Dr. Crandall was arrested. That an hour before he had heard that the
officers were in pursuit of him. He saw the officers, Robertson and
Jeffers, enter the office; and noticed a crowd gathering around it.
He asked Jeffers, as soon as he came out, what he had discovered, and
Jeffers, in reply, said he had found more than he expected, and had
taken 150 or 160 pamphlets. There was much excitement then in the
vicinity. Witness was then himself excited. When Crandall came out,
witness was apprehensive that he would be wrested from the officers
by the people. Oyster came in, and witness asked him if he had seen
any pamphlets. He said yes, but not more than two or three. Witness
remarked, that Jeffers said he had seen and taken 150 or 160. Oyster
replied, Jeffers is a liar. Some conversation followed, in which it
was suggested that attempts might be made to prejudice the public mind
against Crandall. Witness had since met Jeffers, on the Avenue, and
spoken with him on the subject. Witness remarked to Jeffers, the poor
fellow has suffered enough by so long a confinement, and Jeffers
assented to the remark, and added that he believed Crandall to be
innocent.
_Jared Stone_ was acquainted with Crandall, who lived three years in
witness's family, and eat at his table, in Peekskill. Crandall was a
physician who obtained a good reputation in that part of the country,
and it continued unblemished. He never was known to have any abolition
papers, or to say any thing in its favor, but was, if any thing,
opposed to it.
_Mr. Wilson_ was present at the time spoken of by Mr. Gaither, and said
one of the officers came out and said he had discovered more than he
expected, and remarked, my hopes are more than realized. He could not
recollect exactly the number of papers the officer said he had found,
but thought it was one hundred or a hundred and twenty. Some one in the
crowd said "we ought to take the damned rascal and hang him up on one
of the trees opposite." The witness then went away.
_Mr. Judson_, Representative in Congress from Connecticut, had known
Crandall from his boyhood. Crandall studied with witness's family
physician, and acquired a good reputation; nobody stood better in the
neighborhood. After he had finished his education he removed to
Peekskill, since which witness had been in the habit of seeing him
frequently; and he had always known him as a peaceable citizen. The
precise year when Crandall was admitted he could not recollect, but it
was about 1827 or 1828. Witness had not seen him for two years till he
saw him here in prison, and had never heard aught against him till now.
Mr. Judson also testified, that the prisoner was a brother of Prudence
Crandall, and that at the time of the difficulty with her and her school
for blacks in Connecticut, he met Crandall on board the boat on his way
home from New York; that he talked with him about that school, and the
prisoner said he was going to break it up; that he did not know as he
should be able to do it, for his sister Prudence was obstinate, but his
other sister, who was with her, he knew he could get away. Crandall then
continued home with the witness, and exerted himself with as much zeal
as any one could to break up the school.
_Dr. Sewall_ testified that the traverser came to him some time in the
spring to get a license to practice in the District, and showed him two
letters of high recommendation. He had some conversation with Crandall
upon subjects of science and upon his knowledge of medicine and surgery,
and formed a high opinion of his talents and acquirements. He advised
the defendant by no means to abandon the practice of his profession
for entering upon botany or chemistry, but if he could do that without
interfering with practice, it might do; he thought him too well
qualified in the profession to give it up. Crandall also showed the
witness a diploma, which was regularly signed, and he gave a verbal
license to practice, and said at the meeting of the Board he would have
a regular license made out. He had no reason to believe, from his
conversation with the prisoner, that he had any object in view except
the pursuit of his profession. All the stories that he had talked upon
the subject of abolition with witness, and given him Anti-Slavery
papers, were mere idle talk.
_Mr. Howard_ said he was sheriff of Winchester county, where Crandall
lived, and identified the handwriting of signatures to a letter of
recommendation which Crandall brought with him, and which was allowed in
evidence. All the signers were respectable men. Witness thinks he should
have known if any Anti-Slavery Society existed there--but he knew of
none. He also remembered that Crandall delivered lectures on chemistry
there, and he attended them.
_Mr. Ward_, Representative from the district where Crandall resided,
knew that he had lived there seven or eight years, and that he had a
high reputation as a respectable man, and a good physician.
_Mr. Austin_ was now a resident in Georgetown, but formerly lived in
Peekskill, where he knew the prisoner, who lived in his family three
years. He came then in consequence of having raised up Mrs. Austin
from a dangerous sickness. Witness was a lawyer, and knew Crandall's
reputation to be high as a physician and surgeon, far and near. Witness
was President of a Temperance Society, and Crandall was Secretary; he
did not know of any Anti-Slavery Society, and did not know or believe
that the prisoner belonged to any, or had any thing to do with them.
