All who evinced an express liking, approbation, or assent to the rescue of Mr. Burns are guilty of a misdemeanor; if they "evinced an express liking" that he should be rescued by a miracle wrought by Almighty God,--and some did express "approbation" of that "means,"--they are indictable, guilty of a "misdemeanor;" "it need not appear that the precise time, or place, or means advised, were used!" If any colored woman during the wicked week--which was ten days long--prayed that God would deliver Anthony, as it is said his angel delivered Peter, or said "Amen" to such a prayer, she was "guilty of a misdemeanor;" to be indicted as a "principal." So every man in Boston who, on that bad Friday, stood in the streets of Boston between Court Square and T Wharf, was "guilty of a misdemeanor," liable to a fine of three hundred dollars, and to jailing for twelve months. All who at Faneuil Hall stirred up the minds of the people in opposition to the fugitive slave bill; all who shouted, who clapped their hands at the words or the countenance of their favorites, or who expressed "approbation" by a whisper of "assent," are "guilty of a misdemeanor." The very women who stood for four days at the street corners, and hissed the infamous Slave-hunters and their coadjutors; they, too, ought to be punished by fine of three hundred dollars and imprisonment for a year! Well, there were fifteen thousand persons "assembled" "in the highway" of the city of Boston that day opposed to kidnapping; half the newspapers in the country towns of Massachusetts "evinced an express liking" for freedom, and opposed the kidnapping; they are all "guilty of a misdemeanor;" they are "Principals." Nay, the ministers all over the State, who preached that kidnapping was a sin; those who read brave words out of the Old Testament or the New; those who prayed that the victim might escape; they, likewise, were "guilty of a misdemeanor," liable to be fined three hundred dollars and jailed for twelve months.[194] [Footnote 194: 2 Parker's Additional, 280.] But where did Judge Curtis find his right to levy Ship-money, Tonnage, and Poundage on the tongues of men; where did he find his "law?" Surely not in the statute. When the bill was pending in 1790, suppose his construction of the statute had been declared to Congress--who would have voted for a law so monstrous? The statute lay in the Law-book for nearly seventy years, and nobody ever applied it to a case like this.