The Christiana Riot and the Treason Trials of 1851: An Historical SketchHensel, W. U. (William Uhler)
History
The Christiana Riot and the Treason Trials of 1851: An Historical Sketch
Hensel, W. U. (William Uhler)
Christiana (Pa.) -- History; Riots -- Pennsylvania -- Christiana
On page 14 it is stated that there was little fellowship between the
negro and the Pennsylvania-German elements of our local citizenship.
I believe this is a continuing condition. It is not inconsistent with
the historical fact that the Mennonites of Germantown were the first
American Abolitionists; and that their deliverance of February 18,
1868, antedated like action by the Friends. Professor Wilkinson in
his so-called “Vindication of Daniel Webster,” recently published, is
authority for the statement that Charles Sumner’s social aversion to
the colored race was as pronounced as his political sympathy with it.
NOTE B.
On page 27 it is stated upon information that William Parker was a
soldier in the war for the Union. I have not been able to absolutely
verify this statement. It is therefore qualified.
NOTE C.
On page 59 it is noticed that the venire issued to the marshal
commanding him to return 108 jurors for the term of the treason trial
included a provision that twelve were to be summoned and returned from
Lancaster County. This was in conformity with the Act of September 24,
1789, known as the Federal Judicial Procedure Act, to the effect that
“in cases punishable with death, the trial shall be had in the county
where the offense was committed, or where that cannot be done without
great inconvenience, twelve petit jurors at least shall be summoned
from thence.”
In a recent notable address before the American Bar Association at
Boston on August 30, 1911, Ex-Justice of the United States Supreme
Court Henry E. Brown called attention to the fact that the provision of
this act which required the trial for a capital offense to be held in
the county where it occurred had never been observed. It seems to have
escaped his notice that the statutory direction as to the venue was
not unqualifiedly imperative and that this act had been the subject of
repeated judicial construction, _e. g._, in the following cases:
“The Circuit Courts are bound to try all crimes committed within the
district, but not to try them in the County where committed; that is a
matter of which they must judge in the exercise of their discretion.”
U. S. _v._ Wilson, Bald. 117; U. S. _v._ Cornell 2 Mason 95-8; U. S.
_v._ Insurgents (Fries), 3 Dall. (Pa.) 513. In U. S. _v._ Cornell the
Court holds that the third Section of the Act of March, 1793, Chapter
22, operates as a material modification of the Act of 1789 and leaves
the place of the trial in the district to the sound discretion of the
judge. The Act of 1793, Chapter 22, directs that special sessions for
the trial of criminal cases shall be held at any convenient place
within the district nearer to the place where the offenses may be said
to be committed, than the place appointed by the law for ordinary
sessions.
NOTE D.
I have adopted the spelling of Sims’s and Scarlet’s name with a single
terminal letter instead of the local and family usage--Simms and
Scarlett--because they were thus formally indicted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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