gloomiest day was like a sud- 
 den burst of sunshine. His beaming cordiality 
 not only lighted up his own countenance, but 
 called out all latent warmth from the hearts of 
 his friends. Those who remember him as presi- 
 dent of the Anonymous Club or the Literary 
 Club will recall his hearty and sympathetic 
 laugh, always the first and the loudest, never 
 laughing at one, but always with one, in joyous 
 sympathy. Anything gross or coarse shamed 
 and humiliated him; and nothing ever passed 
 his lips which might not be unblushingly re- 
 peated before a Christian wife or mother. 
 
 Of his domestic life I dare not trust myself 
 to speak, even in this place, within a stone's- 
 throw of his home for twenty-five years, and 
 in the presence of none but his neighbors and 
 friends. Shall we any of us ever forget that 
 ideal home, where absolute purity and religion 
 were made attractive by liberal hospitality, the 
 heartiest humor, the tenderest courtesy, and 
 the highest range of poetical thought and 
 culture? 
 
 Mr. Larned's career in this world is over. It 
 closed as he must have wished. At a bar meet- 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 35 
 
 ing in the month of May, 1879, he used the 
 following language: — 
 
 "When a man at the end of a long, useful, and 
 honorable life, in the full possession of his unimpaired 
 powers, passes from the present to a higher form of 
 life, it is not a matter of lamentation. Death is in- 
 evitable ; it comes to every man, and when the further 
 continuance of life upon this earth would afford no 
 further opportunity for growth and development, there 
 is no reason why we should desire that our own lives 
 or the lives of those who are dear to us should here be 
 further prolonged. 
 
 *' Looking upon death as I look upon it, as only the 
 entrance to a larger and loftier life, it seems to me 
 most fitting that when a man can achieve nothing 
 further here he should pass up into the nobler life 
 above. 
 
 " It seems to me that the happiest and most desirable 
 of all deaths that can befall us is to be taken suddenly 
 away, in the full possession of unimpaired powers, 
 from a life of laborious activity and usefulness here, 
 and translated at once into the higher life of the 
 spirit." 
 
 Such, substantially, was his own lot. At 
 a comparatively recent period he was in the 
 front rank of active practice. His physicians 
 became aware of a disease of the heart which 
 must eventually prove fatal; but his intellect 
 continued active, and his pen sent his thoughts 
 into the daily and religious papers down to 
 the last week of his life, in words clothed with 
 the earnestness of one who already walked in 
 the border land. 
 
36 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 We repeat for him his own expressive words, 
 spoken not long ago of one he loved : — 
 
 "The life of our friend has dosed ; it is closed hon- 
 orably, usefully, and nobly. As we leave him in the 
 grave we can turn away with the feeling that he leaves 
 behind him an honorable record and an untarnished 
 name, with the assured faith that he has passed from 
 the earthly to the heavenly life." 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 BY RT. REV. S. S. HARRIS, D.D., LL.D., 
 
 Bishop of Michigan, 
 
 Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 As I have listened to-night to the eloquent 
 Memorial Address that has been read, one 
 thought has risen up in my mind among the 
 grateful memories of our departed friend; and 
 that is, how goodly and gracious a thing this 
 commemoration is. How characteristic, may I 
 not add, of this great and magnanimous city, 
 whose singular fortune it has been to number 
 among her sons so many strong men, and whose 
 singular praise it is that she has known how to 
 cherish them while living and to honor them 
 when dead. Perhaps nowhere in all the world 
 are men more entirely required to stand on 
 their simple merits than here, and nowhere is 
 real merit more cordially recognized. In two 
 respects this city has been highly favored. 
 Early in her history, while her character was 
 being formed, she recruited her professional 
 
38 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 and commercial ranks from among the best 
 and bravest of the whole land. By a principle 
 of natural selection, the boldest, best equipped, 
 and most aspiring spirits were attracted hither 
 by the rising fortunes of this western metropo- 
 lis; and by a principle, not less salutary, of 
 the survival of the fittest, all but the best and 
 bravest of these soon fell out of the ranks in 
 the eager strife. Young men like Larned and 
 Arnold and Ogden girded themselves for val- 
 iant adventure when they came hither, and 
 brought with them not only the weapons of 
 conflict, but great and constant souls that had 
 the inborn power to wield them. And so it 
 came to pass that those great-hearted young 
 men were welcomed to Chicago in that early 
 time, and they in turn repai^ the hospitable 
 debt by making Chicago what she is to-day. 
 Like a good foster mother she watched with 
 pride their growing powers, and had the wise 
 magnanimity to nourish at her unfailing breasts 
 the adopted sons whose courage, enterprise, and 
 greatness of soul were to make her a wonder 
 and a praise through the whole earth. 
 
 This magnanimous spirit then has been no 
 accident. The large-mindedness so character- 
 istic of this city, of which I have spoken, has 
 been the natural result of that good fortune 
 which early intrusted the destiny of Chicago 
 to the shaping of large-minded men. Men like 
 Edwin Channing Larned created the moral at- 
 mosphere in which they lived. Like mountains 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 39 
 
 verdure-clad and crowned with light, whose un- 
 failing waters freshen the valleys and gladden 
 all the land, the Ogdens, Arnolds, and Larneds 
 of Chicago made the city the congenial home 
 of strength and greatness. The open-minded, 
 genial, unfailing interest and affection which 
 Mr. Larned delighted to lavish on those around 
 him, not only gladdened and strengthened all 
 about him, but returned in showers of blessings 
 upon his head. And now that he is gone, and 
 our faces shall be lighted by his genial presence 
 no more, we are here in the very spirit which 
 he and his companions engendered, to repay 
 to his memory a part of the gracious debt that 
 we owe. 
 
 But these considerations have been suggested 
 with sufficient force by the gentleman who has 
 preceded me. Let me turn to my own special 
 part among the honorable duties of this hour. 
 I am asked to speak of Mr. Larned as a scholar 
 and a Christian. Let me briefly speak of these 
 characteristics in their order. With the train- 
 ing and technical equipment of the scholar, Mr. 
 Larned was amply furnished. The struggle and 
 effort which he made to secure his education 
 were not the least valuable part of it, and on 
 the verge of manhood he took his degree at 
 Brown University. After a year or so spent in 
 the scholarly pursuit of teaching, he devoted 
 himself with characteristic ardor and brilliant 
 success to one of the learned professions. But 
 not in equipment and professional attainment 
 
40 
 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 alone, but in all the habits of his life, Mr. 
 Larned was always a scholar. Not only in the 
 many productions of his pen, always strong, 
 always graceful, always luminous, nor in the 
 encouragement and patronage which he de- 
 lighted to bestow upon all the movements 
 around him in the interest of philosophy, cul- 
 ture, and science, nor in his well-remembered 
 triumphs in the forum and on the platform, 
 but chiefly in the sustained altitude of his mind, 
 the ever fresh and ever young enthusiasm of 
 his literary and philosophic interest, Mr. Larned 
 deserves rank among the scholarly men of our 
 country. Some of the characteristics of his 
 mind were so remarkable that I may be par- 
 doned, perhaps, if I briefly mention one or two 
 of them. Among them was one that was of the 
 very essence of all true scholarship ; and that 
 is, a love of the truth, — of truth in all its forms, 
 for the truth's sake. The singular thing about 
 him in this respect was that though he was 
 both a man of thought and a man of action, he 
 never seemed to tire of taking in fresh supplies 
 of truth. Most men make haste to get what 
 they must have, and then close the pursuit. 
 Their minds ever made up, they become im- 
 patient and intolerant of new views which, if 
 entertained, might force them to reconstruct 
 their opinions. Such men soon cease to learn, 
 and finally cease to think. Not so Mr. Larned. 
 Above all men I have ever known, his hospi- 
 table mind was always ready and eager for every 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 41 
 
 fresh arrival of thought. He had a hunger and 
 thirst for truth and all kinds of righteousness. 
 And to this is due the remarkable freshness 
 of his mind to the very last ; the strong, living 
 interest that he took in the newest books, the 
 latest development of research. Up to the very- 
 time when his voice went down into silence there 
 was no issue in science, politics, or letters that 
 did not engage his intelligent and enthusiastic 
 interest. But there was coupled with this 
 another characteristic of the man that saved 
 him from all crudeness, incertitude, and vacil- 
 lation. Though he was a learner all his days, 
 he was also a mature scholar, a finished philoso- 
 pher, a man of positive convictions and definite 
 views ; and the characteristic that made him so 
 was his remarkable mental vitality, — his intellec- 
 tual, moral, emotional vitality. He possessed 
 an amazing and unfailing power of mental di- 
 gestion and assimilation. Each truth that he 
 received passed into his own being, and imme- 
 diately he was ready for more. With singular 
 clearness of perception and power of discrimi- 
 nation he was able, as if by instinct, to reject 
 the false and appropriate the true, referring it 
 to its own particular place in the large system 
 of his thought. The result was that though he 
 was always open-minded, he was also a man of 
 formed opinions, a man of equipoise, a man of 
 thought and a man of action, a man of reason- 
 ableness, but of living stability; his stability 
 being not like the rigidity of a dead, sapless, 
 
42 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 branchless trunk, but like the living oak which 
 rejoices in the sunlight, but is not afraid of the 
 storms, and which is nurtured by both sunshine 
 and storms into larger growth and greater 
 strength and vitality. 
 
 And now, that we may know how early these 
 characteristics displayed themselves in his life, 
 and the impressions which they made as he 
 passed through life's varied duties, I am per- 
 mitted to read a letter just received by Major 
 Goodwin from George William Curtis, his boyish 
 companion and Hfe-long friend. 
 
 West New Brighton, Staten Island, N. Y., 
 Dec, 12, 1884. 
 
 My dear Sir, — Mr. Lamed was one of my earliest 
 friends and playmates. We were immediate neighbors 
 in the city of Providence, where we were both bom, 
 close to Roger Williams' spring; and through all my 
 boyhood he was my constant companion. From the 
 first his taste for study and his intellectual interests 
 were very evident ; and the early necessity of earning 
 his living did not relax his devotion to books nor 
 interrupt his hope of going to college. His cheerful 
 and equable temper turned all his tasks into play, and 
 some of the pleasantest hours that I recall are those 
 which I spent with him upon his rounds of duty. His 
 mother encouraged and developed his literary tastes 
 and stimulated his generous ambition, and the atmos- 
 phere of his home was always that of plain living and 
 high thinking, sweet, healthful, and serene. The 
 pleasant neighborhood of Providence of those days, 
 the peaceful and historic banks of the Seconk, the 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 43 
 
 "Grotto," the woods at Fruit Hill, the still water above 
 the "Cove," and the heights and the harbor below India 
 Point, long sauntering summer days, picnics, serenades, 
 endless walking and boating, are most happily associ- 
 ated with my old comrade. 
 
 The child is father of the man, and I can plainly 
 see in my recollections of the boy all that Mr. Lamed 
 became. The cheerful self-reliance, the quiet sym- 
 pathy, the acute perception, the hearty bonhommie, 
 the generous appreciation, the natural inclination for 
 the just and humane view, the strong practical sense, 
 foretold in the child the efficient, public-spirited, high- 
 hearted, trustworthy, conscientious citizen that you 
 knew. After he went to college and left Providence 
 I saw little of him, and our constant intimacy was 
 never renewed. But the affectionate friendship of boy- 
 hood still continued, and I saw with delight, in the 
 faithful discharge of his duty, and in the regard and 
 respect of his fellow-citizens, how fully the promise of 
 his youth was fulfilled. His views of public affairs 
 were sound and conservative, and as it seemed to 
 me, distinctively American. Their basis was strong 
 common sense. Naturally he was of an ardent tem- 
 perament ; but he held himself firmly in hand, and 
 for all that he said and did he could plainly give the 
 reason. A certain natural candor and generosity made 
 him just to those from whom he differed. He could 
 indeed dissent without bitterness or suspicion; and 
 in all things he had that charity which never faileth, 
 and which the Apostle accounts the chief of virtues. 
 
 The last time I saw him was a memorable day. It 
 was the day of the Centenary of the Phi Beta Kappa at 
 Cambridge, when Wendell Phillips delivered the ora- 
 tion ; and after the address and the dinner I had the 
 
44 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 pleasure of introducing Mr. Lamed to the orator. His 
 delight in that characteristic discourse was very great, 
 and his warm and eloquent expression of it to the 
 orator was very striking. He too had the instinct, the 
 ambition, and the skill of the orator ; and in the hearty 
 tribute of the man, already of threescore, I saw all 
 the unchanged generosity of the boy that I remem- 
 bered. I did not know that he was ill, nor was there 
 any sign of ilhiess or apprehension in his manner. A 
 few weeks before the end he sent me a printed state- 
 ment of his views of the political situation, very grave 
 and impressive to me as the thought of a man in full 
 view of death at any moment, but calmly and cheer- 
 fully faithful to the duties of this life, as long as life 
 lasted. I suppose that no member of your society 
 knew your associate earlier than I knew him, and no 
 man can know more truly than I how much nobleness 
 of character is gone with him, nor cherish his memory 
 with more aflectionate regard. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 George William Curtis. 
 Daniel Goodwin, Jr., Esq. 
 
 Of Mr. Larned as a Christian, it is not neces- 
 sary that I should speak at much length here. 
 Like all the outgoings of his interest and affec- 
 tion, his religion partook of the character of the 
 man. Indeed, so homogeneous was his nature, 
 so entire was his integrity, that his religion was 
 the outcome of all departments of his thought 
 and of all phases of his life. He was a man 
 of clear and strong religious convictions, yet 
 so large was his nature that even his most in- 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 45 
 
 tense religious convictions could not be narrow. 
 Though a man of cultivated tastes and strong 
 affections, yet the main avenue to his religious 
 nature was through his intellect rather than 
 through his emotions. Therefore there was 
 always a lofty dignity about his religious life, 
 which in a man less sweet and large would 
 perhaps have been disposed to look with some 
 disdain upon what seemed to him to be trivi- 
 alities both of dogmatism and ritual. As it was, 
 his religion could be fitly described as " sweet 
 reasonableness," though for himself he was able 
 to respond to the key-note of the highest wor- 
 ship struck long ago by the Master hand, " God 
 is a spirit, and they that worship him must 
 worship him in spirit and in truth." 
 
 Mr. Larned was a devoted son of the church 
 of his affection and choice. He had a clear 
 understanding of her comprehensive theology. 
 He felt a proper interest in her manifold activi- 
 ties. He delighted to do his Master's will in 
 deeds of charity and love. And what a noble 
 type of the Christian man he was ! As father, 
 as husband, as brother, as friend, it was my 
 privilege to mark and ponder how nobly he 
 discharged all duties, and with what strength, 
 simplicity, and grace he pressed on his way 
 through life, blessing and being blessed. Gen- 
 tlemen of the Chicago Historical Society, it is 
 our high privilege to turn the pages of history ; 
 to meditate, to classify, to preserve the lessons 
 recorded there. Let us not neglect the higher 
 
46 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 privilege of reading divine lessons from the liv- 
 ing page of a consecrated life. Let us not per- 
 mit its character to grow dim with age, or to be 
 removed into the misty past beyond our vision, 
 before we learn the precious meaning of the life 
 of our great-hearted friend, and catch something 
 of the spirit of the sweet and knightly soul who 
 never laid the armor of duty down till he left it 
 in his tent, to go and be with God. 
 
 I am tempted to illustrate what I have said 
 of the strength, perspicacity, self-coUectedness, 
 learning, and deep religious spirit of this man 
 by reading you something from the last literary 
 work that he did before his death. A new 
 book had come out, and a wonderful book it 
 was. Written in a most captivating style, in 
 defence of religious truth and yet from the 
 stand-point of science and in the terms of 
 science, — I mean Drummond's " Natural Law 
 in the Spiritual World," — the rehgious world 
 was completely captivated by it and taken off 
 its feet. Not so our clear-headed friend. In a 
 masterly review he exposed the falseness of 
 much of its reasoning, the enormity and harm- 
 fulness of many of its conclusions. And in do- 
 ing this he set forth a theosophy so simple, so 
 scriptural, so true, that it ranks him among the 
 deep religious thinkers of the age. I wish I 
 might read you something from this masterly 
 paper. I am glad to know, however, that it is 
 to be published in permanent form, and you will 
 read it for yourselves. I am now permitted to 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 47 
 
 read you some extracts from two letters written, 
 in view of this occasion, by two clergymen who, 
 like myself, one before and one after me, were 
 Rectors of St. James' Church, and were Mr. 
 Larned's friends and pastors, — the Rev. Arthur 
 Brooks and the Rev. Dr. Courtney. 
 
