The first blow of the fugitive slave bill must fall on them. In
October, 1850, one Hughes, a jailer from Macon, Georgia, a public
negro-whipper, who had once beaten Ellen's uncle "almost to death,"
came here with one Knight, his attendant, to kidnap William and Ellen
Craft. They applied to Hon. Mr. Hallett for a writ. Perhaps they had
heard (false) rumors that the Hon. Commissioner was "a little slippery
in his character;" that he was "not overscrupulous in his conduct;"
that he "would do any dirty work for political preferment." Gentlemen,
you know that such rumors will get abroad, and will be whispered of
the best of men. Of course you would never believe them in this case:
but a kidnapper from Georgia might; "distance lends" illusion, as well
as "enchantment, to the view." But be that as it may, Mr. Hallett (in
1850) appeared to have too much manhood to kidnap a man. He was better
than his reputation; I mean his reputation with Knight and Hughes, and
would not (then) steal Mr. and Mrs. Craft. This is small praise; it is
large in comparison with the conduct of his official brethren. But
for the salvation of the Union another Commissioner was found who had
no such scruples. This Honorable Court--Mr. Woodbury was then in the
chief place, and Mr. Sprague in his present position--issued the writ
of man-stealing. Two gentlemen of this city were eminently, but
secretly, active in their attempt to kidnap their victim. I shall
speak of them by and by. Somebody took care of Ellen Craft. William
less needed help; he armed himself with pistols and a poignard, and
walked in the streets in the face of the sun. He was a tall, brave
man, and was quite as cool then as this Honorable Court is now, while
I relate their "glorious first essay" in man-stealing. Public opinion
at length drove the (southern) kidnappers from Boston. Then the Crafts
also left the town and the country, and found in the Monarchical
Aristocracy of Old England what the New England Democracy refused to
allow them--protection of their unalienable right to Life, Liberty,
and the pursuit of Happiness.
Gentlemen, the Evangelists of slavery could not allow a Southern
kidnapper to come to Boston and not steal his man: they were in great
wrath at the defeat of Hughes and Knights. So they procured a meeting
at Faneuil Hall to make ready for effectual kidnapping and restoring
Slavery to Boston. "The great Union meeting" was held at Faneuil Hall
November 26th, 1850,--two days before the annual Thanksgiving; it was
"a preparatory meeting" to make ready the hearts of the People for
that dear New England festival when we thank God for the Harvest of
the Land, and the Harvest of the Sea, and still more for the State
whose laws are Righteousness, and the Church that offers us "the
Liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free," "the glorious Liberty of
the Sons of God." Here are the Resolutions which were passed.
"Resolved, That the preservation of the Constitution and the
Union is the paramount duty of all citizens;--that the
blessings which have flowed from them in times past, which
the whole country is now enjoying under them, and which we
firmly believe posterity will derive from them hereafter,
are incalculable; and that they vastly transcend in
importance all other political objects and considerations
whatever.
"Resolved, That it would be folly to deny that there has
been and still is danger to the existence of the Union,
where there is prevalent so much of a spirit of disunion,
constantly weakening its strength and alienating the minds
of one part of the people of the United States from another;
and that if this spirit be not checked and restrained, and
do not give way to a spirit of conciliation and of patriotic
devotion to the general good of the whole country, we cannot
expect a long continuance of the political tie which has
hitherto made us one people; but must rather look to see
groups of rival neighboring republics, whose existence will
be a state of perpetual conflict and open war.
"Resolved, That all the provisions of the Constitution of
the United States--the supreme law of the land--are equally
binding upon every citizen, and upon every State in the
Union;--that ALL laws passed by Congress, in pursuance of
the Constitution, are equally binding on all the citizens,
and no man is at liberty to resist or disobey any one
constitutional act of Congress any more than another; and
that we do not desire or intend to claim the benefit of any
one of the powers or advantages of the Constitution, and to
refuse, or seem to refuse, to perform any part of its
duties, or to submit to any part of its obligations.
"Resolved, That the adjustment of the measures which
disturbed the action of Congress for nearly ten months of
its last session, ought to be carried out by the people of
the United States in good faith, in all the substantial
provisions; _because_, although we may differ with each
other about the details of those measures, yet, in our
judgment, a renewed popular agitation of any of the main
questions then settled, would be fraught with new and
extreme dangers to the peace and harmony of the country,
which this adjustment has happily restored.
