When Douglas reached Chicago, immediately after the adjournment of Congress, he found the city in an uproar. The strong anti-slavery sentiment of the community had been outraged by the Fugitive Slave Law. Reflecting the popular indignation, the Common Council had adopted resolutions condemning the act as a violation of the Constitution and a transgression of the laws of God. Those senators and representatives who voted for the bill, or "who basely sneaked away from their seats and thereby evaded the question," were stigmatized as "fit only to be ranked with the traitors, Benedict Arnold and Judas Iscariot." This was indeed a sorry home-coming for one who believed himself entitled to honors. Learning that a mass-meeting was about to indorse the action of the city fathers, Douglas determined to face his detractors and meet their charges. Entering the hall while the meeting was in progress, he mounted the platform, and announced that on the following evening he would publicly defend all the measures of adjustment. He was greeted with hisses and jeers for his pains; but in the end he had the satisfaction of securing an adjournment until his defense had been heard. It was infinitely to his credit that when he confronted a hostile audience on the next evening, he stooped to no cheap devices to divert resentment, but sought to approve his course to the sober intelligence of his hearers.[370] It is doubtful if the Fugitive Slave Law ever found a more skillful defender. The spirit in which he met his critics was admirably calculated to disarm prejudice. Come and let us reason together, was his plea. Without any attempt to ignore the most obnoxious parts of the act, he passed directly to the discussion of the clauses which apparently denied the writ of _habeas corpus_ and trial by jury to the fugitive from service. He reminded his hearers that this act was supplementary to the Act of 1793. No one had found fault with the earlier act because it had denied these rights. Both acts, in fact, were silent on these points; yet in neither case was silence to be construed as a denial of constitutional obligations. On the contrary, they must be assumed to continue in full force under the act. Misapprehension arose in these matters, because the recovery of the fugitive slave was not viewed as a process of extradition. The act provided for the return of the alleged slave to the State from which he had fled. Trial of the facts by jury would then follow under the laws of the State, just as the fugitive from justice would be tried in the State where the alleged crime had been committed. The testimony before the original court making the requisition, would necessarily be _ex parte_, as in the case of the escaped criminal; but this did not prevent a fair trial on return of the fugitive. Regarding the question of establishing the identity of the apprehended person with the fugitive described in the record, Douglas asserted that the terms of