 My dear Mr. Goodwin, — I was very glad to hear 
 from your letter of the proposed meeting in memory of 
 Mr. Lamed. I wish that I could be there, and hear 
 the various tributes of those who have known and val- 
 ued him in so many different walks of Hfe. In my 
 memories of Chicago his presence is a constant one ; 
 for there was not an interest in life there, which did 
 not look to him for encouragement and support. In 
 matters of religious interest you know how deep our 
 sympathy was, and there has not been a year since I 
 left Chicago that I have not enjoyed the pleasure of at 
 least one conversation with him on the progress of re- 
 ligious life and theological thought ; and his warm en- 
 thusiasm, wise conservatism, and vigorous appreciation 
 have always been a fresh pleasure and incitement. It 
 was always the charming and rare combination of sim- 
 plicity and depth which distinguished his Christian 
 thought. His faith was simple as a child's, and he 
 glowed with enthusiasm at the simplest declaration 
 from any man of the Gospel of salvation. He knew 
 the necessity and true nature of belief so fully that 
 with the easiest effort he disregarded all attempts to 
 bolster it up with human theories and dogmas. But 
 when it came to the application of that faith to the 
 needs of men and the growth of human life, his wide 
 experience, his large reading, and his acute judgment 
 all showed themselves, and he revelled in the many 
 
48 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 aspects and rich colors which his faith displayed under 
 all the new energies of the life around him. 
 
 He loved his hfe as the gift of a Father ; everything 
 in it had interest for him. But never for a moment 
 must anything in that Hfe get between his Father and 
 himself. Against any attempt to rob him of the sim- 
 phcity of his personal connection with his God he was 
 the stanchest Protestant, whether the attempt came 
 from the Church or from the world. Whatever the 
 Church or the world gave him which told of his God's 
 power and love, he accepted and rejoiced in as his 
 own rightful inheritance. In that he was such a man 
 as our nineteenth century aims at, but too often fails 
 to produce. 
 
 It is impossible that all those who knew him should 
 not feel how great the loss of him is in both public 
 and private life. 
 
 Yours respectfully, 
 
 Arthur Brooks. 
 Dec II, 1884. 
 
 Boston, Dec. 12, 1884. 
 To the Right Reverend the Bishop of Michigan : 
 
 My dear Bishop, — I hear that there is to be a 
 meeting on the i6th inst. in the Hall of the Chicago 
 Historical Society in memory of the late Edwin C. 
 Lamed, and that you are to speak of him on that 
 occasion as a literary man and as a Christian. It may 
 possibly add to the interest of your address if I should 
 give you a short personal reminiscence of him, as I 
 had the honor of succeeding you in the Rectorship of 
 St. James' Church. 
 
 After I had accepted the call, but was still discharg- 
 ing my duties in St. Thomas' Church, New York, one 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 49 
 
 day Mr. Larned called upon me, and extended to me 
 the warmest greeting, assuring me of his heartiest sup- 
 port, and giving me at the same time much valuable 
 information respecting my new duties, and the oppor- 
 tunities which would present themselves in the busy 
 life of the vigorous community of Chicago. On my 
 taking up my residence he was one of the first to 
 stand by me and support me with both words and 
 deeds in my plans for the parish ; and on every occa- 
 sion he proved himself a true friend, a wise counsellor, 
 an efficient worker, and a generous giver. 
 
 Whenever I suffer myself to indulge in a retrospect 
 and think of my Sunday ministrations in St. James* 
 Church, the two figures of Edwin C. Larned and 
 Isaac N. Arnold are always present to my eye. Seated 
 the one immediately behind the other, directly before 
 me, as unlike in their mental as in their bodily charac- 
 teristics, they were emphatically my most thoughtful, 
 critical, attentive, and charitable hearers ; and I know 
 that they alike valued and strove to apply to themselves 
 the aspects of Divine truth which it was my privilege 
 to present to their enlightened understanding. 
 
 We are told in Holy Scriptures that " the hoary head 
 is a crown of glory if it be found in the way of right- 
 eousness ; " and certainly when that crown shines, with 
 its silver radiance, upon one who was able to exemplify 
 righteousness in so tender and amiable a way as he did, 
 all appreciate the beauty of the symbol, and rejoice 
 that such a man was so appropriately crowned. 
 
 I am inclined to think that, with his legal training, 
 the intellectual side of Christianity had a particular at- 
 traction for him ; but I should be doing great injustice 
 to his memory if I thereby gave any one the impres- 
 sion that his heart and feelings were untouched by it. 
 4 
 
50 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 Not his will and understanding only, but his emotions 
 and desires, embraced Jesus Christ as the Revealer of 
 the Father, " whom to know is life eternal," and in the 
 supreme manifestations of that love in the death upon 
 the Cross he found at once the way to pardon and 
 peace, to reconciliation with God, and the highest in- 
 centive to the copying of the example of self-denial for 
 the good of others, in which he could himself become 
 like the God and Father whom Jesus Christ revealed. 
 
 Active benevolence in alms freely bestowed upon all 
 the needy of all sorts and conditions was one of his 
 chief traits, and many must hold him in kindly remem- 
 brance for generous aid in time of need. But he was 
 not contented to give money only, — he gave himself. 
 It was to me, for many reasons, a moving sight to see 
 him Sunday by Sunday taking his place in the school 
 held in St. Ansgarius' Church, and conducting a Bible 
 class of young women, — Enghsh- speaking Swedes. 
 The profound knowledge, the ripe experience, the Chris- 
 tian wisdom, which were eminently his, were all brought 
 to bear with a gentleness of manner and a sweet per- 
 suasiveness which commended them to his pupils, and 
 linked teacher and taught in a pecuHarly strong way. 
 
 My ministry of two years was all too short for me to 
 hope to do much that would be permanent, or to give 
 a chance for repairing the errors of inexperience ; but I 
 should be willing to bear more than the results of such 
 errors and of more serious mistakes, thinking myself 
 more than compensated with the acquaintance, the 
 friendship, and the Christian fraternity of Edwin C. 
 Lamed. 
 
 I have the honor to remain, my dear Bishop, 
 
 Yours very faithfully and respectfully, 
 
 F. Courtney. 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 51 
 
 London, Dec. 5, il 
 
 Dear Friend, — Your postal card only reached me 
 to-day. I fear my letter will be too late for your pur- 
 pose. It is a pleasure to send you my loving tribute 
 to one whom I shall ever remember with love. 
 
 Mr. Larned became my parishioner very shortly after 
 I went to Chicago. He first won my heart by his deep 
 sympathy for the laboring classes. I never knew one 
 who realized more deeply the brotherhood of men as 
 children of one God and Father. He loved to talk 
 about the sinless sympathy of our Saviour with sinners. 
 It was the human side of the Gospel which called out 
 his love for its Divine truth. He seemed to grasp with 
 the intuition of a loving heart all its lessons of brother- 
 hood. I do not think he was interested in the phi- 
 losophy of religion, or in dogmas as dogmas ; with all 
 his scholarly taste and ripe learning he had a child's 
 heart, and nothing so called out his love and faith as the 
 words Jesus taught us, — " Our Father." He realized 
 in his daily walk and conversation the prophet's words, 
 " What is it, O man, the Lord doth require of thee but 
 to deal justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with 
 thy God?" He was always constant in his regular 
 duties j he gave without ostentation, liberally and gen- 
 erously. In a word, he was, like Nathanael of old, 
 " an Israelite in whom there was no guile." I never 
 knew one who despised trickery more than he, or who 
 had a greater dread of anything which could cast a 
 stain on human character. 
 
 That such a man pitied the wayward and the sinful, 
 that his hand was ready to help them to come back, 
 was due to the lessons of the Gospel. 
 
 I shall always keep the memory of his noble char- 
 
52 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 acter as one of the pleasantest of my life. We are all 
 better men for having such a friend. 
 
 With kind regards, your friend, 
 
 H. B. Whipple, Bishop of Minnesota. 
 
 And now, to conclude, let me recall to my 
 own memory the look, the voice, the words, 
 of our friend the last time I met him. It was at 
 Saratoga, in the summer of 1882. I happened 
 to be there for a day or two, and he and his 
 family stopped there on their way to the Adi- 
 rondacks. We met on the crowded veranda 
 of one of the great hotels, and sitting down we 
 had one more hour of such converse as he knew 
 so well how to illuminate when talking with a 
 friend. I can never forget his cordial, genial, 
 soulful manner, as the greetings of friendship 
 were exchanged, and as he spoke of old days 
 and of the coming years. And then he talked 
 of the varied themes of philosophy, statesman- 
 ship, religion, sweet charity, that his well-fur- 
 nished mind delighted to ponder. The sunny 
 hour was soon gone. I looked into his face for 
 the last time, and for the last time felt the pres- 
 sure of his strong and genial hand. He was 
 gone ; but I cherish the memory of that meeting 
 as having left me gladdened, stronger, better. 
 So of all that I knew of him, as I met him in 
 his hospitable home, in the social and literary 
 circle, in the hour of prayer in the house of God, 
 in all the communings that we had together, 
 I, his sometime pastor, lovingly declare that 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 53 
 
 in all my goings to and fro in this world's busy 
 caravansary, where so many meet and part, I 
 have met no one whose friendship has been a 
 richer blessing to me than that of Edwin Chan- 
 ning Larned, whose soul has now returned to 
 the skies. 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 BY JUDGE HENRY W. BLODGETT. 
 
 For nearly forty years Mr. Edwin C. Larned 
 has been known in this city and State as one of 
 its most prominent and talented lawyers. He 
 came to Chicago in the early part of the year 
 1847, ^ young man, unheralded by any position 
 or rank achieved elsewhere in his chosen profes- 
 sion; but he brought a well-trained, cultivated 
 mind, vigorous health, and the ardent hope and 
 courage of early manhood. It was my good for- 
 tune to make his acquaintance very soon after 
 his arrival, and to form a warm friendship with 
 him which lasted until his death ; and what I 
 say here is from my personal acquaintance and 
 estimate of him. 
 
 Our city was at that time young, its inhabi- 
 tants yet in a formative stage ; but the legal pro- 
 fession was already represented here by a galaxy 
 of able men who had achieved high positions at 
 the bar. With such men as Butterfield, Collins, 
 Spring, Goodrich, Arnold, Scammon, Judd, and 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 55 
 
 Others equally noteworthy, in advance of him 
 upon the ground, he commenced the struggle 
 which every young contestant for a name and 
 place in the profession must encounter. 
 
 He arrived here at a fortunate period in the 
 history of the city and State. The dark cloud 
 of financial gloom which had rested on the State 
 from the monetary collapse of 1837 had par- 
 tially broken away. Business had begun to re- 
 vive in Chicago, and a great tide of emigration 
 was pouring into the Northwest, filling up the 
 western prairies with homes and farms, and be- 
 ginning the rapid development of the resources 
 of the country which is one of the wonders of 
 our age. The growth of Chicago was com- 
 mensurate with that of the country which was 
 tributary to it, so that the young candidate for 
 occupation in his profession was not obliged, as 
 in older communities, to wait for those who had 
 become established in business to die or retire, 
 but stood an equal chance with the old prac- 
 titioners for employment by the new-comers. 
 
 Well equipped with preparation for his chosen 
 work, he soon found opportunity for the exer- 
 cise of his abilities, and his first effort at the 
 bar demonstrated that he was indeed an acqui- 
 sition to the profession. Within a very short 
 time, compared with that now required for a 
 young man to achieve the same place, he took 
 rank with the foremost of the bar, and from 
 that time to the day of his death, if any one 
 acquainted with the standing of our lawyers 
 
56 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 had been called upon to name half a dozen 
 who were looked up to as leaders, his name 
 would undoubtedly have been in the list. 
 
 He had been gifted by nature with much 
 more than the average intellectual powers ; and 
 what was better, they embraced all the qualities 
 which are called into action in the career of a 
 successful lawyer. He could patiently and care- 
 fully possess himself of all the complicated facts 
 bearing upon the rights of his client, and hold 
 them well in hand, and at command for efficient 
 use at the right time. He could, and invariably 
 did, fully develop the whole field of the law 
 relating to his cases ; and with marked acumen 
 and discrimination applied to his facts the prin- 
 ciples which he deduced from his books. He 
 never affected deep learning, nor was there any 
 ostentation of authorities in his arguments and 
 briefs ; and yet his statement of principles was 
 so full and clear as to make it evident that he 
 had thoughtfully gone over the whole ground, 
 and given the net result of his study rather 
 than a mere aggregation of cases and citations. 
 He brought from his researches the threshed 
 and winnowed grain, cleared of the straw and 
 chaff which he found with it. He was, withal, 
 an easy, fluent, and instructive speaker, method- 
 ical and clear in the arrangement of his facts 
 and his law, and with enough of imagination 
 and fancy to enliven, illustrate, and render in- 
 teresting his discussions of even the dryest 
 cases. He had ready tact and judgment in the 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 57 
 
 examination of witnesses and in the marshalling 
 of his proofs. In his arguments to the court and 
 jury he was frank and candid, never claiming 
 any controverted fact as established unless 
 fairly justified in doing so by the proof. If a 
 fact was controverted, and there was room for 
 discussion, no one could be more ingenious in 
 reasons for the support of his view and the en- 
 forcement of his position ; and in cases raising 
 controverted questions of law where there was 
 a conflict of authority ; and in cases where new 
 questions were presented with no precedent or 
 authority to guide or control, he was thorough, 
 industrious, and acute, bringing to the discus- 
 sion skilful criticism and copious learning. 
 
 He was employed in very many important 
 cases where great interests and principles were 
 at stake; and without enumerating his special 
 triumphs, it is enough to say that he was al- 
 ways equal to the demands of the occasion, and 
 did his full part in establishing those landmarks 
 of the law by which the rights of parties are 
 to-day construed and determined. 
 
 He confined himself to no specialty in his 
 profession, but was alike at home in the fixed 
 rules of the common law and the broader and 
 more flexible principles of equity. In tech- 
 nical rules of practice and pleading he was 
 well versed, and put his cases on paper with 
 ample skill and readiness. 
 
 But the quality of his mind which at all times 
 dominated, even in the heated contest of con- 
 
/ 
 
 58 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 flicting interests, was his love of justice and fair 
 play. All who knew him could tell from his 
 manner when he felt he was on the wrong side 
 of the case; and in such emergencies he con- 
 tented himself with presenting fairly what could 
 justly be said in his client's behalf, and he sub- 
 mitted to the verdict or judgment without fault- 
 finding or complaint. But when he felt that he 
 had the right of a case his work seemed a labor 
 of love, and all the latent energies of his mind 
 responded gladly to his call. His love of justice 
 led him to espouse generously and earnestly 
 the cause of the poor and oppressed ; and many 
 of the best efforts of his life were in behalf of 
 clients who were too poor to pay him, and when 
 his only compensation came from his chivalric 
 consciousness that he had helped the right and 
 defeated the wrong. 
 
 But it was not only in the arena of the courts 
 and contests at the bar that Mr. Larned's useful- 
 ness as a lawyer was illustrated. As a judicious 
 friend of law reform he always favored such 
 amendments of the law as made the course of 
 justice more direct and sure, and lopped off 
 worn-out and useless forms of practice which 
 were no longer vital and necessary parts of legal 
 procedure. 
 
 His influence was seen and felt in the prepa- 
 ration of several municipal charters enacted by 
 the General Assembly of this State for the 
 government of this city. In the legislation 
 which from time to time became necessary to 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 59 
 
 organize new courts and expand the powers of 
 others so as to meet the demands of the rapidly 
 increasing business of the community; and, in 
 fact, whenever a legislative measure was pro- 
 posed which had for its object the better se- 
 curity of individual rights, the better protection 
 of property, the development of the resources 
 of the country, the education of the rising gen- 
 eration, or the general good in any particular, 
 he was always a ready and efficient worker. 
 
 This was Mr. Larned as a lawyer; but it is 
 hardly fair to his memory to discuss or attempt 
 to describe him in any one sphere. As a lawyer, 
 he was up to the best standard of his profes- 
 sion ; but he was more than a lawyer. In the 
 best sense of the word, he was a full-measured 
 man and citizen ; filling all the places of politi- 
 cal, social, and professional life with rare ability, 
 and a conscientious zeal, and an earnest and 
 manly purpose which made his influence in this 
 city, at the time when such influence was most 
 needed, a constant force in behalf of justice and 
 good government. 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 BY FRANKLIN MacVEAGH, Esq. 
 
 Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 One could hardly think any occasion more 
 fit than this. This Society, representative of 
 what is most lasting, of what is making valu- 
 able history and valuable forces in this strong 
 young city, could not well do better than to ac- 
 cent the value of such a life and character as 
 Mr. Larned's; for he is an example of how 
 one may harmonize the pursuit of competent 
 wealth with the duties of religion, society, and 
 citizenship, and how the result of this harmony 
 must be success and happiness. 
 
 It is a striking thing that even in Chicago, 
 where the pursuit of riches is as absorbing as 
 it has ever become in any place or time, the 
 moment the breath is out of a man's body his 
 mere wealth ceases to do him any honor. We 
 who spend our lives in money-getting have yet 
 an instinct which prevents our praising it ex- 
 cept among the living. Unless something else 
 can be said of a man than that he made money, 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 6l 
 
 he is inevitably buried in silence, and passes out 
 of the thoughts of the community, even out of 
 the thoughts of his friends. Memory, like every- 
 thing else, can only live upon wholesome and 
 sufficient food. 
 
 Mr. Larned's example is so valuable because 
 he had the right measure of the aims of life; 
 and because he lived usefully, not only through 
 good works but by good example. Mr. Presi- 
 dent, we must have more and more men and 
 women living such lives. And therefore, I take 
 it, and not alone to express our affection for Mr. 
 Larned, we do him public honor. He was a 
 man to whom very many hearts went out ; and 
 the first thought of his friends is to relieve their 
 burden of sorrow in expressions of affectionate 
 testimony to his virtues. But he was a man 
 who would himself seek to turn everything to 
 public good; and so we should seek to get 
 the benefit of Mr. Larned's life and character. 
 Let my few words then about this many-sided 
 and pure gentleman be with the double pur- 
 pose of expressing something about his rela- 
 tions to philanthropy and citizenship. 
 
