Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White — Volume 1

by Andrew Dickson White

The result of the campaign was that General Taylor was elected, and I recall the feeling of awe and hope with which I gazed upon his war-worn face, for the first and last time, as he stopped to receive the congratulations of the citizens of Syracuse;—hope, alas, soon brought to naught, for he, too, soon succumbed to the pressure of official care, and Millard Fillmore of New York, the Vice- President, reigned in his stead.

I remember Mr. Fillmore well. He was a tall, large, fine-looking man, with a face intelligent and kindly, and he was noted both as an excellent public servant and an effective public speaker. He had been comptroller of the State of New York,—then the most important of State offices, had been defeated as Whig candidate for governor, and had been a representative in Congress. He was the second of the accidental Presidents, and soon felt it his duty to array himself on the side of those who, by compromise with the South on the slavery question, sought to maintain and strengthen the Federal Union. Under him came the compromise measures on which our great statesmen of the middle period of the nineteenth century, Clay, Webster, Calhoun, and Benton, made their last speeches. Mr. Fillmore was undoubtedly led mainly by patriotic motives, in promoting the series of measures which were expected to end all trouble between the North and South, but which, unfortunately, embraced the Fugitive Slave Law; yet this, as I then thought, rendered him accursed. I remember feeling an abhorrence for his very name, and this feeling was increased when there took place, in the city of Syracuse, the famous ``Jerry Rescue.''

CHAPTER IV EARLY MANHOOD—1851-1857

On the first day of October, 1851, there was shuffling about the streets of Syracuse, in the quiet pursuit of his simple avocations, a colored person, as nearly ``of no account'' as any ever seen. So far as was known he had no surname, and, indeed, no Christian name, save the fragment and travesty,—``Jerry.''

Yet before that day was done he was famous; his name, such as it was, resounded through the land; and he had become, in all seriousness, a weighty personage in American history.

Under the law recently passed, he was arrested, openly and in broad daylight, as a fugitive slave, and was carried before the United States commissioner, Mr. Joseph Sabine, a most kindly public officer, who in this matter was sadly embarrassed by the antagonism between his sworn duty and his personal convictions.

Thereby, as was supposed, were fulfilled the Law and the Prophets—the Law being the fugitive slave law recently enacted, and the Prophets being no less than Henry Clay and Daniel Webster.

For, as if to prepare the little city to sacrifice its cherished beliefs, Mr. Clay had some time before made a speech from the piazza of the Syracuse House, urging upon his fellow-citizens the compromises of the Constitution; and some months later Mr. Webster appeared, spoke from a balcony near the City Hall, and to the same purpose; but more so. The latter statesman was prophetic, not only in the hortatory, but in the predictive sense; for he declared not only that the Fugitive Slave Law must be enforced, but that it WOULD be enforced, and he added, in substance: ``it will be enforced throughout the North in spite of all opposition—even in this city— even in the midst of your abolition conventions.'' This piece of prophecy was accompanied by a gesture which seemed to mean much; for the great man's hand was waved toward the City Hall just across the square—the classic seat and center of abolition conventions.

How true is the warning, ``Don't prophesy unless you know!'' The arrest of Jerry took place within six months after Mr. Webster's speech, and indeed while an abolition convention was in session at that same City Hall; but when the news came the convention immediately dissolved, the fire-bells began to ring, a crowd moved upon the commissioner's office, surged into it, and swept Jerry out of the hands of the officers. The authorities having rallied, re-arrested the fugitive, and put him in confinement and in irons. But in the evening the assailants returned to the assault, carried the jail by storm, rescued Jerry for good, and spirited him off safe and sound to Canada, thus bringing to nought the fugitive slave law, as well as the exhortations of Mr. Clay and the predictions of Mr. Webster.

This rescue produced great excitement throughout the nation. Various persons were arrested for taking part in it, and their trials were adjourned from place to place, to the great hardship of all concerned. During a college vacation I was present at one of these trials at Canandaigua, the United States Judge, before whom it was held, being the Hon. N. K. Hall, who had been Mr. Fillmore's law partner in Buffalo. The evening before the trial an anti-slavery meeting was held, which I attended. It was opened with prayer by a bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Loguen, and of all prayers I have ever heard, this dwells in my mind as perhaps the most impressive. The colored minister's petitions for his race, bond and free, for Jerry and for those who had sought to rescue him, for the souls of the kidnappers, and for the country which was to his people a land of bondage, were most pathetic. Then arose Gerrit Smith. Of all Tribunes of the People I have ever known he dwells in my memory as possessing the greatest variety of gifts. He had the prestige given by great wealth, by lavish generosity, by transparent honesty, by earnestness of purpose, by advocacy of every good cause, by a superb presence, and by natural eloquence of a very high order. He was very tall and large, with a noble head, an earnest, yet kindly face, and of all human voices I have ever heard his was the most remarkable for its richness, depth, and strength. I remember seeing and hearing him once at a Republican State Convention in the City Hall at Syracuse, when, having come in for a few moments as a spectator, he was recognized by the crowd and greeted with overwhelming calls for a speech. He was standing at the entrance door, towering above all about him, and there was a general cry for him to come forward to the platform. He declined to come forward; but finally observed to those near him, in his quiet, natural way, with the utmost simplicity, ``Oh, I shall be heard.'' At this a shout went up from the entire audience; for every human being in that great hall had heard these words perfectly, though uttered in his usual conversational voice.