"No tyranny so secure,--none so intolerable,--none so dangerous,--none so remediless, as that of Executive Courts." "This is a truth all nations bear witness to--all history confirms." These were the words of Josiah Quincy, Jr., in 1772.--Gentlemen, in 1855 you see how true they are! "So sensible are all tyrants of the importance of such courts--that to advance and establish their system of oppression, _they never rest until they have completely corrupted or bought the judges of the land_. I could easily show that the most deep laid and daring attacks upon the rights of a people might, in some measure, be defeated, or evaded by upright judicatories; bad laws with good judges make little progress."[205] [Footnote 205: Quincy's Quincy, 68.] But Gentlemen,--when the fugitive slave bill is "_law_," when the judges are selected for their love of Slavery and their hatred of freedom--men who invent Scripture to justify bondage, or who as Lawyers beseech the courts to establish Slavery in Massachusetts; who declare it is not immoral, that it may be the duty of Massachusetts to interfere actively and establish slavery abroad, nay, that there is no morality but only legality, the statute the only standard of right and wrong--what are you to expect? What you see in Philadelphia, New York; aye, in Boston at this hour. I will add with Mr. Quincy, "Is it possible this should not rouse us and drive us not to desperation but to our duty! The blind may see; the callous must feel; the spirited will act."[206] [Footnote 206: Gazette, Feb. 10, 1772.] It would be just as easy for the Judge to make out divers other crimes from my words, as to construct a misdemeanor therefrom. To charge me with "treason," he has only to vary a few words and phrases; to cite Chase, and not Judge Parker, and to refer to other passages of Kelyng's Reports. James II.'s judges declared it was treason in the seven Bishops to offer their petition to the King. Mr. Webster said, it is only the "clemency of the Government which indicted the Syracuse rescuers for misdemeanors and not for a capital crime!" How easy for a fugitive slave bill judge to hang men for a word against his brother kidnapper--if there were no jury; if, like the New York sheriff in 1735, he could order "his own negro" to do it! Here is a remarkable case of constructive crime, worthy of this Honorable Court. It is the famous case of _Dux_ v. _Conrade et Boracio_. Honorable Judge Dogberry thus delivered his charge to the Grand Inquest, "Masters, I charge you accuse these men,"--one policeman testified that Conrade said "that Don John, the prince's Brother, was a _villain_." Judge Dogberry ruled, "This is flat perjury to call a prince's Brother, _villain_." The next member of the Marshal's guard deposed that Boracio had said, "That he had received a thousand ducats of Don John for accusing the Lady Hero wrongfully." Chief Justice Dogberry decided, "Flat Burglary as ever was committed." Sentence accordingly.[207]