visited in the Covington jail by Rev. P.C. Bassett, whose
account of his interview, especially with Margaret, was
published in the _American Baptist_, and may also be found in
the _National Antislavery Standard_ of March 15, 1850.
Margaret confessed that she had killed the child. "I
inquired," says Mr. Bassett, "if she were not excited almost
to madness when she committed the act! 'No,' she replied, 'I
was as cool as I now am; and would much rather kill them at
once, and thus end their sufferings, than have them taken
back to slavery and be murdered by piece-meal.' She then told
the story of her wrongs. She spoke of her days of suffering,
of her nights of unmitigated toil, while the bitter tears
coursed their way down her cheeks."
Governor Chase, of Ohio, made a requisition upon Governor
Morehead, of Kentucky, for the surrender of Margaret Garner,
charged with murder. The requisition was taken by Joseph
Cooper, Esq. to Gov. Morehead, at Frankfort, on the _6th of
March_--an unpardonable delay in the circumstances. Gov.
Morehead issued an order for the surrender of Margaret. On
taking it to Louisville, Mr. Cooper found that Margaret, with
her infant child, and the rest of Mr. Gaines's slaves had
been sent down the river in the steamboat Henry Lewis, to be
sold in Arkansas. Thus it was that Gaines kept his pledged
word that Margaret should be surrendered upon the requisition
of the Governor of Ohio! On the passage down the Ohio, the
steamboat, in which the slaves were embarked, came in
collision with another boat, and so violently that Margaret
and her child, with many others, were thrown into the water.
About twenty-five persons perished. A colored man seized
Margaret and drew her back to the boat, but her babe was
drowned! "The mother," says a correspondent of the
_Louisville Courier_, "exhibited no other feeling than joy at
the loss of her child." So closed another act of this
terrible tragedy. The slaves were transferred to another
boat, and taken to their destination. (_See_ Mr. Cooper's
letter to Gov. Chase, dated Columbus, March 11, 1856.) Almost
immediately on the above tragic news, followed the tidings
that Gaines had determined to bring Margaret back to
Covington, Kentucky, and hold her subject to the requisition
of the Governor of Ohio. Evidently he could not stand up
under the infamy of his conduct. Margaret was brought back,
and placed in Covington jail, to await a requisition. On
Wednesday, Mr. Cox, the prosecuting-attorney, received the
necessary papers from Gov. Chase, and the next day
(Thursday), two of the Sheriffs deputies went over to
Covington for Margaret, but did not find her, as she had been
taken away from the jail the night before. The jailor said he
had given her up on Wednesday night, to a man who came there
with a written order from her master, Gaines, but could not
tell where she had been taken. The officers came back and
made a return 'not found.'
The _Cincinnati Gazette_ said,--"On Friday our sheriff
received information which induced him to believe that she
had been sent on the railroad to Lexington, thence via
Frankfort to Louisville, there to be shipped off to the New
Orleans slave market.
He immediately telegraphed to the sheriff at Louisville (who
holds the original warrant from Gov. Morehead, granted on the
requisition of Gov. Chase,) to arrest her there, and had a
deputy in readiness to go down for her. But he has received
no reply to his dispatch. As she was taken out on Wednesday
night, there is reason to apprehend that she has already
passed Louisville, and is now on her way to New Orleans.
Why Mr. Gaines brought Margaret back at all, we cannot
comprehend. If it was to vindicate his character, he was most
unfortunate in the means he selected, for his duplicity has
now placed this in a worse light than ever before, and kept
before the public the miserable spectacle of his dishonor.
We have learned now, by experience, what is that boasted
comity of Kentucky on which Judge Leavitt so earnestly
advised Ohio to rely."
The assertion of the _Louisville Journal_, that Margaret was
kept in Covington jail "ten days," and that the Ohio
authorities had been notified of the same, is pronounced to
be untrue in both particulars by the _Cincinnati Gazette_,
which paper also declares that prompt action was taken by the
governor of Ohio, and the attorney and sheriff of Hamilton
County, as soon as the fact was known.
Here we must leave MARGARET, a noble woman indeed, whose
heroic spirit and daring have won the willing, and extorted
the unwilling, admiration of hundreds of thousands. Alas for
her! after so terrible a struggle, so bloody a sacrifice, so
near to deliverance once, twice, and even a third time, to
be, by the villainy and lying or her "respectable" white
owner again engulphed in the abyss of Slavery! What her fate
is to be, it is not hard to conjecture. But friendless,
heart-stricken, robbed of her children, outraged as she has
been, not wholly without friends,
"Yea, three firm friends, more sure than day and night,
Herself, her Maker, and the angel Death."
