Such, Sir, is the _trial_ which you, the representative of Boston, a descendant of the Pilgrims, and "a gentleman of property and standing," have accorded to the poor and oppressed. Did the Constitution require such a prostitution of justice, such an outrage of humanity, at your hands? I need not be told that some of your commissioners have not construed your law as strictly as did the Detroit functionary. Thanks to the force of public opinion, and to the zeal of some benevolent lawyers, whose hearts were not padded with cotton, in some instances defendants have been permitted to call witnesses in their behalf; and some regard has been paid to the ordinary principles of justice. But in all such instances, the spirit of the law and the intentions of its framers have been frustrated.
And now let us listen to your "reason" for justifying all the atrocities and abominations of your law. You gravely tell us, "The entire population of the North has acquiesced in the law of 1793, without thinking itself exposed to the charge of barbarity, and I have only to say, that I do not think the charge any more just now." Certainly, Sir, the young colonial judge could not have given a reason less logical or satisfactory. You must be an inattentive observer of passing events, if you are ignorant that the law of 1793 has again and again been denounced as iniquitous, that some of the States have prohibited their officers from assisting in its execution, that numberless petitions have been presented to Congress for its repeal, and that you yourself, instead of acquiescing in it, solemnly declared it to be the duty of Congress so far to alter the law, as to grant the alleged fugitive a trial by jury. Yet the law of 1793, wicked as it was, was justice and mercy compared with yours. The trials under that were almost invariably before judges of the State courts, not appointed like your commissioners for the vile and only purpose of reducing their fellow-men to bondage. There judges were not confined to _ex parte_ evidence, were not compelled to receive "as full and conclusive" affidavits made in distant States, and by unknown persons. For the most part, they honestly endeavoured, by a patient investigation according to the ordinary rules of evidence, and by holding the plaintiff to strict legal proof, to supply the want of a jury.