The first person seized under the Fugitive Slave Law was a slave named Shadrach. He was brought to trial before George T. Curtis, United States Commissioner. One of the chief complaints against the Fugitive Slave Law was that it did not give the man claimed as a slave, where his liberty and that of his posterity were at stake, the right to a jury trial which the Constitution secured in all cases of property involving more than twenty dollars, or in all cases where he was charged with the slightest crime or offence. Further, the Commissioner was to receive twice as much if the man were surrendered into slavery as if he were discharged. Horace Mann, in one of his speeches, commented on this feature of the law with terrible severity. He also pointed out that the Commissioner was not a judicial officer with an independent tenure, but only the creature of the courts and removable at any time. He also dwelt upon what he conceived to be the unfair dealing of the Commissioners who had presided at the trial of the three slaves who had been tried in Massachusetts, and added: "Pilate, fellow-citizens, was at least a Judge, though he acted like a Commissioner."
Elizur Wright, a well-known Abolitionist, editor of the Chronotype, was indicted in the United States Court for aiding in the rescue of Shadrach. While the hearing before Geo. T. Curtis on the proceedings for the rendition of Shadrach was going on, a large number of men, chiefly negroes, made their way into the court-room by one door, swept through, taking the fugitive along with them, and out at the other, leaving the indignant Commissioner to telegraph to Mr. Webster in Washington that he thought it was a case of levying war. I went into the court-room during the trial of Mr. Wright, and saw seated in the front row of the jury, wearing a face of intense gravity, my old friend Francis Bigelow, always spoken of in Concord as "Mr. Bigelow, the blacksmith." He was a Free Soiler and his wife a Garrison Abolitionist. His house was a station on the underground railroad where fugitive slaves were harbored on their way to Canada. Shadrach had been put into a buggy and driven out as far as Concord, and kept over night by Bigelow at his house, and sent on his way toward the North Star the next morning. Richard H. Dana, who was counsel for Elizur Wright, asked Judge Hoar what sort of man Bigelow was. To which the Judge replied: "He is a thoroughly honest man, and will decide the case according to the law and the evidence as he believes them to be. But I think it will take a good deal of evidence to convince him that one man owns another."
It is not, perhaps, pertinent to my personal recollections but it may be worth while to tell my readers that Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips, and some others were indicted afterward for participation in an intended rescue of Anthony Burns, another fugitive slave. The indictment was quashed by Judge Curtis, who had probably got pretty sick of the whole thing. But Parker, while in jail awaiting trial, prepared a defence, which is printed, and which is one of the most marvellous examples of scathing and burning denunciation to be found in all literature. I commend it to young men as worth their study.
Some time after the Shadrach case, Asa O. Butman, a United States Deputy Marshal, who had been quite active and odious in the arrest and extradition of Burns, came to Worcester one Saturday afternoon, and stopped at the American Temperance House. This was October 30, 1854. It was believed that he was in search of information about some fugitive negroes who were supposed to be in Worcester, and I suppose that to be the fact, although it was claimed that his errand was to summon witnesses against persons concerned in the riot which took place when Burns was captured. The fact of his presence became known in the course of the day on Sunday, and a pretty angry crowd began to gather in the streets in the neighborhood of the American House. Butman learned his danger, and took refuge in the City Marshal's office in the City Hall, where the police force of the city were gathered for his protection. No attack was made during the night, but it was not deemed prudent to have Butman leave his shelter. I had been to Concord to spend Sunday with my kindred there. I got to Worcester at nine o'clock Monday morning, and was told at the station of the condition of things. I went immediately to the City Hall, made my way through the crowd to the building, and was admitted to the police office by the City Marshal, who was my client, and apt to depend on me for legal advice. I found Butman in a state of great terror. It was evident that the crowd was too large for any police force which the little city had in its service. Unless it should be pacified, something was likely to happen which we should all have much regretted. I accordingly went out and addressed the crowd from the steps of the City Hall. They listened to me respectfully enough. I was pretty well known through the city as an earnest Free Soiler, and as sharing the public feeling of indignation against the delivering up of fugitives. I reminded the crowd that my father and sister had been expelled from Charleston, S. C., where he had gone at the risk of his life to defend Massachusetts colored sailors who were imprisoned there, and appealed to them not to give the people of South Carolina the right to excuse their own conduct by citing the example of Massachusetts. There were shouts from the crowd: "Will he promise to leave Worcester and never come back?" Butman, who was inside, terribly frightened, said he would promise never to come to Worcester again as long as he lived. I did not, however, repeat Butman's promise to the crowd. I thought he ought to go without conditions. The time approached for the train to pass through Worcester for Boston. It went from a little wooden station near the site of the present Union Depot, about half a mile from the City Hall. It was determined, on consultation, to take advantage of an apparently pacific mood of the crowd, and to start Butman at once for the station in time to catch the train. I took one arm and I am quite sure Colonel Higginson took the other; a few policemen went ahead and a few behind; and we started from the back door of the City Hall. The mob soon found what we were after and thronged around us. It has been estimated that a crowd of two thousand people at least surrounded Butman and his convoy. I suppose he had no friend or defender among the number. Most of them wanted to frighten him; some of them to injure him, though not to kill him. There were a few angry negroes, I suppose, excited and maddened by their not unnatural or unjustifiable resentment against the fellow who had been the ready and notorious tool of the slave-catchers, who would have killed him if they could. He was kicked several times by persons who succeeded in the swaying and surging of the crowd, in getting through his guard, and once knocked onto his knees by a heavy blow in the back of the neck which came from a powerful negro, who had a stone in his hand which increased the force of the blow. I believe he was hit also by some missiles. He reached the depot almost lifeless with terror. The train was standing there, and started just after we arrived. It was impossible to get him into it. It was then endeavored to put him into a buggy which was standing outside of the depot, but the owner, a young business man of Worcester, seized the bridle of his horse and stoutly refused to allow the horse to start. Butman was then thrust into a hack, into which one or two other persons also got, and the hack was driven rapidly through the crowd with no damage but the breaking of the windows. Mr. Higginson thought Butman was left at Westboro'; but my recollection, which is very distinct, and with which I think he now agrees, is that Lovell Baker, the City Marshal, followed with his own horse and buggy, and took Butman from the hack after he got a short distance out of Worcester. Butman implored him not to leave him at the way-station, fearing that the crowd would come down in an accommodation train, which went also about that time, and waylay him there. So Baker drove him the whole distance to Boston, forty miles. When Butman got to the city, he was afraid that the news of the Worcester riot might have reached Boston, and have excited the people there; and, by his earnest solicitation, Baker took Butman by unfrequented streets across the city to a place where he thought he could be concealed until the excitement abated. Baker, who died a short time ago in Worcester, aged over ninety, told me the whole story immediately on his return.