* * * * *
Extract from a sermon recently delivered in Cleveland, Ohio, by Rev.
H. BUSHNELL, from the following text: "And it was so, that all that
saw it, said, There was no such deed done nor seen from the day that
the children of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt unto this
day: CONSIDER OF IT, TAKE ADVICE, AND SPEAK YOUR MINDS."--JUDGES
XIX: 30.
A few weeks ago, just at dawn of day, might be seen a company
of strangers crossing the winter bridge over the Ohio River,
from the State of Kentucky, into the great city of our own
State, whose hundred church-spires point to heaven, telling
the travellers that in this place the God of Abraham was
worshipped, and that here Jesus the Messiah was known, and
his religion of love taught and believed. And yet, no one
asked them in or offered them any hospitality, or sympathy,
or assistance. After wandering from street to street, a poor
laboring man gave them the shelter of his humble cabin, for
they were strangers and in distress. Soon it was known abroad
that this poor man had offered them the hospitalities of his
home, and a rude and ferocious rabble soon gathered around
his dwelling, demanding his guests. With loud clamor and
horrid threatening they broke down his doors, and rushed upon
the strangers. They were an old man and his wife, their
daughter and her husband with four children; and they were of
the tribe of slaves fleeing from a bondage which was worse
than death. There was now no escape--the tribes of Israel had
banded against them. On the side of the oppressor there is
power. And the young wife and mother, into whose very soul
the iron had entered, hearing the cry of the master: "Now
we'll have you all!" turning from the side of her husband and
father, with whom she had stood to repel the foe, seized a
knife, and with a single blow nearly severed the head from
the body of her darling daughter, and throwing its bloody
corpse at his feet, exclaimed, "Yes, you _shall_ have us all!
take that!" and with another blow inflicted a ghastly wound
upon the head of her beautiful son, repeating, "Yes, you
_shall_ have us all--take that!" meanwhile calling upon her
old mother to help her in the quick work of emancipation--for
there were two more. But the pious old grandmother could not
do it, and it was now too late--the rescuers had subdued and
bound them. They were on their way back to the house of their
bondage--a life more bitter than death! On their way through
that city of churches whose hundred spires told of Jesus and
the good Father above; on their way amid the throng of
Christian men, whose noble sires had said and sung, "Give me
_liberty_, or give me _death_."
But they all tarried in the great Queen City of the West--in
chains, and in a felon's cell. There our preacher visited
them again and again. There he saw the old grandfather and
his aged companion, whose weary pilgrimage of unrequited toil
and tears was nearly at its end. And there stood the young
father and the heroic wife "Margaret." Said the preacher,
"Margaret, why did you kill your child?" "It was my own," she
said, "given me of God, to do the best a mother could in its
behalf. _I have done the best I could!_ I would have done
more and better for the rest! I knew it was better for them
to go home to God than back to slavery." "But why did you not
trust in God--why not wait and hope?" "I did wait, and then
we dared to do, and fled in fear, but in hope; hope fled--God
did not appear to save--_I did the best I could!"_
And who was this woman? A noble, womanly, amiable,
_affectionate mother_. "But was she not deranged?" Not at
all--calm, intelligent, but resolute and determined. "But was
she not fiendish, or beside herself with passion?" No, she
was most tender and affectionate, and all her passion was
that of a _mother's fondest love_. I reasoned with her, said
the preacher; tried to awaken a sense of guilt, and lead her
to repentance and to Christ. But there was no remorse, no
desire of pardon, no reception of Christ or his religion. To
her it was a religion of _slavery_, more cruel than death.
And where had she lived? where thus taught? Not down among
the rice swamps of Georgia, or on the banks of Red River. No,
but within sixteen miles of the Queen City of the West! In a
nominally Christian family--whose master was most liberal in
support of the Gospel, and whose mistress was a communicant
at the Lord's table, and a professed follower of Christ!
Here, in this family, where slavery is found in its mildest
form, she had been kept in ignorance of God's will and word,
and learned to know that the mildest form of American
slavery, at this day of Christian civilization and Democratic
liberty, was worse than death itself! She had learned by an
experience of many years, that it was so bad she had rather
take the life of her own dearest child, without the hope of
Heaven for herself, than that _it_ should experience its
unutterable agonies, which were to be found even in a
Christian family! But here are her two little boys, of eight
and ten years of age. Taking the eldest boy by the hand, the
preacher said to him, kindly and gently, "Come here, my boy;
what is your name?" "Tom, sir." "Yes, _Thomas_." "No sir,
_Tom_." "Well, Tom, how old are you?" "Three _months_." "And
how old is your little brother?" "Six _months_, sir!" "And
have you no other name but Tom?" "No." "What is your father's
name?" "Haven't got any!" "Who made you, Tom?" "Nobody!" "Did
you ever hear of God or Jesus Christ?" "No, sir." And this
was slavery in its best estate. By and by the aged couple,
and the young man and his wife, the remaining children, with
the master, and the dead body of the little one, were
escorted through the streets of the Queen City of the West by
a _national guard of armed men_, back to the great and
chivalrous State of old Kentucky and away to the shambles of
the South--back to a life-long servitude of hopeless despair.
