Page:Speech of John Hossack.djvu/8

8 been deposited in his bones and sinews; yea, the toil of his body and mind both, till death shall end the period of stipulated toil. Here is a question for legal examination and judicial discussion. Does the man Gray owe this man Phillips any thing? The Constitution is very clear and very plain in pointing out the way this question is to be settled.

Article V. provides that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. That Jim Gray is a person, is admitted on all hands. Phillips admits it; the blood-hounds, marshals and attorneys that hunt him, say he is a person—a person held to service. The amount in dispute is the liberty and life-long toil of a man just entering into the full maturity of manhood. A great question lies between these men. But Gray, standing on soil covered by this Constitution, can be robbed of liberty, or the wages of his toil, only by due process of law.

Article VII. says, expressly, in suits at common law, when the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved. Here, sir, is a case involving the question of liberty, and hundreds of dollars of money. The law, Sir, under which I appear before you, overrides these plain provisions, and commits this whole question to one man, and offers him a bribe to trample right and liberty under foot. I know, Sir, it may be said that Jim Gray was a slave, and not entitled to these humane provisions. Had he never worn the chain of the oppressor, nor felt the lash of the bloody task-master—had he been born in Canada, or any where else on the globe—had he been a citizen of one of the States of this Union, and never been enslaved, it would have been all the same. His liberty would have been stricken down, and he been given to the party claiming his life-long toil, and your Commissioner would have pocketed the bribe offered by this law for doing such a crime against humanity and the plainest provisions of the Constitution.

No, sir; in a Court of the United States, where the Constitution provides for trial by jury, I ought not to be sentenced for raising my hand to rescue a fellow-man from a mob that would strip him of his liberty and life-long toil without due process of law, without trial by jury. Sir, this law tramples so flagrantly upon the spirit and letter of the Constitution, that I ought not to be sentenced.