s for the
protection of human rights. The defendant is brought, generally in
irons, before your commissioner judge, who is required "to hear and
determine the case of _the claimant_ in a summary manner." The law seems
not even to imagine the possibility of any defence being made on the
part of the defendant. It makes no provision for such a defence,--no
assignment of counsel, no summons for witnesses. We shall see presently,
that if the plaintiff makes out a _prima facie_ title, satisfactory to
the commission, it is all the law requires. Let me now call your
attention to the practical working of your diabolical law. A man named
Rose was lately seized at Detroit, and brought before a commissioner as
a fugitive slave. I copy from the newspaper report. "Mr. Joy (counsel
for defendant) moved a postponement of the trial to a future day, to
enable Rose to produce his papers to establish his right to freedom,
which papers he had _sworn_ were in Cincinnati. The counsel for the
claimant denied that the commissioner had any authority under the law to
grant a postponement. The commissioner agreed with the counsel for the
plaintiff, that _he had no authority to postpone the trial_; and he
further declared, that, _even were the papers by which Rose was
manumitted present, he could not under the law receive them in
evidence_."

Utterly devilish as was this decision, it was sound law. The plaintiff
had proved his title satisfactorily, and this being done, the
commissioner was bound by the express words of the law to grant the
certificate. He had no right to admit rebutting evidence. It was
sufficient to prove that the prisoner had been the slave of the
claimant's father, and that the claimant was the heir at law of his
father. This of itself was satisfactory, and therefore the commissioner
had no right to admit in evidence the very deed of manumission granted
by the father to the slave. The framers of the law had been as explicit
as they dared to be. "Upon satisfactory proof being made by deposition
or _affidavit_, to be taken and certified, &c., or by other satisfactory
testimony [of course, in writing, and _ex parte_], and with proof, also
by affidavit, of the _identity_ of the person," &c., the defendant is to
be surrendered. Not a hint is given that any testimony may be received
to rebut the _satisfactory_ proof given by the plaintiff. You have,
moreover, Sir, provided a species of evidence never before heard of in
the trial of a