There had been a few negro slaves in Wisconsin before the organization
of the Territory and during Territorial days. They had for the most part
been brought in by lead miners from Kentucky and Missouri. But, as the
population increased, it was seen that public opinion here, as in most
of the free States, was strongly opposed to the practice of holding
human beings as chattels. Gradually the dozen or more slaves were
returned to the South, or died in service, or were freed by their
masters; so that, at an early day, the slavery question had ceased to be
of local importance here.
As the years passed on, and the people of the North became more and more
opposed to the slave system of the South, the latter lost an increasing
number of its slaves through escape to Canada. They were assisted in
their flight by Northern sympathizers, who, secretly receiving them on
the north bank of the Ohio River, passed them on from friend to friend
until they reached the Canadian border. As this system of escape was
contrary to law, it had to be conducted, by both white rescuers and
black fugitives, with great privacy, often with much peril to life;
hence it received the significant, popular name of "The Underground
Railroad." Wisconsin had but small part in the working of the
underground railroad, because it was not upon the usual highway between
the South and Canada. But our people took a firm stand on the matter,
sympathizing with the fugitive slaves and those who aided them on their
way to freedom.
When, therefore, Congress, in 1850, at the bidding of the Southern
politicians, passed the Fugitive Slave Law, Wisconsin bitterly condemned
it. This act was designed to crush out the underground railroad. It
provided for the appointment, by federal courts, of commissioners in the
several States, whose duty it should be to assist slaveholders and their
agents in catching their runaway property. The unsupported testimony of
the owner or agent was sufficient to prove ownership, the black man
himself having no right to testify, and there being for him no trial by
jury. The United States commissioners might enforce the law by the aid
of any number of assistants, and, in the last resort, might summon the
entire population to help them. There were very heavy penalties provided
for violations of this inhuman law.
The Fugitive Slave Law was denounced by most of the political
conventions held in our State that year. In his message to the
legislature, in January, 1851, Governor Dewey expressed the general
sentiment when he said that it "contains provisions odious to our
people, contrary to our sympathies, and repugnant to our feelings." But
it was three years before occasion arose for Wisconsin to act.
In the early months of 1854, a negro named Joshua Glover appeared in
Racine, and obtained work in a sawmill four miles north of that place.
On the night of the 10th of March, he was playing cards in his little
cabin, with two other men of his race. Suddenly there appeared at the
door seven well-armed white men,--two United States deputy marshals from
Milwaukee, their four assistants from Racine, and a St. Louis man named
Garland, who claimed to be Glover's owner.
A desperate struggle followed, the result being that Glover, deserted by
his comrades and knocked senseless by a blow, was placed in chains by
his captors.
Severely bleeding from his wounds, he was thrown into an open wagon and
carted across country to the Milwaukee county jail, for the man hunters
feared to go to Racine, where the antislavery feeling was strong. It was
a bitter cold night, and Glover's miseries were added to by the brutal
Garland, who at intervals kicked and beat the prisoner, and promised
him still more serious punishment upon their return to the Missouri
plantation.
The news of the capture was not long in reaching Racine. The next
morning there was held in the city square a public meeting, attended by
nearly every citizen, at which resolutions were passed denouncing the
act of the kidnapers as an outrage; demanding for Glover a trial by
jury; promising "to attend in person to aid him, by all honorable means,
to secure his unconditional release"; and, most significant of all,
resolving that the people of Racine "do hereby declare the slave
catching law of 1850 disgraceful and also repealed." There were many
such nullifying resolutions passed in those stirring days by mass
meetings throughout the country, but this was one of the earliest and
most outspoken. That afternoon, on hearing where Glover had been
imprisoned, a hundred indignant citizens of Racine, headed by the
sheriff, went by steamer to Milwaukee, arriving there at five o'clock.
Meanwhile, Milwaukee had been active. News of the capture had not been
circulated in that city until eleven o'clock in the morning. One of the
first to learn of it was Sherman M. Booth, the energetic editor of a
small antislavery paper, the _Wisconsin Free Democrat_. Riding up and
down the streets upon a horse, he scattered handbills, and, stopping at
each crossing, shouted: "Freemen, to the rescue! Slave catchers are in
our midst! Be at the courthouse at two o'clock!"
Prompt to the hour, over five thousand people assembled in the
courthouse square, where Booth and several other "liberty men" made
impassioned speeches. A vigilance committee was appointed, to see that
Glover had a fair trial, and the county judge issued in his behalf a
writ of _habeas corpus_, calling for an immediate trial, and a show of
proofs. But the federal judge, A. G. Miller, forbade the sheriff to obey
this writ, holding that Glover must remain in the hands of the United
States marshal, in whose custody he was placed by virtue of the Fugitive
Slave Law.
The local militia were called out to suppress the disorder, but they
were without power. It soon became noised about that Glover was to be
secretly removed to Missouri. This made the mob furious. Just at this
time the Racine contingent arrived, adding oil to the flames. The
reenforced crowd now marched to the jail, attacked the weak structure
with axes, beams, and crowbars, rescued the fugitive just at sunset, and
hurried him off. An underground railroad agency took the poor fellow in
charge, and soon placed him aboard a sailing vessel bound for Canada,
where he finally arrived in safety.
Throughout Wisconsin the rescue was approved by the newspapers and
public gatherings. Sympathetic meetings were also held in other States,
at which resolutions applauding the action of Booth and his friends, and
declaring the slave catching law unconstitutional, were passed with much
enthusiasm. There was also held at Milwaukee, in April, a notable State
convention, with delegates from all of the settled parts of the
commonwealth; this convention declared the law unconstitutional, and
formed a State league for furnishing aid and sympathy to the Glover
rescuers.
In 1857, as a result of the Glover affair, the Wisconsin legislature
passed an act making it a duty of district attorneys in each county "to
use all lawful means to protect, defend, and procure to be discharged
... every person arrested or claimed as a fugitive slave," and throwing
around the poor fellow every possible safeguard. Such was Wisconsin's
final protest against the iniquity of the Fugitive Slave Law.
Naturally, Booth had been looked upon by the United States marshal as
the chief abettor of the riot. He was promptly arrested for violating a
federal law by aiding in the escape of a slave; but the State supreme
court promptly discharged him on a writ of _habeas corpus_. Thereupon he
was brought before the federal court, but again the State court
interfered in his favor, because of a technical irregularity.
On the first of these occasions, the State court issued a very
remarkable decision upon State rights, that attracted national attention
at a time when this question was violently agitating the public mind. It
declared, after a clear, logical statement of the case, that the
Fugitive Slave Law was "unconstitutional and void" because it conferred
judicial power upon mere court commissioners, and deprived the accused
negro of the right of trial by jury. One of the justices of the court,
in an individual opinion, went still further: he held that Congress had
no power to legislate upon this subject; that "the States will never
quietly submit to be disrobed of their sovereignty" by "national
functionaries"; that the police power rested in the State itself, which
would not "succumb, paralyzed and aghast, before the process of an
officer unknown to the constitution, and irresponsible to its
sanctions"; and that so long as he remained a judge, Wisconsin would
meet such attempts with "stern remonstrance and resistance."
The federal court reversed this action, and again arrested Booth in
1860, but he was soon pardoned by the President, and met with no further
trouble on account of the Glover affair.
As for the people of Racine, they made life rather uncomfortable for the
men who had assisted the Milwaukee deputy marshals in arresting Glover.
The city became a fiercer hotbed of abolition than ever before, and
several times thereafter aided slaves to escape from bondage.
Fortunately for their own good, as well as for the cause of law and
order, they found no further occasion to take the law into their own
hands, in the defense of human liberty.