 In both of these he was always active. The 
 leading thing to be noticed here is that activity 
 in these ways is a stepping outside of mere 
 personal integrity, outside of mere personal re- 
 finement. It is no small thing to be a man of 
 good life. It is still more to be a man of good 
 and refined life, — to be, that is, a man of the 
 higher life, even though his example must be 
 
62 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 sought out But philanthropy and citizen- 
 ship take a man out of mere selfishness, how- 
 ever enlightened, and put him in a larger sphere. 
 They widen not alone his sphere, however, but 
 his character and life. A spring of water in the 
 recesses of a mountain may be perfectly clear 
 and wholesome, and to the infrequent wan- 
 derers among these seclusions may be all a 
 spring can be. But to be widely useful, a 
 spring must be a well of water to the people. 
 So a man of exemplary virtues must stand 
 among his people, or in some way speak to 
 them, to answer fully the demands of his own 
 nature. This Mr. Larned did. He did it so 
 well that it became a part of the habitual con- 
 sciousness of the community that Edwin C. 
 Larned thought of his neighbor as he ought 
 to think, and of his public duties as he ought 
 to think. He thus came to stand for a very 
 great deal in Chicago. His character and life 
 had made him a recognized force. 
 
 Let us recall one memorable incident in his 
 life, — his return to Chicago in 1871. The 
 great trouble of Chicago had come upon her 
 in a night. This light-hearted favorite of for- 
 tune suddenly became the most stricken com- 
 munity in the world. In her sterner climate 
 and upon her plainer shore she had dreamed 
 as little of misfortune as Pompeii in the care- 
 less air of Italy upon the hopeful shores of the 
 Bay of Naples. And to her, almost as to 
 Pompeii, in a night came desolation. To a large 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 63 
 
 part of her people all that had slowly accumu- 
 lated into the fact of home was obliterated as a 
 storm obliterates the tracks in a desert. Her 
 misfortune was great; but the world took her 
 to its heart, and from all directions and from 
 every distance came sympathy and help. In 
 the van of this great succor Mr. Larned came, 
 and coming stayed. He too had suffered 
 roughly, — so suffered that years were neces- 
 sary to the repair of his fortune. But for 
 many months he gave himself entirely to aid 
 the suffering people. He was a conspicuous 
 member of that great Society of Relief and 
 Aid which made a chapter in the history of 
 Public Charity that will long be unsurpassed, — 
 a great charity full of judgment, — charity and 
 wisdom combined, — charity, wisdom, and high 
 character combined, — charity, wisdom, high 
 character, and faithful labor combined. No 
 leading spirit in that great enterprise should 
 be buried without honors. 
 
 And as in charitable and friendly works, so he 
 was in citizenship. Out of our wholesome and 
 helpful public movements, an important leader 
 has gone. He knew, however any of us may 
 seem to know it not, that to be a real citizen 
 and not merely a nominal one, to be a part of 
 the helpful forces of public affairs, is not simply 
 doing one's ordinary duty, but is living well 
 one's life. He knew the meanings of citizen- 
 ship and its associations. He took a part of 
 his inspiration from a knowledge of history 
 
64 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 and a feeling for history. Citizenship is not a 
 commonplace thing. It cannot be made out of 
 universal suffrage except as a rudimentary form. 
 Its perfect form grows out of knowledge and the 
 wise love of freedom. He knew, too, that it lies 
 upon a good man's conscience to be helpful to 
 public life. Certainly a man here and there may 
 justify to himself and to you and me his neglect 
 of public affairs in a free country ; but he must 
 render an exceptional account of himself. 
 
 I often think of two great Florentines who, as 
 nearly as two men could be, were the mediaeval 
 sources of the great streams of modern literature 
 and art. One of these, the greater of the two, 
 had the sense of citizenship incorporated into 
 the very structure of his manhood. This was 
 Dante. He threw his life into the turbulent 
 politics of Florence, and would as soon have 
 thought of being a poet without first being a 
 Florentine as of trying to live without food. 
 Citizenship was one main stimulus of his noble 
 spirit. The other of the two was Giotto, who 
 went about his work in Florence utterly unmind- 
 ful that the air was surcharged with the lightning 
 of party strife. He had come into art from the 
 hillside pastures, and his shepherd nature clung 
 to him and at last sat with him upon the solitary 
 heights of his fame. He never became a citizen. 
 He and Dante grew into a twin glory of Flor- 
 ence. But if Giotto was unmoved by the public 
 life around him, he stands excused by the noble 
 inspirations of his art, by the wholesomeness of 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 65 
 
 his nature, and by the work he has done for every 
 century since his own. Such a man may well do 
 what he likes. And yet Dante's genius gained 
 an inspiration, from its love of the State, which 
 carried its works higher far than even the glo- 
 rious tower of Giotto. 
 
 Mr. Larned understood these things well. He 
 knew that in being a good citizen he was in good 
 company. He knew that it linked him through 
 the ties of history to the fellowship of the best. 
 But he did not get his motive here. He was a 
 good citizen, as a matter of course. It was born 
 in him as it was in Dante. Many of you read- 
 ily recall instances out of which in part grew 
 Mr. Larned's fine public standing and reputation. 
 For me it is enough to mention, after Mr. Good- 
 win's elaborate and just address, that I knew 
 him intimately in his relations to the Citizens' 
 Association when in 1874 and 1875 it was set to 
 do with its untried strength a political work as 
 large and difficult as a volunteer body ever, I 
 believe, had to do. He had again just returned 
 to the city, this time to resume the burden of 
 work made necessary by his losses in the Fire, 
 when he was summoned to this new dedication 
 of his time and energy. He was hard pressed, 
 but he could not and would not deny the call. 
 I have said upon another occasion, and now re- 
 peat, that the closest scrutiny could not detect a 
 difference of energy or intensity between his 
 work for himself and his work for the public. 
 He had that quality of true citizenship, — that 
 5 
 
66 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 quality of a true man. No co-laborer of his in 
 the work I have referred to will ever forget the 
 value his character lent to his service. He had 
 become so fine a figure in our community that 
 his nominal connection with the movement was 
 itself an important aid ; but to this he added 
 freely of his labor, his wisdom, his knowledge. 
 
 Thus, with whatever was most disinterested in 
 public affairs or public charity, with whatever 
 was most unselfish in the activities of the com- 
 munity, with whatever we are most willing to 
 honor in the short history of our city, Mr. Lar- 
 ned's name, if not actually connected, was, in the 
 mind and sentiment of the people, habitually 
 associated; and with nothing less worthy was 
 his name ever associated. 
 
MR. LARNED'S family gave a portrait of him to the 
 Chicago Literary Club, because he had always taken 
 a strong interest in that institution and was at one time 
 President of it. The portrait was painted by Lawrence 
 C. Earle, of Chicago, and was presented to the Literary 
 Club at the same time with one of Judge Lawrence, also 
 by Mr. Earle. The evening of the presentation was the 
 twenty-third of March, eighteen hundred and eighty-five. 
 The address of presentation was made by General A. C. 
 McClurg, and was as follows : — 
 
 Mr, President^ and Gentlemen of the Club : 
 
 This Club may well be called fortunate in its 
 presidents, when two such men among them are 
 commemorated in one evening as Judge Law- 
 rence and Edwin C. Larned. The memory of 
 the one has been so well presented that I am 
 forced to wish that the grateful task of speak- 
 ing of the other had been committed to some 
 more practised tongue. But you all knew and 
 loved E. C. Larned, and I am sure that your 
 hearts will say and feel all that my words fail 
 to express. It was my fortune to see and to 
 know Mr. Larned very early in my first ex- 
 periences of Chicago life. That was in the 
 early days of the war, when every young man 
 
68 PRESENTATION OF PORTRAIT. 
 
 was revolving in his own mind and for him- 
 self the grave questions : " Shall I go into this 
 terrible contest? Must I break up my plans of 
 life? Must I abandon my chosen pursuits and 
 give up my small but dear ambitions to go one 
 knows not where, to meet one knows not what, 
 to return one knows not when, if ever?" Few 
 here to-day realize what to many then those 
 mental struggles were. The 
 
 ** Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war " 
 
 counted for little then ; but thewords of older men 
 in whose hearts was burning the intensest love of 
 their country counted for much. Among those 
 men none spoke with more ardent patriotic emo- 
 tion, more zealous faith and confidence, or more 
 fervid eloquence than Mr. Edwin C. Larned. It 
 was for the younger and unfettered men to go, but 
 it was for him to plead for his country at home ; 
 and in such labors he was always unsparing and 
 abundant. Few single arms in the field could 
 do for their country what one such man as he did 
 single-handed and single-hearted at home. Al- 
 ways an Abolitionist when to be an Abolitionist 
 was to court sneers and contempt, always the 
 friend of the slave and the lover of liberty, his 
 whole heart went out in impassioned appeals for 
 his country, her government, and her defenders. 
 Then, as always, he was on the side of the right 
 against the wrong, and, as it seemed at first, of 
 the weak against the strong. None who knew 
 the man then ever ceased to love him and to re- 
 
PRESENTATION OF PORTRAIT. 69 
 
 spect him. Quieter times came ; and still, in small 
 things as in great, his heart responded always to 
 the right. Wherever there was a contest be- 
 tween right and wrong, there was he in the midst 
 of it. Even in the acrimonious and ungracious 
 contests of his small political Ward Club he 
 could always be found on the side of right, no 
 matter what odds were against him. Here was 
 your true hero, your true gallant knight. This 
 was the side of his character which this Club, as 
 a club, saw but little of. Here we knew him as 
 the scholar, the Christian, and the gentleman, the 
 lover of whatsoever was best in books and liter- 
 ature and art. Here we heard his easy conversa- 
 tion ; we met his cordial gracious greeting, given 
 with that sunny youthfulness which few men 
 preserve through the hard conflicts of an active 
 life as he did. Here we saw him preside with 
 that easy, quiet dignity which was so natural to 
 him. Throughout a long life he was never a 
 seeker after honors for himself; and I am told 
 that the presidency of this Club of his friends 
 was an honor which touched him deeply, and 
 to which he always referred with the greatest 
 pleasure. If he was proud to preside over us, 
 well may we drop many a tear that his gracious 
 presence will be known no more forever among us. 
 Gentle, simple, honest, and truthful, he seemed 
 to be ever following the injunction, "Whatso- 
 ever things are true, whatsoever things are hon- 
 est, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things 
 are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatso- 
 
JO PRESENTATION OF PORTRAIT. 
 
 ever things are of good report, if there be any 
 virtue, if there be any praise, think on those 
 things." That sentence from the greatest of 
 literature and the best of books seems to me to 
 embody the secret of the power of his Hfe and 
 character. What more need be said? 
 
 And so, Mr. President and Gentlemen of the 
 Literary Club, on behalf of his family, I present 
 to you this faithful and speaking likeness of a 
 noble man and gracious gentleman, our former 
 friend and President. Long may it hang upon 
 our walls, inciting us by his memory to gentler, 
 truer, nobler speech and acts and lives ! 
 
 Dr. Charles G. Smith, the President of the Club, 
 responded as follows : — 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen^: 
 
 It is my pleasant duty to-night to express the 
 great gratification which the members of this 
 Club feel at the reception of these faithful and 
 finished portraits, and to express to the donors 
 the grateful thanks of our members. It is a 
 matter of congratulation that art as well as liter- 
 ature finds a home with us here, and that these 
 paintings are the work of one of our most es- 
 teemed members. I may say in passing, too, 
 that there are other works of art here, — some 
 sculptures by one of our members which are 
 worthy of the attention of our guests and the 
 Club. I can add nothing to the fitting tribute 
 which has been paid to the memory of our 
 friends. We all feel how true are the words 
 
PRESENTATION OF PORTRAIT. 71 
 
 that have been spoken. The sweet remem- 
 brance of the just shall survive when they sleep 
 in dust. As we look upon these faces we shall 
 think often of the times past, when their wisdom 
 guided our councils and their wit enlivened our 
 meetings. We have noticed lately that the tower 
 on the Chamber of Commerce is higher than that 
 of any church, higher than that on any educa- 
 tional institution in all this great city. I hope it 
 is not a type of the future of Chicago. I hope, 
 in the good time coming, that the Chicago Pub- 
 lic Library will have a building of its own, com- 
 mensurate with its needs and with the needs of 
 Chicago. I hope that the Literary Club, in a 
 home of its own, well filled with pictures and 
 books, will show by its influence that there is 
 something grander and better in a great city 
 than mere material prosperity. 
 
-^sMfe 
 
 MR. LARNED'S argument on the trial of Joseph 
 Stout under the Fugitive Slave Law is appended, 
 as at once an example of his manner of speaking upon 
 great public questions which interested him deeply, and 
 of his legal ability in presenting the case of his client to 
 a jury. 
 
 ARGUMENT 
 
 OF E. C. LARNEDf Esq., 
 Counsel for the Defence, 
 
 On the Trial of Joseph Stout, Indicted for Rescuing 
 A Fugitive Slave from the United States Deputy 
 Marshal, at Ottawa, III., Oct. 20, 1859. Deliv- 
 ered IN the United States District Court for 
 THE Northern District of Illinois, March 12 and 
 13, i860. 
 
 Gentlemen of the Jury : 
 
 It was a fitting exordium to such a prosecution as 
 this, for the Attorney of the United States to attack 
 the Declaration of Independence, and seek to explain 
 away and destroy the full meaning and effect of those 
 principles which He at the foundation of that liberty 
 which is the most precious birthright of every American 
 citizen. 
 
 Nor was it unnatural, gentlemen, that at the same time 
 he should seek to enlist in support of his case those 
 
74 ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 
 
 principles of natural justice and right by which, as the 
 highest in our nature, men are ever guided in forming 
 their judgment of human action ; for it is not a pleas- 
 ing duty for any man to ask a jury to convict a man 
 as a criminal for an act which has no guilt save that 
 which is found on the pages of the statute book. 
 
 It was not strange, gentlemen, that he should bring 
 before you the names of Webster and Clay, of Wash- 
 ington and Jefferson, and seek to borrow from the 
 reflected lustre of these great and illustrious men 
 something to lighten the character and take from the 
 odium of this prosecution. But yet, gentlemen, it is 
 in vain for him to travel out of the record to gain any 
 support for the cause which he advocates. 
 
 Only in the letter of the statute, only by the force 
 of the enactmentSvof a law made by men, and binding 
 upon courts and juries, and not by the force of any con- 
 siderations of what is just and right under the higher 
 and everlasting laws which are written by God in the 
 conscience and moral nature of man, can he find any 
 sanction for a verdict against the defendant at the bar. 
 
 Gentlemen, in the nineteenth century of the Chris- 
 tian era, in the Republic of the United States, in the 
 free State of Illinois, a man of unblemished character, 
 a man known and beloved in a city which his intelli- 
 gent industry has aided to build up, and his high moral 
 qualities have contributed to adorn, sits at the felons' 
 bar of this cburt, and is on trial as a criminal. 
 
 And the offence — the crime alleged against him, 
 and for which he is thus arraigned — is that he has 
 aided a fellow-man in his effort to obtain his liberty. 
 It is charged to be a crime in that Republic whose 
 foundations were laid in those great principles of liberty, 
 equality, and the rights of man, of which the Declara- 
 
ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 
 
 75 
 
 tion of American Independence is the fullest and no- 
 blest national expression, to aid a fellow-man in seeking 
 to secure for himself that blessed boon of liberty to 
 which every human being is by virtue of his manhood 
 entitled. 
 
 Regarded outside of and independent of the statute 
 book, viewed by the light of 'those principles of con- 
 science, — that higher law of universal right and jus- 
 tice, which, however it may be scoffed at and despised, 
 every true man reverences as far above all mere human 
 enactments, — the act which is charged against the de- 
 fendant would be approved as a virtue, not condemned 
 as a crime. 
 
 For surely to extend a helping hand to the oppressed, 
 to aid the friendless and despised outcasts of human 
 society, to give the word of sympathy and the hand of 
 kindness to the forsaken, forlorn, friendless slave on his 
 way to liberty, would be an act of humanity and of 
 Christian charity which would bespeak a generous and 
 noble nature, and commend itself to the best and 
 holiest instincts of the human heart. 
 
 But it is said by the Attorney for the Government 
 that this man was a slave, and therefore had no right 
 to his liberty, and that the acts of those who aided 
 him to secure it were no better than highway robbery ; 
 and he has summoned to his aid in this argument the 
 compromises of the Constitution, the compacts of the 
 Ordinance of 1 787, and the laws of the Federal Govern- 
 ment enacted (as he claims) for the fulfilment of these 
 compromises and compacts. 
 
 Gentlemen, did the idea occur to you when the 
 learned gendeman was discoursing upon those com- 
 promises and compacts, in behalf of which he sought 
 to awaken your patriotism and love of the Union, that 
 
76 ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 
 
 the slave is no party to your constitutions or your 
 compacts, that he has never given his assent to your 
 ordinances or your legislation ? 
 
