Educational laws of Virginia

by Margaret Crittenden Douglass

During the interval that occurred between my conviction and the sentence of the Court, I obtained permission from the Court and Sheriff to visit New York, where I remained two weeks, and then returned with my daughter. This being so contrary to the expectations and wishes of the authorities and other public men of Norfolk, who were extremely anxious that I should never return, in order that, by branding me as a fugitive from justice, they might escape the disgrace and odium already attached to their proceedings, and thus get cleverly out of the difficulty; they were exceedingly incensed, and commenced a series of persecutions in the shape of personal attacks in some of the Norfolk papers, particularly the Courier and the Argus. The editor of the Courier, W. Wallace Davis, was the ringleader in this movement, and was frequently in the habit of disgracing himself and his paper, and insulting the better class of the community, by indulging in such diatribes as no gentleman would ever suffer himself to be guilty of. It would seem as though the justice of Heaven had speedily overtaken him with its retributions, for it is but a few weeks ago that he died suddenly, as it is said from the effects of some great mental suffering, and it is not ungenerous to suppose that the stings of conscience, when he reflected upon his inhuman course towards me, became severer than he could endure. I leave him with his God.

To show that such were the wishes of the authorities and others, I quote the following passage from the Norfolk Argus, under date of February 9th, 1854. I quote the whole of the article here, though portions of it have reference to what occurred subsequently, as I may have, occasion to refer to the other passages. It is headed “Commonwealth vs. Mrs. Douglass,” and reads as follows:

“We publish to-day the judgment of Hon. Judge Baker in the case of Mrs. Douglass, which has much excited our citizens. The first time within the passage of the act forbidding the teaching of slaves or free colored persons to read or write, has a case of this description come under the jurisdiction of our Court, and it was singular that this case should be a woman. The jury found a verdict of guilty, and the law had to be sustained. Sympathy was aroused for Mrs. Douglass. It was revolting to the citizens to have a woman imprisoned in our jail, and every inducement was offered Mrs. Douglass to escape the punishment. The Court was obliged to adjourn its judgment over, and although a capias was awarded, yet it was the hope and wish of every one that she would leave the city. But no; ‘a martyr’ she ‘would be to the cause of benevolence;’ and to cap the climax, she brought her daughter, a maiden of some seventeen summers, who had obeyed the injunctions of her mother, as a child should, to try the stern realities of the laws, and, to use her own language in defending her cause, ‘to glory in works of benevolence and charity to a race down-trodden.’ Then sympathy departed, and in the breast of every one rose a righteous indignation towards a person who would throw contempt in the face of our laws, and brave the imprisonment for ‘the cause of humanity.’

“The decision of Judge Baker is cogent and pungent, and will be read with interest. The laws must be upheld. It is not for the Judge to set upon the constitutionality or justice of the law; it is for him a sacred duty to impose the punishment meted out in the code. Virginia must keep in restraint the wire-workings of abolition sentiments. We have in this town suffered much from the aggression of Northern foes, and a strong cordon must encircle our domestic institutions. We must preserve from discord and angry passions our firesides and homesteads. We must preserve inviolate the majesty of laws necessary for the protection of our rights; and there is no one of intelligence and foresight who will pronounce the judgment unrighteous.

“Mrs. Douglass’s time will run out this week, and we have heard it stated from good authority, that her imprisonment will be a pecuniary reward to her. We hope that our citizens will prevent by all possible means any attempt to aid this woman, but let her depart hence with only one wish, that her presence will never be intruded upon us again. Let her seek her associates at the North, and with them commingle, but let us put a check to such mischievous views as fell from her lips last November, sentiments unworthy a resident of the State, and in direct rebellion against our Constitution.”

My readers will perceive two important concessions in this article; first, that mine was the first case that had ever been tried under that peculiar act since its passage, and that public sympathy was strongly excited in my favor: and secondly, that it was the hope and wish of every one that I should leave the city, and thus enable them to escape from the dilemma in which they were placed. Now, I submit to my readers whether it was not asking a little too much of me, that I should voluntarily allow myself to be branded as an escaped fugitive, and subject myself to be advertised as such in every newspaper in the country, have a price set upon my head, and be hourly liable to arrest by any officer, who thought it worth the trouble, wherever I might be. No, I was no coward; and, rather than place myself in such a position as that, I would have suffered my right hand to be cut off.

It must be said, however, that neither I, nor any one else, ever supposed for a moment, that I should receive any further punishment for my offence than the infliction of the nominal fine already fixed by the verdict of the jury. Justice did not require it, nor the cause of morality. My character was such that there was no cause to fear that I should break my pledge, and attempt to renew my school; and common gallantry alone should have led any gentleman, much more a dignified Judge, in whose sole discretion the matter rested, to have dealt with a woman as leniently as the strict letter of the law would allow. I rested in perfect security until the 10th day of January, 1854, when I was called before the Court, and received from Judge Baker, not only an unnecessarily long and discourteous reprimand, but a sentence to an imprisonment of one month in the city jail!

So astounded were the whole community at the shameless impudence of such a sentence, from a Judge whose own family had been engaged in the very same acts for which I was punished, that a number of the most respectable members of the Norfolk bar requested a copy of Judge Baker’s decision for publication, which correspondence, with the decision as then published, I here give entire:—

COMMONWEALTH vs. MARGARET DOUGLASS.

Hon. Richard H. Baker: