police,) John Hence, Samuel Goldy, Peter Keller, (an ex-police
officer,) Charles Worrell, (innkeeper,) William McDaniels, (tax
collector,) Wm. B. Rankin, (attorney,) Alderman Brazier, Thomas
Stainroop, John S. Keyser, (marshal of police,) Jacob Weightman,
(bar-tender,) John Gamble, (police officer,) John Millward, W. W.
Weeks, Andrew Flick, (constable,) F. M. Adams, (attorney,) C. B. F.
O’Neill, (do.,) Aaron Green, James Barber, (constable,) James Brown,
Sr., (innkeeper,) John H. Moore, (police officer,) Daniel Weyman,
Thomas Connell, John Martin, Robert L. Curry, E. J. Charnley, (clerk,)
D. A. Davis, (interpreter,) D. L. Wilson, (carriage driver,) Jacob
Dulther, John McElroy, (clerk,) J. W. Stanroop, Egbert Summerdyke,
Nathan Lucans, Lafayette Stainroop, Thomas Downing, W. D. Haylett, D.
D. Emerick, D. W. Rickafus, James Pidgeon, Albert G. Stevens, James
Brown, Jr., David Vicely, W. L. Gray, John Selets, Henry Cornish,
Samuel Babb, Thomas Wallace, John C. Lamb, Wm. Ray, (innkeeper,)
Joseph A. Nunes, (attorney,) Joseph Abrams, (attorney,) Michael Barr,
(innkeeper,) W. W. Hankinson, Charles H. Lex, Thomas E. Connell, Jr.,
J. L. Thomas, (attorney,) William Connell, (gas-fitter,) Joseph S.
Brewster, (attorney,) E. E. Pettit, (do.,) Wm. E. Lehman, (do.,) Dr.
Vondersmith, Alderman White, Charles P. Buckingham, Phillip Winnemore,
J. C. Smith, George Carter, J. P. Loughead, (attorney,) were called
to support Kline’s character. Many of them said, they had heard his
character called in question, but that they would believe him on his
oath.
William Noble was next called, to prove that “in the month of
September, 1851, the county of Lancaster, and particularly the
neighborhood of Christiana, was patrolled by armed bodies of negroes,
after a report that slaveholders had come up there for slaves. That
these armed bands of negroes went from house to house, in that
neighborhood, searching for the slaveholders, swearing vengeance
against them, and expressing a determination to kill them.”
The object of this was to sustain the allegation of combination--the
gist of the entire case, in the proof of which the prosecution had so
signally failed.
To this extraordinary offer, Mr. Read, on behalf of the defence,
objected on several grounds. The evidence was in chief, and not
rebutting testimony. It was the bounden duty of the prosecution, as
well by the rules of evidence as in mercy to the defendants, to have
offered it before the close of their case. Besides this, the Act of
Congress requires that the United States shall furnish, three days
before a trial for treason, the names of those witnesses whom they
intend to examine touching the charges against the prisoner.
Mr. G. L. Ashmead and Mr. Brent both replied, asserting that the
existence of this testimony was not known to them at the commencement
of the trial; and arguing that this was rebutting testimony; they could
find no part of the defendant’s case which it could be considered as
rebutting, except the opening remarks of counsel.
Both members of the Court decided the evidence offered to be in chief,
and sustained the objections of Mr. Read.
Samuel Worthington was next offered, to prove that some time in 1851,
he and a party of men went to the neighborhood of Christiana, in search
of a fugitive slave, and stopped at the house of a man by the name of
Haines; that “immediately the same signals were given at that house
as at Parker’s;” and to show by this that “the motive which actuated
Hanway and others was not of a lawful and legal character, but of a
treasonable and criminal kind.”
The same objections were made as before to Noble’s testimony, and the
defence again expressed their disapprobation of giving evidence to
rebut lawyers’ speeches.
The Court overruled the offer, on the same grounds as had rejected
Noble’s testimony, and the witness was withdrawn.
Cist Cockney was next examined, to contradict Jacob Whitson, who had
testified in regard to conversations of Kline. John Bacon testified to
a difficulty between Kline and some officers at Christiana.
