ciful against this slavery, this enslavement. I know it is wrong; I know it should be denounced, but keep inside of the law; keep inside of the constitution."
Your honor, I quote from the speech of Charles Sumner, that great American, in answer and in reply to that remark. Said he: "Anything for human rights is constitutional. No learning in books, no skill acquired in courts, no sharpness in forensic dealings, no cunning in splitting hairs can impair the vigor thereof. This is the supreme law of the land, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." I never said anything that could equal that in lawlessness. Go, gentlemen of the prosecution, dig up the ashes of Sumner and scatter them in disgrace to the winds, tear down the monument that the American peeple have erected to his honor, and erect thereon some emblem of your contempt!
I will read you now an extract from the Alarm, a little editorial: "Any pretense called freedom, however loudly heralded, which does not bring peace, plenty and comfort to all the members of the human race, is a lie and a fraud on the face of it." Another expression from the Alarm—a little editorial: "A man gets rich by meanness and poor because he is generous. How long can we tolerate the vile system which rewards meanness and starves generosity?"
Your honor, one of the most startling facts in connection with this trial, the labor movement, and the general situation of affairs is to be found in the fact that during the last two or three years at least one-half of the large industrial establishments of the United States, the larger corporations, monopolies, and industries, have been conducted under military supervision. A startling fact this is. Armed men, armed guards, either the Pinkertons or the police, the police of the municipalities in the cities, or the militia, or the United States army, as has been done in some cases, are supervising one-half of the industries of America, that is, the larger industries. It is a positive fact. Think of this! Who is doing this? Now, as an offset to this state of affairs, we find 1,200 delegates assembled in Richmond, Va., representing our American workingmen in the convention of the Knights of Labor. That congress, that organization is the reply which is being made by peaceable laborers to the rifle diet advice, the strychnine business, and the hand grenade business and club business advice by the Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and other large papers in this country. These men are assembled in self-defense. The conflict is the struggle between liberty and authority—authority in any and every form. Those who are in authority tell the workingmen that if they want to enjoy the law and the protection of the law, they must render a cheerful obedience to the law. Why a man, when he flogs his slave for disobedience, tells him the same thing. Your honor, according to your construction of sentence, or the reason which you propose as a portion of the ground work upon which you expect to render your proposed sentence, you deny the right of Americans to defend themselves against the rifle diet, and to protest against these outrageous things, to object to the strychnine business. These are the things that have made us what we are. If there be any wrong in me I am the product of these conditions. I am the creature of circumstances; I am the effect of a cause. Now, where is that cause? What is that cause? But, if it comes to that, the right of free speech, the right of free press, the right of peaceable