"Resolved, That every species and form of resistance to the
execution of a regularly enacted law, except by peaceable
appeal to the regular action of the judicial tribunals upon
the question of its constitutionality--an appeal which ought
never to be opposed or impeded--is mischievous, and
subversive of the first principles of social order, and
tends to anarchy and bloodshed.
"Resolved, That men, who directly or indirectly instigate or
encourage those who are or may be the subjects of legal
process, to offer violent resistance to the officers of the
law, deserve the reprehension of an indignant community, and
the severest punishment which its laws have provided for
their offence; and that we have entire confidence that any
combination or attempt to fix such a blot upon the fair fame
of our State or city, will be promptly rebuked and punished,
by an independent and impartial judiciary, and by firm and
enlightened juries.
"Resolved, That we will at all times, in all places, and
under all circumstances, so far as our acts or influence may
extend, sustain the Federal Union, uphold its Constitution,
and enforce the duty of obedience to the laws."
A singular preparation for a Thanksgiving day in Boston! But on that
festival, Gentlemen, three Unitarian ministers thanked God that the
fugitive slave bill would be kept in all the land!
Several speeches were made at the meeting, some by Whigs, some by
Democrats, for it was a "Union meeting," where Herod and Pilate were
made friends. Gentlemen, I must depart a little from the severity of
this defence and indulge you with some of the remarks of my
distinguished opponent, Hon. Attorney Hallett: then he was merely a
lawyer, and fugitive slave bill Commissioner, appointed "to take bail,
affidavits," and colored men,--he was only an expectant Attorney. His
speech was a forerunner of the "Indictment" which has brought us
together. Hearken to the words of Mr. Hallett in his "preparatory
lecture:"--
"We can now say that there is no law of the United States
which cannot be executed in Massachusetts. If there was any
doubt before, _there can be no doubt now_; and if there be
any wild enough hereafter to resort to a fancied 'Higher
Law' to put down law [that is, the fugitive slave bill],
they will find in your determined will a stronger law to
sustain _all the laws of the United States_." "The
threatened nullification comes from Massachusetts upon a law
[the fugitive slave bill] which the whole South insist is
_vital to the protection of their property and industry_
[much of their "property" and "industry" being addicted to
running away]. _And shall Massachusetts nullify that law?_"
"The question for us to-day is whether we will in good
faith abide by, and carry out these _Peace Measures_ [for
the rendition of fugitive slaves, the new establishment of
Slavery in Utah and New Mexico, and the restoration of it to
all the North] or whether we shall rush into renewed
agitation," etc. "Resort is had to a new form of _moral
treason_ which assumes by the mysterious power of a '_Higher
Law_' to trample down all law [that is, the fugitive slave
bill]. Some of our fellow-citizens have avowed that the
fugitive slave bill is to be treated like the _Stamp Act_,
and never to be enforced in Massachusetts. If that means any
thing, it means that which our fathers meant when they
resisted the Stamp Act and threw the tea
overboard--Revolution.[181] _It_ [opposition to the fugitive
slave bill] _is revolution, or it is treason. If it only
resists law, and obstructs its officers, it is treason; and
he who risks it, must risk hanging for it._"[182]
[Footnote 181: The learned counsel for the fugitive slave bill
confounds two events. The Stamp Act was passed March 22d, 1765, and
repealed the 28th of the next March. The tea was destroyed December
16th, 1773.]
[Footnote 182: Report in Boston Courier of November 27th, 1850.]
Gentlemen, that meeting determined to execute the fugitive slave bill
"with all its provisions, to the fullest extent." It is dreadful to
remember the articles in the Daily Advertiser and the Courier at that
period. Some of the sermons in the Churches of Commerce on the
following Thursday, Thanksgiving day, were filled with the most odious
doctrines of practical atheism. The "preparatory meeting" had its
effect. Soon the seed bore fruit after its kind. But some ministers
were faithful to their Brother and their Lord.
(2.) February 15th, 1851, a colored man named "Shadrach" was arrested
under a warrant from that Commissioner who had been so active in the
attempt to kidnap Mr. and Mrs. Craft. But a "miracle" was wrought:
"where sin abounded Grace did much more abound," and "the Lord
delivered him out of their hands." Shadrach went free to Canada, where
he is now a useful citizen. He was rescued by a small number of
colored persons at noonday. The kidnapping Commissioner telegraphed to
Mr. Webster, "It is levying war--it is treason." Another asked, "What
is to be done?" The answer from Washington was, "Mr. Webster was very
much mortified."