Crandall came on at his request to accompany Mrs. A., who, with her two
children, were always severely sick in travelling; and returned home
soon after, when he came back again to stop here to teach botany. He
came to witness's house on his return, and was taken sick soon after and
confined to his room. Witness was not a subscriber for the Emancipator,
though he understood one of the numbers in court was addressed to him.
He never saw any abolition papers in Crandall's possession. If he had,
they would have attracted his attention. Witness did not know how the
large box of books and papers came on, but supposed they came by water
when Crandall came the second time. He could not say distinctly, but he
thought a Mr. Dennison, an abolition agent, once left some abolition
pamphlets at his house for himself, and some for Crandall. He could not
identify them in court as the same, and he could not swear whether the
endorsement on them was in Crandall's handwriting or not.
_Mrs. Austin_ said she had known the prisoner as long as Mr. Austin,
and that his conduct in her family was irreproachable. She remembered
Mr. Dennison's having left pamphlets for Crandall and her husband, but
could not say those in court were the same, but they were similar.
Crandall came at her husband's request, to accompany the family, because
they were sick in travelling. He did not wish to come further than New
York, and would not consent to come further than Philadelphia; but as
Mr. Austin did not meet them there, he kindly came on to Washington. She
was cleaning up the house, preparatory to leaving it, and gave Crandall
the large box; and asked his permission to put into it his books and
papers. These pamphlets were lying as waste paper in the garret, and she
threw them with others into the box. Saw that some of them had writing
on, but didn't know of any with writing on in the trunk. The box was sent
round by water, but he brought the trunk when he came on the second time.
He did not carry it to the house when he arrived at night, but it was
sent over in the morning. Crandall was immediately taken sick, and
witness frequently went to the trunk for various purposes, and saw a
package nicely done up, which she supposed to be books. The package
remained just as it was tied up at the bookstore, till six or eight days
before the prisoner's arrest, when she had curiosity to know what it
contained, and he consented that she might open it.
Some conversation was held between witness and prisoner, before and
after opening, which the court refused to admit in evidence.
Mrs. Austin went on and testified, that she did not tie up the package
again, but left it, and she saw it repeatedly in the same state up to
the time of prisoner's arrest. She also saw several Emancipators in the
house, and one or two tracts sent by mail, which she used or destroyed
as waste paper.
_Bradley_ here offered to put in two letters and a deposition from the
man who gave Crandall the package in New York.
_Key_ objected that it was not legal evidence.
_Bradley_ knew it was not, but the witnesses were beyond the reach
of the court--they could not be forced to come and testify; and had
distinctly declared that they were afraid to come into the District.
He had last term requested the District Attorney to join him in taking
their depositions, in consequence of the circumstances, but having been
refused, he had gone on and taken them exparte, and he hoped they would
be allowed to go to the jury.
_Key_ was willing to admit any thing reasonable, but this testimony was
clearly inadmissible.
_The Court_ said, by the rules of evidence, it could not be given but
by consent.
_Mr. Carlisle_ opened the summing up for the prosecution, and remarked
that his was observed by the opposite counsel to be the only case of
seditious libel ever brought before this court, and I will add,
gentlemen, that the decision of it may determine whether or not it may
be the last;--whether or not this traverser may return to his fellow
laborers in iniquity, and inform them that _here_ he has found the gates
wide open, and the way all clear for the propagation of their libels and
their plans. It has been truly said that this topic is one of excitement
all over the country. Under these circumstances this traverser may
congratulate himself upon the opportunity of a fair and full trial, and
that he has not been the victim of summary justice. But, gentlemen, let
justice lose nothing of its proper efficiency by being administered with
coolness and deliberation. The opposite counsel say that the charge
is grave. Aye, gentlemen, it is so, but the proof is full. The offence
charged is one of a fatal, devastating, and, beyond all power of
palliation, most horrid character. These libels are not like common
libels, which tend to bring individuals into discredit and disrepute.
It is an offence of which the like is not contained in the annals of
criminal jurisprudence, peculiar to the state of our society, and in
enormity equal to all other crimes combined. An opulent and extensive
society send out their emissaries and commission and enjoin them to
scatter these infamous productions in the highways and by-ways; to
proclaim them from the house tops, and whisper them in the chimney
corners; to teach to all, high and low, that slaveholding is
man-stealing; and yet they mean no such thing as breaking the peace,
and abhor all violence and tumult. Does the preaching such language
to slaves tend to pacification?
Mr. Carlisle was here commenting upon the nature of the agents employed
for these unlawful purposes, to show that educated men, such as
Dr. Crandall, were the kind naturally to be selected, and was further
proceeding to examine the evidence as applicable to the laws, and, in
his opinion, conclusively establishing the guilt of the traverser, when
extreme physical debility and indisposition prevented him from
proceeding.
