The Fugitive Slave Law and Its Victims: Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 18May, Samuel
History
The Fugitive Slave Law and Its Victims: Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 18
May, Samuel
Fugitive slaves -- United States; United States -- Fugitive slave law (1850)
S.M. Booth, editor of the _Milwaukee Free Democrat_, Charles
Clement, of the _Racine Advocate_, W.H. Waterman, and George
S. Wright were arrested for aiding and abetting the rescue of
Glover. Booth was subsequently discharged by the Supreme
Court of Wisconsin, on the ground that the Fugitive Slave Law
is unconstitutional. He was, however, re-arrested, and held
to answer in the United States Courts, on the same charge;
the offered bail was refused, and he was lodged in jail. The
case was subsequently tried before the District Court of the
United States, at Milwaukee, on the question as to the right
of a State judiciary to release prisoners under a writ of
_habeas corpus_, who may be in the lawful custody of United
States officers; and also to determine the constitutionality
of the Fugitive Slave Law. (_Washington Star_, September 20,
1854.) The Attorney General, Caleb Cushing, made himself very
active in pushing forward this case. Mr. Booth, early in
1855, was fined one thousand dollars and sentenced to one
month's imprisonment. John Ryecraft, for same offence, was
sentenced in a fine of two hundred dollars and imprisonment
for ten days. All for acts such as Christianity and Humanity
enjoin. On a writ of _habeas corpus_, Messrs. Booth and
Ryecraft were taken before the Wisconsin Supreme Court,
sitting at Madison, and discharged from imprisonment. This,
however, did not relieve them from the fines imposed by the
United States Court. The owner of the slave brought a civil
suit against Mr. Booth, claiming $1,000 damages for the loss
of his slave. Judge Miller decided, July, 1855, that the
$1,000 must be paid.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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