Harvey Scott was called “to prove that the testimony given by Carr
and others--the alibi--is not correct; that he was on the ground, and
to explain how he got out of the room and proceeded to the scene of
action.” After some conversation the question was asked, “Were you at
the battle on the morning of the 11th September last?”
_Answer._ I gave my evidence that I was there, once. I was frightened
at the time I was taken up, and I said I was there, but I was not.
_Question._ Were you there on the morning of the 11th September last?
_Answer._ I was proved to be there, but I was not there.
_Question._ On the morning of the 11th September last?
_Answer._ No sir. Kline swore I was there, and at the time I was taken
up I told the man I was not there; and they took me to Christiana, and
I was frightened, and I didn’t know what to say, and I said what they
told me.
The witness was not cross-examined, but, after a threat to prosecute
for perjury, was discharged.
The next morning (Dec. 2) an informal conversation took place in
regard to the evidence of Scott. In answer to all the imputations of
tampering, made by the prosecution and others, it is sufficient to say,
that from the time of his arrest till the examination on the first of
December, he was confined in the debtors’ apartment of the Moyamensing
Prison, in custody of the U. S. officers, and beyond the reach of any
person, except such as went there on behalf of the prosecution. Like
all liars, when left to himself and his own reflections, he concluded
it was best to tell the whole truth, especially when this exculpated
him from the difficulty into which his own folly and weakness had
plunged him. It had been proved, beyond a doubt, that Scott was _not_
within three miles of Parker’s house on the morning of the 11th, and
his declarations made that morning to witnesses who were examined,
proved that he was capable of telling the truth, when uninfluenced by
fear. As soon as arrested, he was threatened with imprisonment and
death; but at first he told a consistent story. Soon the coward’s hope
induced him to make false statements. Ignorant, and not gifted with the
ordinary intelligence belonging to persons of his condition in life, he
knew not the nature and obligation of an oath, and swore as he believed
would be acceptable to those whom he supposed to have power over
his liberty, and perhaps his life. From the time of the preliminary
examinations until brought upon the stand, he was in the care and
keeping of the agents of the prosecution; and, as appears by the
statements made at the time of his examination, he had been visited in
his cell, after the testimony for the prosecution had closed, by some
of the counsel for the prosecution, and there told the story which they
believed he would repeat under oath. They had their manifest reasons
for not calling upon him to give evidence in chief, since they did not
dare to do so, even in rebuttal, till he had been visited in prison,
and the probable nature of his testimony ascertained!
It was also said, that the day before his examination “he was conversed
with by several negroes, in the Marshal’s office, who had to be sent
away from him.” This may account for his finally telling the truth.
It is certain, that in such a place no one had an opportunity of
quite so full a conversation with him as could have been held in his
cell at Moyamensing prison. But the _sight_ of his former comrades
was sufficient to compel him to exercise even the small amount of
conscience which nature had bestowed upon him. But if it were granted,
for the sake of argument, that “some negroes” had a conversation with
him, by what rule of right or principle of law, could they be condemned
for entreating the unhappy man not to degrade himself by committing the
loathsome crime of perjury? Mr. Brent’s pamphlet implies the existence
of such a code of morals; but if it exist at all, its influence must be
confined to the borders of the State he represented.
Dr. Pierce was recalled, to refute the charges of cowardice, which it
was said he had, in conversation, made against Kline; and Dickinson
Gorsuch, to testify that he saw two of his father’s slaves at Parker’s
house.
With this the examination of witnesses closed. Nothing was wanting to
complete the trial but the arguments of counsel, the charge of the
Judge and the verdict. Those who had attentively watched the testimony,
plainly saw that the attempt to sustain the charge of Treason was a
failure. The counsel for the prosecution, if rumor is to be depended
upon, had for several days abandoned all hopes of a conviction. There
were many persons, however, who believed the jury would not be able
to agree upon a verdict. Public excitement had subsided, and towards
the close of the examination of witnesses, the court room comfortably
seated all who chose to assemble to hear the proceedings. The desire to
hear the speeches again drew a crowd, and expectation was raised to the
highest pitch in regard to one of the counsel, who, when his turn came,
considered that it was not necessary for the interest of his client to
occupy the time of the Court.
