24 



The Late Chief Justice Roger B. Taney. 



ick, in 1811 ; the General being, at the time, under a cloud 

 in consequence of the part he played in connection with 

 Aaron Burr. The charges were not sustained, and his 

 sword was restored to the accused, rather against the pub- 

 lic judgment. Some time after this (in March, 1819), we 

 find him engaged in the defence of Martin Gruber, a 

 Methodist minister from Pennsylvania, indicted for attempt- 

 ing to incite an insurrection among the slaves. In the 

 course of his sermon this minister had used these words : 

 " But are there not slaves in our country? Do not sweat 

 and blood and tears say there are? The voice of my 

 brother's blood crieth ; is it not a reproach to a man to 

 hold articles of liberty and independence in one hand and 

 a bloody whip in the other, while a negro stands and trem- 

 bles before him, with his back cut and bleeding ? " 



" We Pennsylvanians think it strange, and it seems 

 curious to read the prints or newspapers from some states 

 and find — For sale, a plantation, a house and lot, horses, coios, 

 sheep and hogs ; also a number of negroes, — men, loomen and 

 children, some very valuable ones ; also a pew in such and such 

 a church. In this inhuman traffic and cruel trade, the most 

 tender ties are torn asunder, the nearest connections 

 broken." 



The counsel's conduct of the defence was manly and 

 noble. He did not attempt to take back the words of his 

 client ; he could not do that ; for they had been bravely 

 spoken, in the open light of day, to a large and mixed 

 audience ; he therefore justified them, before a jury of 

 slaveholders. He maintained the right of his client to 

 entertain and to express his convictions freely, on all moral 

 and religious questions; he went further, he more than 

 justified the words charged in the indictment. He spoke 

 " with abhorrence of those reptiles who live by trading in 

 human flesh, and enrich themselves by tearing the hus- 

 band from the wife, the infant from the bosom of the 



