Send me a law
bidding me rob or murder my neighbor, I must decline to obey it. I can
suffer, but I must not do wrong. Send me a law bidding me join hands
in robbing my fellow-men of their freedom, I cannot do so great a
wrong. Yea, send me a law bidding me stop my ears to the cry of the
poor, I can suffer the loss of all these hands have earned, I can
suffer bonds and imprisonment--yes, God helping me, I can give up my
life--but I cannot knowingly trample upon the law of my God, nor upon
the bleeding, prostrate form of my fellow-man. I go not to Missouri to
relieve oppressed humanity, for my duty has called me nearer home; but
when He that directs the steps of man conducts a poor, oppressed,
panting fugitive to my door, and there I hear his bitter cry, I dare
not close my ear against it, lest in my extremity I cry for mercy, and
shall not be heard. Sir, this law so flagrantly outrages the divine
law, that I ought not to be sentenced under it.
A single remark, and I have done. From the testimony, (part of which
is false,) and from your rendering and interpretation of the law, the
jury have found me guilty; yes, guilty of carrying out the great
principles of the Declaration of Independence; yes, guilty of carrying
out the still greater principles of the Son of God.
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