After some preliminary arrangements, Mr. Ludlow began his remarks to
the jury and occupied the remainder of the day. He commenced by hastily
repeating the part Hanway had taken in the transactions of the morning
of the 11th of September. Then citing the 3d Section of Article III of
the Constitution of the United States, and the decisions of all courts
upon it, argued that the acts committed came within the provisions of
the Law. He said that “taking the whole transaction together, this man
Hanway, if guilty at all, is guilty by virtue of his presence upon
the ground and joining with the conspirators, the whole transaction
being the overt act.” His conduct, Mr. L., thought, was not that of an
innocent man; but that it confirmed the hypothesis of guilty intent
before going to Parker’s. The conflict of testimony to this point,
must, he thought, be decided in favor of the Government’s witnesses.
Elijah Lewis’s evidence, he told the Jury, must be weighed with the
utmost caution. Without attributing perjury to him, it was suggested
“that he would shape his course, so as to swear his friend who was the
leader, he being the lieutenant, out of the difficulty, and his friend
would come and swear him out in turn.”
The alleged case of kidnapping, he said, was committed by a party of
imprudent Southerners, who, under the decision of the Supreme Court
in Prigg’s case, had taken the law in their own hands and carried
their slave away without process. He argued, too, that Hanway’s good
character could not avail him in such a prosecution. The testimony
in regard to Kline’s bad character was, he thought, the result of
opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law, and was more than met by the
witnesses who had been produced in rebuttal. He then defended Kline
from the imputation of cowardice, which it appeared rested upon him,
from his conduct at Parker’s house, and contended he had acted as a
good officer and brave man. Mr. L. then pointed out and attempted to
reconcile to the Jury some discrepancies in the evidence, and concluded
by some eloquent remarks upon the value and importance of the Union.
The next morning, (Saturday December 6th,) before the argument was
resumed, Mr. Brent called the attention of the court to an article
in a paper called the Pennsylvania Freeman. It contained an account
of the serving up of a dinner for the prisoners on Thanksgiving day,
and stated that the Marshal had participated with them. After some
rather severe remarks from the Bench upon the character of the paper,
the Marshal made an explanation of the matter with which Mr. Brent
expressed himself perfectly satisfied.
Whatever may have been the object of presenting the subject to the
Court at that time, whether to “give a public officer an opportunity
of offering a public explanation,” or for any other purpose, it
certainly had the effect of casting odium upon the prisoner at the bar.
It was extraneous matter and as such should have been withheld till
the conclusion of the trial. But when offered, the defence did not
choose to exercise their right to object, not wishing to prejudice the
defendant by any act which, on the part of illiberal counsel, might be
called a disposition to stifle a full and fair investigation, of what
(had not its folly and absurdity been made public) might, by _innuendo_
and such other tricks, have been handled before the Jury in a manner
prejudicial to the defendant.
Mr. Lewis then began his remarks in behalf of the defence. He
deprecated, in strong terms, the whole prosecution, and alleged it had
been commenced in a moment of excitement and public phrenzy. Had a
little time been allowed for reflection, for inquiry into the facts,
to ascertain Castner Hanway’s character, this issue would never have
been presented to this jury. He suggested that the whole proceeding
had taken this course at the instigation of the authorities of a
neighboring State. The people of Pennsylvania did not deserve such
treatment. They had always been loyal, and no better evidence of this
is needed than the course and character of their legislation. Mr. Lewis
then hastily rehearsed the different acts of Assembly upon the subject,
mentioning the objects and purposes of each, and in some cases their
private history. From these it appeared that the State of Pennsylvania
had ever attempted to establish two points: “To provide a means for the
recovery of fugitives within her borders, and to protect her own free
black population. The first she did from comity, the last from duty.”
