Garner and Shadrach.
§ 56. Garner case (1856).—Of all the cases of rendition, the saddest, and next to the Burns case probably the best known at the time, was that of Margaret Garner. In accounts of the Underground Railroad we are told that winter was the favorite season for flight in the section of the country south of the Ohio, since ice then covered the river, and the difficulty of crossing by boat did not arise. It was at this season that Simeon Garner, his son Robert, and their families, fled from Kentucky and crossed the frozen stream to the house of a colored man in Cincinnati. They were soon traced thither, and after a desperate hand to hand struggle the house was entered. There the pursuers found that Margaret Garner, preferring for her children death to slavery, had striven to take their lives, and one lay dead. The case was immediately brought into court, where, despite the efforts made to save them, rendition was decided upon. On the way back, Margaret, in despair, attempted to drown herself and her child in the river; but even the deliverance of death was denied her, for she was recovered and sold, to be carried yet farther south.[205]
§ 57. Shadrach case (1851).—In the three typical cases just described, neither the law's delay, violent interference, nor the desperation of the slave, availed to prevent the return of the fugitive to the oppressor. Let us turn from this group, and take up those more important cases wherein the law was not allowed to complete its course, but rescues were accomplished, either by free negroes or antislavery people. First in time and importance comes the case of Shadrach, which occurred in Boston in February, 1851.
In May, 1850, a slave named Frederic Wilkins had run away from Virginia and come to Boston, where he found employment as a waiter in the Cornhill Coffee House under the alias of Shadrach. He had been there not quite a year, however, when John De Bere, his master in Norfolk, sent some one in pursuit of him. A warrant was served and he was arrested while at work. United States Commissioner Riley then took him to the court-house, where Mr. List, a young lawyer of antislavery sympathies, offered his aid as counsel, and Messrs. Charles G. Davis, Samuel E. Sewall, and Ellis Gray Loring also came to his assistance. Mr. List obtained some delay in the proceedings; but since, by the act of 1843,[206] the use of State jails had been denied for fugitives, the officers were obliged to keep the prisoner in the court-room until another place of confinement could be found. By this time a large number of people had gathered about the building, and were trying to force an entrance. For a long time they were unable to enter, but at last opportunity was given as Mr. Davis opened the door to leave the court-room. In spite of all efforts on the part of the officers to close the door, a body of colored people under the lead of Lewis Hayden rushed in and seized the prisoner. They carried him triumphantly out of the court-room on their shoulders, and soon saw him safely started for Canada. Mr. Davis and others were prosecuted for aiding in the rescue, but nothing was proved against them. Intense excitement prevailed in the city, and finally throughout the country, since Congress took up this infringement of the law.[207]
Mr. Clay, February 17, 1851, introduced a resolution which requested the President to send to Congress "any information he may possess in regard to the alleged recent case of a forcible resistance to the execution of the laws of the United States in the city of Boston," and communicate to Congress "what means he has adopted to meet the occurrence," and "whether, in his opinion, any additional legislation is necessary to meet the exigencies of the case."[208] President Pierce then issued a proclamation announcing the facts to the country, and calling on all people to assist in quelling this and other disturbances. The Senate's request was also answered in an Executive message to Congress, which announced to them that the President would use all his constitutional powers to insure the execution of the laws. Such unusual national interference gave the case wide celebrity, and, as Von Holst says, "The pretensions and assumptions of the South were encouraged in a very unwise way, by the fact that, by such a manner of treating the matter, people seemed to recognize that it was entitled to hold the whole North responsible for every violation of the compromise, which could properly be laid at the door of only a few individuals. The proclamation and the message placed the compromise in a far more glaring light than the liberation of Shadrach."[209]