STORIES OF THE BADGER STATE. SLAVE CATCHING IN WISCONSIN ==================================================================== USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or for presentation by other persons or organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes other than stated above must obtain the written consent of the file contributor. This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Tina S. Vickery ==================================================================== STORIES OF THE BADGER STATE by Reuben Gold Thwaites New York Cincinnati Chicago American Book Company Copyright, 1900, by Reuben Gold Thwaites. Sto. Badger Sta. W. P. 7 page(s) 202-208 SLAVE CATCHING IN WISCONSIN There had been a few negro slaves in Wisconsin before the organization of the Territory and during Territorial days. They had for the most part been brought in by lead mines from Kentucky and Missouri. But, as the population increased, it was seen that public opinion here, as in most of the free States, was strongly opposed to the practice of holding human beings as chattels. Gradually the dozen or more slaves were returned to the South, or died in service, or were freed by their masters; so that, at an early day, the slavery question had ceased to be of local importance here. As the years passed on, and the people of the North became more and more opposed, to the slave system of the South, the latter lost an increasing number of its slaves through escape to Canada. They were assisted in their flight by Northern sympathizers, who, secretly receiving them on the north bank of the Ohio River, passed them on from friend to friend until they reached the Canadian border. As this system of escape was contrary to law, it had to be conducted, by both white rescuers and black fugitives, with great privacy, often with much peril to life; hence it received the significant, popular name of The Underground Railroad." Wisconsin had but small part in the working of the underground railroad, because it was not upon the usual highway between the South and Canada. But our people took firm stand on the matter, sympathizing with the fugitive slaves and those who aided them on their way to freedom. When, therefore, Congress, in 1850, at the bidding of the Southern politicians, passed the Fugitive Slave Law, Wisconsin bitterly condemned it. This act was designed to crush out the underground railroad. It provided for the appointment, by federal courts, of commissioners in the several States, whose duty it should be to assist slaveholders and their agents in catching their runaway property. The unsupported -testimony of the owner or agent was sufficient to prove ownership, the black man himself having no Tight to testify, and there being for him no trial by jury. The United States commissioners might enforce the law by the aid of any number of assistants, and, in the last resort, might summon the entire population to help them. There were very heavy Penalties provided for violations of this inhuman law. The Fugitive Slave Law was denounced by most of the political conventions held in our State that year. "In his message to the legislature, in January, 1851, Governor Dewey expressed the general sentiment when he said that it "contains provisions odious to our people, contrary to our sympathies, and repugnant to out feelings." But it was three years before occasion arose for Wisconsin to act. In the early months of 1854, a negro named Joshua Glover appeared in Racine, and obtained work in a sawmill four miles north of that place. On the night of the 10th of March, he was playing cards in his little cabin, with two other met, of his race. Suddenly there appeared at the door seven well-armed white men, two United States deputy marshals from Milwaukee, their four assistants from Racine, and a St. Louis man named Garland, who claimed to be Glover's owner. A desperate struggle followed, the result being that deserted by Glover, his comrades and knocked senseless by a blow, was placed in chains by his captors. Severely bleeding from his wounds, be was thrown into an open wagon and carted across country to the Milwaukee county jail, for the man hunters feared to go to Racine, where the antislavery feeling was strong. It was a bitter cold night, and Glover's miseries were added to by the brutal Garland, who at intervals kicked and beat the prisoner, and promised him still more serious punishment upon their turn to the Missouri plantation. The news of the capture was not long in reaching Racine. The next morning there was held in the city square a public meeting, attended by nearly every citizen, at which resolutions were passed denouncing the act of the kidnapers as an outrage; demanding for Glover a trial by jury; promising "to attend in person to aid him, by all honorable means, to secure his unconditional release"; and, most significant of all, resolving that the people of Racine "do hereby declare the slave catching law of 1850 disgraceful and also repealed." There