_Mr. Bradley_ then commenced summing up for the defence. He said the
nature of the charge was such that it was almost impossible to set aside
the prejudices which had been cherished from youth up, and which were
so natural to men of this section of the country; but he felt confident
the jury would give him a patient hearing, and judge correctly after a
careful consideration of the case. He then gave a statement of the
points of the evidence, upon which there was no dispute; such as--That
the prisoner allowed one pamphlet to be taken by Mr. King; that he was
found here with a number of other papers; that some came round in a box
by water; and that others were given him in New York, and brought on in
his trunk. He wished to draw a distinction between the kinds of papers.
It was proved that a bundle of papers were found, and they were here in
court; but the contents were unknown; whether good or bad the jury had
no right to infer. A large number of papers were found, some of which
were brought away and the others were left. That was all the jury had
to consider, except in regard to three numbers of the Anti-Slavery
Reporter, five numbers of the Emancipator, and the late pictures which
were cut from a work, and represented in contrast two modes of
education--one where children were whipped, and the other where they
were taught more mildly by means of books.
He would not stop now to consider the declarations said to have been
made before the magistrate. Nothing could be more unsatisfactory and
uncertain evidence than these examinations. The very fact that a man is
accused throws him off his guard, and he may say what he does not
intend, or which, if he did, in the midst of excitement the witnesses
might not properly understand or correctly remember. It was said there
were contradictions in his statements, but that supposition arose
entirely from a mistake of one of the justices. The other understood it
differently and saw no mistake at all. It respected the manner in which
he brought on the books--one understood him to say that they were all
given to him in New York, and that he brought them here, and they were
all in the jail but about a dozen; and then, at another time, he said
that he had some of them a long time. The other justice understood him
to say that all that he brought into the District were there, and that
they were all he brought from New York, except about a dozen, which he
supposed he had left by the way. Neither of these suppositions were
right. When he said they were all of them, he meant to say all he
brought from New York; that he had distributed none, for even the one
he loaned to Mr. King was taken by the prisoner from Linthicum's shop,
and was then in Mr. Key's possession, though they supposed it was lost;
and when he referred to about a dozen, he meant that he brought them all
with him except about a dozen, which came in a box by water. It had been
said that he admitted he had circulated a dozen; and yet the United
States' witnesses prove that he denied having circulated any, and from
the first disapproved of putting them in circulation. When the learned
counsel asked why the persons were not brought, to whom he had given the
dozen, to show that they were respectable men, he should have remembered
that the testimony was all against such an idea; and that, if he had
distributed any, the zeal and perseverance of the District Attorney and
the officers would have discovered evidence of it.
It was also asked why the person who gave the bundle to him in New York
was not brought to testify in his favor? as if the criminal wretch who
had palmed off these incendiary papers upon an innocent man, without
his knowledge, could be brought here to testify, when he was beyond
the jurisdiction of the court, and had declared that he was afraid to
come. He had requested the Attorney to have a deposition taken, but he
refused; and when he was spoken to, he threatened a prosecution, and
said he should like to see him; he wished he could get him. The Attorney
now says he would be safe; perhaps so from him; but there are here, as
elsewhere, hundreds of base cowardly scoundrels, who are willing in mobs
to hunt down any one against whom they conceive a prejudice; men who
dare not face a man alone, but who, backed by a mob, are willing to
assail an individual without knowing any thing of his guilt or
innocence.
Mr. B. then commented upon the character of the libel charged, and read
the first count. The first paragraph, he argued, contained no incendiary
language, unless it was to call slavery a crying abomination. He had not
known before that those words were calculated to stir up insurrection.
People were in the habit of hearing them daily from the pulpit, and he
never knew that they became seditious on account of it. The whole of
the matter was a controversy between the Anti-Slavery Society and the
Colonization Society, in relation to the expediency of their different
measures; and if any body could make any thing libellous, he must have
intellectual spectacles stronger than those with which Newton looked at
the stars. In the next paragraph slavery is called "unrighteous," which
was the great offence charged there. If this was a libel, he should show
that Arthur Tappan & Co. were not singular in the guilt of libelling;
for that fathers of the church in a slave state had called slavery
unrighteous too, and that some of the most eminent of our patriotic
Southern politicians had used far stronger and more exciting language.
This was all a controversy whether it was proper that provision should
be made that no slave should be emancipated unless provision was made
for sending him out of the country; and the writer contends that to make
sending a man out of this country, where he was born, a condition of
releasing him from bondage, in which he was forcibly held was a moral
absurdity; and to say so might be libellous, but he could not understand
how it should be so. Some of the jury would recollect when a discussion
of this topic took place in the Legislature of Maryland upon a proposed
law to the same effect, and they would remember that similar arguments
were used there.
