Fugitive slaves -- United States; Hopper, Isaac T. (Isaac Tatem), 1771-1852
Finding all
overtures rejected, a complaint was laid before the Grand Jury; and such
was the state of popular prejudice, that twelve out of nineteen of that
body concurred in finding a bill against men of excellent moral
character, without any real evidence to sustain the charge. Barney Corse
had never taken measures to prevent the arrest of Thomas Hughes. He
simply declined to render any assistance. He believed that he was under
no legal obligation to do otherwise; and he knew for a certainty that he
was under no moral obligation; because conscience would not allow him
to aid in returning a runaway slave to his master. Nevertheless, he and
Isaac T. Hopper, and James S. Gibbons, were indicted for "feloniously
receiving, harboring, aiding and maintaining said Thomas, in order that
he might escape from arrest, and avoid conviction and punishment."
Friend Hopper was advised that he might avail himself of some technical
defects in the indictment; but he declined doing it; always insisting
that a public investigation was what he wanted.
The trial was carried on in the same spirit that characterized the
previous proceedings. A colored man, known to have had dishonest
possession of a portion of the lost money, was admitted to testify, on
two successive trials, against Barney Corse, who had always sustained a
fair character. The District Attorney talked to the jury of "the
necessity of appeasing the South." As if convicting an honest and
kind-hearted Quaker of being accomplice in a felony could do anything
toward settling the questions that divided North and South on the
subject of slavery! One of the jury declared that he never would acquit
an abolitionist. Mr. Darg testified of himself during the trial, that he
never intended to manumit Thomas, and had made the promise merely as a
means of obtaining his money. The newspapers spoke as if the guilt of
the accused was not to be doubted, and informed the jury that the
public expected them to convict these men.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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