Personal Memoir of Daniel Drayton, for Four Years and Four Months a Prisoner (for Charity's Sake) in Washington Jail: Including a Narrative of the Voyage and Capture of the Schooner PearlDrayton, Daniel
History
Personal Memoir of Daniel Drayton, for Four Years and Four Months a Prisoner (for Charity's Sake) in Washington Jail: Including a Narrative of the Voyage and Capture of the Schooner Pearl
Drayton, Daniel
Abolitionists -- United States -- Biography; Drayton, Daniel, 1802-1857 -- Trials, litigation, etc.; Fugitive slaves -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- Maryland; Trials -- Washington (D.C.)
The seventy-six passengers found on board the Pearl had been committed
to the jail as runaways, and Mr. Giddings, on going up to the House, by
way of warning, I suppose, to the slave-holders, that they were not to
be allowed to have everything their own way, moved an inquiry into the
circumstances under which seventy-six persons were held prisoners in the
District jail, merely for attempting to vindicate their inalienable
rights. Mr. Hale also, in the Senate, in consequence of the threats held
out to destroy the _Era_ office, and to put a stop to the publication of
that paper, moved a resolution of inquiry into the necessity of
additional laws for the protection of property in the District. The fury
which these movements excited in the minds of the slave-holders found
expression in the editorial columns of the Washington _Union_, in an
article which I have inserted below, as forming a curious contrast to
the exultations of that print, only a week before, and to which I have
had occasion already to refer, over the spread of the principles of
liberty and universal emancipation. The violent attack upon Mr.
Giddings, because he had visited us three poor prisoners in jail, and
offered us the assistance of counsel,--as if the vilest criminals were
not entitled to have counsel to defend them,--is well worthy of notice.
The following is the article referred to.
THE ABOLITION INCENDIARIES.
Those two abolition incendiaries (Giddings and Hale)
threw firebrands yesterday into the two houses of
Congress. The western abolitionist moved a resolution of
inquiry into the transactions now passing in Washington,
which brought on a fierce and fiery debate on the part
of the southern members, in the course of which Mr.
Giddings _was compelled to confess_, on the
cross-questioning of Messrs. Venable and Haskell, _that
he had visited the three piratical kidnappers now
confined in jail, and offered them counsel_. The reply
of Mr. Toombs, of Georgia, was scorching to an intense
degree.
The abolitionist John P. Hale threw a firebrand
resolution into the Senate, calling for additional laws
to compel this city to prevent riots. This also gave
rise to a long and excited debate.
No question was taken, in either house, before they
adjourned. But, in the progress of the discussion in
both houses, some doctrines were uttered which are
calculated to startle the friends of the Union. Giddings
justified the kidnappers, and contended that, though the
act was legally forbidden, it was not morally wrong! Mr.
Toombs brought home the practical consequences of this
doctrine to the member from Ohio in a most impressive
manner.
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