[55] Diary, December 18, 1765: Works, Vol. II. p 154.
[56] History of New England (ed. Savage), 1645, Vol. II. p. 229.
And here, Sir, let me say, that it becomes me to speak with caution. It happens that I sustain an important relation to this Bill. Early in professional life I was designated by the late Judge Story a Commissioner of his Court, and, though I do not very often exercise the functions of this appointment, my name is still upon the list. As such, I am one of those before whom the panting fugitive may be dragged for the decision of the question, whether he is a freeman or a slave. But while it becomes me to speak with caution, I shall not hesitate to speak with plainness. I cannot forget that I am a _man_, although I am a _Commissioner_. [_Three cheers here given._]
Could the same spirit which inspired the Fathers enter into our community now, the marshals, and every _magistrate_ who regarded this law as having any constitutional obligation, would resign, rather than presume to execute it. This, perhaps, is too much to expect. But I will not judge such officials. To their own consciences I leave them. Surely no person of humane feelings and with any true sense of justice, living in a land "where bells have knolled to church," whatever may be the apology of public station, can fail to recoil from such service. For myself let me say, that I can imagine no office, no salary, no consideration, which I would not gladly forego, rather than become in any way the agent in enslaving my brother-man. [_Sensation._] Where for me were comfort and solace after such a work? [_A voice_, "_Nowhere!_"] In dreams and in waking hours, in solitude and in the street, in the meditations of the closet and in the affairs of men, wherever I turned, there my victim would stare me in the face. From distant rice-fields and sugar-plantations of the South, his cries beneath the vindictive lash, his moans at the thought of Liberty, once his, now, alas! ravished away, would pursue me, repeating the tale of his fearful doom, and sounding, forever sounding, in my ears, "Thou art the man!" [_Applause._]
The magistrate who pronounces the decree of Slavery, and the marshal who enforces it, act in obedience to law. This is their apology; and it is the apology also of the masters of the Inquisition, as they ply the torture amidst the shrieks of their victim. Can this weaken accountability for wrong? Disguise it, excuse it, as they will, the fact must glare before the world, and penetrate the conscience too, that the fetters by which the unhappy fugitive is bound are riveted by their tribunal,--that his second life of wretchedness dates from their agency,--that his second birth as a slave proceeds from _them_. The magistrate and marshal do for him here, in a country which vaunts a Christian civilization, what the naked, barbarous Pagan chiefs beyond the sea did for his grandfather in Congo: _they transfer him to the Slave-Hunter_, and for this service receive the very price paid for his grandfather in Congo,--_ten dollars!_ ["_Shame! shame!_"]