The course of Maryland, had, he remarked, been uniformly the opposite
of this. She had treated the free black subjects of Pennsylvania with
habitual harshness and severity. After further comments upon the
relative course of the two States, and asserting the right of every
citizen of Pennsylvania, to interpose his influence when injury to her
people or violence to her laws is threatened, he repeated the remark
made by one of his colleagues that no one deprecated the unfortunate
occurrences on the morning of the 11th more than Castner Hanway, and
that neither he nor his counsel came there to justify, excuse, or
palliate them. In their management of the defence they had desired to
obtain not only justice to the living, but to observe a due respect
to the memory of the dead, and a regard for the lacerated feelings of
those who were bound by near ties to the unfortunate murdered man. The
Messrs. Gorsuch had not been asked a question in cross examination, but
were permitted to tell their story as witnesses in their own way.
He then referred to the case of alleged kidnapping at Chamberlain’s,
and the feeling in the neighborhood which grew out of it. While this
feeling existed, Kline, after having spent a day and two nights in the
neighborhood, hanging about taverns and exhibiting himself abroad
at unusual hours, made his descent upon the family of Parker under
cover of the night. The whole affair had a kidnapping aspect. “The
persons that saw this company of armed men surrounding this house of
a negro supposed to be free, and held at bay by those within, might
well suspect them to be kidnappers.” He reviewed carefully the whole
evidence, and by the circumstances proven, argued the absence of
combination, which must be sustained by two witnesses. Every act of
Hanway’s could be explained and was explained by attributing to him
humane and philanthropic motives. Any other construction was forced and
unsupported by testimony. “Instead of being guilty of treason, there is
no reasonable ground for imputing even impropriety to him. Never indeed
was such a prosecution founded upon evidence so meagre, or such a
charge seriously made, that would be so foolish if it were not that the
subject is so serious.” Mr. L. then commented upon the law of treason,
and in a masterly argument occupying seven pages of the printed report,
fully elucidated to the jury the legal theory on the subject.
Mr. Brent followed Mr. Lewis. He began his remarks by reference to the
oft-mooted question of counsel for the prosecution. He and Mr. Cooper
were there by authority of the general Government, and he complained of
the statements which had been made in the public prints and elsewhere
of the difficulties which had arisen in their own camp. He said “there
was an unfortunate question of etiquette between the learned gentleman
(Mr. J. W. Ashmead,) and myself (Mr. Brent,) which upon my arrival in
the city was fairly and honorably adjusted between us.”
The State of Maryland could not take the reports of the trials from the
public newspapers. This man might be acquitted honorably, yet _she_
would not know it or _believe_ it, and his duty was to inform the
citizens of Maryland officially of what had taken place. They did not,
as had been stated, thirst for blood; and he complained at length of
the insults that had been offered him and his State, by those counsel
for the defence, who had animadverted upon the extraordinary array of
counsel for the prosecution. He then, “before discussing the legal
merits of the question at issue, attempted to depict the condition of
the South,” and went into an elaborate history of the Fugitive Slave
Law, with an enumeration of the rights and privileges guarantied by its
provisions to slaveholders. After this, he spoke of the Union, and the
duties of each citizen towards his Government.
He then passed to what he called, “the powerful combination of crushing
testimony (corroborating Kline in every particular,)” and promised to
prove from it that Hanway “did then and there connect himself with an
organized band, which had been formed for treason.” He argued that
“there was overwhelming circumstantial evidence to demonstrate Hanway’s
implication in the previous conspiracy.” There was no direct proof, nor
was it expected this could be brought “from a region the whole of which
is infected, and where every white man in that immediate neighborhood,
(with the exception of Miller Nott) _is leagued with the traitors_.”
From Hanway’s presence, his silence, and all he was proved to have
done, Mr. B. added it “was passing human credulity to say that you
cannot infer in all this, a feeling of hostility to the law, and an
intention to resist it.”[C]
The hour for adjournment having arrived, Mr. Brent suspended his
remarks.
On Monday morning (Dec. 8th,) at the usual hour, he resumed by
answering the comments Mr. Lewis had made upon the laws of Maryland, in
relation to free colored persons coming into that State; and spoke of
the evils that would result from a dissolution of the Union, and the
execration in which those persons should be held who preached treason
in the streets and from the pulpits.
