John Hossack

 This passage is adapted from a speech delivered in 1860 by 

John Hossack, "Speech of John Hossack, Convicted of a 

Violation of the Fugitive Slave Law, before Judge 

Drummond, of the United States District Court, Chicago, IL." 

Hossack was tried for aiding an escaped African American 

slave, in violation of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.

I am a foreigner. I [was born] 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 protected canals, and your 

growing towns. Twenty-two years ago, I landed in 

this city. . . 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 many of the 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. . .

 Sir, I ought not to be sentenced because, as 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 a iron rod 

over any nation. . . 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 Wilberforce1

 in my native land, and 

of Washington and Franklin, 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. . . Tell me, Sir, with these views, can I be 

any thing but an Abolitionist? Surely, for this I ought 

not to be sentenced.

 Again, sir, I ought not to be sentenced, because the 

Fugitive Slave Law, under which I am torn from my 

family and business by the supple tools of the Slave 

Power2

. . . is at variance with both the spirit and letter 

of the Constitution. Sir, I place myself upon the 

Constitution, in the presence of a nation who have 

the Declaration of Independence read to them every 

Fourth of July, and profess to believe it. Yes, in the 

presence of civilized man, I hold up the Constitution 

of my adopted country as clear from the blood of 

men, and from a tyranny that would make crowned 

heads blush. The parties who [bend] the Constitution 

to the support of slavery are traitors—traitors not 

only to the liberties of millions of enslaved 

countrymen, but traitors to the Constitution itself 

which they have sworn to support. A foreigner upon 

your soil, I go not to the platforms of contending 

parties to find truth. I go, Sir, to the Constitution of 

my country: the word slave is not to be found. I read, 

"We, the people of the United States, in order to form 

a more perfect Union, establish justice,"—yes, Sir, 

establish justice—"to promote the general welfare, 

and to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and 

our posterity, so ordain and establish this 

Constitution of the United States of America." These 

were the men who had proclaimed to the world that 

all men were created equal; that they were endowed 

by their Creator with certain inalienable rights—life, 

liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and contended 

even unto death for seven long years. Can it be, Sir, 

that these great men, under cover of those hallowed 

words, intended to make a government that should 

outrage justice and trample upon liberty as no other 

government under the whole heavens has ever done?

1

 British abolitionists

2 The political influence wielded by slave owners