man is able to take any black man and say that he is a runaway slave. The supposed slave is then taken to court to either receive the sentence that he is a runaway slave or that he is indeed, a free man. However, because the courts are corrupt and tend to be prejudiced, the accused runaway slave usually does not receive a fair trial. The Fugitive Slave Law makes mercy to them, a crime; and bribes the judge who tries them. An American judge gets ten dollars for every victim he consigns to slavery, and this hell-black enactment, to send the most pious and exemplary black man into the remorseless jaws of slavery! His own testimony is nothing. (222). Douglass fervently appeals to the crowd by pouring his soul and feelings into his speech. Langston, however, has an entirely different approach. He speaks calmly and definitely lacks the fire that Douglass brings into his speech. Langston says, The law under which I am arraigned is an unjust one, one made to crush the colored man, and one that outrages every feeling of humanity, as well as every rule of right. (234). He feels that, due to prejudice, a colored man will obviously receive an unfair trial. Langston includes the remark, Black men have no rights which white men are bound to respect. (236). Langston and Douglass have the same intentions and ideas, yet Douglass seems to have a more powerful and effective style of speech. Both men also include the controversial topic of religion into their speeches. Throughout his speech, Douglass continuously intertwines his topics with religion and God. He does not understand how a country based on religious values and morals could have such an appalling form of human enslavement. While talking about the Fugitive Slave Law, he states, I take this law to be one of the grossest infringements of Christian Liberty, and, if the churches and ministers of our country were not stupidly blind, or most wickedly indifferent, they, too, would so r...