He expressed surprise that Hanway’s wife had been permitted to remain
by his side during the trial, and warned the Jury not to be moved by
her tears. “There are other strange things,” he continued, “that have
occurred in the progress of this trial,” and he mentioned the escape
of prisoners, and the refusal of Harvey Scott to commit perjury a
third time. The conduct of Elijah Lewis, Joseph Scarlet, Hanway, Dr.
Kane and Lewis Cooper, on the day of the attack on Parker’s house, was
next reviewed, in the severest terms; and then, after speaking of the
evidence, he justified the conduct of Kline. He defended the Southern
States from the charge of cruelty towards slaves, and enumerated some
of the laws upon the subject.
The law of Treason was next considered, and he presented his views
at length to the Jury. In conclusion, he repeated that the “State of
Maryland did not thirst for innocent blood. She thirsted only for the
pure undefiled fountains of Justice. She stood there for her rights,
and stood undaunted.”
Mr. Read, the senior counsel for the defence, followed in an elaborate
and searching argument. No part of the case was left untouched. The
only report of his remarks to which we have access, is very meagre,
not as full as that of the latter part of Mr. Brent’s speech. He
alluded in opening to the monstrous doctrine that the Constitution
allowed a master the right of seizing his slave wherever found, without
even offering to establish his identity, as had been alleged to be
the Law by those who had commented upon the case of kidnapping from
Chamberlain’s house. Prosecutions and abuse for not sanctioning such
outrages as these, were equivalent to saying, “if you do not turn negro
catcher, we will indict you for treason.”
He continued with a rapid and striking sketch of English history,
throughout the period from which the cases relied upon by the
prosecution had been selected,--reviewing it reign by reign, showing
with great force the barbarous and tyrannical character of the times,
whose principles it was attempted to write into the Constitution of
America in the nineteenth century. Having laid this general foundation,
he proceeded to discuss at length each particular case that had been
cited; and not confining himself to the mere face of the report, he
searched out the facts from an array of collateral authorities, such
as was probably never before submitted to any Court in any State
trial, exhibiting the state of parties, the influences at work upon
the Bench and the Juries, the character of the Judges, and the real
value which ought to be attached to their decisions. Coming down to
the later periods of English Jurisprudence, he insisted that even
their Courts had abandoned these principles, and would not now listen
to the authorities which the prosecution had attempted to enforce in
Republican America; and showed conclusively that at the present day in
England, no man could be convicted of treason in levying war, unless
an open insurrection or rebellion were actually raging in the land,
and aiming at the change or destruction of the Government. Passing next
to the American decisions, he argued, that stripped of the improper
phraseology in which some of them had been clothed, they established
the same doctrine, and that when this phraseology appeared to cover
wider grounds, it had been derived from earlier English cases, which at
the time of making the decisions were supposed by our Judges to be the
actually existing law of England, our lawyers then not having the means
of exposing their utter worthlessness.
Having established the general rule above stated as the result of the
decisions now in force, Mr. Read passed to an analysis of the facts of
the case; showing in the first place how utterly preposterous was the
attempt to dignify this miserable riot with the name of insurrection
and rebellion, and that looking at it in its true light, Hanway was
not and could not have been a participator. The only overt act he
committed, consisted in giving insolent replies to Kline, and the
evidence of this was wholly uncorroborated, depending entirely on
Kline’s credibility. “A man morally and physically deaf, comes here and
says he heard the defendant _whisper_ to the colored men the words,
‘shoot at them.’ A perjured man who don’t hear and can’t hear, is
brought into this court to convict an innocent man, whose hands are
white--not red with the blood of his fellow man.”
From the contradictions in Kline’s own testimony, and the opposing
evidence, both of the government and the defence, he showed beyond a
doubt the perjury of this essential witness; that he was not and could
not have been near the bars at the time of the firing, but almost half
a mile away in the woods. As this single point was absolutely fatal to
the case of the prosecution, he thought it useless to expend time on
minor and immaterial details.
After reviewing the testimony of the prosecution, he passed to that
of the defence, and showed wherein it supplied the defects of the
Government’s case. He commented upon the conduct of Harvey Scott, “who
had been tutored to tell a story, and who was frightened into it by
Marshal Kline.”