Page:Speech of John Hossack.djvu/10

10 marshals, attorneys, and many citizens, regard this law as Constitutional, and stand ready to execute it, though it trample every principle of the Declaration of Independence in the dust. Sir, no law can be enacted so bad but that it will find men deluded or base enough to execute it. The law of Egypt that consigned the new-born babe to the slaughter found tools for its execution. The bloody decree of Herod found men ready to obey the law of the country, though it commanded the slaughter of the innocents of a province. Sir, tell me not of men ready and willing to execute the law! My Redeemer, whose name I am hardly worthy to speak, and yet whose name is all my trust, although he knew no sin, yet he was crucified by law.

Again, Sir, it will be said that some whom the world calls Doctors of Divinity and Doctors of Law have undertaken to prove that slavery was guaranteed by the Constitution. If that be so, in the name of the Most High God, tear out the red strip of blood; it was not written by the Angel Gabriel, nor nailed to the throne of the Almighty. If slavery is in it, it is "a covenant with death, and an agreement with hell."

But, Sir, I have one consideration more that I will urge why sentence ought not to be pronounced against me. This law, which I think I have proved outrageous to the rights of man, is so obviously at variance with the law of that God who commands me to love Him with all my soul, mind, might and strength, and my neighbor as myself, and the Redeemer who took upon him my nature and the nature of poor Jim Gray has been so particular in telling me who my neighbor is, that the path of duty is plain to me. This law so plainly tramples upon the divine law, that it cannot be binding upon any human being under any circumstances to obey it. The law that bids me do to other men as I would have other men do to me, is too plain, too simple to be misunderstood. But, Sir, I am not now left to the general law of love in searching for my duty in this particular case. Permit me to refer your Honor to the oldest law-book in existence. Though it may not be in use in this Court, yet I think it better authority than Blackstone or any law-book that ever was written. It is the book of books. In that book, I find some special enactments given to the Hebrew commonwealth, that leave me in no doubt as to my duty in reference to this law.