verdict? Just none
at all. For that one man, however clear the master's evidence, would
hang the jury, and the cause would have to be tried over again.

But suppose the whole twelve jurors should decide according to the law
and the evidence, and give a verdict in favor of the claimant; would his
rights then be secured? Very far from it. For there is the eager crowd,
which never fails to flock to such trials, and which the inflammatory
eloquence of the advocate has now wrought into a frenzy. Cannot such
crowd, think you, furnish a mob to effect by force what every member of
the jury had refused to accomplish by falsehood? If the master--if the
abhorred "slave-hunter"--should escape from such a crowd with a sound
body only, and without his property, he ought, we think, to deem himself
exceedingly fortunate.

Mr. Winthrop, of Massachusetts, has advocated a trial by jury in such
cases. He was, no doubt, perfectly sincere in the belief expressed by
him, that under such a provision more fugitive slaves would be reclaimed
than under the law as it now stands. But it is equally certain that
neither Mr. Seward nor Mr. Chase was of this opinion when the one
proposed, and the other voted for, a trial by jury in such cases.
Neither of these Senators, we think we may confidently affirm, intended
to aid the master in reclaiming his fugitive slaves.

"At any rate, sir," says Mr. Winthrop, "I shall vote for the amendment
offered by the Senator from New Jersey, as right and just in itself,
whatever may be its effects." That is to say, whatever may be the
effect of a jury trial in such cases, he means to vote for it _as right
and just in itself_! Whether this were a burst of passion merely, or the
deliberate conviction of the author of it, we are not able to determine,
but we shall trust it was the former. For surely such an opinion, if
deliberately entertained, is creditable neither to a Senator nor to a
jurist. Neither this, nor any other mode of trial, is "right in itself;"
and when right at all, it is only so as a means to an end. It is only
right when it subserves the great end of justice; and if it fail to
answer this end it is then worse than worthless. Hence the statesman who
declares that, "_whatever may be the effects_" of a particular mode of
trial, he will nevertheless support it "as right and just in itself,"
thereby announces that he is prepared to sacrifice the end to the
means,--a sentiment which, we venture to affirm,