e law passes into them, as the devils entered the
swine. Upstart commissioners, mere mushrooms of courts, vie and revie
with each other. Now by indecent speed, now by harshness of manner, now
by denial of evidence, now by crippling the defense, and now by open,
glaring wrong they make the odious Act yet more odious. Clemency, grace,
and justice die in its presence. All this is observed by the world. Not
a case occurs which does not harrow the souls of good men, and bring
tears of sympathy to the eyes, and those nobler tears which "patriots
shed o'er dying laws."

Sir, I shall speak frankly. If there be an exception to this feeling,
it will be found chiefly with a peculiar class. It is a sorry fact, that
the "mercantile interest," in unpardonable selfishness, twice in English
history, frowned upon endeavors to suppress the atrocity of Algerine
Slavery, that it sought to baffle Wilberforce's great effort for the
abolition of the African slave-trade, and that, by a sordid compromise,
at the formation of our Constitution, it exempted the same detested,
Heaven-defying traffic from American judgment. And now representatives
of this "interest," forgetful that Commerce is born of Freedom, join in
hunting the Slave. But the great heart of the people recoils from this
enactment. It palpitates for the fugitive, and rejoices in his escape.
Sir, I am telling you facts. The literature of the age is all on his
side. Songs, more potent than laws, are for him. Poets, with voices of
melody, sing for Freedom. Who could tune for Slavery? They who make
the permanent opinion of the country, who mould our youth,whose words,
dropped into the soul, are the germs of character, supplicate for the
Slave. And now, Sir, behold a new and heavenly ally. A woman, inspired
by Christian genius, enters the lists, like another Joan of Arc, and
with marvellous power sweeps the popular heart. Now melting to tears,
and now inspiring to rage, her work everywhere touches the conscience,
and makes the Slave-Hunter more hateful. In a brief period, nearly
one hundred thousand copies of Uncle Tom's Cabin have been already
circulated. But this extraordinary and sudden success, surpassing all
other instances in the records of literature, cannot be regarded as but
the triumph of genius. Better far, it is the testimony of the people, by
an unprecedented act, against the Fugitive Slave Bill.

These things I dwell upon as incentives and tokens of an existing public
sent