right to liberate them.  But he avowedly steals for gain.  He lies about it, besides.  Even a jury of abolitionists would have no sympathy for such a man.  Try him anyhow, by the word of God—­by the rules of common honesty—­he would be convicted, anyhow.  He is presented to the world at large as a rogue and a common thief and liar.  There can be no other conception of him.  He did it for dishonest gain.

“The prisoner must be convicted.  He cannot escape.  There can be no manner of doubt as to his guilt.  I am at a loss, without appearing absurd in my own eyes, to conceive what kind of a defence can be made.

“I have not the least sort of feeling against the wretch himself,—­I desire a conviction from principle.  I have heard doctrines asserted on this trial that strike directly at the rights and liberty of southern citizens.  I have heard counsel seeking to establish principles that strike directly at the security of southern property.  I feel no desire that this man, as a man, should be convicted; but I do desire that all persons inclined to infringe on our rights of property should know that there is a law hero to punish them, and I am happy that the law has been so clearly laid down by the court.  Let it be known from Maine to Texas, to earth’s widest limits, that we have officers and juries to execute that law, no matter by whom it may be violated!

“Mann—­for the prisoner—­regretted to occupy any more of the jury’s time with this very protracted trial.  I mentioned, some days since, that the prisoner was liable, under the indictments against him, to eight hundred years imprisonment,—­a term hardly to be served out by Methuselah himself; but, apart from any punishment, if his hundred and twenty-five trials are to proceed at this rate, the chance is he will die without ever reaching their termination.  The District Attorney has dwelt at great length on what passed the other day, and more than once he has pointedly referred to me, in a tone and manner not to be mistaken.  I have endeavored to conduct this trial according to the principles of law, and to that standard I mean to come up.  My client, though a prisoner at this bar, has rights, legal, social, human; and upon those rights I mean to insist.  This is the first time in my life that I ever heard a prisoner on trial, and before conviction, denounced as a liar, a thief, a felon, a wretch, a rogue.  It is unjust to apply these terms to any man on trial.  The law presumes him to be innocent.  The feelings of the prisoner ought not to be thus outraged.  He is unfortunate; he may be guilty; that is the very point you are to try.

“This prisoner is charged with stealing two slaves, the property of Andrew Houver.  Did he, or not?  That point you are to try by the law and the evidence.  Because you may esteem this a peculiarly valuable kind of property, you are not to measure out in this case a peculiar