The next passage was an extract showing the treatment of slaves in
another country, different from ours, where they have no law to protect
the persons of slaves; and could not apply to the condition of any
portion of our people. It could not be libellous to have the book giving
the original journal of the traveller, and, if it were not, he did not
see how any evil or excitement could be produced by this extract.
He came next to the passage in the second count, which was an extract
of a speech, in which the orator tried to say something grand; but it
amounted to no more than had been said by slaveholders themselves; and
though the Attorney said it with an amusing emphasis, yet he would show
stronger language, to the same purport, in the writings of Mr. Jefferson
and of Mr. Archer, of Virginia, which had been approved by all who heard
or read them.
The whole argument used in the Anti-Slavery Reporter, he contended, was
mild and temperate, more so than could be expected, when the different
habits and modes of thought of the people from whence they came were
considered--a people who, from infancy upward, had heard nothing but the
accents of freedom, and had never lived in a country where they could
actually know the practical effects of our system of slavery. The
example was set them by the ablest writers here, and if we publish and
send to them similar writings, is it to be considered wonderful that, in
their discussions, they should adopt it. Their argument is, that slavery
may increase to be an evil which, by and by, cannot be remedied without
violence and bloodshed; and it is addressed to men who have the power
and the influence to apply a remedy now. The same arguments were
published here by the Colonization Society, which does honor to human
nature, and were founded on extreme necessity.
He read numerous extracts of books to show that similar expressions to
those in the libels charged, were not considered blameable if uttered
or published at the South; and denied the right of the District Attorney
to take particular words, here and there, and hold them up to fix the
character of the paper, without regard to the connexion in which they
were used; and he said that if Crandall was indictable for the language
and meaning of the Anti-Slavery Reporter, then every member of the
Colonization Society were liable to indictment.
[It may be proper to introduce one or two extracts, that the reader may
know the character of the papers read. The following are taken from an
address to the Colonization Society of Kentucky, by _R. J.
Breckenridge_.]
"There are some crimes so revolting in their nature, that the just
observance of the decencies of speech deprives us of the only epithets
which are capable of depicting their enormity. Every well regulated
heart is smitten with horror at the bare idea of their perpetration;
and we are uncertain whether most to loathe at the claim of those who
habitually commit them to companionship with human nature, or to marvel
that the unutterable wrath of heaven doth not scathe and blast them in
the midst of their enormities. Let the father look upon the dawning
intelligence of the boy that prattles around his knee, the pride of his
fond heart, and the hope and stay of his honest name; and then, if he
can, let him picture him in distant bondage, the fountain of his
affections dried up, the light of knowledge extinguished in his mind,
his manly and upright spirit broken by oppression, and his free person
and just proportions marred and lacerated by the incessant scourge. Let
the husband look upon the object in whose sacred care he has "garnered
up his heart," and on the little innocent who draws the fountain of its
life from her pure breast, recalling, as he gazes on one and the other,
the freshness and the strength of his early and his ardent love; and
then if he be able, let him picture those objects, in comparison with
which all that earth has to give is valueless in his eyes, torn from him
by violence, basely exchanged for gold, like beasts at the shambles,
bent down under unpitied sorrows, their persons polluted, and their pure
hearts corrupted--hopeless and unpitied slaves, to the rude caprice and
brutal passions of those we blush to call men. Let him turn from these
spectacles, and look abroad on the heritage where his lot has been cast,
glad and smiling under the profuse blessings which heaven has poured
on it, let him look back on the even current of a life overflowing with
countless enjoyments, and before him on a career full of anticipated
triumphs, and lighted by the effulgence of noble and virtuous deeds,
the very close of which looks placid, under the weight of years made
venerable by generous and useful actions, and covered by the gratitude
and applause of admiring friends; let the man-stealer come upon him, and
behold the wreck of desolation! Shame, disgrace, infamy, the blighting
of all hopes, the withering of all joys; long unnoticed wo, untended
poverty, a dishonored name, an unwept death, a forgotten grave; all, and
more than all, are in these words, _he is a slave_! He who can preserve
the even current of his thoughts in the midst of such reflections, may
have some faint conception of the miseries which the slave trade has
inflicted on mankind. I am unable to state with accuracy the number of
the victims of this horrible traffic; but if the least dependance can
be placed on the statements of those persons who have given the most
attention to the subject, with the best means of information, it
unquestionably exceeds ten millions of human beings exported by violence
and fraud from Africa. This appalling mass of crime and suffering has
every atom of it been heaped up before the presence of enlightened men,
and in the face of a Holy God, by nations boasting of their
civilization, and pretending to respect the dictates of christianity.
The mind is overwhelmed at the magnitude of such atrocity, and the heart
sickens at the contemplation of such an amount of human anguish and
despair."