FROM JACKSON TO FILLMORE--1832-1851
My arrival in this world took place at one of the
stormy periods of American political history. It
was on the third of the three election days which carried
Andrew Jackson a second time into the Presidency.
Since that period, the election, with its paralysis of
business, ghastly campaign lying, and monstrous vilification
of candidates, has been concentrated into one day; but at
that time all the evil passions of a presidential election
were allowed to ferment and gather vitriolic strength
during three days.
I was born into a politically divided family. My
grandfather, on my mother's side, whose name I was destined
to bear, was an ardent Democrat; had, as such, represented
his district in the State legislature, and other public
bodies; took his political creed from Thomas Jefferson, and
adored Andrew Jackson. My father, on the other hand,
was in all his antecedents and his personal convictions, a
devoted Whig, taking his creed from Alexander Hamilton,
and worshiping Henry Clay.
This opposition between my father and grandfather did
not degenerate into personal bitterness; but it was very
earnest, and, in later years, my mother told me that when
Hayne, of South Carolina, made his famous speech,
charging the North with ill-treatment of the South, my
grandfather sent a copy of it to my father, as unanswerable;
but that, shortly afterward, my father sent to my
grandfather the speech of Daniel Webster, in reply, and
that, when this was read, the family allowed that the
latter had the better of the argument. I cannot help thinking
that my grandfather must have agreed with them, tacitly,
if not openly. He loved the Hampshire Hills of
Massachusetts, from which he came. Year after year he took
long journeys to visit them, and Webster's magnificent
reference to the ``Old Bay State'' must have aroused his
sympathy and pride.
Fortunately, at that election, as at so many others since,
the good sense of the nation promptly accepted the result,
and after its short carnival of political passion, dismissed
the whole subject; the minority simply leaving the responsibility
of public affairs to the majority, and all betaking
themselves again to their accustomed vocations.
I do not remember, during the first seven years of my
life, ever hearing any mention of political questions. The
only thing I heard during that period which brings back a
chapter in American politics, was when, at the age of five
years, I attended an infant school and took part in a sort
of catechism, all the children rising and replying to the
teacher's questions. Among these were the following:
Q. Who is President of the United States?
A. Martin Van Buren.
Q. Who is governor of the State of New York?
A. William L. Marcy.
This is to me somewhat puzzling, for I was four years
old when Martin Van Buren was elected, and my father
was his very earnest opponent, yet, though I recall easily
various things which occurred at that age and even earlier,
I have no remembrance of any general election before
1840, and my only recollection of the first New York
statesman elected to the Presidency is this mention of his
name, in a child's catechism.
My recollections of American polities begin, then, with
the famous campaign of 1840, and of that they are vivid.
Our family had, in 1839, removed to Syracuse, which,
although now a city of about one hundred and twenty
thousand inhabitants, was then a village of fewer than six
thousand; but, as the central town of the State, it was
already a noted gathering-place for political conventions
and meetings. The great Whig mass-meeting held there,
in 1840, was long famous as the culmination of the
campaign between General Harrison and Martin Van Buren.
As a President, Mr. Van Buren had fallen on evil times.
It was a period of political finance; of demagogical
methods in public business; and the result was ``hard
times,'' with an intense desire throughout the nation for a
change. This desire was represented especially by the
Whig party. General Harrison had been taken up as its
candidate, not merely because he had proved his worth
as governor of the Northwestern Territory, and as a
senator in Congress, but especially as the hero of sundry
fights with the Indians, and, above all, of the plucky little
battle at Tippecanoe. The most popular campaign song,
which I soon learned to sing lustily, was ``Tippecanoe and
Tyler, Too,'' and sundry lines of it expressed, not only
my own deepest political convictions and aspirations, but
also those cherished by myriads of children of far larger
growth. They ran as follows:
``Oh, have you heard the great commotion-motion-motion
Rolling the country through?
It is the ball a-rolling on
For Tippecanoe and Tyler, too,
For Tippecanoe and Tyler, too;
And with them we 'll beat little Van;
Van, Van is a used up man;
And with them we 'll beat little Van.''
The campaign was an apotheosis of tom-foolery.
General Harrison had lived the life, mainly, of a Western
farmer, and for a time, doubtless, exercised amid his rude
surroundings the primitive hospitality natural to sturdy
Western pioneers. On these facts the changes were rung.
