Some Recollections of Our Antislavery ConflictMay, Samuel J. (Samuel Joseph)
History
Some Recollections of Our Antislavery Conflict
May, Samuel J. (Samuel Joseph)
Antislavery movements -- United States
Supposing that this result operated as a continuance of the case to the
next term of the County Court, to be held the following December, a
few days after the trial I went with my family to spend several weeks
with my friends in Boston and the neighborhood. But much to my surprise
and discomfort, the last week in September, just as I was starting
off to deliver an antislavery lecture, at a distance from Boston, I
received the information that the persecutors of Miss Crandall, too
impatient to wait until December for the regular course of law, had
got up a new prosecution of her, to be tried on the 3d of October,
before Judge Daggett of the Supreme Court, who was known to be hostile
to the colored people, and a strenuous advocate of the Black Law. It
was impossible for me so to dispose of my engagements that I could get
back to Brooklyn in time to attend the trial. I could only write and
instruct the counsel of Miss Crandall, in case a verdict should be
obtained against her, to carry the cause up to the Court of Errors.
The second trial was had on the 3d of October; the same defence as
before was set up, and ably maintained. But Chief Justice Daggett’s
influence with the Jury was overpowering. He delivered an elaborate
and able charge, insisting upon the constitutionality of the law; and,
without much hesitation, the verdict was given against Miss Crandall.
Her counsel at once filed a bill of exceptions, and an appeal to the
Court of Errors, which was granted. Before that--the highest legal
tribunal in the State--the cause was argued on the 22d of July, 1834.
The Hon. W. W. Ellsworth and the Hon. Calvin Goddard argued against
the constitutionality of the Black Law, with very great ability and
eloquence. The Hon. A. T. Judson and the Hon. C. F. Cleaveland said all
that perhaps could be said to prove such a law to be consistent with
the Magna Charta of our Republic. All who attended the trial seemed to
be deeply interested, and were made to acknowledge the vital importance
of the question at issue. Most persons, I believe, were persuaded that
the Court ought to and would decide against the law. But they reserved
the decision until some future time. And that decision, I am sorry to
say, was never given. The Court evaded it the next week by finding
that the defects in the information prepared by the State’s Attorney
were such that it ought to be quashed; thus rendering it “unnecessary
for the Court to come to any decision upon the question as to the
constitutionality of the law.”
Whether her persecutors were or were not in despair of breaking down
Miss Crandall’s school by legal process, I am unable to say, but they
soon resorted to other means, which were effectual.
HOUSE SET ON FIRE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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