 Did it occur to you, when the learned counsellor was 
 discoursing upon the sacredness and antiquity of the 
 great right of property, and invoking your sense of 
 justice and right against the violation of this right, 
 that there was a right older and more sacred than the 
 right of a master to a slave, — the right of the slave 
 to himselfi 
 
 The right of a master to a slave is the right of 
 power. It is the right of the strong over the weak. 
 It is might, not right. 
 
 The right of a man to himself is by a deed of gift 
 from the great God who created him, and of which no 
 human power or authority can rightfully deprive him. 
 
 It is written by the hand of the Almighty on the 
 brow of every human being whom he has formed in 
 his own image, into whom he has breathed an im- 
 mortal soul, and who, by virtue of these divine pre- 
 rogatives, has become a man. 
 
 There is no right of property as ancient as this, for 
 it dates back to the first moment of creation. There 
 is none so sacred, for it is conferred by Him who is 
 the Maker of all things, and to whom all belong. 
 
 It is said that the negro is a degraded being, that 
 he belongs to an inferior race ; and his physical and 
 mental inferiority have been the subject here of ridi- 
 cule and contempt. Grant that it is so; grant that 
 he is weak, abject, miserable, — that he is wanting in 
 every quality to excite your admiration or enlist your 
 interest or sympathy. In what code of ethics, in what 
 system of philosophy, in what form of religion, does the 
 learned gentleman find that weakness, ignorance, and 
 
ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 77 
 
 destitution furnish an excuse for oppression and injus- 
 tice ? If a man is deserted, forsaken, without home, for- 
 tune, or friends, weak and miserable, having no power 
 to defend himself and nothing to reward the defence of 
 others, does not this very weakness become, in every 
 noble nature, the most eloquent appeal against injustice 
 and outrage ? 
 
 I care not how degraded the African race may have 
 become through the long centuries of dark and cruel 
 bondage in which this unhappy people have been made 
 the victims of oppression. I ask of the learned gentle- 
 man who has sought so eagerly to excite the bitterest 
 prejudices of caste and race against them, and to pic- 
 ture them before you in so debased and degraded an 
 aspect as to turn away your sympathy and deaden your 
 sensibilities toward them, — I ask the gentleman to 
 answer me but one solitary proposition : Is the negro 
 a man ? If he is not a man, — if he is a mere animal 
 like a horse or an ox, if no human heart beats in his 
 bosom, if he has no fears or hopes or affections, if he 
 has no feeling of love or hate, no conscience to be 
 touched with the sense of right and wrong, — then the 
 gentleman is right and I am wrong in my reasoning. 
 
 But if he be a man, — if he has a human nature, if 
 he was created by the same divine hand and after the 
 same divine image in which you and I were formed, — 
 then I read, in that Book of books from which I have 
 learned the lessons of duty and the principles of my 
 moral life, that God made of one blood all nations that 
 dwell upon the face of the whole earth, — that we are 
 all the children of one Father, and that all men are 
 brethren. Are we not all sharers of one common 
 humanity? Are we not all to be redeemed by the 
 same infinite Saviour, and heirs of the same glorious 
 
 TTNIVERSlTr 
 
78 ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 
 
 immortality? If so, then is every man, be his skin 
 white or black, whatever his country, his birthplace, or 
 his condition, my brother, — brother not in equality of 
 condition or capacity, but a brother in the great human 
 family of God ; and by virtue of his manhood, in the 
 right of that divine humanity which is before all law 
 and above all law, do I declare that he has the right 
 to himself, — that this right to himself is the highest 
 of all rights, of which no constitutions, no compacts, 
 no compromises, no legislation, can rightfully deprive 
 him. There is, there can be, in the nature of things 
 no right which can be superior to the right of a man 
 to himself. 
 
 I maintain, then, that when a man held as a slave 
 strikes out for freedom, when he has the courage and 
 the manliness to vindicate for himself the great right 
 of his humanity, that he is committing no wrong upon 
 his master, no wrong upon any one ; for his right to 
 himself as far transcends that of his master to him 
 as the laws of God transcend the laws of man. He has 
 the right to his freedom if he can obtain it without 
 violence and blood, without destroying the lives or 
 liberties of others. He has the right to flee from 
 bondage and turn his steps to a land of liberty. Nay, 
 not only has he the right, but if he be not the brutal, 
 degraded being which he has been pictured here, if he 
 have within him the first faint conception of what it is 
 to be a slave and what it is to be free, he will do it ; 
 he will never surrender himself to life-long slavery 
 without a struggle to escape. 
 
 And in that struggle for liberty he will have the 
 sympathy of every man who has a heart to feel. Why, 
 the whole history of man through all ages is a history 
 of struggles for liberty, — a history written in tears and 
 
ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 79 
 
 blood, a history out of which have risen the heroes of 
 our race. And do those records of heroism and self- 
 sacrifice in the cause of liberty which have enlisted 
 our admiration and shed such glory over the history of 
 man, depend for their power to move us upon the 
 question whether the actors in those great struggles 
 had a skin whiter or darker than our own? Is there 
 nothing to move our sympathies, to thrill us with in- 
 tensest interest, to kindle our admiration in the nar- 
 rative of the struggles and hardships and sacrifices 
 endured by these poor, despised, hunted outcasts, in 
 their flight from slavery to liberty ? 
 
 I tell you, gentlemen, much as we plume ourselves 
 upon the superiority of the white race, and flippantly 
 as we talk of the inferiority of the colored race in 
 America, that if the secret history of the age we now 
 live in could be truly written, some of its grandest 
 heroism, some of its noblest examples of devotion, 
 fidelity, fortitude, and self-sacrifice, would be found in 
 the narratives of men belonging to that oppressed 
 people, who have wrought out for themselves, by their 
 own fearless courage and unyielding resolution, a 
 deliverance out of slavery into the life and light of 
 liberty. 
 
 Have you read any of those narratives ? If not, you 
 know not the strength and intensity of the longing of 
 the human heart for liberty. You know not what a 
 man will do and dare to secure it. Why, there is no 
 form of human suffering which these men have not 
 braved for its sake. They have encountered the wild 
 beasts of the forest ; they have wandered weeks and 
 months alone in desert places, hiding in dens and 
 caves, famished with hunger, their pathway tracked 
 with their blood. They have lain in the holds of 
 
8o ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 
 
 ships, without food or drink, for days, in darkness and 
 solitude, with scarce air to breathe ; they have clung 
 to the rudder-chains of ships, and sat through the 
 weary days and dark nights, with the waves beating 
 over them, clinging for life and liberty, — preferring 
 death to slavery. Romance can depict nothing of 
 the heroic in human courage, or of the terrible in 
 human suffering, which the reality of these narratives 
 does not transcend. 
 
 Tell me that the best and warmest impulses of good 
 men are not moved toward these struggling heroes of 
 a down-trodden race ! Tell me that the charity and 
 love which stretch out the hand of sympathy to the 
 needy and suffering has its source in the color of a 
 man's skin ! No, gentlemen ; you may pass laws, you 
 may impose penalties, you may fine and imprison and 
 hang men, if you please ; but until you blot out of 
 the human heart everything that is generous, kind, and 
 noble, you can never make men feel that it is a crime 
 to give a hand of kindness and a word of encourage- 
 ment to the poor hunted victim of slavery on his way 
 to liberty. 
 
 Why, we are told that the escape of a slave is a rob- 
 bery of the master, and that we put ourselves on a 
 level with thieves and plunderers in aiding him in his 
 flight. The robber takes the property which belongs 
 to another, and appropriates it to his own profit. If 
 the slave has a right to himself which he has never 
 surrendered, it is clearly no wrong in him to flee from 
 slavery to liberty ; and if not, then to aid, comfort, and 
 assist one who is doing right, can by no sophistry of 
 evil be proven to be wrong. 
 
 Why, it is only within the present century that the 
 Dey of Algiers held numbers of white men as slaves. 
 
ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 8 1 
 
 These men were the lawful spoils of war, — they were 
 his slaves by the same law of force by which the Afri- 
 can race is held in bondage to-day in America. You 
 have read of some of the heroic attempts of some of 
 those white captives to slavery to escape from bondage. 
 You have been thrilled with admiration at their daring, 
 and touched with sympathy by the story of their suifer- 
 ings. You remember the efforts which were made by 
 brave and noble men to aid them to escape. Did it 
 ever occur to you, as you hngered with intensest in- 
 terest over the narratives of the escape of these men, 
 that they, and those who aided them, were committing 
 highway robbery on the Dey of Algiers? 
 
 Does the fact that the color of these men's skins 
 was whiter than that of those held in bondage in 
 America, alter the principle? Do questions of mor- 
 als, the laws of conscience and of right, change accord- 
 ing to the changing hues of the human complexion ? 
 If so, how would the argument stand if the propo- 
 sition were carried into effect, which has been re- 
 peatedly discussed in several of the Southern States, of 
 turning the entire poor white population into slaves ? 
 
 I know, gentlemen of the jury, that it is the fashion 
 of the day, and especially with those who represent the 
 Government of the United States, to sneer at libert}', 
 to ridicule those great rights of man which have been 
 won from tyranny by the struggles of brave and true 
 men through the centuries of the past, and especially 
 to cast the most contemptuous obloquy upon those 
 who contend earnestly for the freedom, humanity, and 
 just rights of men whose skin is darker than our own. 
 
 But I have learned from the study of history the 
 lesson that the first step to the loss of a people's 
 liberties is to cease to prize them, and that the first 
 6 
 
82 ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 
 
 effort of those who desire to steal away a people's 
 rights is to infuse into the popular mind an indiffer- 
 ence to all questions of right and freedom ; to bring 
 over it that cold and hard selfishness which regards 
 nothing as important which does not affect the special 
 personal comfort and welfare of the individual; to 
 class as enthusiasts and fanatics all men who have 
 faith in principle, in duty, in religion, — all men who 
 believe that liberty, humanity, the rights of man, are 
 great realities, and not unmeaning words. But, gentle- 
 men, I care not for the ridicule or the reproach of men 
 like these. Call me by what name they please, — fa- 
 natic, enthusiast, or that other word which seems to 
 them to comprehend the sum total of human deprav- 
 ity, abolitionist, — I will, whenever and wherever the 
 occasion offers, stand up and vindicate the great 
 rights of humanity, the right of a man to himself, the 
 " inalienable right " of every man created in the image 
 of God, with which he was " endowed by his Creator," 
 and which is as indestructible as that nature itself, to 
 " life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." 
 
 I maintain therefore, gentlemen, that the act charged 
 here as a crime, for which this defendant is arraigned 
 before you, would, independent of any statutory prohi- 
 bition, approve itself ta every true man as humane, 
 generous, and worthy of all commendation. 
 
 But I am well aware, gentlemen, that it is not your 
 privilege in this place, and before this tribunal, to judge 
 this man's action by those higher laws of conscience 
 which alone give to human conduct its true character. 
 
 This defendant is indicted here for a violation of a 
 statute of the United States, the Fugitive Slave Act ; 
 and in this presence the statute book is the supreme 
 law for all of us. 
 
ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 8^ 
 
 That act, odious and offensive as it is in the estima- 
 tion of many good men, is the law for this court and 
 for this case. It has been pronounced to be constitu- 
 tional by that tribunal whose decision is obligatory upon 
 this court ; and although, were it a new question or open 
 for discussion, I think it would not be difficult to suggest 
 strong reasons to the contrary, yet such a discussion 
 would be out of place and to no purpose at this time ; 
 and I concede, therefore, at the outset, the vahdity of 
 this statute and its binding obligation upon all citizens. 
 
 But while I have no right in this presence to ques- 
 tion the constitutionality or binding obligation of this 
 law, I have the right, and it is my duty, to call your 
 attention to those provisions of this law which make it 
 dangerous to the liberties of freemen ; for it is upon 
 the existence of these very dangers that I shall base a 
 material portion of the defence in this case. I shall 
 demonstrate to your entire satisfaction, before I close, 
 that it is to the exercise of those undoubted rights and 
 to the discharge of those unquestionable duties which 
 the dangers I have referred to impose upon every citi- 
 zen, that the great part of all the acts committed by 
 this defendant, which appear in evidence in this cause, 
 is justly to be referred. 
 
 The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 is based upon, and 
 purports to be, a carrying into execution of the second 
 section of the fourth article of the Constitution of the 
 United States, which is as follows : — 
 
 "3. No person held to service or labor in one State 
 under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in 
 consequence of any law or regulation therein, be dis- 
 charged from such service or labor; but shall be deliv- 
 ered upon claim of the party to whom such service or 
 labor may be due." 
 
84 . ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 
 
 It was asserted by the learned Attorney for the 
 United States, that this article formed one of the com- 
 promises of the Constitution, without which it never 
 could have been adopted ; and this remark was made 
 the basis of some very eloquent appeals to your patriot- 
 ism and love of the Union. I am well aware that this 
 remark has been made before, and is supported by the 
 dicta of several learned judges ; but it has been made 
 in a general way, and in connection with the whole 
 subject of slavery in its relations to the Constitution, 
 and it is so untrue to the recorded facts of history, 
 about which there can be no dispute, that I think it 
 proper to give a few moments to its consideration. I 
 deny that this provision in this article for the right of 
 reclamation of slaves throughout the States ever was 
 one of the compromises of the Constitution, or that it 
 constituted any subject of contention or difference in 
 the Convention that framed that instrument. On the 
 contrary, the article in question was adopted unani- 
 mously, and without eliciting any debate or dissenting 
 opinion in regard to it. 
 
 The great subjects of difference which divided the 
 Convention, and which resulted in what are so often 
 called the compromises of the Constitution, were 
 three : — 
 
 1. The question of difference between the power 
 of the large and small States in the Federal Govern- 
 ment, which was compromised by giving to the small 
 States an equality in one branch of the Legislature, 
 while the large States were represented in the other 
 according to their population. 
 
 2. The demand of the States where slaves formed 
 a large element in the population, to have the popu- 
 lation on which the representation was to be based 
 
ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 85 
 
 include the slaves, which was resisted by the other States 
 as anti- Republican and unequal, and was compromised 
 by yielding to the slave States the right to include three 
 fifths of the slaves in estimating the number of the pop- 
 ulation on which the representation should be based. 
 
 3. The third was the foreign slave-trade, which was 
 repugnant to the conscience and sense of right of 
 many of the delegates, but was warmly insisted upon 
 by several of the Southern States. 
 
 This was compromised by agreeing, upon a specific 
 year, the year 1808, before which time no authority to 
 restrict the slave trade should be exercised, but giving 
 the power to restrict it subsequently. 
 
 These were the compromises of the Constitution. 
 The subject of the surrender of fugitive slaves was not 
 a matter which even excited the attention of the Con- 
 vention until nearly the close of their labors. 
 
 The Convention commenced its labors in the latter 
 part of May, 1787, and concluded them early in Sep- 
 tember of the same year. 
 
 In all of the seven different draughts of a plan of a 
 Constitution, several of which were submitted by South- 
 em men, — one by Mr. Pinckney, of South Carolina, 
 and one by Edmund Randolph, of Virginia, — there 
 was no provision whatever in regard to the surrender 
 of fugitive slaves. 
 
 On the 6th of August, 1787, the Committee reported 
 the finished draught of the Constitution, which contained 
 no provision on the subject. It was not until the 28th 
 day of August, a short time before the close of the Con- 
 vention, that Mr. Butler and Mr. Pinckney, of South 
 Carolina, moved as an amendment to the article re- 
 specting fugitives from justice, to require fugitive slaves 
 to be delivered up like criminals. 
 
86 ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 
 
 Mr. Wilson, of Pennsylvania, objected to this on the 
 ground that it would oblige the Executive of the State 
 to do it at the public expense ; and Mr. Sherman, of 
 Connecticut, upon the ground " that there was ?io more 
 propriety in the public seizing and surrendering a slave 
 or servant than a horse P 
 
 Mr. Butler then withdrew his proposition for the pur- 
 pose of preparing a special article that should be free 
 from objection. (See Madison Papers, pp. 1447-1448.) 
 
 On the 29th of August the article, as it now 
 stands, was offered by Mr. Butler and adopted with- 
 out objection. 
 
 The whole idea that it was any matter of difference 
 or dispute, or was the subject of any compromise, or 
 formed any barrier to the formation of the Constitution, 
 is utterly at variance with this plain and undeniable 
 statement of facts. 
 
 Now, I have never denied and will never deny 
 the obligation of any provision of the Constitution 
 of the United States. But what is the obvious mean- 
 ing and intention of the clause in question? What 
 is the compact into which our fathers entered and 
 by which we are bound ? It was this : that the right 
 of property in slaves should not be destroyed by the 
 legislation of the States, nor lost by the escape of the 
 slave into States where slavery was not recognized 
 as lawful. 
 
 At the time of the adoption of the Constitution, the 
 Somerset case had been decided in England ; and it 
 had become one of the settled, established principles of 
 the common law of that country, as expounded by its 
 highest courts, that slavery had no foundation in the 
 law of nature or the law of nations, — that it was de- 
 pendent wholly for its existence upon local, municipal 
 
ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. Sj 
 
 regulations, having no force outside of the territorial 
 limits of the jurisdiction where they were established. 
 Now, if this clause had not been inserted, what would 
 have been the result ? Why, the moment a slave en- 
 tered into a free State, he would have been a free man. 
 But to prevent such a result as this, it was provided by 
 this article of the compact that the right in slave prop- 
 erty should not thus be destroyed. It was permitted to 
 the slaveholder to set up and establish, in the free States, 
 his right of property in escaped slaves, and obtain their 
 reclamation under the law, — aright which, without this 
 express provision, he could never have enjoyed. 
 
