Rhoda of the Underground

by Florence Finch Kelly

An audience of character and intelligence crowded the court room to the doors, while outside, in the hall and around the windows people stood on benches, listening intently, for hours at a time. From all over the county, from surrounding counties, and from as far away as Cleveland, men of substance and of prominence had left their homes and business and journeyed hither to listen to the proceedings and to testify by their presence their sympathy with the defense.

But the pro-slavery side also had its representatives, although in the minority, who were of equal consequence and standing. It was such an audience as would gratify any attorney, wishing to influence the community as well as the jury.

As he rose for his address Hardaker presented a manly, attractive figure and a vigorous, almost a magnetic, personality. Sweeping the court room with his eyes, he waited for a moment and then began with a couplet from a popular anti-slavery song, a song that had roused the echoes in thousands of enthusiastic gatherings, all over the North. No one within the reach of his voice needed any explanation of its meaning:

“’Tis the law of God in the human soul,

’Tis the law in the Word Divine.”

He quoted the injunction of the Mosaic law against the returning of an escaped servant and the commands of the New Testament for the succor of the oppressed, and in vivid language set them forth as the law of the Divine Word, the command of God, and therefore infinitely more binding upon men and women who believed in God and accepted the Bible as his Word than any law made by man in defiance of the Almighty’s command. In a voice that gave full value to its pathetic appeal he told the story of Mary Ellen’s heroic endeavor to escape from bondage and a fate “like unto the fires of hell.” Then he called upon the fathers and mothers of all young girls to tell him if the command of Christ, “Do unto others as you would that others do unto you,” had lost all its meaning, if humanity, Christianity, fatherhood—even ordinary manhood—no longer felt its force. Following the precedent set by a number of lawyers of wide reputation he analyzed the relation of the Fugitive Slave Act to the Constitution and concluded that it violated the rights guaranteed by the basic law of the country, and therefore, since it was unconstitutional, to disregard its provisions was not unlawful and his client had committed no crime.

“This law was passed at the behest of the slave power,” he declared. “It was conceived in iniquity, the iniquity of the South’s determination to put upon slavery the seal of national approval; it was begotten in corruption, the corruption of compromise and bargain; and it was born in the dastardly willingness of misrepresentatives of the people to truckle to Southern arrogance and betray the convictions and the conscience of the North.

“Shall we then, free men and women of Ohio, betrayed as we have been and misrepresented as we are by this so-called law, be expected to cast aside the commands of Christianity and the obligations of common brotherhood, transform ourselves into bloodhounds to chase the panting fugitive and send him back to his chains and, as in this case, to such a hell of lust and vice as all decent manhood and womanhood must shudder at? In the name of all that humanity holds sacred, I answer, no! A thousand times, no!

“The learned counsel for the prosecution has seen fit to sneer at our belief in the higher law,” Hardaker went on, with body erect and hand upraised, his full, melodious, resonant voice filling the court room and the corridors and carrying his words even into the street. “I answer that that law has my entire allegiance and that I stand here to defend and uphold it and to demand the rights of those who feel bound, as I do, by its commands. I feel assured, and you well know, gentlemen of the jury, that I voice the sentiments of thousands upon thousands of Christ-loving and God-fearing men and women when I say that if any fleeing bondman comes to me in need of help, protection, and means of flight, so help me the living God in my hour of greatest need, he shall have them all, even to the last drop of my life’s blood!”

Like the sudden upburst of a volcano, the court room broke into resounding applause. Men sprang to their feet, swung their hats and cheered. Women stood upon benches, waved handkerchiefs and clapped their hands. The rapping of the judge’s gavel and the cries of the officers for “order in the court” were drowned in the uproar and hardly reached even their own ears. Then the sharp insistence of hisses began to be heard. Jefferson Delavan, who had been listening with hands clenched, frowning brows and angry eyes, added his voice to the sounds of disapproval. For a few minutes the tumult continued, and then, at the judge’s order, the court officers began forcing the people out.