In every town and village a log cabin was erected where
the Whigs held their meetings; and the bringing of logs,
with singing and shouting, to build it, was a great event;
its front door must have a wooden latch on the inside;
but the latch-string must run through the door; for the
claim which the friends of General Harrison especially
insisted upon was that he not only lived in a log cabin, but
that his latch-string was always out, in token that all his
fellow-citizens were welcome at his fireside.
Another element in the campaign was hard cider.
Every log cabin must have its barrel of this acrid fluid,
as the antithesis of the alleged beverage of President Van
Buren at the White House. He, it was asserted, drank
champagne, and on this point I remember that a verse
was sung at log-cabin meetings which, after describing,
in a prophetic way the arrival of the ``Farmer of North
Bend'' at the White House, ran as follows:
``They were all very merry, and drinking champagne
When the Farmer, impatient, knocked louder again;
Oh, Oh, said Prince John, I very much fear
We must quit this place the very next year.''
``Prince John'' was President Van Buren's brilliant
son; famous for his wit and eloquence, who, in after years,
rose to be attorney-general of the State of New York, and
who might have risen to far higher positions had his
principles equaled his talents.
Another feature at the log cabin, and in all political
processions, was at least one raccoon; and if not a live
raccoon in a cage, at least a raccoon skin nailed upon the
outside of the cabin. This gave local color, but hence
came sundry jibes from the Democrats, for they were
wont to refer to the Whigs as ``coons,'' and to their log
cabins as ``coon pens.'' Against all these elements of
success, added to promises of better times, the Democratic
party could make little headway. Martin Van Buren,
though an admirable public servant in many ways, was
discredited. M. de Bacourt, the French Minister at
Washington, during his administration, was, it is true, very
fond of him, and this cynical scion of French nobility
wrote in a private letter, which has been published in these
latter days, ``M. Van Buren is the most perfect imitation
of a gentleman I ever saw.'' But this commendation had
not then come to light, and the main reliance of the Democrats
in capturing the popular good-will was their candidate
for the Vice-Presidency, Colonel Richard M. Johnson,
of Kentucky. He, too, had fought in the Indian wars,
and bravely. Therefore it was that one of the Whig songs
which especially rejoiced me, ran:
``They shout and sing, Oh humpsy dumpsy,
Colonel Johnson killed Tecumseh.''
Among the features of that period which excited my
imagination were the enormous mass meetings, with
processions, coming in from all points of the compass, miles
in length, and bearing every patriotic device and political
emblem. Here the Whigs had infinitely the advantage.
Their campaign was positive and aggressive. On platform-
wagons were men working at every trade which expected
to be benefited by Whig success; log cabins of all
sorts and sizes, hard-cider barrels, coon pens, great
canvas balls, which were kept ``a-rolling on,'' canoes, such
as General Harrison had used in crossing Western rivers,
eagles that screamed in defiance, and cocks that crowed
for victory. The turning ball had reference to sundry
lines in the foremost campaign song. For the October
election in Maine having gone Whig by a large majority,
clearly indicating what the general result was to be in
November, the opening lines ran as follows:
``Oh, have you heard the news from Maine--Maine--Maine?
Rolling the country through?
It is the ball a-rolling on
For Tippecanoe and Tyler, too.''
&c., &c., &c.
Against all this the Democrats, with their negative and
defensive platform, found themselves more and more at
a disadvantage; they fought with desperation, but in vain,
and one of their most unlucky ventures to recover their
position was an effort to undermine General Harrison's
military reputation. For this purpose they looked about,
and finally found one of their younger congressional
representatives, considered to be a rising man, who, having
gained some little experience in the Western militia, had
received the honorary title of ``General,'' Isaac M. Crary,
of Michigan; him they selected to make a speech in Congress
exhibiting and exploding General Harrison's military
record. He was very reluctant to undertake it, but
at last yielded, and, after elaborate preparation, made an
argument loud and long, to show that General Harrison
was a military ignoramus. The result was both comic
and pathetic. There was then in Congress the most famous
stump-speaker of his time, and perhaps of all times,
a man of great physical, intellectual, and moral vigor;
powerful in argument, sympathetic in manner, of infinite
wit and humor, and, unfortunately for General Crary,
a Whig,--Thomas Corwin, of Ohio. Mr. Crary's heavy,
tedious, perfunctory arraignment of General Harrison
being ended, Corwin rose and began an offhand speech
on ``The Military Services of General Isaac M. Crary.''
