It was "not immoral" for the servants of King Pharaoh to drown all the new-born Hebrew boys; nor for Herod's butchers to murder the Innocents at Bethlehem. Nay, all the atrocities of the Saint Bartholomew Massacres, Gentlemen, they were "not immoral," for "the Standard of Morality" is "that which the law prescribes." So any legislature that can frame an act, any tyrant who can issue a decree, any court which can deliver an "opinion," can at once nullify the legislation of the Universe and "dissolve the union" of Man and God: "Religion has nothing to do with politics; there it makes men mad." Is that the doctrine of Young Massachusetts? Hearken then to the Old. In 1765 her House of Representatives unanimously resolved that "there are certain essential Rights ... which are founded on the Law of God and Nature, and are the Common Rights of Mankind, and that the inhabitants of this Province are unalienably entitled to these essential Rights in common with all men, and _that no law of Society ... can divest them of these Rights_." No "Standard of Morality" but Law! A thousand years before Jesus of Nazareth taught his Beatitudes of Humanity, the old Hebrews knew better. Hearken to a Psalm nearly three thousand years old. Among the assemblies of the great, A Greater Ruler takes his seat; The God of Heaven, as Judge, surveys Those Gods on earth, and all their ways. Why will ye, then, frame wicked laws? Or why support the unrighteous cause? When will ye once defend the poor, That sinners vex the Saints no more? Arise, oh Lord, and let thy Son Possess his universal Throne, And rule the nations with his rod; He is our Judge, and he our God. "By the _law of this Commonwealth_," added Mr. Curtis, "_Slavery is not immoral._ By the Supreme law of this Commonwealth Slavery is not only recognized as a valid institution, but to a certain extent is incorporated into our own law. Before you [the court] rise from your seats, you may be called upon by the master of a fugitive slave, to grant a certificate ... which _will put the whole force of the Commonwealth at his disposal, to remove his slave from our Territory_." Gentlemen of the Jury, that was conquering his prejudices "with alacrity;" it was obeying the fugitive slave bill fourteen years before it was heard of. He adds still further, by quotation, "I have no doubt but the citizen of a Slave State has a right to pass, upon business or pleasure, through any of the States attended by his slaves--and his right to reclaim his slave would be unquestioned. An escape from the attendance upon the person of his master, while on a journey through a free State, should be considered as an escape from the State where the master had a right of citizenship." Mr. Charles P. Curtis thus sustained his kinsman:--