This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
‘
[60]
here; and if you don't deliver him up immediately, we will get a warrant to search the house.’
‘Quit my premises,’ replied Friend Hopper.
‘The mayor dare not grant a warrant to search my house.’
The men withdrew in no very good humor, and a message soon came from the mayor requesting to see Isaac T. Hopper.
He obeyed the summons, and the magistrate said to him, ‘This gentleman informs me that his slave is in your house.
Is it so?’
The wary Friend replied, ‘Thou hast just told me that this man says he is. Dost thou not believe him?’
‘But I wish to know from yourself whether he is in your house or not,’ rejoined the magistrate.
‘If the mayor reflects a little, I think he will see that he has no right to ask such a question; and that I am not bound to answer it,’ replied Friend Hopper.
‘If he is in my house, and if this man can prove it, I am liable to a heavy penalty; and no man is bound to inform against himself.
These people have not behaved so civilly, that I feel myself under any especial obligations of courtesy toward them.
Hast thou any further business with me?’
‘Did you say I dared not grant a warrant to search your house?’
asked the mayor.
He answered, ‘Indeed I did say so; and I now ’
Boston, J. P. Jewett and Company; Cleveland, Ohio: Jewett, Proctor and Worthington; London; Low and Company, 1854.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.