Gentlemen, that meeting determined to execute the fugitive slave bill "with all its provisions, to the fullest extent." It is dreadful to remember the articles in the Daily Advertiser and the Courier at that period. Some of the sermons in the Churches of Commerce on the following Thursday, Thanksgiving day, were filled with the most odious doctrines of practical atheism. The "preparatory meeting" had its effect. Soon the seed bore fruit after its kind. But some ministers were faithful to their Brother and their Lord.
(2.) February 15th, 1851, a colored man named "Shadrach" was arrested under a warrant from that Commissioner who had been so active in the attempt to kidnap Mr. and Mrs. Craft. But a "miracle" was wrought: "where sin abounded Grace did much more abound," and "the Lord delivered him out of their hands." Shadrach went free to Canada, where he is now a useful citizen. He was rescued by a small number of colored persons at noonday. The kidnapping Commissioner telegraphed to Mr. Webster, "It is levying war—it is treason." Another asked, "What is to be done?" The answer from Washington was, "Mr. Webster was very much mortified."
On the 18th, President Fillmore, at Mr. Webster's instigation, issued his proclamation calling on all well disposed citizens, and commanding all officers, "civil and military, to aid and assist in quelling this, and all other such combinations, and to assist in recapturing the above-named person" Shadrach. General orders came down from the Secretaries of War and the Navy, commanding the military and naval officers to yield all practicable assistance in the event of such another "insurrection." The City Government of Boston passed Resolutions regretting that a man had been saved from the shackles of slavery; cordially approving of the President's proclamation, and promising their earnest efforts to carry out his recommendations. At that time Hon. Mr. Tukey was Marshal; Hon. John P. Bigelow was Mayor; Hon. Henry J. Gardner, a man equally remarkable for his temperance, truthfulness, and general integrity, was President of the Common Council.
It was not long, Gentlemen, before the City Government had an opportunity to keep its word.
(3.) On the night of the 3d of April, 1851, Thomas Sims was kidnapped by two police officers of Boston, pretending to arrest him for theft! Gentlemen of the Jury, you know the rest. He was on trial nine days. He never saw the face of a jury, a judge only once—who refused the Habeas Corpus, the great "Writ of Right." That judge—I wish his successors may better serve mankind—has gone to his own place; where, may God Almighty have mercy on his soul! You remember, Gentlemen, the chains round the Court House; the Judges of your own Supreme Court crawling under the southern chain. You do not forget the "Sims Brigade"—citizen soldiers called out and billeted in Faneuil Hall. You recollect the Cradle of Liberty shut to a Free Soil Convention, but open to those hirelings of the Slave Master. You will never forget the Pro-Slavery Sermons that stained so many Boston pulpits on the "Fast-day" which intervened during the mock trial!
Mr. Sims had able defenders,—I speak now only of such as appeared on his behalf, others not less noble and powerful, aided by their unrecorded service—Mr. Sewall, Mr. Rantoul, men always on the side of Liberty, and one more from whose subsequent conduct, Gentlemen of the Jury, I grieve to say it, you would not expect such magnanimity then, Mr. Charles G. Loring. But of what avail was all this before such a Commissioner? Thomas Sims was declared "a chattel personal to all intents, uses, and purposes whatsoever." After it became plain that he would be decreed a slave, the poor victim of Boston kidnappers asked one boon of his counsel, "I cannot go back to Slavery," said he, "give me a knife, and when the Commissioner declares me a slave I will stab myself to the heart, and die before his eyes! I will not be a slave." The knife was withheld! At the darkest hour of the night Mayor Bigelow and Marshal Tukey, suitable companions, admirably joined by nature as by vocation, with two or three hundred police-men armed, some with bludgeons, some with drawn swords and horse pistols, took the poor boy out of his cell, chained, weeping, and bore him over the spot where, on the 5th of March, 1770, the British tyrant first shed New England blood; by another spot where your fathers and mine threw to the ocean the taxed tea of the oppressor. They put him on board a vessel, the "Acorn," and carried him off to eternal bondage. "And this is Massachusetts liberty!" said he, as he stepped on board. Boston sent her Delegates to escort him back, and on the 19th of April, 1851, she delivered him up to his tormentors in the jail at Savannah, where he was scourged till human nature could bear no more, while his captors were feasted at the public cost. Seventy-six years before there was another 19th of April, also famous!
(4.) Then came the examination and "trial" of the Shadrach Rescuers in February and the following months. Some of these trials took place before his Honor Judge Peleg Sprague. Therefore, you will allow me, Gentlemen, to refresh your memories with a word or two respecting the antecedents of this Judge—his previous history.
In 1835 the abolition of Slavery in the British West Indies and the efforts of the friends of Freedom in the Northern States, excited great alarm at the South, lest the "peculiar institution" should itself be brought into peril. Fear of a "general insurrection of the slaves" was talked about and perhaps felt. The mails were opened in search of "incendiary publications;" a piano-forte sent from Boston to Virginia, was returned because the purchaser found an old copy of the "Emancipator" in the case which contained it. Public meetings for the promotion of American Slavery were held. There was one at Boston in Faneuil Hall, August 21, 1835, at which a remarkable speech was made by a lawyer who had graduated at Harvard College in 1812, a man no longer young, of large talents and great attainments in the law. He spoke against discussion, and in behalf of Slavery and Slaveholders: he could see no good, but only unmixed evil "consequent upon agitating this subject here." He said:—
"When did fear ever induce a man to relax his power over the object that excited it? No, he will hold him down with a stronger grasp, he will draw the cords tighter, he will make the chains heavier and sink his victim to a still deeper dungeon."
"The language and measures of the abolitionists clearly tend to insurrection and violence." "They [the slaves] hear that their masters have no legal or moral authority over them. That every moment's exercise of such dominion is sin, and that the laws that sanction it are morally void: that they are entitled to immediate emancipation, and that their masters are to be regarded as kidnappers and robbers for refusing it." "It is deluding these unfortunate beings to their own destruction, we should not aid them. The Constitution provides for the suppressing of insurrections ... we should respond to its call [if the slaves attempted to recover their liberty]; nay, we should not wait for such a requisition, but on the instant should rush forward with fraternal emotions to defend our brethren from desolation and massacre."