It is true, Sir—­I am a foreigner.  I first saw the light among the rugged but free hills of Scotland; a land, Sir, that never was conquered, and where a slave never breathed.  Let a slave set foot on that shore, and his chains fall off for ever, and he becomes what God made him—­a man.  In this far-off land, I heard of your free institutions, your prairie lands, your projected canals, and your growing towns.  Twenty-two years ago, I landed in this city.  I immediately engaged on the public works, on the canal then building that connects this city with the great river of the West.  In the process of time, the State failed to procure money to carry on the public works.  I then opened a prairie farm to get bread for my family, and I am one of the men who have made Chicago what it is to-day, having shipped some of the first grain that was exported from this city.  I am, Sir, one of the pioneers of Illinois, who have gone through the many hardships of the settlement of a new country.  I have spent upon it my best days, the strength of my manhood.  I have eleven children, who are natives of this my adopted country.  No living man, Sir, has greater interest in its welfare; and it is because I am opposed to carrying out wicked and ungodly laws, and love the freedom of my country, that I stand before you to-day.

Again, Sir, I ought not to be sentenced because, as has been argued by the prosecution, I am an Abolitionist.  I have no apologies to make for being an Abolitionist.  When I came to this country, like the mass from beyond the sea, I was a Democrat; there was a charm in the name.  But, Sir, I soon found that I had to go beyond the name of a party in this country, in order to know any thing of its principles or practice.  I soon found that however much the great parties of my adopted country differed upon banks, tariffs and land questions, in one thing they agreed, in trying which could stoop the lowest to gain the favor of the most cursed system of slavery that ever swayed an iron rod over any nation, the Moloch which they had set up, to which they offered as human sacrifice millions of the children of toil.  As a man who had fled from the crushing aristocracy of my native land, how could I support a worse aristocracy in this land?  I was compelled to give my humble name and influence to a party who proposed, at least, to embrace in its sympathies all classes of men, from all quarters of the globe.  In this choice, I found myself in the company of Clarkson and Wilberforce in my native land, and of Washington and Franklin, and many such, in this boasted land of the free; and more than all these, the Redeemer in whom I humbly trust for acceptance with my God, who came to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, to set at liberty those who were bruised; yea, this very religion binds me to those in bonds as bound with them.  Tell me, Sir, with these views, can I be any thing but an Abolitionist?  Surely, for this I ought not to be sentenced.