On the 18th, President Fillmore, at Mr. Webster's instigation, issued
his proclamation calling on all well disposed citizens, and
_commanding all officers_, "civil and military, to aid and assist in
quelling this, and all other such combinations, _and to assist in
recapturing the above-named person_" Shadrach. General orders came
down from the Secretaries of War and the Navy, commanding the
_military and naval officers to yield all practicable assistance_ in
the event of such another "_insurrection_." The City Government of
Boston passed Resolutions regretting that a man had been saved from
the shackles of slavery; cordially approving of the President's
proclamation, and promising their earnest efforts to carry out his
recommendations. At that time Hon. Mr. Tukey was Marshal; Hon. John P.
Bigelow was Mayor; Hon. Henry J. Gardner, a man equally remarkable for
his temperance, truthfulness, and general integrity, was President of
the Common Council.
It was not long, Gentlemen, before the City Government had an
opportunity to keep its word.
(3.) On the night of the 3d of April, 1851, Thomas Sims was kidnapped
by two police officers of Boston, pretending to arrest him for theft!
Gentlemen of the Jury, you know the rest. He was on trial nine days.
He never saw the face of a jury, a judge only once--who refused the
_Habeas Corpus_, the great "Writ of Right." That judge--I wish his
successors may better serve mankind--has gone to his own place; where,
may God Almighty have mercy on his soul! You remember, Gentlemen, the
chains round the Court House; the Judges of your own Supreme Court
crawling under the southern chain. You do not forget the "Sims
Brigade"--citizen soldiers called out and billeted in Faneuil Hall.
You recollect the Cradle of Liberty shut to a Free Soil Convention,
but open to those hirelings of the Slave Master. You will never forget
the Pro-Slavery Sermons that stained so many Boston pulpits on the
"Fast-day" which intervened during the mock trial!
Mr. Sims had able defenders,--I speak now only of such as appeared on
his behalf, others not less noble and powerful, aided by their
unrecorded service--Mr. Sewall, Mr. Rantoul, men always on the side of
Liberty, and one more from whose subsequent conduct, Gentlemen of the
Jury, I grieve to say it, you would not expect such magnanimity then,
Mr. Charles G. Loring. But of what avail was all this before such a
Commissioner? Thomas Sims was declared "a chattel personal to all
intents, uses, and purposes whatsoever." After it became plain that he
would be decreed a slave, the poor victim of Boston kidnappers asked
one boon of his counsel, "I cannot go back to Slavery," said he, "give
me a knife, and when the Commissioner declares me a slave I will stab
myself to the heart, and die before his eyes! I will not be a slave."
The knife was withheld! At the darkest hour of the night Mayor Bigelow
and Marshal Tukey, suitable companions, admirably joined by nature as
by vocation, with two or three hundred police-men armed, some with
bludgeons, some with drawn swords and horse pistols, took the poor boy
out of his cell, chained, weeping, and bore him over the spot where,
on the 5th of March, 1770, the British tyrant first shed New England
blood; by another spot where your fathers and mine threw to the ocean
the taxed tea of the oppressor. They put him on board a vessel, the
"_Acorn_," and carried him off to eternal bondage. "And this is
Massachusetts liberty!" said he, as he stepped on board. Boston sent
her Delegates to escort him back, and on the 19th of April, 1851, she
delivered him up to his tormentors in the jail at Savannah, where he
was scourged till human nature could bear no more, while his captors
were feasted at the public cost. Seventy-six years before there was
another 19th of April, also famous!
(4.) Then came the examination and "trial" of the Shadrach Rescuers in
February and the following months. Some of these trials took place
before his Honor Judge Peleg Sprague. Therefore, you will allow me,
Gentlemen, to refresh your memories with a word or two respecting the
antecedents of this Judge--his previous history.
