Stories of the Badger State

by Reuben Gold Thwaites

As the years passed on, and the people of the North became more and more opposed to the slave system of the South, the latter lost an increasing number of its slaves through escape to Canada. They were assisted in their flight by Northern sympathizers, who, secretly receiving them on the north bank of the Ohio River, passed them on from friend to friend until they reached the Canadian border. As this system of escape was contrary to law, it had to be conducted, by both white rescuers and black fugitives, with great privacy, often with much peril to life; hence it received the significant, popular name of "The Underground Railroad." Wisconsin had but small part in the working of the underground railroad, because it was not upon the usual highway between the South and Canada. But our people took a firm stand on the matter, sympathizing with the fugitive slaves and those who aided them on their way to freedom.

When, therefore, Congress, in 1850, at the bidding of the Southern politicians, passed the Fugitive Slave Law, Wisconsin bitterly condemned it. This act was designed to crush out the underground railroad. It provided for the appointment, by federal courts, of commissioners in the several States, whose duty it should be to assist slaveholders and their agents in catching their runaway property. The unsupported testimony of the owner or agent was sufficient to prove ownership, the black man himself having no right to testify, and there being for him no trial by jury. The United States commissioners might enforce the law by the aid of any number of assistants, and, in the last resort, might summon the entire population to help them. There were very heavy penalties provided for violations of this inhuman law.

The Fugitive Slave Law was denounced by most of the political conventions held in our State that year. In his message to the legislature, in January, 1851, Governor Dewey expressed the general sentiment when he said that it "contains provisions odious to our people, contrary to our sympathies, and repugnant to our feelings." But it was three years before occasion arose for Wisconsin to act.

In the early months of 1854, a negro named Joshua Glover appeared in Racine, and obtained work in a sawmill four miles north of that place. On the night of the 10th of March, he was playing cards in his little cabin, with two other men of his race. Suddenly there appeared at the door seven well-armed white men,—two United States deputy marshals from Milwaukee, their four assistants from Racine, and a St. Louis man named Garland, who claimed to be Glover's owner.

A desperate struggle followed, the result being that Glover, deserted by his comrades and knocked senseless by a blow, was placed in chains by his captors.

Severely bleeding from his wounds, he was thrown into an open wagon and carted across country to the Milwaukee county jail, for the man hunters feared to go to Racine, where the antislavery feeling was strong. It was a bitter cold night, and Glover's miseries were added to by the brutal Garland, who at intervals kicked and beat the prisoner, and promised him still more serious punishment upon their return to the Missouri plantation.

The news of the capture was not long in reaching Racine. The next morning there was held in the city square a public meeting, attended by nearly every citizen, at which resolutions were passed denouncing the act of the kidnapers as an outrage; demanding for Glover a trial by jury; promising "to attend in person to aid him, by all honorable means, to secure his unconditional release"; and, most significant of all, resolving that the people of Racine "do hereby declare the slave catching law of 1850 disgraceful and also repealed." There were many such nullifying resolutions passed in those stirring days by mass meetings throughout the country, but this was one of the earliest and most outspoken. That afternoon, on hearing where Glover had been imprisoned, a hundred indignant citizens of Racine, headed by the sheriff, went by steamer to Milwaukee, arriving there at five o'clock.

Meanwhile, Milwaukee had been active. News of the capture had not been circulated in that city until eleven o'clock in the morning. One of the first to learn of it was Sherman M. Booth, the energetic editor of a small antislavery paper, the Wisconsin Free Democrat. Riding up and down the streets upon a horse, he scattered handbills, and, stopping at each crossing, shouted: "Freemen, to the rescue! Slave catchers are in our midst! Be at the courthouse at two o'clock!"

Prompt to the hour, over five thousand people assembled in the courthouse square, where Booth and several other "liberty men" made impassioned speeches. A vigilance committee was appointed, to see that Glover had a fair trial, and the county judge issued in his behalf a writ of habeas corpus, calling for an immediate trial, and a show of proofs. But the federal judge, A. G. Miller, forbade the sheriff to obey this writ, holding that Glover must remain in the hands of the United States marshal, in whose custody he was placed by virtue of the Fugitive Slave Law.