tried here; I wish the prisoner every advantage of a fair trial. It is
a case to try the question, whether our institutions have any means of
legal defence against a set of men of most horrid principles, whose
means of attack upon us are insurrection, tumult, and violence. The
traverser defends himself by justifying the libels. We are told that
they are harmless--that they have no tendency to produce the horrid
results which we deprecate. We have been told that _this_ community
has not been endangered. The Emancipator has been read, the extracts
from it justified, this prosecution scouted. If such publications
are justifiable, then are we, indeed, at the tender mercy of the
Abolitionist, and the sooner we make terms of capitulation with him the
better. What does he propose for the slave? Immediate emancipation. In
one instant the chains of the slave must snap asunder. Without delay,
and without preparation, he becomes a citizen, a legislator, goes to the
polls, and appoints _our_ rulers. If this be the plan, then am I ready,
as the opposite counsel expresses it, to seek refuge in other parts of
the United State. Are you willing, gentlemen, to abandon your country;
to permit it to be taken from you, and occupied by the Abolitionist,
according to whose taste it is to associate and amalgamate with the
negro? Or, gentlemen, on the other hand, are there laws in this
community to defend you from the immediate Abolitionist, who would open
upon you the floodgates of such extensive wickedness and mischief? There
are such laws, gentlemen; they are as essential to your prosperity and
peace as is the sacred law of self-defence to every individual.
But you have heard it denied that there are such laws; that these
pamphlets are incendiary; and this prosecution is likened to those under
the sedition law--a law reprobated and repealed--and hence we may infer
that a man may publish what he pleases, however seditious and
insurrectionary it may be. Not so. The repeal of the sedition law left
the common law, by which these offences always were punishable, in full
force; and, gentlemen, it is well known that the principal argument
against the sedition law was, that the offences which it punished were
sufficiently provided for already by the common law as it stood. But the
traverser is not content with acting merely on the defensive. It appears
that he is a _persecuted innocent man_; upon an illegal warrant, without
proper evidence, attacked, _robbed_, put in jail; all for having a few
harmless publications about him. Why does not this _persecuted_ man
bring his action for false imprisonment? Why do not his counsel advise
it? The warrant was issued upon probable cause on oath. The magistrate
was bound to issue it, but it made the constable the judge of what were
incendiary papers! Yes! and had the constable have taken any other
course he would have been responsible to the traverser for so doing. But
carry out the law as expounded on the other side. Here's a counterfeiter
caught, with his tools, plates, &c., all found upon a search for stolen
goods. The gentleman would bring him before a magistrate, have the
warrant quashed, his _goods_ returned to him, and should the articles,
thus found, be used in evidence against him, it would be horrid,
tyrannical, oppressive, shocking, and enough to make a man runaway from
a country where there are such laws, and find refuge in some other.
Gentlemen, if in searching for stolen goods you find evidence of
counterfeiting, you may use it for the purpose of convicting the culprit
of either offence.
But the papers were safe in Dr. Crandall's trunk. Yes, all were there
and safe, but those taken out and circulated, exactly as the case would
have been had they been counterfeit bank notes, and not incendiary
pamphlets. Gentlemen, did he not give Mr. King one, because he thought
that he _would not_ mention it? And, gentlemen, would he not as likely
give to those who _could not_ tell? At every step in our community, he
meets such men; he is enjoined in the language of these papers, to give
them currency "in highways and by-ways." This man should be glad of the
opportunity, by public trial, to exonerate himself from the charges
against him. They are distinctly made--the testimony clearly laid
down--testimony, in my opinion, ample for his conviction. There are two
questions in this case: are the libels charged criminal?--are they
proved to have been published by the traverser? I call your attention
to the libels and to their tendency. The Colonization Society published
them only to denounce them. The Colonization Society only contemplates
free negroes, and has nothing to do with slavery.
Mr. Key here explained the difference between the papers read by the
traverser's counsel and those charged in the indictment, and showed that
the Kentucky synod, the grand jury of our District, &c. were for gradual
emancipation by the whites, and not violence by the blacks, &c. He
thought having a number of these printed libels stronger proof against
the traverser than having only one written; commented upon these papers
coming through the post office with only one cent postage, as strong
evidence that they were sent in here; upon the fact that none of his
witnesses testified to his character or pursuits within the last two
years; upon the improbability of such a man as Crandall was represented
to be, of high character as a man and a physician, leaving Peekskill
to go botanizing merely. Mr. K. here commented upon the inflammatory
character of the libel alluding to the _colonial_, and, as he contended,
the _general_ system of slavery. Mr. K. here read again from the
pamphlet, and then added: I am accused of being emphatic; I confess my
blood boils when I read the closing sentence of this libel--this
taunting us with the torch of the negro at our threshold, and his knife
at our throats--this fiendish allusion to the _beauty_ and chivalry
of the South; it displays cool and demoniac malignity! Mr. K. then
alluded to the pictures, saying that they could be meant only for the
illiterate, and tended only to insurrection and violence. Mr. K.
