"_Mann_--for the prisoner--regretted to occupy any more
of the jury's time with this very protracted trial. I
mentioned, some days since, that the prisoner was
liable, under the indictments against him, to eight
hundred years imprisonment,--a term hardly to be served
out by Methuselah himself; but, apart from any
punishment, if his hundred and twenty-five trials are
to proceed at this rate, the chance is he will die
without ever reaching their termination. The District
Attorney has dwelt at great length on what passed the
other day, and more than once he has pointedly referred
to me, in a tone and manner not to be mistaken. I have
endeavored to conduct this trial according to the
principles of law, and to that standard I mean to come
up. My client, though a prisoner at this bar, has
rights, legal, social, human; and upon those rights I
mean to insist. This is the first time in my life that I
ever heard a prisoner on trial, and before conviction,
denounced as a liar, a thief, a felon, a wretch, a
rogue. It is unjust to apply these terms to any man on
trial. The law presumes him to be innocent. The feelings
of the prisoner ought not to be thus outraged. He is
unfortunate; he may be guilty; that is the very point
you are to try.

"This prisoner is charged with stealing two slaves, the
property of Andrew Houver. Did he, or not? That point
you are to try by the law and the evidence. Because you
may esteem this a peculiarly valuable kind of property,
you are not to measure out in this case a peculiar kind