An able-bodied colored man sells in the southern market for from
eight hundred to a thousand dollars; of course he is worth stealing.
Colonizationists and slaveholders, and many northern divines,
solemnly affirm, that the situation of a slave is far preferable to
that of a free negro; hence it would seem an act of humanity to
convert the latter into the former. Kidnapping being both a
lucrative and a benevolent business, it is not strange it should be
extensively practised. In many of the States this business is
regulated by law, and there are various ways in which the
transmutation is legally effected. Thus, in South Carolina, if a
free negro "entertains" a runaway slave, it may be his own wife or
child, he himself is turned into a slave. In 1827, a _free woman
and her three children_ underwent this benevolent process, for
_entertaining_ two fugitive children of six and nine years old. In
Virginia all emancipated slaves remaining twelve months in the State,
are kindly restored to their former condition. In Maryland a free
negro who marries a white woman, thereby acquires all the privileges
of a slave--and generally, throughout the slave region, including
the District of Columbia, every negro not known to be free, is
mercifully considered as a slave, and if his master cannot be
ascertained, he is thrown into a dungeon, and there kept, till by a
public sale a master can be provided for him. But often the law
grants to colored men, _known to be free_, all the advantages of
slavery. Thus, in Georgia, every _free_ colored man coming into the
State, and unable to pay a fine of one hundred dollars, becomes a
slave for life; in Florida, insolvent debtors, if _black_, are SOLD
for the benefit of their creditors; and in the District of Columbia
a free colored man, thrown into jail on suspicion of being a slave
and proving his freedom, is required by law to be sold as a slave,
if too poor to pay his jail fees. Let it not be supposed that these
laws are all obsolete and inoperative. They catch many a northern
negro, who, in pursuit of his own business, or on being decoyed
by others ventures to enter the slave region; and who, of course,
helps to augment the wealth of our southern brethren. On the 6th
of March, 1839, a report by a Committee was made to the House of
Representatives of the Massachusetts Legislature, in which are given
the _names_ of seventeen free colored men who had been enslaved at
the south. It also states an instance in which twenty-five colored
citizens, belonging to Massachusetts, were confined at one time in a
southern jail, and another instance in which 75 free colored persons
from different free States were confined, all preparatory to their
sale as slaves according to law.
The facts disclosed in this report induced the Massachusetts
Legislature to pass a resolution protesting against the kidnapping
laws of the slave States, "as invading the sacred rights of citizens
of this commonwealth, as contrary to the Constitution of the United
States, and in utter derogation of that great principle of the
common law which presumes every person to be innocent until proved
to be guilty;" and ordered the protest to be forwarded to the
Governors of the several States.
But it is not at the south alone that freemen may be converted into
slaves "according to law." The Act of Congress respecting the
recovery of fugitive slaves, affords most extraordinary facilities
for this process, through official corruption and individual perjury.
By this Act, the claimant is permitted to _select_ a justice of the
peace, before whom he may bring or send his alleged slave, and even
to prove his property by _affidavit_. Indeed, in almost every State
in the Union, a slaveholder may recover at law a human being as his
beast of burden with far less ceremony than he could his pig from
the possession of his neighbor. In only three States is a man,
claimed as a slave, entitled to a trial by jury. At the last session
of the New York Legislature a bill allowing a jury trial in such
cases was passed by the lower House, but rejected by a _democratic_
vote in the Senate, democracy in that State, being avowedly only
_skin_ deep, all its principles of liberty, equality, and human rights
depending on complexion.
Considering the wonderful ease and expedition with which fugitives
may be recovered by law, it would be very strange if mistakes did not
sometimes occur. _How_ often they occur cannot, of course, be known,
and it is only when a claim is _defeated_, that we are made sensible
of the exceedingly precarious tenure by which a poor friendless
negro at the north holds his personal liberty. A few years since, a
girl of the name of Mary Gilmore was arrested in Philadelphia, as a
fugitive slave from Maryland. Testimony was not wanting in support
of the claim; yet it was most conclusively proved that she was the
daughter of poor _Irish_ parents--having not a drop of negro blood
in her veins--that the father had absconded, and that the mother had
died a drunkard in the Philadelphia hospital, and that the infant
had been kindly received and _brought up in a colored family_. Hence
the attempt to make a slave of her. In the spring of 1839, a colored
man was arrested in Philadelphia, on a charge of having absconded
from his owner _twenty-three_ years before. This man had a wife and
family depending upon him, and a home where he enjoyed their society;
and yet, unless he could find witnesses who could prove his freedom
for more than this number of years, he was to be torn from his wife,
his children, his home, and doomed for the remainder of his days to
toil under the lash. _Four_ witnesses for the claimant swore to his
identity, although they had not seen him before for twenty-three years!
By a most extraordinary coincidence, a New England Captain, with
whom this negro had sailed _twenty-nine_ years before, in a sloop
from Nantucket, happened at this very time to be confined for debt
in the same prison with the alleged slave, and the Captain's
testimony, together with that of some other witnesses, who had
known the man previous to his pretended elopement, so fully
established his freedom, that the Court discharged him.
Another mode of legal kidnapping still remains to be described. By
the Federal Constitution, fugitives from _justice_ are to be
delivered up, and under this constitutional provision, a free negro
may be converted into a slave without troubling even a Justice of
the Peace to hear the evidence of the captor's claim. A fugitive
slave is, of course, a felon--he not only steals himself, but also
the rags on his back which belong to his master. It is understood he
has taken refuge in New York, and his master naturally wishes to
recover him with as little noise, trouble, and delay as possible.
The way is simple and easy. Let the Grand Jury indict A.B. for
stealing wearing apparel, and let the indictment, with an affidavit
of the criminal's flight, be forwarded by the Governor of the State,
to his Excellency of New York, with a requisition for the delivery
of A.B., to the agent appointed to receive him. A warrant is, of
course, issued to "any Constable of the State of New York," to
arrest A.B. For what purpose?--to bring him before a magistrate
where his identity may be established?--no, but to deliver him up to
the foreign agent. Hence, the Constable may pick up the first likely
negro he finds in the street, and ship him to the south; and should
it be found, on his arrival on the plantation, that the wrong man
has come, it will also probably be found that the mistake is of no
consequence to the planter. A few years since, the Governor of New
York signed a warrant for the apprehension of 17 Virginia negroes,
as fugitives from justice.[103] Under this warrant, a man who had
lived in the neighborhood for three years, and had a wife and
children, and who claimed to be free, was seized, on a Sunday evening,
in the public highway, in West Chester County, N.Y., and without
being permitted to take leave of his family, was instantly
hand-cuffed, thrown into a carriage, and hurried to New York, and
the next morning was on his voyage to Virginia.
[Footnote 103: There is no evidence that he knew they were negroes;
or that he acted otherwise than in perfect good faith. The alleged
crime was stealing a boat. The _real_ crime, it is said, was
stealing themselves and escaping in a boat. The most horrible abuses
of these warrants can only be prevented by requiring proof of
identity before delivery.]
Free colored men are converted into slaves not only by law, but also
contrary to law. It is, of course, difficult to estimate the extent
to which illegal kidnapping is carried, since a large number of
cases must escape detection. In a work published by Judge Stroud, of
Philadelphia, in 1827, he states, that it had been _ascertained_
that more than _thirty_ free colored persons, mostly children, had
been kidnapped in that city within the last two years.[104]
[Footnote 104: Stroud's Sketch of the Slave Laws, p. 94.]