It was a long, sad, silent procession down to the banks of
the Ohio; and as it passed, the death-knell of freedom tolled
heavily. The sovereignty of Ohio trailed in the dust beneath
the oppressor's foot, and the great confederacy of the tribes
of modern Israel attended the funeral obsequies, and made
ample provision for the necessary expenses! "And it was so,
that all that saw it, said, _There was no such deed done, nor
seen from the day that the children of Israel came up out of
the land of Egypt unto this day_; CONSIDER OF IT, TAKE
ADVICE, AND SPEAK YOUR MINDS!"
* * * * *
With the sad case of MARGARET GARNER we close, for the present, the
record of the Fugitive Slave Law, as its history has been daily
writing itself in our country's annals. Enactment of hell! which has
marked every step of its progress over the land by suffering and by
crimes,--crimes of the bloodiest dye, groanings which cannot fully
be uttered; which is tracked by the dripping blood of its victims,
by their terrors and by their despair; against which, and against
that Wicked Nation which enacted it, and which suffers it still to
stand as their LAW, the cries of the down-trodden poor go up
continually into the ears of God,--cries of bitterest anguish,
mingled with fiercest execrations--thousands of Rachels weeping for
their children, and will not be comforted, because they _are not_.
Reader, is your patriotism of the kind which believes, with the
supporters of old monarchies, that the Sovereign Power can do no
wrong? Consider the long record which has been laid before you, and
say if your country has not enacted a most wicked, cruel, and
shameful law, which merits only the condemnation and abhorrence of
every heart. Consider that this law was aimed at the life, liberty,
and happiness of the poor and least-privileged portion of our
people--a class whom the laws should befriend, protect, and raise
up. What is the true character of a law, whose working, whose fruits
are such as this meagre outline of its history shows? Is it fit that
such deeds and such a law should have your sanction and support?
Will you remain in a moment's doubt whether to be a friend or a foe
to such a law? Will you countenance or support the man, in the
church or in the state, who is not its open and out-spoken opponent?
Will you not, rather, yourself trample it under foot, as alike the
disgrace of your country, the enemy of humanity, and the enemy of
God? And nobly join, with heart and hand, every honest man who seeks
to load with the opprobrium they deserve, the law itself and
everything that justifies and upholds it?
In this tract no mention is made of that great company of slaves
who, flying from their intolerable wrongs and burdens, are overtaken
before reaching the Free States--(alas, that we should mock
ourselves with this empty name of _free_!)--and carried back into a
more remote and hopeless slavery; nor of the thousands who, having
fled in former years, and established themselves in industry and
comfort in the Northern States, were compelled again to become
fugitives, leaving their little all behind them, into a still more
Northern land where, under British law, they find at last a
resting-place and protection; nor to any great extent of the
numerous cases of white citizens, prosecuted, fined, harassed in
every way, for the _crime_ of giving shelter and succor to the
hunted wanderers. To have included these--all emphatically _victims_
of the Fugitive Slave Law--would swell our tract into a volume. What
a testimony against our land and our people is given by their
accumulated weight! EVERY LIVING MAN AND WOMAN is GUILTY OF THIS
GREAT SIN, WHO EITHER BY APOLOGY, OR BY SILENCE, LENDS IT THE LEAST
SUPPORT.
--> In a record like the foregoing, dealing so largely with facts
and dates, perfect accuracy is not to be expected, although much
pains have been taken to make it strictly correct. Any information,
on good authority, which will help to make the record more exact,
or more complete, will be very gratefully received. It should be
addressed to SAMUEL MAY, JR., No. 21 Cornhill, Boston, Mass.
* * * * *
Published at the office of the AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY,
No. 138 Nassau Street, New York. Also to be had at the Anti-Slavery
Offices, No. 21 Cornhill, Boston, and No. 31 North Fifth Street,
Philadelphia; of JOEL McMILLAN, Salem, Columbiana Co., Ohio, and
of JACOB WALTON, Jr., Adrian, Michigan.
[Transcriber's note: The following remain as in the original:
Pittsburg, Pennsylvania; Los Angelos; Pittsburgh Saturday Visiter.]