 That right was secured to him by the Constitution j 
 but it was ever intended to give to the owner of slave 
 property rights and privileges in the establishment of 
 tide to, and obtaining possession of, such property 
 under the law, which was not given with reference to 
 any other species of property ? Did they mean, in be- 
 half of this property in man, — which was regarded as 
 so contrary to all natural law, so opposed to the con- 
 science and moral sense of mankind, that the great 
 men who framed the Constitution refused to allow the 
 word " slave " to appear in that instrument, which they 
 regarded as a great charter of liberty, — to overthrow 
 all the long-established modes of procedure, the laws 
 of evidence and modes of trial which the common 
 law of the country had for ages provided for testing 
 questions of personal right and conflicting claims of 
 property ? 
 
 Now, why is this Fugitive Slave Law so objectionable 
 in the estimation of a very large portion of the best 
 and most intelligent of our citizens? Is it because 
 they are unwilling to carry out in good faith this 
 compact of the Constitution ? Not at all. They are 
 
88 ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 
 
 opposed to slavery ; but they regard it as an institution 
 which is practically beyond their control, and they feel 
 the obligation of the Constitution as imperative. 
 
 No, gentlemen, it is because they regard the provi- 
 sions of this law as most dangerous to the rights of free- 
 men. It is because this law violates all those great 
 safeguards for the security of personal liberty, which 
 they regard as no less sacred and important than the 
 Constitution itself. It is because this law permits a 
 subordinate, inferior class of magistrates, whose only 
 right to act at all is based upon the shallow pretence 
 that they do not act as judges, to give a judgment 
 which decides finally and forever the great question of 
 man's Hberty. It is because that highest of all human 
 rights, the right of a man to himself, is allowed to be 
 taken away, and a man made a slave upon ex parte 
 evidence, given in a summary way, without even the 
 sanction of a court or judicial officer. It is because 
 the right of trial by jury — that greatest of all the 
 securities of life, liberty, and property of the citizen — 
 is denied under this law. 
 
 Is not this a most just cause of dissatisfaction With 
 this law? 
 
 If a Southern man claims a bale of cotton found in 
 the State of Illinois to be his, and his claim is con- 
 tested, can he take and carry it away? How, alone, 
 can he obtain the right of the possession of the dis- 
 puted property? Only by the judgment of twelve 
 men, — sworn as you have been sworn to determine the 
 conflicting claims of the parties according to the laws 
 of the land and the sworn testimony in the case, given 
 under all the forms and sanctions of a court of law. 
 Now, is not the question of a man's freedom of more 
 value than a bale of cotton ? 
 
ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 89 
 
 Is the greatest of all human rights to be passed upon, 
 without judge or jury, by an inferior magistrate who 
 could not lawfully decide upon the right of property 
 in a dog or an ox? 
 
 It is this great outrage upon what is regarded as the 
 most important of all the securities for the liberty of 
 the citizen, which constitutes the principal objection 
 to its enforcement. Out of this defect springs most of 
 the excitement which is aroused whenever and wher- 
 ever it is sought to be executed throughout the free 
 States, and which will continue to exist until these ob- 
 jectionable features of the law are removed. It is from 
 this cause that such prosecutions as these in which we 
 are now engaged arise. 
 
 My word for it, gentlemen, if this law gave a right 
 to have the question of a man's freedom tried before a 
 jury of twelve men, under all the solemn sanctions of a 
 court of justice, determined by legal and competent 
 evidence, given openly and with that right of cross- 
 examination of witnesses so essential to the discovery 
 of truth and the exposing of falsehood and fraud, and 
 the fact that the man was a slave were established by 
 the verdict of the jury, — my word for it, that a certifi- 
 cate under the broad seal of this high tribunal, setting 
 forth such judgment, would enable the claimant to go 
 from one end of this State — ay, of this whole country 
 — to the other without interruption or molestation. 
 
 Why was not such a provision inserted in this act ? 
 Is it not demanded by every principle of justice 
 and right ? Is there any possible ground of reason on 
 which it can be maintained that a freeman of a free 
 State should be deprived forever of his liberty, without 
 " the judgment of a jury of his peers, according to the 
 law of the land " ? 
 
 
90 ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 
 
 The learned counsel for the Government have invoked, 
 in behalf of this law, the great name of Daniel Web- 
 ster. They have eulogized him as the great intellectual 
 giant of the age, the most illustrious expounder of the 
 Constitution. I summon that distinguished name in 
 support of the objection which I am urging against 
 this law. 
 
 Mr. Webster himself prepared a Fugitive Slave Law, 
 such as, in his view, it was proper for Congress to pass 
 to carry out this clause of the Constitution in a lawful 
 and proper manner. He rose in his place in the 
 Senate, on the 3d of June, 1850, and stated "that the 
 subject of preparing a bill respecting the reclaiming of 
 fugitive slaves had engaged his attention at an early 
 period of the session ; that in pursuance of this pur- 
 pose he had conferred with some of the most eminent 
 members of the profession, and especially with a high 
 judicial authority who had more to do with questions 
 of this kind than any other judge in the United 
 States." 
 
 This bill, thus prepared by that great statesman him- 
 self, contained a proviso, giving a right of trial by jury 
 to determine the question of freedom or slavery. 
 Under the act framed by Mr. Webster, there would 
 have been no difficulty and no excitement. It would 
 have commended itself to the calm judgment and good 
 sense of the country, and could have been executed 
 without serious interference. 
 
 I am not unmindful of the fact which will be urged 
 in reply, that Mr. Webster did, at a subsequent period, 
 give his countenance to the law we are now consider- 
 ing ; but it is clear that the law which he prepared 
 himself, giving a jury trial, had the approval of his best 
 and most deliberate judgment ; and although he yielded 
 
ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 91 
 
 his support to this law of 1850, yet it was at a time 
 when the weak ambition of place and power had taken 
 possession of his nature. He had forgotten that no- 
 blest saying of a noble man, — "I had rather be right 
 than be President." 
 
 It is the danger of men in public life to be dazzled 
 by the tempting prizes of worldly honor. They forget 
 that offices and honors are but for a day, and that a 
 true and enduring fame can only rest upon services to 
 the great rights and interests of humanity. They for- 
 get that while the names of men who sat in the high 
 places of power in England, and enacted unjust and 
 oppressive laws, and of the judges who became the 
 willing instruments of their execution, have been for- 
 gotten, or remembered only to be execrated, the 
 names of Hampden and Sidney, men who were pun- 
 ished as criminals for resistance to such laws, have 
 been enshrined for centuries in the grateful remem- 
 brance of mankind, and will be as shining lights for- 
 ever in the pathway of human history. 
 
 But, gentlemen, not only does this law deprive the 
 citizen of the benefit of a trial by jury to pass upon the 
 great question of his right to liberty, — not only does it 
 allow inferior officers, not claimed to have any judicial 
 character, upon ex parte evidence and affidavits, and 
 after a hearing required to be of a summary character, 
 to condemn a man found in a free State to be a slave 
 for life, — but there is a further provision of the law 
 which ties up and controls the action of these commis- 
 sioners themselves, in a manner so opposed to every 
 principle of justice, so liable to be made the means 
 of the grossest fraud and villany, that it seems almost 
 beyond belief that such a provision could have been 
 enacted by the representatives of a free people. 
 
92 ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 
 
 The tenth section of this law authorizes an ex parte 
 record to be made up in the court of a slave State, in 
 the absence of the party to be affected by it ; and this 
 record thus made up is, by that section, made abso- 
 lutely conclusive of the fact of the man described in it 
 being a slave. 
 
 That I may not mistake or overstate about this mat- 
 ter, I will read you the section itself : — 
 
 " And be it further enacted, That when any person held 
 to service or labor in any State or Territory, or in the 
 District of Columbia, shall escape therefrom, the party to 
 whom such service or labor shall be due, his, her, or their 
 agent or attorney, may apply to any Court of Record 
 therein, or Judge thereof, in vacation, and make satisfac- 
 tory proof to such Court or Judge in vacation, of the es- 
 cape aforesaid, and that the person escaping owed service 
 or labor to such party. Whereupon the Court shall cause 
 a record to be made of the matters so proved, and also a 
 general description of the person so escaping, with such 
 convenient certainty as may be ; and a transcript of such 
 record authenticated by the attestation of the Clerk and 
 of the seal of the said Court, being produced in any other 
 State, Territory, or District in which the person so escap- 
 ing maybe found, and being exhibited to any Judge, Com- 
 missioner, or other officer authorized by the law of the 
 United States to cause persons escaping from service or 
 labor to be delivered up, shall be held and taken to be full 
 and conclusive evidence of the fact of escape, and that the 
 service or labor of the person escaping is due to the party 
 in such record mentioned. And upon the production by 
 the said party of other and further evidence, if necessary, 
 either orM or by affidavit, in addition to what is contained 
 in the said record, of the identity of the person escaping, 
 he or she shall be delivered up to the claimant. And the 
 said Court, Commissioner, Judge, or other person, author- 
 ized by this act to grant certificates to claimants of fugitives, 
 
ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 93 
 
 shall, upon the production of the record and other evi- 
 dences aforesaid, grant to such claimant a certificate of 
 his right to take any such person identified and proved to 
 be owing service or labor as aforesaid, which certificate 
 shall authorize such claimant to seize or arrest and trans- 
 port such person to the State or Territory from which he 
 escaped." 
 
 Under this section of the act, a Southern slaveholder 
 can go into a Southern court and make oath that a per- 
 son whom he describes is his slave and has escaped 
 from him. This testimony is given and recorded in 
 the absence of, and with no notice to, the person who 
 is to be affected by it. It is the testimony of the al- 
 leged owner himself, and of such parties as he chooses 
 to summon to the service of his designs. It is taken 
 and recorded without any scrutiny into its correct- 
 ness or test of its authenticity, and made a matter of 
 record. 
 
 And this record, so made up, is made absolutely con- 
 clusive upon the Hberty of a man absent in another 
 State, and ignorant of the whole proceedings. Was 
 there ever a greater outrage than this sought to be per- 
 petrated under the forms of law ? 
 
 Gentlemen, the learned Attorney for the Government 
 has said to you in advance, that I should denounce 
 this law and endeavor to excite your passions and 
 arouse your indignation against it, for the purpose of 
 obtaining from your prejudices what I could not secure 
 by an appeal to your reason and judgment. 
 
 If I have brought up these provisions of this law in 
 review before you, it has not been for the purpose of 
 exciting your prejudices. It has been because the 
 dangers and abuses to which this law is liable in its 
 execution impose peculiar duties on every citizen of 
 
94 ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 
 
 this free State ; and within the legitimate and proper 
 range of these duties, as I will show you hereafter, 
 are embraced nearly all the acts which are offered in 
 evidence against this defendant. 
 
 Not, then, to inflame your passions, not to excite 
 your prejudices, do I call your attention to the provi- 
 sions of this law, but to make you fully understand and 
 appreciate the great dangers to the rights of freemen 
 which it occasions, to make you see and feel that it 
 is only by vigilant watchfulness and prompt action on 
 the part of the citizens whenever it is attempted to be 
 enforced, that the unlawful arrest and enslavement of 
 freemen can be prevented. 
 
 Recur again, then, in this view of the subject, to the 
 provisions of this tenth section, and see what abuses 
 may be perpetrated against the rights of free citizens 
 under this section of the act. 
 
 Here, for example, is this Phillipps, a slaveholder 
 from Southern Missouri. He has been for weeks in 
 this city as a witness in these prosecutions. What is 
 to prevent him from obtaining accurate descriptions of 
 the colored men whom he meets in the streets, and 
 upon his return making up a record against any person 
 upon whom his gaze has fastened ? He has only to 
 step into a Southern court and have his description 
 made a matter of record and swear to them, and the 
 work is done. The man whom he has selected is 
 quietly pursuing his customary avocation, in utter igno- 
 rance that in the mean while, in a far-off State, his Hb- 
 erty has been sworn away, gone forever from him, 
 even without notice and without a hearing. The slave- 
 catcher comes into the State, obtains his process, 
 drags his victim before the Commissioner, produces 
 his record, and shows, as of course it is easy to do, the 
 
ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 
 
 95 
 
 identity of the person arrested with the one described. 
 But, says the man arrested, I am no slave, — I am a 
 free man ; I can prove it ; I will call my neighbors to 
 establish it. But the Commissioner has no power to 
 look at his proofs. The record is conclusive of the fact 
 of slavery. No question but identity is left to him. If 
 the party arrested has his free papers in his pocket, the 
 Commissioner has no right to regard them ; and it was 
 so expressly held in the case of Gorham, at Detroit. 
 
 It may be said that no such case could arise without 
 perjury and fraud on the part of the claimants. Well, 
 I am not going to ask you to admit that men, educated 
 under the influence of slavery, are worse than other 
 men, but surely it will not be claimed that they are 
 better. And does not our daily experience here in 
 the North, both in the places of trade and the courts, 
 teach us that fraud and falsehood and perjury are of 
 frequent occurrence? Under the temptation which 
 cupidity and the lust of gain create, men become 
 callous to the wickedness of false swearing. Have not 
 custom-house oaths become a byword? And what are 
 custom-house oaths but unblushing violations of honesty 
 and truth, committed for the sake of securing the profit 
 to be derived from defrauding the revenue laws of the 
 country ? 
 
 Why, it was stated in one of the public journals not 
 long since, that a letter was found in the possession of 
 a notorious counterfeiter, from a Southern man, con- 
 taining these words : " Go among the niggers, find out 
 their marks and scars, send good descriptions of them, 
 and I '11 find owners." Whether this be fact or fiction, 
 I know not ; but it is easy to see that such conspiracies 
 against the liberties of men could readily be carried 
 out under this law. 
 
96 ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 
 
 No, gentlemen, it is not safe, it is not right to trust 
 the liberties of men to the chances of ex parte evi- 
 dence. There iyno safety except in a jury trial. 
 
 But it is said, in reply to this objection, that the 
 person delivered up under this law does have a jury 
 trial, — that he has such trial in the State from which he 
 escaped and to which he is returned ; and an analogy 
 is sought to be made between this law and the law pro- 
 viding for the return of fugitives from pubhc justice. 
 
 This argument is a specious delusion. It is as un- 
 sound in reason as it is false in experience. It can 
 deceive no one who does not wish to be deceived 
 himself or desire to deceive others. 
 
 No man can be arrested as a fugitive from justice 
 until he has been duly indicted by a Grand Jury for 
 some offence, recognized as a crime according to the 
 common law of the country. When he is arrested, he 
 is delivered into the hands of sworn officers of the law, 
 to be taken by them to the court before which the 
 indictment is pending for trial. The arrest and the 
 trial are parts of one proceeding, and unless tried and 
 convicted, the arrested party is again discharged. 
 
 In the case of a person claimed to be a slave, the 
 Commissioner delivers the person into the hands of the 
 person claiming him as a slave. He becomes a slave 
 to all intents and purposes by the decision. The per- 
 son into whose hands he is delivered is under no obli- 
 gation to carry him back to the State from which he es- 
 caped, or to carry him to any place with a view to any 
 further trial of the right to his liberty. The master may 
 do as he pleases with him ; he is subject to no control, 
 and subject to no new duty or liability. He may sell 
 the man as a slave ; he may scourge and lacerate 
 and abuse him. He is his, finally and forever. 
 
ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 97 
 
 It is true that as a slave, he has, to a very limited 
 extent, and under such restrictions and limitations as 
 make it of very little practical value, the right in some 
 of the States to institute proceedings to test his right 
 to freedom before a jury. But this is no answer to the 
 objection. 
 
 It is the making a man a slave at all without the 
 verdict of a jury upon the fact of freedom, of which we 
 complain. Here is a man found in a free State, — the 
 law presumes him to be free. He is entitled to the 
 benefit of that presumption until the contrary is estab- 
 lished by legal evidence and in a legal manner. We 
 ask for the rights of freemen, and we receive only the 
 rights of slaves. 
 
 The parallel between the two cases of fugitives from 
 justice and labor would be correct if the Commis- 
 sioner, instead of sending the fugitive from justice 
 back for trial in the custody of sworn officers of the 
 law, were to commit him to the penitentiary for^life ; 
 for such sentence would not be more final and conclu- 
 sive in its effect than that which, by consigning a man 
 to his claimant under this law, condemns him to the 
 life-long bondage of a slave. 
 
 Nor is there any reason for taking the alleged fugi- 
 tive away from the State where he is arrested, for the 
 purpose of a trial elsewhere (if any such trial were 
 within the contemplation or provision of the statute), 
 as there is in the case of fugitives from justice. In 
 criminal offences the venue is local. They can be tried 
 only in the county where they were committed. But 
 questions of property are transitory, and are triable as 
 well in one place as in another. And the question of 
 tide to a man claimed as a slave is a pure question of 
 property. It has been so held from the earliest records 
 7 
 
98 ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 
 
 of the common law. If a man from a slave State claims 
 property in a bale of cotton found in this State, he does 
 not transport the property elsewhere to try the title to 
 it. It is tried here, before a jury ; and there is no prin- 
 ciple of the law which justifies a removal of the prop- 
 erty out of the defendant's possession until the title of 
 the claimant is established by the judgment of a court 
 of law. 
 
