Prosecutions. Act of 1850.
§ 49. Prosecutions.—The effects of the aid and protection thus given fugitives by Northern people or governments awakened among the slaveholders a feeling of wrong and indignation. The Fugitive Slave Law was clear, and they determined to carry it out to the letter. They began, therefore, energetically to prosecute people for aiding and harboring escaping slaves. The case just mentioned shows how difficult it was to secure prosecutions beyond the State boundaries. When the offence occurred within the bounds of a slave State, the judgments were most severe, and the heaviest possible fines and longest terms of imprisonment were inflicted for simple acts of charity.
§ 50. Van Zandt, Pearl, and Walker cases.—Mr. Van Zandt, returning into the country from Cincinnati one day in 1840, took nine fugitive slaves from Kentucky into his farm wagon. He was stopped by three persons, and all but two of the slaves were recaptured. Mr. Van Zandt was arrested, taken into court, and fined twelve thousand dollars, which exhausted his entire property.[186]
A still more severe penalty was that imposed upon Captain Drayton, of the schooner Pearl, in 1848. He took on board seventy-five fugitive slaves, and sailed up the Potomac. An armed steamer, sent in pursuit, overtook them and brought them back. Captain Drayton and another officer of the schooner were placed in prison, where they remained for twenty years, and at last were relieved only through the efforts of Charles Sumner.[187]
Another instance of the same sort is the case of Mr. Jonathan Walker, in 1844. With seven fugitives he embarked from Pensacola in an open boat for the Bahama Islands, but he received a sun-stroke and was obliged to leave the management of the craft in the hands of the negroes. On account of the accident, they were overtaken by two sloops, and both fugitives and their protector captured. Mr. Walker was twice tried, imprisoned, sentenced to stand in the pillory, and branded on the hand with the letters S. S., slave stealer.[188] The crime and the punishment have alike been glorified in Whittier's verses:—
"Then lift that manly right hand, bold ploughman of the wave!
"Its branded hand shall prophesy 'Salvation to the Slave!'
"Hold up its fire-wrought language that whoso reads may feel
"His heart swell strong within him, his sinews change to steel."[189]
§ 51. Unpopularity of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.—The passage of the new law probably increased the number of antislavery people more than anything else which had occurred during the whole agitation. Many of those formerly indifferent were roused to active opposition by a sense of the injustice of the Fugitive Slave Act as they saw it executed in Boston and elsewhere. Hence, in the cases of the period from 1850 to the outbreak of the Civil War, we shall find a new element. The antislavery party, grown strong, resisted the regulations, and instead of the unquestioned return of a fugitive, as in colonial times, or of prosecutions carried on under the simple conditions of the act of 1793, the struggle became long and complex. In fact during this time hardly an important case can be cited in which there was not some opposition to the natural course of the law. These exasperating effects were not at first apparent to the South, since before the famous rescues began several cases of rendition showed the power of the Executive. As the escapes grew more and more frequent yearly, increasing all the time in boldness, the slaveholders put forth greater efforts to punish the offenders, and prosecutions were numerous. But the "new law had no moral foundation," and against such an act public sentiment must sooner or later revolt, no matter how severe may be its provisions.[190] As Mr. James Freeman Clarke has said, "It was impossible to convince the people that it was right to send back to slavery men who were so desirous of freedom as to run such risks. All education from boyhood up to manhood had taught us to believe that it was the duty of all men to struggle for freedom."[191]
§ 52. Principle of the selection of cases.—The large number of cases occurring between 1850 and 1860 renders it impossible to present a detailed account of them all in a brief monograph. The selection, therefore, includes only such as are typical of the various phases of the agitation.
§ 53. Hamlet case (1850).—The first recorded action under the provisions of the law of 1850 took place on the 26th of September of that year, just eight days after the passage of the act. James Hamlet, a free negro, who with his family had been living for several years in New York, was on that day arrested by a deputy United States Marshal as the fugitive slave of Mary Brown of Baltimore. After a hasty examination by Commissioner Gardiner, he was surrendered in accordance with the new law. These proceedings were not sufficiently well known at the time to excite a mob, but when discovered they roused so strong a feeling that the money necessary to redeem Hamlet was almost immediately raised, and on the 5th of October he was brought back from slavery.[192]