In a few minutes he had as his audience, not only the House
of Representatives, but as many members of the Senate,
of the Supreme Court, and visitors to the city, as could
be crowded into the congressional chamber, and, of all
humorous speeches ever delivered in Congress, this of
Corwin has come down to us as the most successful. Long
afterward, parts of it lingered in our ``speakers' manuals''
and were declaimed in the public schools as examples
of witty oratory. Many years later, when the
House of Representatives left the old chamber and went
into that which it now occupies, Thurlow Weed wrote
an interesting article on scenes he had witnessed in the old
hall, and most vivid of all was his picture of this speech
by Corwin. His delineations of Crary's brilliant exploits,
his portrayal of the valiant charges made by Crary's
troops on muster days upon the watermelon patches of
Michigan, not only convulsed his audience, but were
echoed throughout the nation, Whigs and Democrats
laughing alike; and when John Quincy Adams, in a speech
shortly afterward, referred to the man who brought on
this tempest of fun as ``the late General Crary,'' there
was a feeling that the adjective indicated a fact. It really
was so; Crary, although a man of merit, never returned
to Congress, but was thenceforth dropped from political
life. More than twenty years afterward, as I was passing
through Western Michigan, a friend pointed out to me
his tombstone, in a little village cemetery, with comments,
half comic, half pathetic; and I also recall a mournful
feeling when one day, in going over the roll of my
students at the University of Michigan, I came upon one who
bore the baptismal name of Isaac Crary. Evidently, the
blighted young statesman had a daughter who, in all this
storm of ridicule and contempt, stood by him, loved him,
and proudly named her son after him.
Another feature in the campaign also impressed me.
A blackguard orator, on the Whig side, one of those
whom great audiences applaud for the moment and ever
afterward despise,--a man named Ogle,--made a speech
which depicted the luxury prevailing at the White House,
and among other evidences of it, dwelt upon the ``gold
spoons'' used at the President's table, denouncing their
use with such unction that, for the time, unthinking
people regarded Martin Van Buren as a sort of American
Vitellius. As a matter of fact, the scanty silver-gilt table
utensils at the White House have been shown, in these
latter days, in some very pleasing articles written by
General Harrison's grandson, after this grandson had
himself retired from the Presidency, to have been, for the
most part, bought long before;--and by order of General
Washington.
The only matter of political importance which, as a boy
eight years old, I seized upon, and which dwells in my
memory, was the creation of the ``Sub-Treasury.'' That
this was a wise measure seems now proven by the fact that
through all the vicissitudes of politics, from that day to
this, it has remained and rendered admirable service. But
at that time it was used as a weapon against the
Democratic party, and came to be considered by feather-
brained partizans, young and old, as the culmination of
human wickedness. As to what the ``Sub-Treasury''
really was I had not the remotest idea; but this I knew;--
that it was the most wicked outrage ever committed by a
remorseless tyrant upon a long-suffering people.
In November of 1840 General Harrison was elected. In
the following spring he was inaugurated, and the Whigs
being now for the first time in power, the rush for office
was fearful. It was undoubtedly this crushing pressure
upon the kindly old man that caused his death. What
British soldiers, and Indian warriors, and fire, flood, and
swamp fevers could not accomplish in over sixty years,
was achieved by the office-seeking hordes in just one
month. He was inaugurated on the fourth of March and
died early in April.
I remember, as if it were yesterday, my dear mother
coming to my bedside, early in the morning, and saying
to me, ``President Harrison is dead.'' I wondered what
was to become of us. He was the first President who had
died during his term of service, and a great feeling of
relief came over me when I learned that his high office
had devolved upon the Vice-President.
But now came a new trouble, and my youthful mind was
soon sadly agitated. The Whig papers, especially the
``New York Express'' and ``Albany Evening Journal,''
began to bring depressing accounts of the new President,
--tidings of extensive changes in the offices throughout the
country, and especially in the post-offices. At first the
Whig papers published these under the heading
``Appointments by the President.'' But soon the heading
changed; it became ``Appointments by Judas Iscariot,''
or ``Appointments by Benedict Arnold,'' and war was
declared against President Tyler by the party that elected
him. Certain it is that no party ever found itself in a
worse position than did the Whigs, when their Vice-President
came into the Chief Magistracy; and equally certain
is it that this position was the richly earned punishment
of their own folly.
