Slavery was strongly intrenched in the capital of the nation. Congress had abolished it in the District of Columbia, but it still remained.
Said a friend to me one morning, "Are you aware that the Washington jail is full of slaves?" I could not believe that slaves were then confined there for no crime; but at once procured a pass from a senator to visit the jail, and was admitted through the iron gateway of one of the vilest prisons in the world. The air was stifled, fetid, and malarious.
Ascending the stone stairway to the third story of the building, entering a dark corridor and passing along a few steps, I came to a room twelve or fifteen feet square, occupied by about twenty colored men. They were at their dinner of boiled beef and corn-cake. There was one old man sitting on the stone floor, silent and sorrowful. He had committed no crime. Around, standing, sitting, or lying, were the others, of all shades of color, from jet black to the Caucasian hue, the Anglo-Saxon hair and contour of features. They were from ten to fifty years of age; some were dressed decently, and others were in rags. One bright fellow of twenty had on a pair of trousers only, and tried to keep himself warm by drawing around him a tattered blanket. A little fellow ten years old was all in rags. There was no chair or bed in the room. They must stand, or sit, or lie upon the brick and granite floor. There was no mattress or bedding; each had his little bundle of rags, and that was all. They looked up inquiringly as I entered, as if to make out the object of my visit.
One bright, intelligent boy belonged to Captain Dunnington, captain of the Capitol police during Buchanan's administration, and then commanding a Rebel battery. When Dunnington went from Washington to join the Rebels he left the boy behind, and the police had arrested him under an old Maryland law, because he had no master, and kept him in jail five months.
There was an old man from Fairfax Court-House. When the army advanced to Falls Church, his master sold his wife and child, for fear they might escape. "You see, sir, that broke me all up. O, sir, it was hard to part with them, to see 'em chained up and taken off away down South to Carolina. My mind is almost gone. I don't want to die here; I sha'n't live long. When your army fell back to Washington after the battle of Bull Run, I came to Washington, and the police took me up because I was a runaway."
There was another, a free negro, imprisoned on the supposition that he was a fugitive, and kept because there was no one to pay his jail fees. Another had been a hand on a Massachusetts schooner plying on the Potomac, and had been arrested in the streets on the suspicion that he was a slave.
Another had been employed on the fortifications, and government was his debtor. There was a little boy, ten years old, clothed in rags, arrested as a runaway. Women were there, sent in by their owners for safe keeping. There were about sixty chargeable with no crime whatever, incarcerated with felons, without hope of deliverance. They were imprisoned because negroes about town, without a master, always had been dealt with in that manner. The police, when the slaves had been reclaimed, had been sure of their pay, or if they were sold, their pay came from the auctioneer. When they saw me making notes, they imagined that I was doing something for their liberation, and with eagerness they crowded round, saying, "Please put down my name, sir," "I do want to get out, sir," and similar expressions. They followed me into the passage, gazed through the grated door, and when I said "Good by, boys," there came a chorus of "Good byes" and "God bless yous."
Dec., 1861.
Seeking Senator Wilson's room, I informed him of what I had witnessed, and read the memoranda taken in the jail. The eyes of that true-hearted man flashed with righteous indignation. "We will see about this," said he, springing to his feet.
He visited the jail, saw the loathsome spectacle, heard the stories of the poor creatures, and the next day introduced a resolution into the Senate, which upset forever this system of tyranny, which had been protected by the national authority.