In 1835 the abolition of Slavery in the British West Indies and the
efforts of the friends of Freedom in the Northern States, excited
great alarm at the South, lest the "peculiar institution" should
itself be brought into peril. Fear of a "general insurrection of the
slaves" was talked about and perhaps felt. The mails were opened in
search of "incendiary publications;" a piano-forte sent from Boston to
Virginia, was returned because the purchaser found an old copy of the
"Emancipator" in the case which contained it. Public meetings for the
promotion of American Slavery were held. There was one at Boston in
Faneuil Hall, August 21, 1835, at which a remarkable speech was made
by a lawyer who had graduated at Harvard College in 1812, a man no
longer young, of large talents and great attainments in the law. He
spoke against discussion, and in behalf of Slavery and Slaveholders:
he could see no good, but only unmixed evil "consequent upon agitating
this subject here." He said:--
"When did fear ever induce a man to relax his power over the
object that excited it? No, he will hold him down with a
stronger grasp, he will draw the cords tighter, he will make
the chains heavier and sink his victim to a still deeper
dungeon."
"The language and measures of the abolitionists clearly tend
to insurrection and violence." "They [the slaves] hear that
their masters have no legal or moral authority over them.
That every moment's exercise of such dominion is sin, and
that the laws that sanction it are morally void: that they
are entitled to immediate emancipation, and that their
masters are to be regarded as kidnappers and robbers for
refusing it." "It is deluding these unfortunate beings to
their own destruction, we should not aid them. The
Constitution provides for the suppressing of insurrections
... we should respond to its call [if the slaves attempted
to recover their liberty]; nay, we should not wait for such
a requisition, but on the instant should rush forward with
fraternal emotions to defend our brethren from desolation
and massacre."
"The South will not tolerate our interference with their
slaves, [by our discussing the matter in the newspapers and
elsewhere]." "The Union then, if used to disturb this
institution of Slavery, will be then as the 'spider's web; a
breath will agitate, a blast will sweep it away forever.'"
"If, then, these abolitionists shall go on ... the fate of
our government is sealed.... And who will attempt to fathom
the immeasurable abyss of a dissolution of the Union?"
"Tell the abolitionists this; present to them in full array
the consequences of their attempts at immediate
emancipation, and they meet all by a cold abstraction. They
answer, '_We must do right regardless of consequences._'"
"They assume that such a course [undoing the heavy burthens
and letting the oppressed go free, and loving your neighbor
as yourself] _is_ right. When that is the very point in
controversy, and when inevitable consequences demonstrate
that it must be wrong."
"They [the abolitionists] insist upon immediate,
instantaneous emancipation.... No man, say they, can be
rightfully restrained of his liberty except for crime."
"They come to the conclusion that no laws that sanction or
uphold it [Slavery] can have any moral obligation. The
Constitution is the Supreme law of the land. It does
sanction, it does uphold Slavery; and if this doctrine be
true, that sacred compact has always been [so far] morally
null and void." "He [Washington] THAT SLAVEHOLDER ... came
with other Slaveholders to drive the British myrmidons from
this city and this Hall. Our fathers did not refuse to hold
communion with him or with them. With Slaveholders they
formed the Confederation ... with them they made the
Declaration of Independence." "And in the original draft of
the Declaration was contained a most _eloquent passage upon
this very topic of negro Slavery, which was stricken out in
deference to the wishes of members from the South_."
"Slavery existed then as now." "Our fathers were not less
devoted friends of liberty, not less pure as philanthropists
or pious as Christians than any of their children of the
present day." [Therefore _we_ must not attempt to emancipate
a slave!]
Here is the passage which the speaker thought it so praiseworthy in
the Revolutionary Congress to strike out from the Declaration of
Independence:--
"He [the king] has waged cruel war against human nature
itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty
in the persons of a distant people who never offended him,
captivating and carrying them into slavery in another
hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their
transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the
opprobrium of INFIDEL nations, is the warfare of the
CHRISTIAN King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a
market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has
prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative
attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce.
And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of
distinguished dye, he is now exciting those very people to
rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which
he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he
also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed
against the LIBERTIES of one people with crimes which he
urges them to commit against the LIVES of another."
Mr. Jefferson says, "It was struck out in _compliance to South
Carolina and Georgia_, who had never attempted to restrain the
importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, still wished to
continue it. Our Northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little
tender under it, for though their people have very few slaves
themselves, yet they have been pretty considerable carriers of them to
others."