animadverted upon the speeches and opinions of eminent Southern men,
quoted by the traverser's counsel, to show that their objects were
different from those of the abolitionists. Mr. Key remarked, with great
severity, on the abstract proposition of the sinfulness of slavery, and
the declaration in the libels of the "South being awakened from their
snoring by the thunder of the Southampton massacre." He contended that
Crandall admitted, in his examinations at the jail, that all the papers
he had were sent from New York, and came in a box; and said nothing
about having received two parcels; and that he also admitted, that he
had all the papers sent, but twelve or thirteen, and argued that those
twelve or thirteen were circulated here, amongst improper persons: that
if otherwise, the traverser might and could prove to him, to whom they
were delivered.
He adverted to the slander contained in the libels, that a free person
of color might be sold here for jail fees when apprehended as a runaway
slave. He commented on the evidence of Mr. Austin, and argued that it
was far from showing that the packages were not broken by Dr. Crandall,
and part of them taken out and distributed. He also argued that
Dr. Crandall took no pains to have the pamphlet returned to him, which
he delivered to Mr. King, and did not destroy those he had after hearing
that there was an excitement on the subject, and that none of these
libels and picture books were used by him, as the other newspapers were,
to preserve his plants, thereby proving his disposition to preserve and
circulate them. Mr. Key also referred, in corroboration of what C.'s
views were, to his declarations to Jeffers' favorable to the
amalgamation of the blacks and whites, and also those to Colclazier and
Tippet, "that slavery brought the slaveholder and slave into promiscuous
sensual intercourse," "and that he was willing that the North and the
South should be arrayed against each other." Mr. Key added: This is a
subject to us not of indifference. It has been one of much excitement,
and we are bound to act in self-defence. If in your conscience,
gentlemen, you think the traverser innocent, acquit him. Judge of these
libels--the words--the meaning--the tendency--read their endorsement
"please read and circulate" in the traverser's handwriting--look at
these pictures!--hear his admission, "I gave them to a man who I thought
would not tell on me." There are twelve or thirteen of them brought
here by him unaccounted for; hear his prevarications in the jail and
elsewhere: and if he is an innocent man, cruelly imprisoned under an
illegal warrant, and these vile, calumniatory libels, are actually this
_innocent_, _persecuted_ gentleman's _property_--_stolen_ from him--then
gentlemen return him his property and let him go free. It is with you,
gentlemen; I ask of you but to do your conscientious duty.
* * * * *
The jury retired, and, after a short deliberation, agreed upon a verdict
of NOT GUILTY. After which they separated, and returned their verdict
into Court the next morning.
Transcriber's Note
Some of the words in this text were verified by referencing the document
"The trial of Reuben Crandall, M.D., charged with publishing seditious
libels, by circulating the publications of the American Anti-Slavery
Society, before the Circuit Court for the District of Columbia, held at
Washington, in April, 1836, occupying the court the period of ten days."
(New-York: H. R. Piercy, 1836)
The following corrections have been made to this text:
Page 6: Removed stray quote marks (If a man in manners)
Page 10: Changed choses to chooses (to every body who chooses)
Page 14: Changed posession to possession (traverser's possession)
Page 18: Added missing end punctuation (Question by Key.)
Page 19: Changed Crrndall's to Crandall's (Dr. Crandall's reply)
Page 23: Changed did'nt to didn't (he didn't know which)
Page 28: Added missing word 'to' (I have to say to them)
Page 29: Added missing quote marks ("I hope I may be excused)
Page 30: Removed stray quote marks (run her hull under.)
Page 31: Changed desarts to deserts (its wide-spread deserts)
Page 31: Removed duplicate word 'as' (so far as he had seen him)
Page 34: Changed did to didn't (didn't know of any with writing)
(Verified by referencing the document mentioned above.)
Page 44: Changed posssession to possession (wrested from the possession)
Page 48: Changed gentlemen's to gentleman's (_persecuted_ gentleman's)
Page 48: Changed Jeffer's to Jeffers' (Jeffers' favorable)