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.
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