I have several times since had occasion to note the
carelessness of National and State conventions in nominating
a candidate for the second place upon the ticket--whether
Vice-President or Lieutenant-Governor. It would seem
that the question of questions--the nomination to the
first office--having been settled, there comes a sort of
collapse in these great popular assemblies, and that then,
for the second office, it is very often anybody's race and
mainly a matter of chance. In this way alone can be
explained several nominations which have been made to
second offices, and above all, that of John Tyler. As a
matter of fact, he was not commended to the Whig party
on any solid grounds. His whole political life had shown
him an opponent of their main ideas; he was, in fact, a
Southern doctrinaire, and frequently suffered from acute
attacks of that very troublesome political disease,
Virginia metaphysics. As President he attempted to enforce
his doctrines, and when Whig leaders, and above all
Henry Clay attempted, not only to resist, but to crush him,
he asserted his dignity at the cost of his party, and finally
tried that which other accidental Presidents have since
tried with no better success, namely, to build up a party
of his own by a new distribution of offices. Never was a
greater failure. Mr. Tyler was dropped by both parties
and disappeared from American political life forever.
I can now see that he was a man obedient to his convictions
of duty, such as they were, and in revolt against
attempts of Whig leaders to humiliate him; but then, to
my youthful mind, he appeared the very incarnation of
evil.
My next recollections are of the campaign of 1844.
Again the Whig party took courage, and having, as a boy
of twelve years, acquired more earnest ideas regarding
the questions at issue, I helped, with other Whig boys,
to raise ash-poles, and to hurrah lustily for Clay at public
meetings. On the other hand, the Democratic boys hurrahed
as lustily around their hickory poles and, as was
finally proved, to much better purpose. They sang doggerel
which, to me, was blasphemous, and especially a song
with the following refrain:
``Alas poor Cooney Clay,
Alas poor Cooney Clay,
You never can be President,
For so the people say.''
The ash-poles had reference to Ashland, Clay's Kentucky
estate; and the hickory poles recalled General Jackson's
sobriquet, ``Old Hickory.'' For the Democratic candidate
in 1844, James Knox Polk, was considered heir to
Jackson's political ideas. The campaign of 1844 was not
made so interesting by spectacular outbursts of tom-foolery
as the campaign of 1840 had been. The sober second
thought of the country had rather sickened people of that
sort of thing; still, there was quite enough of it, especially
as shown in caricatures and songs. The poorest of the
latter was perhaps one on the Democratic side, for as the
Democratic candidates were Polk of Tennessee and Dallas
of Pennsylvania, one line of the song embraced probably
the worst pun ever made, namely--
``PORK in the barrel, and DOLLARS in the pocket.''
It was at this period that the feeling against the extension
of slavery, especially as indicated in the proposed
annexation of Texas, began to appear largely in politics,
and though Clay at heart detested slavery and always
refused to do the bidding of its supporters beyond what he
thought absolutely necessary in preserving the Union, an
unfortunate letter of his led great numbers of anti-
slavery men to support a separate anti-slavery ticket, the
candidate being James G. Birney. The result was that
the election of Clay became impossible. Mr. Polk was
elected, and under him came the admission of Texas,
which caused the Mexican War, and gave slavery a new
lease of life. The main result, in my own environment,
was that my father and his friends, thenceforward for a
considerable time, though detesting slavery, held all
abolitionists and anti-slavery men in contempt,--as unpatriotic
because they had defeated Henry Clay, and as idiotic
because they had brought on the annexation of Texas and
thereby the supremacy of the slave States.
But the flame of liberty could not be smothered by
friends or blown out by enemies; it was kept alive by
vigorous counterblasts in the press, and especially fed by
the lecture system, which was then at the height of its
efficiency. Among the most powerful of lecturers was
John Parker Hale, senator of the United States from
New Hampshire, his subject being, ``The Last Gladiatorial
Combat at Rome.'' Taking from Gibbon the story of
the monk Telemachus, who ended the combats in the arena
by throwing himself into them and sacrificing his life, Hale
suggested to his large audiences an argument that if men
wished to get rid of slavery in our country they must be
ready to sacrifice themselves if need be. His words sank
deep into my mind, and I have sometimes thought that
they may have had something to do in leading John
Brown to make his desperate attempt on slavery at
Harper's Ferry.
