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)
_On the Steamer Alvin Adams_, at Madison, Indiana, a man was
arrested as a fugitive and taken to Louisville, Kentucky.
He was claimed as the slave of John H. Page, of Bowling
Green. The _Louisville Journal_, edited by a Northern man,
stigmatised him as a "rascal," for his attempt to be free.
(July, 1854.)
_Two colored men_, on their way to Chicago, were seized and
taken from the cars at Lasalle, Illinois, by three men, who
said they were not officers. The colored men were known to
be free; one was "a respectable resident of Chicago." Some of
the passengers interfered; but it being night, and very dark,
and the cars starting on the colored men were left in the
hands of their kidnappers.
_Chicago, Illinois._ Three men from Missouri, with a warrant
from the Governor of that State, to take a certain fugitive
slave, seized a man whom they met in the street, bound him
with a handkerchief, and to quicken his steps beat him with
the butt of a pistol. He succeeded in shaking off his captors
and fled, a pistol-bullet being sent after him, which did not
hit him. He made good his escape. The men were arrested and
held to trial for assault with deadly weapons. By an
extraordinary conspiracy on the part of District Attorney
Hoyne, Sheriff Bradley, and others, these men were taken from
jail to be carried to Springfield, Illinois, two hundred
miles distant, to appear before Chief Justice Treat, that he
might inquire "whether said alleged kidnappers were justly
held to bail and imprisoned." It was so suddenly done that
the counsel for the kidnapped man and for the State of
Illinois had not time to reach Springfield before the men
were discharged and on their way to Missouri. The Grand Jury
of the County (in which Chicago is) had found a true bill
against them, of which the Sheriff professed to be ignorant,
(which was deemed hardly possible,)--under which bill they
would probably have been convicted and sentenced to the State
Prison. Thus the omnipotent Slave Power reaches forth its
hand into our most Northern cities, end saves its minions
from the punishment which their lawless acts have justly
merited.--_Chicago Daily Tribune_, Sept. 21, 1854.
--> The three kidnappers published a statement in the _St. Louis
Republican_ of September 26.
HENRY MASSEY, at Philadelphia, September, 1854, was brought
before United States Commissioner E.D. Ingraham, claimed by
Franklin Bright, of Queen Anne's County, Maryland, as his
slave. Arrested in Harrisburg.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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