intensest exercise of their own God-given powers;--by
escaping from the plantations of their masters, eluding the
blood-thirsty patrols and sentinels so thickly scattered all along their
path, outrunning blood-hounds and horses, swimming rivers and fording
swamps, and reaching at last, through incredible difficulties, what
they, in their delusion, supposed to be free soil. These three classes
were in Oberlin, trembling alike for their safety because they well knew
their fate should these men-hunters get their hands on them.

In the midst of such excitement, the 13th day of September was ushered
in--a day ever memorable in the history of Oberlin, and I presume also,
in the history of this court. These men-hunters had, by lying devices,
decoyed into a place, where they could get their hands on him--I will
not say a slave, for I do not know that--but a _man_, _a brother_, who
had the right to his liberty under the laws of God, under the laws of
nature, and under the Declaration of American Independence.

In the midst of all this excitement the news came to us like a flash of
lightning that an actual seizure under and by means of fraudulent
pretenses, had been made! Being identified with that man by color, by
race, by manhood, by sympathies, such as God has implanted in us all, I
felt it my duty to go and do what I could towards liberating him. I had
been taught by my Revolutionary father--and I say this with all due
respect to him--and by his honored associates, that the fundamental
doctrine of this Government was, that _all_ men have a right to life and
liberty, and coming from the Old Dominion I had brought into Ohio these
sentiments deeply impressed upon my heart. I went to Wellington, and
hearing from the parties themselves by what authority the boy was held
in custody, I conceived from what little knowledge I had of law that
they had no right to hold him. And as your Honor has repeatedly laid
down the law in this court, a man is free until he is proven to be
legally restrained of his liberty. I believed that upon that principle
of law those men were bound to take their prisoner before the very first
magistrate they found and there establish the facts set forth in their
warrant, and that until they did this every man should presume that
their claim was unfounded, and to institute such proceedings for the
purpose of securing an investigation as they might find warranted by the
laws of this State.

Now, sir, if that is