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Tell me not, then, that we are setting up our individual consciences against the conscience of the nation. A vast majority abhor the law—though there may be a majority, that for certain reasons of state have concluded it is expedient to enforce the law, bad though it be. We have the heart of the nation with us—though the head may be against us.
These followers of the expedient rather than of the right, would fain make it appear that our opposition to this law tends to the subversion of all law. We know better, and so do they. The only claim which a law can have to our respect and obedience is its justice. If it be unjust only to our property or our persons, if it subject us only to pecuniary loss, or to inconvenience, we may, for the sake of peace, we ought to, submit to it. But when it requires us, as this law does, to inflict the greatest injury upon others, we are not at liberty to obey. We are bound by our obligation to God and man to set the law at naught; and then patiently take the consequences, which cannot be so bad to ourselves or to our country, as would be the consequences of our acquiescence in this tremendous wickedness. "Disobedience to unjust laws, so far from subverting, tends directly to establish law, by honoring the only true source of its claims. The only real upholder of law, is he, who strenuously opposes unjust laws. He who blindly and passively obeys all laws, right or wrong, merciful or cruel, is not the friend of law, but of arbitrary rule and tyranny."
The citizens of Syracuse and of Onondaga County did not, on the 1st of October, violate the law; they set at naught an unrighteous, cruel edict; they trampled upon tyranny. Who doubts, who does not know, that if poor Jerry had been arrested for some crime, or only misdemeanor—for the violation of property or the disturbance of the peace,—who does not know, if that had been his case, that all the people would have said Amen, so let it be? They would not have interposed in his behalf, even if, in his struggles against the executive officers, he brought upon himself a harsher usage than his offense seemed to deserve.
But when the people saw a man dragged through the streets, chained and held down in a cart by four or six others who were upon him; treated as if he were the worst of felons; and learnt that it was only because he had assumed to be what God made him to be, a man, and not a slave—when this came to be known throughout the streets, there was a mighty throbbing of the public heart; an all but unanimous up rising against the outrage. There was no concert of action except that to which a common humanity impelled the people. Indignatiou flashed from every eye. Abhorrence of the Fugitive Slave Bill poured in burning words from every tongue. The very stones cried out. Persons who had never been known to manifest the least interest in the cause of our enslaved country-