 If this doctrine be true with reference to personal 
 property of every nature, with how much more force 
 does it apply to cases where the right to be tried is that 
 of a citizen of a free State to his personal liberty. By 
 the law of the free States he is presumed to be free until 
 the contrary is established. By the law of the slave 
 States, if he have a certain admixture of African blood, 
 he is presumed to be a slave until the contrary is estab- 
 lished. There is, then, a most vital distinction between 
 a trial by jury in a slave State (even if any such were 
 given under this law, which is not the case) and the 
 right of trial by jury in a free State. In the one case 
 the law proves his freedom, and the burden of proof is 
 on the claimant to establish the fact of slavery. In the 
 other, the law proves him to be a slave, and the burden 
 is on him to prove his freedom. 
 
 Is it asking too much that a free man in a free State 
 should be entitled to be adjudged a slave by the ver- 
 dict of a jury of his countrymen before he be delivered 
 over into bondage ? 
 
 But it is said that if a trial by jury were given, under 
 the law, it would render it a nullity, — that Northern 
 juries would refuse to find in conformity with the facts 
 of the law. I deny the assertion. It is a libel upon 
 Northern juries. It is answered by these very prosecu- 
 tions themselves. How are the violations of this law 
 
ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 99 
 
 to be punished? Must not all these be tried by a 
 Northern jury : and is it an easier matter to induce a 
 jury to convict a man under this law, to impose fines 
 and imprisonment on those who rescue a slave, than it 
 would be to establish the claimant's right of property 
 in the slave so rescued? Why, in every prosecution 
 under this law, the title of the master to the alleged 
 slave has to be found by the jury, under their oaths, as 
 an essential prerequisite to every conviction. 
 
 If the jury can be relied on to find according to the 
 fact in a prosecution against a white citizen, surely they 
 would not have greater difficulty in finding the same 
 fact in a suit against a negro claimed as a slave. 
 
 I must not close my review of the objectionable 
 features of this law. without alluding to one so odious 
 as to meet with the disapproval even of the learned 
 counsel who opened this case on the part of the 
 Government. 
 
 I mean that provision which authorizes the slave- 
 owner and his agents to require the assistance of the 
 citizens of the free States in the capture of runaway 
 slaves. It would seem as if, in the contemplation of 
 this law, the free States of this Union were to become 
 the hunting-ground for slaves, and the freemen who 
 inhabit them were to become slave-catchers at the 
 beck and nod of the slaveholders. 
 
 It was not strange that the distinguished Senator 
 from Massachusetts — that noble man, whose name is 
 dear to every lover of liberty and humanity the world 
 over — should have said, in reply to the question of 
 Mr. Butler, of South Carolina, whether he would aid 
 in the capture and rendition of a fugitive under 
 this law, " Is thy servant a dog, that he should do 
 this thing?" 
 
lOO ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 
 
 I have now finished my review of the provisions of 
 this law, and I think I cannot have failed to demon- 
 strate to the entire satisfaction of every intelligent and 
 candid mind, that there are great liabilities to abuse 
 and great dangers to the rights of freemen necessarily 
 consequent upon the execution of this law ; and it is this 
 proposition to which I desire your united and unquah- 
 fied assent, as the first position in the argument which 
 I make to you in this cause. 
 
 In that argument, gentlemen, I propose to address 
 myself wholly to your understandings, — to make no 
 appeals to your prejudice or passion. 
 
 The learned counsel for the Government have said 
 that I should address you as political partisans, and 
 seek to gain your verdict by an appeal to party pre- 
 judices. It was a strange remark to be made in this 
 case. It would seem that if there were any one who 
 should deprecate appeals to party, who should implore 
 this jury to rise out of the low level of partisan politics 
 into the higher region of reason, conscience, and truth, 
 it would be the counsel who is now addressing a jury 
 of which but two or three at the most are members of 
 the same political party with himself. What have I to 
 gain at your hands through the power of party preju- 
 dice ? No, gentlemen, it is for me to appeal to you to 
 forget that you are Democrats, to forget that you are 
 Republicans, and remember only that you are jurors. 
 If I cannot obtain a verdict by an appeal to your 
 reason and your intelligence, I have certainly nothing 
 to hope for by an appeal to your pohtical prejudices. 
 
 Gentlemen, for myself I belong to no party which is 
 disloyal to the Constitution of my country, or which 
 sanctions any violation of the laws. I shall ask nothing 
 at your hands in this argument but what I can ask 
 
ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. loi 
 
 under the law and the evidence ; and I solicit your 
 earnest and considerate attention to all which in the 
 discharge of my duty to this cause I shall have to say 
 to you. 
 
 The next proposition to which I ask your assent, 
 and which will commend itself to your highest judg- 
 ment, both as citizens and as men, is this : That it is 
 the duty of every citizen to take a personal interest in 
 securing the liberty of every citizen in the community 
 from unlawful invasion ; and it is his right, as well as 
 his duty, to take all lawful action to prevent such 
 unlawful invasion. 
 
 This doctrine not only approves itself to our own 
 judgment as citizens of a free State, where to invade 
 the liberty and rights of the humblest member of the 
 constituency is to violate the rights and liberties of the 
 State itself; but it is sanctioned by express judicial 
 authority even in England, where the rights and liber- 
 ties of the citizen are not supposed to be more highly 
 regarded or more jealously secured than in the Republic 
 of the United States. 
 
 I will read to you, from a work of acknowledged 
 authority in our courts, — "Russell on Crimes," — a 
 passage upon this subject. 
 
 " One Bray, who was a constable of St. Margaret's 
 Parish, London, came into the parish of St. Paul, Covent 
 Garden, where he was no constable, and consequently 
 had no authority, and took up one Ann Dekins, against 
 whom he had no warrant. In a controversy which ensued 
 in reference to this arrest, the constable was killed, and 
 the question was whether the unlawful arrest was a suffi- 
 cient provocation to reduce the crime from murder to 
 manslaughter. 
 
 " It was held, after elaborate argument, that the pris- 
 oners had sufficient provocation on the ground that if one 
 
I02 ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 
 
 be imprisoned upon an unlawful authority ^ it is a suffi- 
 cient provocation to all people out of compassion, and 
 much more where it is done under a color of justice, and 
 
 THAT WHERE THE LIBERTY OF THE SUBJECT IS IN- 
 VADED IT IS A PROVOCATION TO ALL THE SUBJECTS 
 
 OF England." 
 
 Gendemen, it is the maxim of a cold and selfish as 
 well as false philosophy, that it is no concern of mine 
 when the liberties of others are taken away. The idea 
 is as unfounded in sound reason and human experience 
 as it is opposed to the high obligation of the citizen, 
 and unworthy of the noble and more generous senti- 
 ments of human nature. 
 
 Algernon Sidney, on the night before his execution, 
 said to his nephew in prison : — 
 
 ** I value not my own life a chip ; but what concerns me 
 is that the law which takes away my life may hang every 
 citizen of England whenever it is thought convenient." 
 
 The thought which in the great soul of this noble 
 man rose above all thoughts of self, and in view of 
 which the loss of his own life was as nothing to him, 
 was that the blow which destroyed him was destructive 
 of the rights of every citizen of his country, — that in 
 his person Liberty itself was struck down. 
 
 Why, gentlemen, you all remember the thrill of en- 
 thusiasm which ran through the country when Com- 
 modore Ingraham anchored a United States ship-of-war 
 in front of a city under Austrian rule, and cleared 
 the deck for action, in support of his demand for the 
 release of Martin Kosta, an American citizen unlaw- 
 fully seized and deprived of his liberty. Why, Martin 
 Kosta was a very insignificant individual. He has 
 subsequently resided in this city, and personally is of 
 
ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 103 
 
 very little account. But the whole nation applauded 
 the action of Commodore Ingraham. Why? Because 
 his action represented the whole nation, and was a 
 noble assertion of the great truth that the liberty of 
 the humblest citizen is regarded as a matter so precious 
 and so sacred as to jusdy enlist the whole power of 
 the nation in its behalf. 
 
 But a short time since, a young Jewish boy, by the 
 name of Mortara, was unlawfully held in custody by 
 the ecclesiastical authority in Italy, and from one end 
 of the world to the other the Jewish people interested 
 themselves in the matter. Of what consequence was 
 it, it might be asked, to a Jew here in America, whether 
 Mortara was unlawfully held or not ? It did not affect 
 him ; it did not lessen his profits or interfere with his 
 business. But every Jew could see beneath the arrest 
 of this Jewish boy a principle of despotic power, which, 
 if unrebuked and unrestrained, might overthrow the 
 rights of conscience and destroy the liberty of every 
 other Jew. Such will ever be the sentiments which 
 will animate a people who prize their liberties and 
 expect to retain them. 
 
 In those ages of history when men stood by and 
 saw their fellow-men borne away to imprisonment or 
 death at the will of the government, without law or 
 right, and either cared not or dared not raise a voice 
 or hand in their behalf liberty was but a name. It 
 has cost ages of struggle and oceans of blood to se- 
 cure to mankind the great rights of personal liberty, 
 which are the birthright of every citizen of America ; 
 and when we become indifferent to the invasion of 
 these rights, we have taken the first step toward their 
 overthrow. It is fitly and truly said that " Eternal 
 vigilance is the price of liberty." 
 
I04 ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 
 
 If such be the high duty of every freeman with 
 respect to all unlawful invasions of the liberties of the 
 citizen, then there must be left to the citizen, under 
 the Fugitive Slave Law, without criminality, the perform- 
 ance of every act which is just, necessary, and proper 
 in the lawful execution of that duty. The obligation 
 to obey the law must not be so construed as to make 
 it criminal in the citizen vigilantly to investigate every 
 attempt to enforce its execution, and promptly and 
 efficiendy to guard and prevent all unlawful outrages 
 on the liberties of the citizen which may be sought to 
 be perpetrated under its sanction. 
 
 If I see a man forcibly seize one of my fellow-men, 
 claiming him as his slave and with intention to bear 
 him away to life-long bondage, am I to stand coldly by 
 in silent indifference and unconcern? Am I to leave 
 him to his fate without an effort to investigate the 
 matter? Such a doctrine as this may commend itself 
 to men who have no hearts to feel, — men who in the 
 dead insensibility of their natures to everything but 
 what touches their own individual interests, cannot rise 
 to the conception of a generous sentiment, much less 
 to the performance of an unselfish action ; but it is 
 not the feeling of men who possess a human nature. 
 Nor, I trust, gentlemen, would it make any difference 
 to any man, in such a case, that the person so seized 
 and about to be hurried off to everlasting bondage 
 had a skin darker than his own. 
 
 What, then, is to be done when this law is sought to 
 be enforced in the free States ? I have shown you that 
 there is the greatest liability to abuses under it. I 
 have proved to you that its execution is pregnant with 
 dangers to the liberties of the citizen. It is clear, then, 
 that some action is demanded on the part of those who 
 
ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 105 
 
 * duly value the liberty of the freemen of a free State 
 under such circumstances. 
 
 What, then, may be lawfully done? What ought 
 always to be done wherever the execution of this law 
 is attempted, if we would prevent these abuses and 
 guard against these dangers? 
 
 Manifestly the first step is to secure as full, thorough, 
 searching investigation into the facts and proceedings 
 as is possible, — to compel the production of the pro- 
 cess of arrest, to subject such process to legal scrutiny, 
 to have all the facts as carefully examined into and 
 tested as the summary character of the proceedings 
 will permit, and to make every necessary arrangement 
 to prevent the abduction of the party claimed as a 
 slave surreptitiously or violently without lawful sanction. 
 
 All this every man would, it seems to me, admit with- 
 out hesitation ought to be done, and done promptly 
 and effectually, in every case where this law is attempted 
 to be executed. All this would be wholly unnecessary 
 if a jury trial were to be made under the law, to deter- 
 mine the question of freedom or slavery ; for then 
 every man would rest satisfied that justice would be 
 done through the courts of the country. It is because 
 a man may be seized in a moment, and before the sun 
 goes down borne away from a free State into life-long 
 slavery, without a trial, that prompt, efficient, and de- 
 cisive action is necessary in such cases. 
 
 If, then, such action as I have indicated is not only 
 right and proper, but is demanded by our regard for 
 the rights of freemen, then it is lawful for me to as- 
 semble my friends and neighbors together ; to interest 
 them in the matter; to relate to them the facts; to 
 cause public meetings to be held, committees to be 
 appointed, counsel to be engaged, and every arrange- 
 
I06 ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 
 
 ment made, not only to secure the needful investigation, 
 but to provide whatever force may be requisite to pre- 
 vent the forcible or secret abduction of the accused 
 person before such investigation can be had, or in vio- 
 lation of the law. 
 
 It may be said that I am consuming time in con- 
 tending for what is too clear and unquestionable to 
 admit of debate or denial. If I have dwelt so fully 
 upon these principles and views which I have been 
 considering, it is because they dispose effectually of 
 almost the entire evidence in this cause. It requires 
 but the fair application of these principles to the testi- 
 mony before you to establish to your entire satisfaction 
 that every word and act of the defendant prior to the 
 final decision of Judge Caton is fully explained, justi- 
 fied, and deprived of all criminality. In the light of 
 these principles, then, let us proceed to examine the 
 evidence. 
 
 The defendant is on trial for a specific charge set 
 forth in the indictment. 
 
 That charge is that he rescued or aided in the rescue 
 of a fugitive from labor, called Jim, belonging to one 
 Richard Phillipps, from the custody of Isaac N. Albright, 
 then and there holding him, as a Deputy Marshal of 
 the United States for the Southern District of Illinois, 
 by virtue of a Commissioner's warrant for the arrest of 
 such fugitive. 
 
 To establish the offence charged in the indictment, 
 it is indispensably necessary that the following facts 
 should be proven : — 
 
 I. That the negro, Jim, was a slave held to service 
 to Phillipps under the law of the State of Missouri, and 
 that while so held he escaped from such service into 
 the State of Illinois. 
 
ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 107 
 
 2. That a lawful warrant was issued by a lawful offi- 
 cer for the arrest of such fugitive. 
 
 3. That such warrant was delivered to Isaac N. 
 Albright to be executed, and that said Albright was a 
 Deputy United States Marshal for the Southern District 
 of Illinois, and that said Albright arrested and held said 
 negro, Jim, under said warrant. 
 
 4. That the defendant had due notice or knowledge of 
 these facts. 
 
 5. That he rescued, or aided in the rescue of, said 
 slave after such notice. 
 
 The first three propositions I do not propose to dis- 
 cuss. They involve questions of law which were very 
 elaborately argued in a former trial ; and having been 
 decided by the court, they are to be assumed to be 
 established for the purpose of this trial. 
 
 It is, therefore, only with the two remaining ques- 
 tions that we have anything to do. 
 
 Now, in the consideration of the evidence in this 
 case, I propose to consider, first, what was done by the 
 defendant prior to the decision of Judge Caton, that 
 the negro was lawfully held by Albright and must be 
 remanded to his custody ; and, second, what appears 
 in evidence against him after that decision. 
 
 This is a most important division of the evidence, 
 and one which is most necessary to be made. For it 
 is manifest that the same words and acts which subse- 
 quent to that decision would have been criminal, and 
 justly attributable to an unlawful purpose to rescue the 
 slave from legal custody, might, if said or done prior to 
 that decision, be all consistent with a lawful and proper 
 intention, and referable to just and proper motives. 
 
 I. The first proposition which I will undertake to 
 demonstrate to your entire satisfaction from the evi- 
 
I08 ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 
 
 dence is this, \h3.i prior to the examination before Judge 
 Caton there is not only no evidence in the case estab- 
 h'shing any notice to this defendant that Jim was a 
 slave, and was held under a legal warrant issued under 
 this law for his arrest, but that, on the contrary, this de- 
 fendant, with the other citizens of Ottawa, had just rea- 
 son to believe, from the facts which have been proven 
 in evidence relating to the original arrest and subse- 
 quent treatment of this man, and from the conduct 
 of the parties connected with these transactions, that 
 these parties were engaged in an unlawful conspiracy 
 to kidnap this man and carry him into slavery. 
 
 I have endeavored to prove to you that any arrest 
 under this law is a sufficient justification to every cit- 
 izen to take such measures as are necessary to test its 
 legality and prevent the consummation of an outrage 
 against personal liberty under the cover of law. 
 
 But the circumstances connected with the arrest of 
 this man, Jim, were of such a character, and the subse- 
 quent treatment of him was such, as rightly to arouse 
 the public feeling, and create the impression in the 
 public mind that this man was in the hands of those 
 who had no respect for the law of the land, and who 
 meant to seize and carry him away without right or 
 authority. 
 
 The fact stands out uncontradicted and undeniable 
 upon the evidence that this man, Jim, had been seized 
 by a set of men who are engaged in the business 
 of kidnapping negroes and running them out of the 
 State, or delivering them up for a price to pretended 
 owners. 
 
