grantly upon the spirit and
letter of the Constitution, that I ought not to be sentenced.

Before passing from the Constitutional objections to this law, I
would call the attention of your Honor to the partiality of the law,
which is so at variance with the designs of the Fathers in organizing
this Government. No man can read the Constitution--in which the word
slave cannot be found; from which the idea that a man could be reduced
to a thing, and held as property, was carefully excluded--no man, I
say, can read that Constitution, and come to the conclusion that
slavery was to be _fostered, guaranteed_ and _protected_ far beyond
every thing else in the country. Admit that Jim Gray was Phillips's
property, how comes it that that particular property is more sacred
than any other property? Phillips's horse escapes from him, and is
found in a distant State; but the President of the United States, and
every department of Government, are not put on the track to find the
horse, and return him to Phillips's stable, and then pay the whole
bill from the National Treasury. No, Sir. But his slave escapes--he
runs away, and, for some reason, his property in man is so much more
holy and sacred, that the whole Government is bound to take the track
and hunt, the poor panting fugitive down, and carry him back to his
chains and bondage at the Government's expense.

Sir, under a Constitution unstained by the word slave, we have a law
magnifying slave property above all other property in the nation--a
law giving it guarantees that no other property could possibly obtain.
Sir, the partiality of this law is so great, that it stands opposed to
a Constitution that guarantees equal justice and protection to all.

John G. Fee is driven out of his Kentucky home, and robbed of the
fruits of his life-long toil. There is no power to secure him his
home, or protect him in his rights of property or opinion. But had
John G. Fee only owned a slave, and his slave escaped, the Government,
under this law, would have followed his slave to the utmost limit of
the United States, and returned his slave to him at its own expense.
Your Honor will pardon me, (if I need pardon,) but I cannot, for the
life of me, see what there is in robbing a man of his inalienable
rights and enslaving him for life, that should entitle it to the
special and peculiar protection of national law.

I am aware, Sir, that I shall be reminded that judges, marshals,
attorneys, and many