The Trial of Theodore Parker: For the "Misdemeanor" of a Speech in Faneuil Hall against Kidnapping, before the Circuit Court of the United States, at Boston, April 3, 1855, with the DefenceParker, Theodore
Religion
The Trial of Theodore Parker: For the "Misdemeanor" of a Speech in Faneuil Hall against Kidnapping, before the Circuit Court of the United States, at Boston, April 3, 1855, with the Defence
Parker, Theodore
Antislavery movements -- Massachusetts -- Boston; United States -- Fugitive slave law (1850)
Mr. Hanway was brought to trial--for his life, charged with "treason."
It appears that this was his overt act.--He was a Quaker, an
anti-slavery Quaker, and a "non-resistant;" when he heard of the
attack on the colored people, he rode on a sorrel horse to the spot,
in his shirt-sleeves, with a broad felt hat on; he advised the colored
men not to fire, "For God's sake don't fire;" but when Deputy Marshal
Kline ordered him to assist in the kidnapping, he refused and would
have nothing to do with it. Some of the colored people fired, and with
such effect on the Kidnappers as I have just now shown. It appeared
also that Mr. Hanway had said the fugitive slave bill was
unconstitutional, and that he would never aid in kidnapping a
man--words which I suppose this Honorable Court will consider as a
constructive "misdemeanor;" "obstructing an officer."
For this "offence" his case was presented to the grand-jury of the
Circuit Court the 29th of September, 1851. Judge Kane charged the
jury--laying down the law of treason. Mr. Hanway was indicted for
"wickedly devising and intending the peace and tranquillity of the ...
United States to disturb;" and that he "wickedly and traitorously did
intend to levy war against the said United States." And also that he
"with force and arms, maliciously and traitorously did prepare and
compose and ... and cause and procure to be prepared and composed,
divers books, pamphlets, letters, and declarations, resolutions,
addresses, papers, and writings, and did ... maliciously and
traitorously publish and disperse ... divers other books ...
containing ... incitement, encouragement, and exhortations, to move,
induce, and persuade persons held to service in any of the United
States ... who had escaped ... to resist, oppose, and prevent, by
violence and intimidation, the execution of the said laws, [that is
the law for kidnapping their own persons]."
He was brought to trial at Philadelphia, November 24th 1851, before
Honorable Judges Kane and Grier, then and subsequently so eminent for
their zeal in perverting law and doing judicial iniquity. Gentlemen of
the Jury--it is no slander to say this. It is their great glory that
in the cause of Slavery they have struck at the first principles of
American Democracy, and set at nought the Christian Religion. It is
only their panegyric which I pronounce.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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