This document discusses the legal case of Charles Suttle, a fugitive slave from Virginia whose identity was being determined. It notes that Suttle has a scar on his right cheek and a broken right hand with a bone protruding, but these distinguishing marks were not mentioned in the documentation from Mr. Brent. It also discusses the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law and the issues with identity being a matter of opinion that can be influenced. It argues that having testimony from multiple witnesses increases the reliability of identifying someone, as each person observes different details.

2. "conversion-in-process" "inconsistency" "implausibly" "the image of a self-made man" "a racial spokesman" constitutional theorist "asserting himself as a man, that is, as a speaking and writing subject"

4. The record does not show to which of the great primal divisions of the human race the fugitive belongs. It might as well have omitted the sex of the fugitive. It says he has a scar on one of his cheeks. The prisoner has, on his right cheek, a brand or burn nearly as wide as the palm of a man's hand. It says he has a scar on his right hand. A scar! The prisoner's hand is broken, and a bone stands out from the back of it, a hump an inch high, and it hangs almost useless from the wrist, with a huge scar or gash covering half its surface. Now, Sir, this broken hand, with this hump of bone in the midst, is the most noticeable thing possible in the identifying of a slave . . . Now, it is extraordinary, Sir, that neither the record nor Mr. Brent say anything about the most noticeable thing in the man.

7. Identification is matter of opinion. Opinion is influenced by the temper, and motive, and frame of mind.

8. On a question of identity, numbers are every thing. One man may mistake, by accident, by design or bias. His sight may be poor, his observation imperfect, his opportunities slight, his recollection of faces not vivid. But if six or eight men agree on identity, the evidence has more than six or eight times the force of one man's opinion. Each man has his own mode and means and habit of observation and recollection. One observes one thing, and another another thing. One makes this combination and association, and another that. One sees him in one light or expression, another a tone, another the gait, another the gesture. Now if a considerable number of these independent observers combine upon the same man, the chances of mistake are lessened to an indefinite degree. What other man could answer so many conditions, presented in so various ways. On the point of time and place, too, each of those witnesses is an independent observer.

9. These are not links in one chain, each depending on another. They are separate rays, from separate sources, settling on one point.

10. I hold that every American citizen has a right to form an opinion of the constitution, and to propagate that opinion, and to use all the honorable means to make his opinion the prevailing one. - Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” July 5, 1852