The rashness of the Gorsuches in incurring danger and inviting death by venturing into an unfriendly country for an unpopular cause, was cited in mitigation of the indictment against a whole community for lawlessness. The blunders of the Deputy Marshal in giving his official errand the aspect of a warlike incursion was urged as a reasonable explanation for what was charged as popular indifference in the locality toward a dark crime.
Withal lawyers and laymen found subject for protracted discussion in the vexed question as to whether it was “treason”; and what degree of opposition or what extent of resistance to law constituted this high crime of such infrequent occurrence.
The cases of the Whiskey Insurrectionists in western Pennsylvania, and Aaron Burr’s trial at Richmond, Virginia, had almost faded from popular memory. But there were those in eastern Pennsylvania who recalled some of the echoes of the Fries treason case; and its analogies with the impending trial of nearly forty Lancaster County people were curiously scanned by legal pundits on the Court House benches and by local sages on the country store boxes.
The case of United States vs. John Fries arose out of the opposition of the Pennsylvania Germans in Bucks, Northampton and Berks Counties to the collection of a direct Federal tax known as “The House Tax.” Assessors had to measure houses to levy the tax. Hostile public meetings were held at which John Fries threatened and encouraged armed resistance to the tax. Armed and with martial music he and his followers paraded the public highways, intimidating tax officials, denouncing Congress and the government as “damned rogues,” etc. Fries had two trials, in both of which he was found guilty of treason and sentenced to be hanged. He was subsequently pardoned by President John Adams. He was originally tried and convicted before Judges Iredell and Peters, in 1799; and his case is reported in 3 Dallas (Fed. Court Rep.), 515.
THADDEUS STEVENS.
IN THE DAYS OF HIS CONGRESSIONAL LEADERSHIP.
As early as November 18, 1850, Hon. John K. Kane, United States District Judge at Philadelphia, had charged the Grand Jury at some length—and not without considerable personal feeling in relation to the State of Pennsylvania statutes—on the subject of the Fugitive Slave Law. Judge Kane had been District Attorney and he was Attorney General of Pennsylvania under Governor Shunk from Jan. 21, 1845, to June 23, 1846. His appointment as Attorney General was offensive to Mr. Buchanan.
Notwithstanding the Supreme Court of the United States in the Prigg case had intimated that legislation of this character was for the Federal Government and not for the State, Judge Kane severely reprehended the Pennsylvania Act of 1847, which repealed the Acts of 1826 and 1827, delegating to State authorities the right to issue warrants for fugitives; he declared the new Fugitive Slave Law of Congress to be little different from the Pennsylvania statute of 1826, and he depicted the results of the Pennsylvania law in these rather lurid terms: “Fanatics of civil discord have, meanwhile, exulted in the fresh powers of harm with which this state of things invested them; and the country has been convulsed in its length and breadth, as if about to be rent asunder, and tossed in fragments, by the outbursting of a volcano.”
He went on to say that the new Federal law must be obeyed, and the penalties for violating it were to be enforced without fear, favor or affection. He referred to his district as a community which had suffered in reputation and repose “from crimes of excitement, turbulence and force,” and inveighed against disobedience to a statute, obstructing officers of the law and deeds of violent resistance against them.
The language of this charge, and his well-known views on the legal and political aspects of the question, did not afford a very encouraging outlook for those who were to be tried before him or in his court. These very natural apprehensions were increased, when his charge to the grand jury followed on September 29, 1851. He briefly reviewed the reported facts of the Christiana affair, and though he avowed entire freedom from any impressions of the guilt or innocence of the accused, he pointed to the charges made against them as sufficient to establish the crime of treason if they were duly proved. He also pointed out that as the offence of treason was not triable in his Court, and though the grand jury then empanelled could not take cognizance of the indictments, his learned brother of the Supreme Court, the Hon. Robert C. Grier, who presided in this circuit, would sit on the trial of the cause. Justice Grier was a Pennsylvanian, appointed by President Tyler in 1844, to succeed Henry R. Baldwin, deceased.