I want you to hear and learn, O Israel, this day, what is for the happiness and peace of this city and people. If our enemies are determined to oppress us and deprive us of our constitutional rights and privileges as they have done, and if the authorities that are on the earth will not sustain us in our rights, nor give us that protection which the laws and Constitution of the United States and of this State guarantee unto us, then we will claim them from a higher power--from heaven,--yea, from God Almighty! I have dragged these men here by my hand, and will do it again; but I swear I will not deal so mildly with them again, for the time has come when _forbearance is no longer a virtue_; and if you or I are again taken unlawfully, you are at liberty to give loose to blood and thunder. But be cool, be deliberate, be wise, act with almighty power; and when you pull, do it effectually--make a _sweepstakes_ for once! My lot has always been cast among the warmest-hearted people. In every time of trouble, friends, even among strangers, have been raised up unto me and assisted me. The time has come when the vail is torn off from the State of Illinois, and its citizens have delivered me from the State of Missouri. Friends that were raised up unto me would have spilt their life's blood to have torn me from the hands of Reynolds and Wilson, if I had asked them, but I told them no, I would be delivered by the power of God and generalship; and I have brought these men to Nauvoo, and committed them to her from whom I was torn, not as prisoners in chains, but as prisoners of kindness. I have treated them kindly. I have had the privilege of rewarding them good for evil. They took me unlawfully, treated me rigorously, strove to deprive me of my rights, and would have run with me into Missouri to have been murdered, if Providence had not interposed. But now they are in my hands; and I have taken them into my house, set them at the head of my table, and placed before them the best which my house afforded; and they were waited upon by my wife, whom they deprived of seeing me when I was taken. I have no doubt but I shall be discharged by the municipal court. Were I before any good tribunal, I should be discharged, as the Missouri writs are illegal and good for nothing--they are "without form and void." But before I will bear this unhallowed persecution any longer--before I will be dragged away again among my enemies for trial, _I will spill the last drop of blood in my veins, and will see all my enemies_ IN HELL! To bear it any longer would be a sin, and I will not bear it any longer. Shall we bear it any longer? [One universal "NO!" ran through all that vast assembly, like a loud peal of thunder.]