How blind we all were! Henry Clay, a Kentucky slave-
holder, would have saved us. Infinitely better than the
violent solutions proposed to us was his large statesman-
like plan of purchasing the slave children as they were
born and setting them free. Without bloodshed, and at
cost of the merest nothing as compared to the cost of the
Civil War, he would thus have solved the problem; but
it was not so to be. The guilt of the nation was not to be
so cheaply atoned for. Fanatics, North and South,
opposed him and, as a youth, I yielded to their arguments.
Four years later, in 1848, came a very different sort of
election. General Zachary Taylor, who had shown ster-
ling qualities in the Mexican War, was now the candidate
of the Whigs, and against him was nominated Mr.
Cass, a general of the War of 1812, afterward governor
of the Northwestern Territory, and senator from
Michigan. As a youth of sixteen, who by that time had become
earnestly interested in politics, I was especially struck
by one event in this campaign. The Democrats of course
realized that General Taylor, with the prestige gained in
the Mexican War, was a very formidable opponent. Still,
if they could keep their party together, they had hopes of
beating him. But a very large element in their party
had opposed the annexation of Texas and strongly disliked
the extension of slavery;--this wing of the party
in New York being known as the ``Barn Burners,'' because
it was asserted that they ``believed in burning the
barn to drive the rats out.'' The question was what these
radical gentlemen would do. That question was answered
when a convention, controlled largely by the anti-slavery
Democrats of New York and other States, met at Buffalo
and nominated Martin Van Buren to the Presidency.
For a time it was doubtful whether he would accept the
nomination. On one side it was argued that he could not
afford to do so, since he had no chance of an election,
and would thereby forever lose his hold upon the Democratic
party; but, on the other hand, it was said that he
was already an old man; that he realized perfectly the
impossibility of his re<e:>lection, and that he had a bitter
grudge against the Democratic candidate, General Cass,
who had voted against confirming him when he was sent
as minister to Great Britain, thus obliging him to return
home ingloriously. He accepted the nomination.
On the very day which brought the news of this
acceptance, General Cass arrived in Syracuse, on his way
to his home at Detroit. I saw him welcomed by a great
procession of Democrats, and marched under a broiling
sun, through dusty streets, to the City Hall, where he was
forced to listen and reply to fulsome speeches prophesying
his election, which he and all present knew to be impos-
sible. For Mr. Van Buren's acceptance of the ``free soil''
nomination was sure to divide the Democratic vote of the
State of New York, thus giving the State to the Whigs;
and in those days the proverb held good, ``As New York
goes, so goes the Union.''
For years afterward there dwelt vividly in my mind
the picture of this old, sad man marching through the
streets, listening gloomily to the speeches, forced to
appear confident of victory, yet evidently disheartened and
disgusted.
Very vivid are my recollections of State conventions
at this period. Syracuse, as the ``Central City,'' was a
favorite place for them, and, as they came during the
summer vacations, boys of my age and tastes were able
to admire the great men of the hour,--now, alas, utterly
forgotten. We saw and heard the leaders of all parties.
Many impressed me; but one dwells in my memory, on
account of a story which was told of him. This was a
very solemn, elderly gentleman who always looked very
wise but said nothing,--William Bouck of Schoharie
County. He had white hair and whiskers, and having
been appointed canal commissioner of the State, had
discharged his duties by driving his old white family nag
and buggy along the towing-path the whole length of the
canals, keeping careful watch of the contractors, and so,
in his simple, honest way, had saved the State much money.
The result was the nickname of the ``Old White Hoss of
Schoharie,'' and a reputation for simplicity and honesty
which made him for a short time governor of the State.
A story then told of him reveals something of his
character. Being informed that Bishop Hughes of New York
was coming to Albany, and that it would be well to treat
him with especial courtesy, the governor prepared himself
to be more than gracious, and, on the arrival of the
bishop, greeted him most cordially with the words, ``How
do you do, Bishop; I hope you are well. How did you
leave Mrs. Hughes and your family?'' To this the bishop
answered, ``Governor, I am very well, but there is no
Mrs. Hughes; bishops in our church don't marry.''