* * * * *
But the orator went on protesting against righteousness:--
"I would beseech them [the Abolitionists] to discard their
dangerous abstractions [that men are endowed by their
Creator with certain natural, equal, and unalienable
Rights--to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness]
which they [in common with the Declaration of Independence]
adopt as universal rules of human conduct--without regard to
time, condition, or circumstances; which _darken the
understanding and mislead the judgment_, and urge them
forward to consequences from which they will shrink back
with horror. I would ask them to reflect that ... the
religion they profess is not to be advanced by forgetting
the precepts and the example of their Divine Master. Upon
that example I would ask them to pause. He found Slavery,
Roman Slavery, an institution of the country in which he
lived. Did he denounce it? Did he attempt its immediate
abolition? Did he do any thing, or say any thing which could
in its remotest tendency encourage resistance and violence?
No, his precept was, 'Servants (Slaves) obey your
Masters.'"[183] "It was because _he would not interfere with
the administration of the laws, or abrogate their
authority_."
[Footnote 183: The learned counsel for the slaveholders probably
referred to Eph. vi. 5; or Coloss. iii. 22; or Tit. ii. 9; or 1 Pet.
ii. 18.]
Gentlemen of the Jury, this alleged precept of the "Divine Master"
does not occur in any one of the four canonical Evangelists of the New
Testament; nor have I found it in any of those Spurious and Apocryphal
Records of old time. It appears originally in the Gospel according to
the Hon. Peleg Sprague. "Slaves, obey your masters," "a comfortable
Scripture" truly; a beatitude for the stealers of men!
Gentlemen of the Jury, that was the language of Mr. Peleg Sprague at
the time when the State of Georgia offered $5,000 for the head of Mr.
Garrison; when the Governors of Virginia and other Slave States, sent
letters to the Governor of Massachusetts asking for "penal statutes"
to prohibit our discussion in Boston; it was the very year that a mob
of "Gentlemen of Property and Standing" in Boston broke up a meeting
of women assembled to endeavor to abolish Slavery. Gentlemen of the
Jury, Mr. Sprague had his reward--he sits on the bench to try me for a
"misdemeanor"--"obstructing, resisting, and opposing an officer of the
United States," "while in the discharge of his duty" to steal a man in
Boston, that his "owner" might sell him in Richmond. The "chief
commandment" of the New Testament is, "Slaves, obey your masters;" on
that commandment he would now hang all the law, and the Abolitionists.
It would take a long time to tell the dark, sad tale of the trial of
the Shadrach Rescuers; how the Judge constructed and charged the Jury;
how he constructed his "law." It was the old story of the Stuart
despotism, wickedness in the name of the law and with its forms.
Gentlemen, in that trial you saw the value of the jury. The Judges of
Massachusetts went under the chain which the kidnappers placed about
the Court House in 1851. The Federal Judges sought to kidnap the
citizens of Boston and to punish all such as opposed man-stealing. The
Massachusetts Judges allowed the law, which they had sworn to execute,
to be struck down to the ground; nay, themselves sought to strike it
down. The Federal Judges perverted the law to make it an instrument of
torture against all such as love mankind. But the jury held up the
Shield of Justice, and the poisoned weapons of the court fell blunted
to the ground. The government took nothing by that motion--nothing but
defeat. There was no conviction. One of the jurors said, "You may get
one Hunker on any panel; it is not easy to get twelve. There was no
danger of a conviction." But still it is painful to think in what
peril our lives and our liberties then were.
(5.) At length came the "Burns case." You know it too well. On the
night of Wednesday, May 26, 1854, in virtue of Commissioner Loring's
warrant, Anthony Burns was arrested on the charge of burglary, and
thrust into jail. The next morning he was brought up for condemnation.
Two noble men, Mr. Dana and my friend Mr. Ellis, defended Mr. Burns.
There was to be no regular trial before Commissioner Loring.
On the evening of Friday, May 28th, there was a meeting at Faneuil
Hall, and an attack on the Court House where Mr. Burns was illegally
held in duress. In the attack a Mr. Batchelder was killed,--a man
hired to aid in this kidnapping, as he had been in the stealing of Mr.
Sims. To judge from the evidence offered before the Grand-Jury of the
Massachusetts Court, and especially from the testimony of Marshal
Freeman, it appears he was accidentally killed by some of his own
confederates in that wickedness, and before the door of the Court
House was broken through. But that is of no consequence: as Mr. Dana
has said, "He went in for his pay, and has got his _corn_." On Friday,
June 4th, Mr. Burns was declared a slave by Commissioner Loring and
delivered up to eternal bondage.