 It is not denied that on the soil of this free State, 
 such outrages as these are being constantly committed. 
 The men, Jones and Curtley, were the leaders of this 
 
ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 109 
 
 infernal wickedness. They arrested this man without 
 process, without any complaint against him, and carried 
 him into Union County. He was there committed to 
 jail by a jury of that county, because he had no free 
 papers ! There was actually, gentlemen, a man found 
 filling a judicial position in this State, so ignorant of 
 law that he did not know that every man found in a 
 free State is presumed to be free ! He supposed that 
 it was a necessary prerequisite to the right of a man of 
 dark complexion to breathe the free air and walk the 
 broad prairies of this free State, that he should have a 
 certificate of freedom in his pocket. He has learned, 
 I trust, by this time, that under the constitution and 
 laws of this State, every man, white or black, who is 
 found within its limits is presumed to be free. 
 
 To relieve this man from this unlawful imprisonment, 
 Judge Caton issued a writ of habeas corpus. This writ 
 was delivered to the jailer of Union County on the 7th 
 or 8th of October ; and yet, gentlemen, notwithstanding 
 this, — and I call your attention to this as a most im- 
 portant fact in the chain of circumstances which led 
 the citizens of Ottawa to believe that there was an un- 
 lawful conspiracy to deprive this man of his liberty, — 
 notwithstanding this writ was served on the 7th or 8th 
 of October on Albright, and notwithstanding it takes 
 but two days to go from Jonesboro' to Ottawa, it was 
 not until the 18th of October that this jailer started for 
 Ottawa with the negro. During all this time he and 
 those with whom he was acting kept Jim in confine- 
 ment in jail, contrary to law and in contempt of the 
 highest judicial officer in the State. Was not this a 
 high-handed violation of law ? Why, this writ of habeas 
 corpus is the highest writ known to the law. It is issued 
 for the very purpose of preventing any invasion of 
 
no ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 
 
 personal liberty. It commanded Albright to bring this 
 man before Judge Caton forthwith. Every hour of 
 unnecessary delay after the service of this process was 
 a contempt of this great Writ of Right. And yet these 
 men disregarded this writ for more than ten days, hold- 
 ing this man, Jim, during all that time in unlawful con- 
 finement. During nearly all this time there was no 
 person claiming any right to this man ; but they were 
 holding him in jail in defiance of the writ, while he was 
 being advertised in the newspapers for the purpose of 
 finding an owner and obtaining a reward. These facts 
 were all known at Ottawa prior to this examination be- 
 fore Judge Caton. Were they not of a nature justly to 
 occasion a belief in an intention to run this man out of 
 the State in defiance of all law and of all right ? 
 
 He had been treated with the greatest barbarity. 
 Arrested without law, he was dragged through the 
 country chained like a felon, and thrust into prison. 
 And at last, when brought by Albright under the writ 
 of habeas corpus, a trace chain was fastened to his leg, 
 and his arms pinioned with ropes, and he was led along 
 the streets of the city of Ottawa in this inhuman man- 
 ner. With the party came the original kidnappers and 
 negro-stealers, Jones, Curtley and McKinney, — men 
 whose notorious deeds in this devilish business had 
 made their characters so infamous that even the jailer 
 Albright revolted from being considered as one of their 
 company ! 
 
 Up to this time no knowledge of Phillipps or of his 
 claim to this man had ever reached the ears of the 
 people of Ottawa. Phillipps did not make his appear- 
 ance at Jonesboro' until just before the departure of 
 Albright for Ottawa. The first that the people of 
 Ottawa knew of him was that he came up to that city 
 
ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. m 
 
 in company with these kidnappers, with whom he was 
 apparently in co-operation. 
 
 Now, I submit whether these facts did not justly 
 authorize the belief that this party had leagued together 
 to carry out and consummate by force or fraud the 
 unlawful abduction of this man whom they had before 
 seized, imprisoned, and held in custody in violation of 
 the laws of the State. 
 
 Where is the evidence in this cause which furnishes 
 any reason for a different belief being entertained by 
 this defendant prior to the examination before Judge 
 Caton ? 
 
 It is true that these men had a warrant under the 
 Fugitive Slave Law ; and it is true, also, that that warrant 
 has, after a day's discussion, and with an intimation of 
 some doubts as to its validity, been sustained by this 
 court ; and it is true, gentlemen, that the honest be- 
 lief that a warrant is void furnishes no excuse to the 
 party who resists it, if it turns out to be valid. 
 
 But the position which I take in reference to the 
 warrant is this : that the parties who held that war- 
 rant themselves doubted its validity ; that they, by their 
 conduct, created the impression that it was not relied 
 on and would not be attempted to be enforced, and 
 that the negro would be taken away without any 
 process. 
 
 Now, there were but two processes issued against 
 Jim : one was the mittimus in Union County, from 
 which his discharge under the habeas corpus was cer- 
 tain ; the other was the Commissioner's writ. Now, 
 if the conduct of these men was such as fairly to 
 create the impression that they regarded this latter 
 writ as invalid and worthless, and yet they came in 
 force, armed, and in company with the most notorious 
 
112 ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 
 
 negro-stealers in the State, the citizens might well sup- 
 pose that such a company could have come only for 
 the purpose of a lawless and forcible seizure and 
 abduction of this man. For what other purpose 
 could these abandoned and infamous men have been 
 brought all the way from Union County to Ottawa? 
 
 If Phillipps had lawful process, he would not require 
 the aid of the most notorious violators of law. 
 
 In this connection the apparent defects in the pro- 
 cess itself are of great importance ; for if there were 
 defects on the face of the warrant of such a character 
 as would naturally cause any man to regard it as invalid, 
 it would be natural for men having such a document to 
 act as though they did so regard it. This warrant has 
 no seal. It is addressed to the Marshal of the 
 Southern District of Illinois, and expressly on its face 
 limited in its operation to the Southern District of 
 Illinois. It only authorizes the arrest of Jim ^^ if he is 
 found in the Southern District^ 
 
 Now, there are very i^w men who would imagine for 
 a moment, until the decision of this court had in- 
 structed them otherwise, that a writ issued in the 
 Southern District of Illinois, directed to the Marshal of 
 that district and expressly required, upon its face, to be 
 served in that district, could be served in the Northern 
 District. The best lawyers in Ottawa unhesitatingly 
 advised to the contrary ; all the counsel of this defend- 
 ant so advised at the commencement of this defence. 
 They entertained no doubt on the subject at all, and 
 confidently supposed it would be so ruled by this 
 court. 
 
 The fact that this court has decided that by some 
 peculiar construction of this Fugitive Slave Law this 
 writ runs through the State, does not affect the view 
 
ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 113 
 
 in which I present the matter; for if the defect in 
 the writ was one which would naturally be regarded 
 by the parties who held it as fatal to any use of it in the 
 Northern District of Illinois, then they would be likely 
 to act as if they so regarded it. 
 
 In addition to these defects, the officer deputized 
 to serve the writ had been wrongly designated in the 
 deputation. 
 
 These defects in the warrant were such as to cause 
 the lawyers who examined it to declare it incapable of 
 being lawfully used for the arrest of the negro. The 
 parties who held it acted as if they were of the same 
 opinion, for they kept the warrant in the background. 
 It was not for some time and without some effort that 
 the committee of lawyers got a sight of it in a lawyer's 
 office in Ottawa. Phillipps, when applied to, refused all 
 statements in regard to the process, disclaimed any 
 connection with the custody of the negro, and referred 
 everybody to Albright. Albright stated that he held 
 Jim on the ?niiiimus, saying nothing about the warrant ; 
 and it was only by some pressing that they got him 
 to give them any opportunity to get a sight of the 
 warrant. 
 
 Albright never qualified as deputy under the warrant 
 until the examination before Judge Caton. 
 
 I say, then, without hesitation, and I appeal to 
 your intelligent judgment to sustain me in the assertion, 
 that there is nothing in the evidence in this cause 
 to bring home to this defendant any knowledge or 
 belief that the negro, Jim, was a slave of Phillipps', 
 or that any valid process for his arrest could be en- 
 forced against the negro until the examination before 
 Judge Caton, and the announcement of his decision at 
 the court-house. 
 
 8 
 
114 ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 
 
 And still further, I insist that the facts which I have 
 stated were such as justly to furnish grounds for the 
 belief that there was a design on the part of these men 
 to carry this man off forcibly and in violation of the law. 
 
 Under these circumstances did not their duty as 
 citizens and men require of them to take every step 
 necessary to prevent the consummation of such a law- 
 less outrage? Had they not the right — nay, was it 
 not their duty — to hold meetings, to appoint commit- 
 tees, to employ counsel, to meet and talk over this 
 matter, to lay their plans to prevent it, to secure every- 
 thing necessary to rescue this man from the hands of 
 these kidnappers, if they attempted to carry him off by 
 force or fraud ? 
 
 This view of the case covers every particle of the 
 evidence touching the conduct of this defendant prior 
 to the examination before Judge Caton. 
 
 May not the whole of this evidence just as prop- 
 erly — nay, with far greater propriety — be referable to 
 a lawful and proper motive than to an unlawful one ? 
 What word or act is in evidence proving that the meet- 
 ing which the defendant attended the previous night 
 had any unlawful purpose? But if there were any 
 doubt on the subject, it would be your duty to throw 
 the doubt in favor of the defendant. 
 
 I boldly maintain, then, and I challenge the learned 
 counsel for the United States to show the contrary, 
 that prior to the examination before Judge Caton 
 there is nothing in the evidence in this case which 
 may justly be held to affect the defendant with any 
 criminal intent, or to prevent him from receiving a 
 verdict of acquittal at your hands. 
 
 You have him, then, at the court-house, on the day 
 of the examination before Judge Caton, as perfectly free 
 
ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 115 
 
 from all presumption of wrong as any witness who has 
 appeared upon the stand, even including the learned 
 Judge himself. 
 
 He attended the examination as a spectator, as hun- 
 dreds of others did. It was his right and his duty to 
 be there. He listened to the opinion of the Judge. 
 He heard the decision which consigned the negro to 
 the custody of the Marshal. From that moment I ad- 
 mit he could do no act and say no word which should 
 aid the escape of this negro from the custody of the 
 officer without a violation of this law. 
 
 If the evidence establishes any participation in this 
 rescue by him, after this decision, then it will be your 
 duty to convict him ; but if it fails to prove any such 
 participation, or if it leaves a reasonable doubt of the 
 fact, it will be your duty — and I have no doubt, your 
 most agreeable duty — to acquit him. 
 
 II. Let us, then, consider the evidence touching the 
 conduct of the defendant subsequent to the decision of 
 Judge Caton. 
 
 The whole evidence in this case tending to show any 
 connection of this defendant with the rescue after the 
 decision of Judge Caton, is given by four witnesses, — 
 Spicer, Crandall, Armstrong, and Anderson. No other 
 witness has testified in relation to any matter occurring 
 subsequent to the examination. 
 
 Two of these witnesses, Spicer and Crandall, testify 
 to the same act of the defendant ; one of them, Ander- 
 son, testifies to another act; and two, Crandall and 
 Armstrong, testify to alleged admissions of the defend- 
 ant. The only act of the defendant's to which Spicer 
 and Crandall testify, is his pointing his finger. They 
 say they saw the defendant look at the negro and point 
 to the open window ; and Spicer thinks that this gesture 
 
Il6 ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 
 
 was repeated. It does not clearly appear that the ne- 
 gro saw this gesture, or that it had any reference to, or 
 connection with, the rescue. So far as the facts of the 
 rescue are in evidence they contradict any such idea, 
 for no rescue was made or attempted through the win- 
 dow. This is every iota of the evidence relating to 
 this act, which is one of the acts relied on to show the' 
 defendant's participation in the rescue. 
 
 Now, this evidence, giving it its fullest effect, neither 
 proves nor tends to prove that the defendant rescued 
 the slave or aided in such rescue. 
 
 It is clear that it does not prove that he rescued him, 
 for it had nothing to do with the rescue The gesture 
 was made at a different time, and before the rescue 
 was attempted ; and the rescue was made by other par- 
 ties and in an entirely different manner from that which 
 was indicated (as is claimed) by the gesture. Nor does 
 the evidence show that this act of the defendant's aided 
 the rescue ; on the contrary, the evidence is that Spicer 
 reported at once to the Marshal the gesture which he 
 had seen, and that the result of that gesture was that 
 the negro was taken into closer custody by the officer. 
 So far as the facts appear, then, this gesture of the 
 defendant, if it had any effect at all, had the effect to 
 prevent the rescue and not to aid it. 
 
 This view is giving to the gesture as proven the 
 meaning and intention assigned to it by the prosecu- 
 tion. But what is more uncertain, more liable to be 
 misunderstood, more unreliable as the basis of a ver- 
 dict which is to disgrace one of your fellow-men and 
 send him to the penitentiary, than a gesture, a move- 
 ment of the arm, a pointing of the finger ! Not a word 
 was said. There is nothing in the case to explain the 
 gesture, or give it meaning. 
 

 ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 117 X^;^ caT^ 
 
 £^LIFORH\L 
 
 Now, suppose this were the only evidence in the 
 cause, and you were asked to convict this defendant of 
 the rescue of a slave because he pointed his finger to 
 an open window through which no rescue was made, 
 would it not strike you with some astonishment to havp 
 the Attorney of the United States ask you to find a 
 verdict upon such evidence ? 
 
 Gentlemen, it is all the evidence in the cause which 
 touches the defendant (outside of the alleged admis- 
 sions, and Anderson's testimony, which I will consider 
 presently). For if I have succeeded in showing to 
 you that every word or act of the defendant previous 
 to that examination is referable to a just and lawful 
 motive, done in pursuance of his duty as a man and a 
 citizen, then he stands before you in that court-room as 
 perfectly free from any presumption of guilt as any 
 other person who was present. 
 
 I maintain that to convict a man under a law like 
 this, which imposes fine and imprisonment on the best 
 men in the community, for acts which but for the law 
 would be approved as humane and praiseworthy, upon 
 evidence like this, would be treating a man indicted 
 under this law more unfairly than you would treat the 
 worst of felons. 
 
 What ! Convict a man of a crime upon a single ges- 
 ture, — a movement of the arm, a pointing of the fin- 
 ger? Why, of how many different constructions is such 
 an act susceptible ? 
 
 It would be easy to suggest many explanations of 
 this movement of the arm, entirely different from that 
 which the prosecution give you of it, and all of which 
 might just as well consist with the facts proven. 
 
 But suppose, on the whole, there is some preponder- 
 ance of the evidence in some of your minds towards 
 
Il8 ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 
 
 the conclusion of an unlawful intention on the part of 
 the defendant in making this gesture. This will not 
 do. It is only in civil cases that the jury may decide 
 for the party in whose favor the evidence prepon- 
 derates. In criminal trials the party accused is always 
 entitled to the legal presumption in favor of inno- 
 cence. Neither a mere preponderance of evidence 
 nor any weight of preponderant evidence is sufficient 
 for the purpose unless it generates full belief of the 
 fact to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt. It is 
 not enough that the evidence tends to show guilt. // 
 must be absolutely inconsistent with afiy reasonable 
 hypothesis of innocence. 
 
 But, gentlemen, go a step further and assume the 
 explanation of the Government of this gesture to be 
 the true one. Suppose he did point to the slave and 
 to the window as a place of possible escape, and had 
 said at the same time, " My poor fellow, there is the 
 window, and there is God Almighty's world of light 
 and liberty outside : we cannot help you ; we are 
 bound hand and foot by this law; we can give you 
 no aid, — nay, if you attempt to escape through the 
 window and the Marshal calls upon us to prevent you, 
 we shall have to do so ; but if you can achieve your 
 own liberty in spite of us, we are not responsible," — 
 would that have made him guilty of the rescue or of 
 aiding in the rescue of the slave ? 
 
 No, gentlemen, this evidence is wholly unsatisfactory 
 and insufficient. It does not begin to make out a case 
 against this defendant. If he were on trial for murder 
 or felony, you would revolt from convicting him upon 
 such testimony ; and is this defendant in this case to be 
 convicted upon less evidence than would induce you to 
 convict a man for some more heinous crime ? Is this 
 
ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 119 
 
 defendant, with his unblemished character, won by- 
 twenty years of virtuous industry in the community in 
 which he lives, to be treated by you worse than a felon 
 or a murderer ? 
 
 The next evidence to be considered is that of the 
 alleged admissions of the defendant. These are testi- 
 fied to by two witnesses, — Armstrong and Crandall. 
 
 There is no species of evidence which is regarded 
 by the books as more unreliable and unsatisfactory 
 than this. The most eminent judges and best writers 
 upon the law of evidence have held that it is to be 
 received with the greatest caution, that it is subject to 
 imperfection and mistake. Such proof may be easily 
 fabricated ; and words are often misreported through 
 ignorance, inattention, or malice. 
 
 We have a striking instance of it in this very case. 
 The witness, Armstrong, at first stated in a general way, 
 that he had heard the defendant admit that he had a 
 hand in the rescue ; but when the witness was closely 
 questioned, it turned out that what he had heard was 
 in a general conversation by a number of persons in a 
 store at which the defendant was present, and he was 
 unable to state anything rehable which the defendant 
 himself said, and finally admitted that it was only an 
 impression and inference formed by him from the 
 whole conversation, and which he could not swear was 
 founded upon anything which the defendant said, but 
 might have arisen entirely from what was said by 
 others. 
 
