Page:Anti-slavery and reform papers by Thoreau, Henry David.djvu/90

 A Plea for Captain John Broivn. 79 not the spirit ? What right have you to enter into a compact with yourself that you will do thus or so, against the light within you ? Is it for you to mahe up your mind, — to form any resolution whatever, — and not accept the convictions that are forced upon you, and which ever pass your understanding ?| I do not believe in lawyers^ in that mode of attacking^r defending a man, because you descend to meet the judge on his own ground, and, in cases of the highest importance, it is of no consequence whether a man breaks a human law or not. Let lawyers decide trivial cases. Business men may arrange that among themselves. If they were the interpreters of the everlasting laws which rightfully bind man, that would be another thinor. A counterfeitiuof law-factorv, standino- half in a slave land and half in a free ! What kind of laws for free men can you expect from that ? I am here to plead his cause with you. I plead not for his life, but for his character, — his immortal life; and so it becomes your cause wholly, and is not his in the least. Some eighteen hundred years ago Christ was crucified ; this morning, perchance, Captain Brown was hung. These are the two ends of a chain which is not without its links. He is not Old Brown any longer ; he is an an Orel of liofht.

I see now that it was necessary that the bravest and humanest man in all the country should be hunor. Per- haps he saw it himself. I almost fear that I may yet hear of his deliv^erance, doubting if a prolonged life, if any life, can do as much good as his death.

 Misguided   Garrulous  ! " Insane  !  Vin- dictive " ! So ye write in your easy-chairs, and thus he, wounded, responds from the floor of the Armory, clear as