ambition-kindled national resentment drawn forth national sympathies, and threatened to disturb the tranquillity of empires. He who, although He worketh unseen, yet worketh irresistibly and unceasingly, hath suspended neither His guardian care nor His paternal discipline over ourselves. Some of you have sickened and convalesced. Others have parted with cherished ones, who, removed before they had time to contract the stain of earth, were already prepared for the Kingdom of Heaven. There have been changes, too, among the unfortunate men whom I have defended. The sound of the hammer has died away in the workshops of some; the harvests have ripened and wasted in the fields of others. Want, and fear, and sorrow have entered into all their dwellings. Their own rugged forms have drooped; their sunburnt brows have blanched; and their hands have become as soft to the pressure of friendship as yours or mine. One of them-a vagrant boy-whom I found imprisoned here for a few extravagant words, that perhaps, he never uttered, has pined away and died. Another, he who was feared, hated and loved most of all, has fallen in the vigor of life, "hacked down, His thick summer leaves all faded." When such an one falls, amid the din and smoke of the battlefield, our emotions are overpowered-suppressed-lost in the excitement of public passion. But when he perishes a victim of domestic or social strife-when we see the iron enter his soul, and see it, day by day, sink deeper and deeper, until nature gives way, and he lies lifeless at our feet-then there is nothing to check the flow of forgiveness, compassion and sympathy. If, in the moment when he is closing his eyes on earth, he declares: "I have committed no crime against my country; I die a martyr for the liberty of speech and perish of a broken heart”—then, indeed do we feel that the tongues of dying men enforce attention, like deep harmony. Who would willingly consent to decide on the guilt or innocence of one who has thus been withdrawn from our erring judgment to the tribunal of eternal justice? Yet it cannot be avoided. If Abel F. Fitch was guilty of the crime charged in this indictment, every man here may nevertheless be innocent; but if he was innocent, then there is not one of these, his associates in life, who can be guilty. Try him, then, since you must— condemn him, if you must—and with him condemn them. But remember that you are mortal, and he is now immortal; and that before the tribunal where he stands, you must stand and confront him, and vindicate your judgment. Remember, too, that he is now free. He has not only left behind him the dungeon, the cell and the chain; but he exults in a freedom, compared with which, the liberty we enjoy is slavery and bondage. You stand, then, between the dead and the living. There is no need to bespeak the exercise of your caution-of your candor-and of your impartiality. You will, I am sure, be just to the living, and true to your country; because, under circumstances so solemn-so full of awe -you cannot be unjust to the dead, nor false to your country, nor your God. Deposits, Removal of, Speech.. Detroit Trial, Argument... PAGE. I. District of Columbia, Emancipation in 111 Internal Improvements, Debate.. E. Edmonds, Judge, and Freeman's Case 278 INTERVENTION, Speech.. Henry Clay. 419 Invention, Argument on. 111 289 EMANCIPATION.. ....87, 107, 111, 119 IRISH PATRIOTS, Speech.. J. 62 196 Jay, Madison, and Hamilton.. 260 PAGE. 302 196 199 202 213 .206, 210 516 186 90 356 476 .66, 74, 108, 130 Oceans, Arctic and Pacific, Survey of. 236 65 Ocean Steamers,.. 196 O'Connell and O'Brien.. .222, 352, 353 Scott, Winfield, Maj. Gen., Debate.... Texas, Bounty to, Considered. Texas and New Mexico.. Tracy, Hon. Albert H.... 14 Treadwell, Many vs., Argument.. 287 TREATY, THE NICARAGUA, Speech..... 376 345 252 U. Union, The Remarks on........ 334 Universal Freedom. Senatorial Term, Rantoul's, Debate... 332 Upham, Senator, Eulogium on. Six Million Loan Bill, Speech.... .16, 81, 89 .17, 30 92 387 Slaves, Number of in Dis. of Columbia 115 Van Zandt, Jones vs., Argument.... 37 V. 85, 87, 107, 111, 119, 311 Sectional, Freedom National. Peon, Debate on. 71 Van Buren, John, and the Freeman ....410, 415, 472 476 Emancipation in Dis. of Columbia 111 Wright, Silas, & the Freeman Case.. 410, 475 Y. French Spoliations, Indemnities.. 132 Yulee, Senator, Contested Seat of..... 347 |