Gracious Heaven! can such things be on our Free Soil? ["_No!_"] Shall the evasion of Pontius Pilate be enacted anew, and a judge vainly attempt, by washing the hands, to excuse himself for condemning one in whom he can "find no fault"? Should any court, sitting here in Massachusetts, for the first time in her history, become agent of the Slave-Hunter, the very images of our fathers would frown from the walls; their voices would cry from the ground; their spirits, hovering in the air, would plead, remonstrate, protest, against the cruel judgment. [_Cheers._] There is a legend of the Church, still living on the admired canvas of a Venetian artist, that St. Mark, descending from the skies with headlong fury into the public square, broke the manacles of a slave in presence of the very judge who had decreed his fate. This is known as "The Miracle of the Slave," and grandly has Art illumined the scene.[57] Should Massachusetts hereafter, in an evil hour, be desecrated by any such decree, may the good Evangelist once more descend with valiant arm to break the manacles of the Slave! [_Enthusiasm._]
Sir, I will not dishonor this home of the Pilgrims, and of the Revolution, by admitting--nay, _I cannot believe--that this Bill will be executed here_. ["_Never!_"] Among us, as elsewhere, individuals may forget humanity, in fancied loyalty to law; but the public conscience will not allow a man who has trodden our streets as a freeman to be dragged away as a slave. [_Applause._] By escape from bondage he has shown that true manhood which must grapple to him every honest heart. He may be ignorant and rude, as poor, but he is of true nobility. Fugitive Slaves are the heroes of our age. In sacrificing them to this foul enactment we violate every sentiment of hospitality, every whispering of the heart, every commandment of religion.
[57] An eloquent French critic says, among other things, of this greatest picture of Tintoretto, that "no painting surpasses, or perhaps equals" it, and that, before seeing it, "one can have no idea of the human imagination." (Taine, Italy, Florence, and Venice, tr. Durand, pp. 314, 316.) Some time after this Speech an early copy or sketch of this work fell into Mr. Sumner's hands, and it is now a cherished souvenir of those anxious days when the pretensions of Slavery were at their height.