The proceeding undoubtedly was not to be justified; but it was a satisfaction to know that no slave-hunter came to Worcester after that occurrence. Five or six people—including, if I am not mistaken, Mr. Higginson himself, certainly including Joseph A. Howland, a well-known Abolitionist and non-resistant, and also including Martin Stowell, who was afterward indicted for killing Batchelder, a Marshal who took part in the rendition of Burns—were complained of before the police court, and bound over to await the action of the grand jury. The grand jury returned no indictment, except against one colored man. Mr. District Attorney Aldrich was quite disgusted at this, and promptly nol prossed that indictment. And so ended the famous Butman riot.
The Whigs were in a minority in Massachusetts after the year 1848. But the constitution required a majority of all the votes to elect a Governor; and, in the case of no choice, the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, the Executive Council, and the Senators from counties where there had been no election were chosen on joint ballot by the members elected to the two Houses. The Whigs were able to carry the Legislature, and in that way chose their Governor and Lieutenant Governor, elected Councillors, and filled vacancies in the Senate. But the Free Soil and Democratic leaders were not content to leave the power in the hands of the Whig minority. In 1849 a few Representatives and Senators were chosen to the Legislature by a union of the Free Soil and Democratic Parties. In the autumn of 1850 this arrangement was extended through the State. The Whigs were in a minority in the Legislature, and the coalition proceeded to elect a Democratic Governor and Lieutenant Governor and an Executive Council. In consideration of giving these offices to the Democrats, it was agreed that Mr. Sumner should be chosen Senator. A few of the Democrats, who desired to keep their party relations with the South, refused to agree to this arrangement. Mr. Winthrop was the Whig candidate. The Senate, on its part, promptly elected Mr. Sumner, but there was a long contest in the House of Representatives, extending through three months. Twenty-six ballots were cast, of which no candidate had a majority until the last. Mr. Sumner several times came within two or three votes of an election. At last it was apparent that some member had cast more than one vote; and an order was offered by Sidney Bartlett, an eminent Whig member from Boston, requiring the members to bring in their votes in sealed envelopes. This resulted in the choice of Sumner.
Another contribution to Mr. Sumner's election ought not to be forgotten. The town of Fall River was represented by Whigs; but it was a community where there was a strong anti-slavery feeling. A town-meeting was called by the friends of Mr. Sumner, and a motion made to instruct their representatives, according to the right of the people declared in the constitution of Massachusetts, to vote for Sumner. An earnest and eloquent speech in favor of the resolution was made by Robert T. Davis, a young Quaker, since a distinguished member of Congress. The resolution was carried, which Mr. Borden, one of the Representatives from Fall River, obeyed. The result was Sumner's election by a single vote.
As stated in the preceding chapter, I was a member in 1852 of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, then consisting of about four hundred and twenty members. It was, I think, as admirable a body of men for the training of a public speaker as I ever knew. The members were honest. The large majority was made up of sensible, strong-headed country farmers, rather slow in making up their minds, but making them up always on considerations of what was best for the Commonwealth. There was a time, when the opinion of the House seemed to be precipitating or crystallizing, not too early in the debate and not too late, when a vigorous and effective speech had great influence. I was made Chairman of the Committee of Probate and Chancery, the second law committee in the House; and I suppose it is not presumptuous to say that I did as much of the hard work of the body and had as much influence in leading its action and shaping its legislation as anybody.
In the year 1856 I was, with Eli Thayer, sent from Worcester as a delegate to a Convention held at Buffalo to concert measures to help the settlers from the Free States in their contest with slave owners led by Atchison and Stringfellow, of Missouri, for the possession of Kansas. Atchison had been President pro tempore of the Senate of the United States. The slave holders had organized a formidable body of men to drive out the Free State settlers from the Territories, which had just been opened after the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. We met at Buffalo some gentlemen, among whom was Zachariah Chandler, of Michigan, then in the vigor of early manhood. We made arrangements for getting large contributions of money and arms with which the Northern emigrants were equipped, and which undoubtedly enabled them to maintain successfully their resistance and establish their free State.