were many such nullifying resolutions passed in those stirring days by mass meetings throughout the country, but this was one of the earliest and most outspoken. That afternoon, on hearing where Glover had been imprisoned, a hundred indignant citizens of Racine, headed by the sheriff, went by steamer to Milwaukee, arriving there at five o'clock. Meanwhile, Milwaukee had been active. News of the capture had not been circulated in that city until "eleven o'clock in the morning. One of the first to learn of it was Sherman. M. Booth, the energetic editor of a small antislavery paper, the Wisconsin Free Democrat. Riding up and down the streets upon a horse, he scattered handbills, and, stopping at each crossing, shouted: " Freemen, to the rescue! Slave catchers are An our midst! Be at the courthouse at two o'clock! Prompt to the hour, over five thousand people assembled in the courthouse square, where Booth, and several other " liberty men " made impassioned speeches. A vigilance committee was appointed, to see that Glover bad a fair trial, and the county judge issued in his behalf a writ of habeas corpus, calling for an immediate trial, and a show of proofs. But the federal judge, A. G. Miller, forbade the sheriff to obey this writ, holding that Glover must remain in the hands of the United States marshal, in whose custody he was placed by virtue of the Fugitive Slave Law. The local militia were called out to suppress the disorder, but they were without power. It soon became noised about that Glover was to be secretly removed to Missouri. This made the mob furious. just at this time the Racine contingent arrived, adding oil to the flames. The reenforced crowd now marched to the jail attacked the weak structure with axes, beams, and crowbars, rescued the fugitive just at sunset, and hurried him off. An underground railroad agency took the poor fellow in charge, and soon placed him aboard a sailing vessel bound for Canada, where be finally arrived in safety. Throughout Wisconsin the rescue was approved by the newspapers and public gatherings. Sympathetic meetings were also held in other States, at which resolutions applauding the action of Booth and his friends, and declaring the slave catching law unconstitutional, were passed with much enthusiasm. There was also held at Milwaukee, in April, a notable State convention, with delegates from all of the settled parts of the commonwealth; this convention declared the law unconstitutional, and formed a State league for furnishing aid and sympathy to the Glover rescuers. In 1857, as a result of the Glover affair, the Wisconsin legislature passed an act making it a duty of district attorneys in each county "to use all lawful means to protect, defend, and procure to be discharged every person arrested or claimed as a fugitive ,Slave," and throwing around the poor fellow every possible safeguard. Such was Wisconsin's final protest against the iniquity of the Fugitive Slave Law. Naturally, Booth had been looked upon by the United States marshal as the chief abettor of the riot. He was promptly arrested for violating a federal law by aiding in the escape of a slave ; but the State supreme court promptly discharged him on a writ of habeas corpus. Thereupon he was brought before the federal court, but again the State court interfered in his favor, because of a technical irregularity. On the first of these occasions, the State court issued a very remarkable decision upon State rights, that attracted national attention at a time when this question was violently agitating the public mind. It declared, after a clear, logical statement of the case, that the Fugitive Slave Law was " unconstitutional and void because it conferred judicial power upon mere court commissioners, and deprived the accused negro of the right of trial by jury. One of the justices of the court, in an individual opinion, went still further: he held that Congress had no power to legislate upon this subject; that "the States will never quietly submit to be disrobed of their sovereignty" by "national functionaries that the police power rested in the State itself, which would not " succumb, paralyzed and aghast, before the process of an officer unknown to the constitution, and irresponsible to its sanctions"; and that so long as he remained a judge, Wisconsin would meet such attempts with " stern remonstrance and resistance." The federal court reversed this action, and again arrested Booth in 186o, but he was soon pardoned by the President, and met with no further trouble on account of the Glover affair. As for the people of Racine, they made life rather uncomfortable for the men who had assisted the Milwaukee deputy marshals in arresting Glover. The city became a fiercer hotbed of abolition than ever before, and several times thereafter aided slaves to escape from bondage. Fortunately for their own good, as well as for the cause of law and order, they found no further occasion to take the law into their own hands, in the defense of human liberty.