ed
against me. I am found guilty of a violation of the Fugitive Slave
Law, and it may appear strange to your Honor that I have no sense of
guilt. I came, Sir, from the tyranny of the Old World, when but a lad,
and landed upon the American shores, having left my kindred and native
land in pursuit of some place where men of toil would not be crushed
by the property-holding class. Commencing the struggle of life at the
tender age of twelve years, a stranger in a strange land, having to
earn my bread by the sweat of my brow, your Honor will bear with me.
Unaccustomed as I am to appear in Courts, much less to address them,
I have feared that I might fail in bearing myself on this occasion
worthy of the place and the position I occupy, and the great
principles involved in the case before you. I say to your Honor,
therefore, if I fail in observing the usual forms of the place, it
will be from a want of judgment and error of the head, and not of the
heart. Therefore I do not think I shall fare worse at the hands of
your Honor, if I state plainly my views and feelings on the great
question of the age--the rights of man. I feel that it is a case that
will be referred to long after you and I have gone to meet the great
Judge of all the earth.

It has been argued by the prosecution that I, a foreigner, protected
by the laws of my adopted country, should be the last to disobey those
laws; but in this I find nothing that should destroy my sympathy for
the crushed, struggling children of toil in all lands.

Surely, I have been protected. The fish in the rivers, the quail in
the stubble, the deer in the forest, have been protected. Shall I join
hands with those who make wicked laws, in crushing out the poor black
man, for whom there is no protection but in the grave, where the
wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest?

It is true, Sir--I am a foreigner. I first saw the light among the
rugged but free hills of Scotland; a land, Sir, that never was
conquered, and where a slave never breathed. Let a slave set foot on
that shore, and his chains fall off for ever, and he becomes what
God made him--a man. In this far-off land, I heard of your free
institutions, your prairie lands, your projected canals, and your
growing towns. Twenty-two years ago, I landed in this city. I
immediately engaged on the public works, on the canal then building
that connects this city with the great river of the West. In the
process of time, the