``Good gracious,'' answered the governor, ``you don't
say so; how long has that been?'' The bishop must have
thoroughly enjoyed this. His Irish wit made him quick
both at comprehension and repartee. During a debate
on the school question a leading Presbyterian merchant
of New York, Mr. Hiram Ketchum, made a very earnest
speech against separate schools for Roman Catholics, and
presently, turning to Bishop Hughes, said, ``Sir, we
respect you, sir, but, sir, we can't go your purgatory, sir.''
To this the bishop quietly replied, ``You might go further
and fare worse.''
Another leading figure, but on the Whig side, was a
State senator, commonly known as ``Bray'' Dickinson,
to distinguish him from D. S. Dickinson who had been a
senator of the United States, and a candidate for the
Presidency. ``Bray'' Dickinson was a most earnest
supporter of Mr. Seward; staunch, prompt, vigorous, and
really devoted to the public good. One story regarding
him shows his rough-and-readiness.
During a political debate in the old Whig days, one
of his Democratic brother senators made a long harangue
in favor of Martin Van Buren as a candidate for the
Presidency, and in the course of his speech referred to
Mr. Van Buren as ``the Curtius of the Republic.'' Upon
this Dickinson jumped up, went to some member better
educated in the classics than himself, and said, ``Who in
thunder is this Curtis that this man is talking about?'' ``It
isn't Curtis, it 's Curtius, ``was the reply. ``Well, now, ``
said Dickinson, ``what did Curtius do?'' ``Oh,'' said his
informant, ``he threw himself into an abyss to save
the Roman Republic.'' Upon this Dickinson returned to
his seat, and as soon as the Democratic speaker had
finished, arose and said: ``Mr. President, I deny the justice
of the gentleman's reference to Curtius and Martin Van
Buren. What did Curtius do? He threw himself, sir,
into an abyss to save his country. What, sir, did Martin
Van Buren do? He threw his country into an abyss to
save himself.''
Rarely, if ever, has any scholar used a bit of classical
knowledge to better purpose.
Another leading figure, at a later period, was a Democrat,
Fernando Wood, mayor of New York, a brilliant
desperado; and on one occasion I saw the henchmen whom
he had brought with him take possession of a State
convention and deliberately knock its president, one of the
most respected men in the State, off the platform. It was
an unfortunate performance for Mayor Wood, since the
disgust and reaction thereby aroused led all factions of
the Democratic party to unite against him.
Other leading men were such as Charles O'Conor and
John Van Buren; the former learned and generous, but
impracticable; the latter brilliant beyond belief, but not
considered as representing any permanent ideas or principles.
During the campaign of 1848, as a youth of sixteen,
I took the liberty of breaking from the paternal party;
my father voting for General Taylor, I hurrahing for
Martin Van Buren. I remember well how one day my
father earnestly remonstrated against this. He said, ``My
dear boy, you cheer Martin Van Buren's name because
you believe that if he is elected he will do something
against slavery: in the first place, he cannot be elected;
and in the second place, if you knew him as we older
people do, you would not believe in his attachment to any
good cause whatever.''
The result of the campaign was that General Taylor
was elected, and I recall the feeling of awe and hope with
which I gazed upon his war-worn face, for the first and
last time, as he stopped to receive the congratulations of
the citizens of Syracuse;--hope, alas, soon brought to
naught, for he, too, soon succumbed to the pressure of
official care, and Millard Fillmore of New York, the Vice-
President, reigned in his stead.
I remember Mr. Fillmore well. He was a tall, large,
fine-looking man, with a face intelligent and kindly, and
he was noted both as an excellent public servant and an
effective public speaker. He had been comptroller of
the State of New York,--then the most important of State
offices, had been defeated as Whig candidate for governor,
and had been a representative in Congress. He was the
second of the accidental Presidents, and soon felt it his
duty to array himself on the side of those who, by
compromise with the South on the slavery question, sought
to maintain and strengthen the Federal Union. Under
him came the compromise measures on which our great
statesmen of the middle period of the nineteenth century,
Clay, Webster, Calhoun, and Benton, made their last
speeches. Mr. Fillmore was undoubtedly led mainly by
patriotic motives, in promoting the series of measures
which were expected to end all trouble between the North
and South, but which, unfortunately, embraced the Fugitive
Slave Law; yet this, as I then thought, rendered him
accursed. I remember feeling an abhorrence for his very
name, and this feeling was increased when there took
place, in the city of Syracuse, the famous ``Jerry Rescue.''