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Fugitive Slaves (1619-1865). Marion Gleason McDougall
Читать онлайн.Название Fugitive Slaves (1619-1865)
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isbn 4064066398842
Автор произведения Marion Gleason McDougall
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
In 1841 Mr. Woodbridge submitted a resolution to the Senate requesting the Committee on Foreign Relations to consider the expediency of entering into an arrangement with Great Britain for the arrest of fugitive slaves charged with crime who might escape over the northern boundary of the United States.127 No action was taken upon the resolution.
The North, however, was not the only region to which slaves were fleeing at this time. Complaint was heard after 1830, that the "freedom and equality granted blacks by the Mexican Constitution and law of 1829, was attracting large numbers of slaves from Louisiana,"128 while in Florida the Seminole trouble was not yet ended.
The last case of this kind occurred just at the outbreak of the Civil War. A slave by the name of Anderson was found one day by Mr. Seneca T. P. Diggs, wandering about his plantation in Howard County, Missouri, without a pass. Mr. Diggs thereupon arrested him as a fugitive slave. In the struggle which followed, the desperate runaway plunged a knife into Mr. Diggs's heart. His captor dead, Anderson hastened on to Canada.129 There he lived a quiet and industrious life until 1860, when the American government called upon Canada, under the extradition treaty, to give up Anderson for punishment. He was arrested, but applied to the Toronto court for a writ of habeas corpus, which was refused. An appeal was immediately made to the Queen's Bench, England, which granted the writ.130 In the trial Anderson was defended by Mr. Gerrit Smith in an eloquent speech, which made a great impression, and was circulated all over the United States.131 The prisoner was discharged on a technical point.132
§ 24. Status of fugitives on the high seas.—When in 1830 gradual emancipation began in the British colonies, and in 1837 slavery ceased to exist there, a new set of complications arose. American vessels carrying slaves from one part of the United States to another were repeatedly driven or conveyed into British ports, and the slaves were there treated as ordinary fugitives, that is, as free men. Thus the Comet in 1830,133 and the Encomium in 1834,134 were cast away on the Bahamas, and the slaves on board could not be recovered. In 1835 the Enterprise was forced by stress of weather to enter a port of the Bermudas,135 and the officers were not permitted by the British authorities to restrain the persons on board.
In none of these three cases were the negroes restored; but in 1840 the British government paid an indemnity for the first two cargoes, on the ground that at the time of the wrecks slavery had not yet been completely extinguished in the colonies.136 No indemnity was allowed in the Enterprise case, and the British government declared that it could assume no responsibility in cases arising since the abolition of slavery.137 Elaborate resolutions introduced by Calhoun, March 4, 1840, and passed, April 15, by a unanimous vote of the Senate, condemned the British principle.138 But when, in the next year, the slaves on board the American ship Creole rose and by force carried her into Nassau,139 the British government refused to return them either as slaves or as murderers.140 Webster, as Secretary of State, strenuously urged the surrender. In 1853, an arbitrator decided that an indemnity must be paid to the American government.141 On the other hand, when, in 1839, a Spanish vessel, L'Amistad, in which the slaves on board had revolted and killed their master, was brought into an American port, the Supreme Court refused to permit their surrender, on the ground that they were free by Spanish law, and therefore could not be tried for murder.142
Kidnapping from 1793–1850. Prigg Case.
§ 25. Kidnapping from 1793 to 1850: Prigg case.—Since slavery was now extinct in the more northern States, their population contained many free negroes. Upon them the eyes of the slave trader were often turned, as easy prey under the law of 1793, and many cases of kidnapping occurred. It was such instances, involving as they did the most manifest injustice and cruelty, that first aroused the sympathies of the people.143 The border States like Pennsylvania were often the scene of these acts. The neighboring white families first began to try to protect the negroes settled near them, and a little later to give a helping hand to those escaping from slavery, and at last, in the underground railroad,144 to complete a systematic organization for the assistance of fugitives. Cases of kidnapping are recorded as early as 1808.145 In 1832 the carrying away of a black woman without process of law not only roused the people of Pennsylvania, but led to a decision which took away much of the force of the act of 1793.
A slave woman, Margaret Morgan, had fled from Maryland to Pennsylvania. Five years later, in 1837, Edward Prigg, an attorney, caused her to be arrested and sent back to her mistress without recourse either to the national or State act on the subject. In the act he disregarded a law of Pennsylvania, brought about in 1826 through the efforts of the Society for the Abolition of Slavery, which forbade the carrying out of the State of any negro with the intention of enslaving him. Accordingly, Mr. Prigg was arrested and convicted in the county court. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania sustained the decision. Thence the case was taken to the Supreme Court of the United States. There the counsel for Mr. Prigg argued that the statute of Pennsylvania on which the indictment was founded was unconstitutional, since it conflicted with the law of 1793. Justice Story delivered the opinion of the court, and upon this decision all future judgments were based. He announced that the law must be carried out through national authorities alone; the States or State magistrates could not be forced into action.146 After this, many States, seeing the advantage thus given them, passed laws which forbade the officers to aid in a fugitive slave case, and also denied the use of their jails for imprisonment.147 Plainly the Prigg case showed a growing indisposition on the part of the States to carry out the law, however severe its provisions might be; and this disposition to evade its obligations is still further evidenced by the cases given in the next chapter.
§ 26. Necessity of more stringent fugitive slave provisions.—The increasing number of rescues,148 and the occurrence of several cases of resistance, proved conclusively the inadequacy of the law of 1793. After the Prigg decision the provisions made for its execution through national powers were entirely insufficient. Underlying all these acts, the South also could but perceive a sentiment the growth of which, unless checked in some way, would at last permanently injure, if not destroy, their peculiar institution.
§ 27. Action of Congress from 1847 to 1850.—From 1822 until 1848 apparently no effort was made to secure a new law. Then a petition received in 1847 from the Legislature of Kentucky, urging the importance of passing such laws as would enable the citizens of slaveholding States to recover their slaves when they escaped into non-slaveholding States,149 gave rise to a bill from the Committee on the Judiciary.150 The bill provided "for the more effectual execution of the third clause of the second section of the Fourth Article of the Constitution."151 It passed only to the second reading. In 1849, Mr. Meade proposed in the House to instruct the Committee on the Judiciary to report a fugitive slave bill.152 No report apparently was ever made, but this was the last ineffectual proposition. In 1850, a new law was successfully carried in both Houses.
§ 28. Slavery in the District of Columbia.—During this period, from 1840 to 1850, the subject of slavery and fugitives in the District of Columbia began to occasion debate, which was never long silenced. It was notorious that almost under the windows of the Capitol negroes were confined in public jails on the ground that they were fugitives; and that a free negro so confined might be sold for his jail fees. Resolutions for an investigation of the condition of