Wendell Phillips, Theodore C. Pease, Speeches, Lectures and Letters of Wendell Phillips: Volume 1

Mr. Loring contends that he was bound to issue the warrant, holding as he did the office of Commissioner! Who obliged him to hold the office? Could he not have resigned, as many — young Kane of Philadelphia, and others-did, when first the infamous act made it possible that he should be insulted by an application for such a warrant? There was a time when all of us would have deemed such an application an insult to Edward G. Loring. Could he not have resigned when the application was made, as Captain Hayes of our police did, when called on to aid in doing the very act which Mr. Loring had brought like a plague on the city? Could he not have declined to issue the warrant or take part in the case, as B. F. Hallett was reported to have done in the case of William and Ellen Crafts?

But whether he could or not matters not to you, Gentlemen. Massachusetts has a right to say what sort of men she will have on her bench. She does not complain if vile men will catch slaves. She only claims that they shall not, at the same time, be officers of hers. Mr. Loring had his choice, to resign his judgeship or his commissionership. He chose to act as Commissioner, and, of course, took the risk of losing the other office whenever the State should rise to assert her s. Nobody can complain that he is not allowed to hold a Probate Court one hour and a Slave Court the next. Certainly, it is not too much to claim for Massachusetts the poor right to say, that when the “legalized robber,” “the felonious slave-trader,” (these are Channing's words,) comes here, he shall not be able to select agents for his merciless work from those sitting on our bench and clothed in our ermine.

One single line of this remonstrance goes far to show