 This testimony was manifestly incompetent, and was 
 so held by the court. All which he recollected of ever 
 hearing the defendant say, and all which is evidence in 
 this case, is " that Jim had escaped, and he was glad 
 of it." 
 
I20 ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 
 
 Was there anything wrong in these words ? I have 
 no doubt they expressed the honest feelings of his 
 heart. They certainly express those of mine. I can 
 say, too, with the deepest satisfaction, "Jim has es- 
 caped, and I am glad of it." If that be treason, make 
 the most of it. Yes, I am glad Jim has escaped, — 
 glad that another poor hunted victim of oppression 
 and wrong has escaped from the dark prison-house of 
 slavery, and is safe in a land where the sound of the 
 fetter and the lash is never heard. 
 
 Why, gentlemen, when you listened to the narrative 
 of his escape, — when you followed him in his bound- 
 ing, flying course through the hall, and beheld that 
 magnificent leap for freedom by which the fence was 
 cleared, and saw him fairly on his way to liberty, — was 
 there a man of you in whose heart there was not a feel- 
 ing of gladness ? Did you wish to have him stopped ? 
 If there is such a man, I do not envy him ; but I have 
 too much respect for you to believe so. 
 
 There is, then, nothing at all in the testimony of 
 Armstrong, so far as it is competent, which furnishes 
 any ground for a conviction on this indictment. 
 
 The other witness, Crandall, testifies to a conversa- 
 tion had with the defendant at the Revere House in 
 this city since these trials have been pending, in which 
 the defendant told him that he opened the window 
 himself, and would have thrown the negro out of it if 
 Spicer had not prevented it. 
 
 This testimony furnishes the most striking example 
 of the danger of this species of testimony. It leaves 
 the party charged with a crime at the mercy of the 
 witness. He may swear to what he pleases, as it is 
 impossible to contradict him. This witness said Mr. 
 Rathbun was present and near enough to have heard 
 
ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 12 1 
 
 the conversation. We called Mr. Rathbun, and he 
 swears he heard no such conversation as the witness 
 relates. If a man is to be convicted on such evidence 
 as this, he is powerless. It was given just at the close 
 of the case. There was no opportunity to impeach 
 the witness, and none of course to contradict his state- 
 ment. But, gentlemen, there is one thing which im- 
 peaches it sufficiently to make it proper for you to 
 discard it, and that is its own inherent improbability. 
 
 Here was this man about to be tried for an offence 
 punishable by fine and imprisonment. This witness, 
 Crandall, had just been a witness against the defendant 
 in the former trial, a witness who then swore to conver- 
 sations which other witnesses were called to contradict. 
 If this defendant is a man of ordinary intelligence, is 
 it to be credited that he would furnish the worst and 
 most malicious witness against him with evidence to 
 convict him, — that he would do this at the very time 
 when his trial was about to come on, and this very 
 man was then in attendance as a witness against him ? 
 
 There are some things so contrary to all human 
 experience, so intrinsically improbable, that the mind 
 instinctively rejects them as false. Gentlemen, I pro- 
 nounce the whole statement of this conversation by 
 this witness to be a wanton, malicious falsehood. We 
 have no means of contradicting it, except what we 
 have already given in the evidence of Rathbun, but 
 by the statement of the defendant himself. He is 
 here in court. He is a man sworn to be of high, 
 unblemished character, and I challenge the prosecution 
 to put him upon his oath and ask him whether any 
 such conversation ever occurred. 
 
 [Mr. Stout here arose and offered to be sworn, but 
 the offer was declined by the District Attorney.] 
 
122 ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 
 
 The only other evidence affecting the defendant is 
 the testimony of Anderson. He swears that he saw 
 the defendant seize the officer who had the negro in 
 charge by the shoulders, and bend his head down 
 nearly to the floor, and keep him in this position for 
 some time, until the negro had escaped. 
 
 Now, if you believe this evidence, there is an end of 
 this case. No act could more decisively connect this 
 defendant with the rescue than that which he has 
 stated. 
 
 But, gentlemen, the statement is at war with all the 
 other evidence in the case, and is utterly incredible. 
 The witness is either mistaken or he is forsworn. 
 
 In the first place, he says the person whom the de- 
 fendant seized and held in this manner was the officer 
 in charge of the negro ; and this, in fact, is the most 
 material point in the evidence. For if it were some 
 other man and not the officer who was held down, the 
 character of the act would depend entirely on who 
 the individual was ; for if he were a person trying to 
 rescue the slave, then in holding him he would have 
 been aiding, and not resisting, the officer. 
 
 Now, this witness could not identify the officer Al- 
 bright at all, either in his dress or his appearance. He 
 could not remember whether he was pock-marked. 
 Albright is a man of very marked and decided personal 
 appearance. No 'man who has once seen him could 
 ever forget him. But even when Albright stood up, he 
 was not certain whether that was the man, nor could 
 he say that Phillipps, who looks entirely different, was 
 not the man; so that it is obvious he has no clear 
 recollection which enables him to identify the indi- 
 vidual who was thus assaulted, which, as I have said, 
 is the very material point of his evidence. 
 
ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 123 
 
 But further, we called Albright himself, who says he 
 has no recollection of any such event. Now, it is not 
 credible, it is not within the range of possibility, 
 that a man of Albright's stalwart form and vigorous 
 frame could be seized and bent over nearly to the floor 
 and held in this position without knowing it. In such 
 a case the evidence of Albright is just as conclusive as 
 the most positive testimony. It does not stand on the 
 same basis as mere negative evidence. It was an act 
 done to him personally, and it could not have been 
 done to him without his knowledge and recollection. 
 In addition to this, it is a fact which no other witness 
 has sworn to. The matters which occurred in that 
 court-room have been the subject of investigation here 
 for weeks. Scores of witnesses have been examined 
 in relation to them, and this is the first and only wit- 
 ness who has sworn to any such fact as that stated by 
 this witness. If so important a transaction as this 
 occurred in that room, it could not but have excited 
 the observation of others. It was the most decisive ac- 
 tion of the whole rescue, and yet neither the officer who 
 was assaulted nor any one else was cognizant of it. 
 
 I submit, gentlemen, that evidence contradicted as 
 this is by all the facts in the case, inherently impossible, 
 and unsupported by a single other witness, is not suffi- 
 cient to satisfy the minds of an intelligent jury. 
 
 Surely I may claim with the utmost confidence that 
 there is that rational doubt of its correctness arising 
 upon the whole facts and circumstances Of the case 
 which warrants me in asking you to discard it from 
 your minds. 
 
 And thus, gentlemen, I have fully and fairly con- 
 sidered every iota of evidence which the prosecution 
 have offered against the defendant ; and I say to you as 
 
124 ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 
 
 a lawyer and as a man, that in my judgment it is 
 wholly insufficient to warrant a verdict against him. 
 
 And now, gentlemen, a few remarks in relation to 
 the right and the duty of the jury in prosecutions 
 for offences of such a character as this, and I shall 
 conclude. 
 
 It was said by a great British statesman, that "bad 
 laws are the worst sort of tyranny ; " and it is true. 
 They clothe what is unjust and wrong with the sanction 
 of authority. They array the conscience of a people 
 against itself by enlisting their conscientious reverence 
 for the law in behalf of what conscience itself con- 
 demns. By such a conflict either the national con- 
 science becomes callous, and the citizen becomes 
 indifferent to the injustice which the law imposes, or 
 the conscience of the people proves stronger than 
 their respect for law, and the result is opposition, vio- 
 lence, tumult, and revolution. 
 
 There can be, therefore, no greater wrong, no 
 more odious tyranny inflicted upon a people, than to 
 compel them by the force of law, by the power of pen- 
 alties, fines, and imprisonment, to the performance of 
 unjust acts, opposed to their convictions of right. 
 
 Now, there are but two resources which can be made 
 effective to remove or alleviate the evil which comes 
 from unjust and oppressive legislation. The first lies 
 with the people in their power to effect a repeal or 
 change of such legislation by a change of their rulers 
 or representatives. This remedy is often one which it 
 requires a long period of time to accomplish. 
 
 The other lies in the right of a trial by jury. 
 
 The jury has been for ages the great bulwark of the 
 citizen against the oppressions of power, the great 
 security of his rights and liberties. 
 
ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 125 
 
 To the jury is given the exclusive right to decide 
 upon the facts. It was once held (even in the courts 
 of the United States) that in criminal cases they were 
 judges of the law also ; and such is still the doctrine in 
 our State courts, but in the Federal courts the judges 
 have denied the right of the jury to judge of the law. 
 But the right to be the judges, and the sole and exclu- 
 sive judges, of the facts is still theirs, and theirs with 
 no limit or restraint save that which their own con- 
 sciences impose. 
 
 In their exercise of this duty they are subject to no 
 control or dictation. They are bound by no man's 
 opinion, not even that of the judge upon the bench. 
 They take the law from the judge ; and his decision on 
 the law is, under the rule adopted in this court, obliga- 
 tory upon them, but his opinion upon the facts has no 
 such authority. Upon the facts they are the supreme 
 and only judges. 
 
 There was a time, and not far back in English 
 history, when juries were under the most arbitrary 
 and tyrannical control of judges, and when they were 
 fined or imprisoned for refusing to find verdicts in 
 conformity to the wishes of the court. But these 
 were ages of tyranny. The noble courage and inde- 
 pendence of juries in England proved too strong a 
 barrier to be overcome ; and the right of the jury to 
 decide upon all questions of fact has become now the 
 established doctrine of the law in England as well as 
 in this country. 
 
 Now, where the law sought to be enforced is danger- 
 ous to the liberties of the citizen, or unjust and op- 
 pressive in its operation, or where it is of a political 
 character, juries have it in their power to alleviate its 
 evils by requiring the proof which shall induce them to 
 
126 ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 
 
 convict for the violation of such laws to be of the most 
 explicit, positive, and satisfactory description. 
 
 Those technical defects and nice objections which in 
 ordinary cases would be brushed aside as trifles, may 
 in such prosecutions rightfully be made availing to the 
 protection of the citizen against oppression. 
 
 The jury may rightfully insist upon the utmost com- 
 pleteness of the testimony in every particular. They 
 ought never in such cases to permit themselves to con- 
 vict, except under a weight and conclusiveness of evi- 
 dence upon every necessary fact which leaves them no 
 choice except to violate their consciences and their 
 oaths. 
 
 And especially is such the duty of the jury in cases 
 tried in this court, under this law, where there is no 
 appeal, no possible mode of reviewing the errors of the 
 judge, or correcting any mistake or injustice done to 
 the defendant on the trial. 
 
 The defendant in this case is wholly without remedy, 
 gentlemen, however great and numerous may be the 
 errors of the law or fact which are committed here. 
 Testimony may be admitted in violation of the well- 
 established rules of evidence. Instructions may be 
 given at variance with what is regarded to be law by 
 the most able and learned lawyers, but there is no 
 redress. 
 
 Consider for a moment to what consequences this 
 might lead, unless juries are careful of the rights of 
 defendants in such cases. 
 
 Suppose Congress should pass a law punishing any 
 citizen who should speak or write against slavery 
 by fine and imprisonment. Such a law seems per- 
 haps almost an absurdity to you ; but two centuries 
 have not elapsed since to speak or write against the 
 
ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 127 
 
 government in England was punishable by fine and 
 imprisonment ! 
 
 Such a law would unhesitatingly be pronounced by 
 the Judge who now sits in this court as contrary to 
 that provision of the Constitution of the United States 
 which secures to every citizen the liberty of the press 
 and of speech. 
 
 But, gentlemen, judges are mortal, and we may not 
 always be favored with a judge so eminent for learning 
 and exalted in character as is he who now presides 
 over this court. 
 
 Suppose in his place we were to have a LeCompte, 
 — nay, even more than this, a Jeffreys or a Scroggs. 
 Such a judge might find abundance of plausible pre- 
 texts for sustaining the constitutionality of such a law 
 as I have mentioned. He might choose to regard such 
 utterances about slavery, either spoken or printed, as 
 incendiary, and not authorized by that proper and 
 licensed freedom of speech which was intended by the 
 Constitution. 
 
 Suppose such a judge should think fit to decide that 
 such a law was constitutional, and a man should be 
 brought to trial under it for uttering the sentiments of 
 Jefferson, or proclaiming the doctrines of the Declara- 
 tion of Independence. There would be no remedy 
 for such an outrage save in the intelligent judgment and 
 independence of the jury. 
 
 In a court, then, from whose decisions there is no 
 appeal, and for whose errors there is no remedy or 
 redress, juries are especially called upon to be careful 
 not to condemn unless the evidence proves the charge 
 beyond the shghtest doubt. 
 
 Looking at it in this view, it will be impossible for 
 you, as fair men, to convict this defendant upon this 
 
128 ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 
 
 indictment ; and I cannot think that there is a man on 
 this jury to whom it would not give the greatest satis- 
 faction to be able to bring in a verdict of acquittal. 
 
 Surely it can give no pleasure to any man to be the 
 means of imposing a disgrace upon one of his fellow- 
 men, of visiting him with fine and imprisonment for an 
 act which is, to say the least of it, dictated by humane 
 and generous motives, and which, if committed, would 
 not lower the defendant in your estimation as a good 
 man. And if not, then it cannot be that on evidence 
 so doubtful and unsatisfactory as has been offered here, 
 you will refuse to acquit him. 
 
 Gentlemen of the jury, it is said that the execution 
 of this oppressive and odious law in the North will tend 
 to the preservation of the Union, and your love of 
 country is sought to be enlisted in aid of a conviction 
 of the defendant at the bar. 
 
 I deny the assertion. I say that nothing tends more 
 to weaken the bonds of the Union at the North than 
 such prosecutions as these. Make men feel by the 
 execution of this Fugitive Slave Act on the soil of the 
 free States, how all the great securities of personal 
 liberty are daily violated in behalf of slavery ; pursue 
 with fine and imprisonment men of stainless character 
 and unsullied life, for giving a helping hand or a kind 
 word to a poor fugitive on his way to liberty, — and you 
 will fill the hearts of freemen at the North with feelings 
 of bitterness and discontent. Better, far better, were it 
 for the Union, for the peace of the country, for the 
 continuance of those fraternal feelings and relations 
 which should bind together the citizens of these States, 
 if this Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 had lain, like the law 
 of 1793, dormant upon the statute book. The law of 
 1 793 was the only law on this subject for more than 
 
ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 129 
 
 fifty years. It is well known that that law was prac- 
 tically a nullity, and that so few attempts to enforce it 
 were made that it was to all intents and purposes the 
 same as if there were no law in existence ; and that was 
 the period of the utmost peace and harmony throughout 
 the whole country. 
 
 Better, far better, if this law of 1850 had shared the 
 same fate. Better for the South itself; for if slavery be 
 that fierce and terrible volcano, ever ready to pour forth 
 fire and destruction' over the whole land, as has been 
 so graphically pictured in the eloquent denunciation of 
 the learned gentleman against abolition incendiarism, 
 then it were surely wiser and safer to let these brave 
 and fiery spirits who have the boldness to strike out for 
 freedom and the skill and daring to obtain it remain 
 where they are, and not seek to regain them. Such 
 men would, if captured and restored, be but as fire- 
 brands to kindle the flame of insurrection and light the 
 train which should cause the volcano to explode. 
 
 Better, too, for the North ; for it would remove one 
 bitter and burning source of anger and resentment in 
 the Northern heart. 
 
 It is said that the laws of the United States must be 
 enforced. It is better for bad laws to remain unen- 
 forced, to sleep in harmless oblivion. 
 
 There are other provisions of the Constitution of the 
 United States as binding as that on which this law is 
 based, and which are also in themselves just, which 
 are every day violated ; and yet the Government does 
 not take any action in respect to such violations, and 
 the dignity of the Government seems not to be at all 
 disturbed by them. 
 
 The property of citizens on the free soil of one of 
 the Territories of the United States has been destroyed 
 9 
 
130 ARGUMENT IN A SLAVE CASE. 
 
 by the most wanton violence ; men have been assaulted 
 and murdered for no crime, and in the open light of 
 day ; one of the great navigable rivers of the nation has 
 been blockaded by armed men ; free citizens are daily 
 being exposed to insult and outrage in other States for 
 exercising the right of free speech, and of a free press, 
 guaranteed to them by the Constitution. All these 
 things are matters of pubUc history which are known 
 to all. 
 
 Did you ever hear of any prosecutions of these men 
 by the Government? Was the law enforced against 
 these violators of the rights of person and property ? 
 
 Why must this law, which punishes what is not a 
 crime except by the statute which makes it so, be 
 selected, and all the power of the Government be given 
 to its enforcement, while the guarantees of the Consti- 
 tution against unreasonable seizures and searches and 
 its securities for the great rights of personal liberty, the 
 freedom of speech and of the press, are trampled upon 
 without notice and without punishment ? 
 
 Gentlemen, I beUeve from my heart that a verdict of 
 acquittal in this case will do more than aught else to 
 allay public excitement, — to quiet the angry feelings 
 and bitter resentment which these prosecutions have 
 engendered. 
 
 One victim has akeady been offered up to this great 
 Moloch of Slavery. The law has been vindicated. It 
 is enough. Let your verdict in this case restore this 
 defendant to his family in peace, and show that while 
 you are willing to do full justice to the slaveholder, 
 you have some respect for the rights and liberties of 
 freemen.