The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-03-27


ERNMENT~-JoHN QUrNcY ADAMS.
No9
The Compromise Measures Thankfully so
caIledl of the summer of 1850 had so settled
some matters TO the satisfaction of the Slave
Power. and put those which were still pending
in so satisfactory train for final settlement,
that prudence dictated pause in its normal
action: and little more was done at present by
the Federal Cabinet than to endow the Terri
tory of New Mexico with an array of officials
from the Southern States to take care that Mr..
Websicrs Anti-Slavery tendencies of physi-
cal geography" should have no more than fair
play. The stronger was the reason for absti-
hence from Immediate further encroachment,
as the Northern mind was repeatedly lacerated
and euraged-aImost beyond the power of the
trailing politicians to pacify, divert, middle, or
disable it--by the shocking transactions which
accompanied executions of the Fugitive Slave
Bill
PENNSYLVANIA, lying across the border of the
slave States for two hundred miles, was the
principal hunting ground and repeated sue
oesses at her capital had emboldened the slave
catchers to make a fOray into the interior. In
September, 1851, one Gorsuch, of Maryland,
with party, and an officer with warrant from
ingraham, a Commissioner, whose name has
become well known in connection with these
Transactions, followed black whom he claim
el, 10 Lancaster county. The fugitive was pro-
al i- q
fred upon them, and was Immediately killed, his
son severely wounded, and the rest of the party
pat;o flight. The slave reached Canada and free
dom. Jerry, from Missouri, got as far towards
Che north star as Syracuse, in New York, where
he was taken into custody by the officers, at a
time when Convention of the Liberty Party
was sitting in that place-the same place where,
oddly enough, Mr.. Webster had made speech
iour months before, in which he said that, if the
H"cason shoGld occur, a slave should be taken
if'm Syracuse, Eyes, even from an AntiSla-
very Convention in Syracuse" The poor run
away was brought before a Commissioner. The
bells Of the churches tolled. The sheriff called
out the militia, but found them backward. His
cation; probably they intended to do none.
lne guaEdroom was forced, and Jerry was sent
ca ms way to Canada and all without harm
10 ANY one, except to a nervous deputy mar
shal, who broke his arm in jumping from a
window. If these were cases of peculiar mark,
Others occurred of surrender, resistance, and
escape, under circumstances TO exasperate the
general excitement of the North, by the exhi-
Onion of misery and heroism on the one part,
and of doings and characters simply devilsh
on the other,
Under the omnipresent influence of the ire
mendons power which presses On ms, judicial
tyranny had now began to be developed, which
within five short years has wonderfully enfee.
Died and unsettled the traditionary and in
grained confidence Of the Northern people in
The gravity and integrity of the administration
ol the law. Juries have generally veil stood
Their ground, as yet, though sometimes sadly
backed and bsow-beaten /; but to an extent that
already excites great solicitude, courts, rever.
sing the antithesis of the old New England
prayer, have shown themselves terror to well
aoers, and praise and encouragement to them
That do i'll. On the 10th of March, 1851, Han
nah Dellam was determined by Judge Kane, Of
Ihhadelphia, to be fugitive; she was about tC
give birth to an infant and the Judge held his
court all late into the night, lest freeman o.
pennsylvania should be born, and not a siays
Oh Maryland. Cashier Hanway and Elijah
Lewis Pennsylvania Quakers, who had refused
20 JON tue Deputy Marshsl's posse for the as
distance Of Gorsuch, at the instance of Judge
urier OF the Supreme Court of the Unitet
ntates' were brought before him and Judg,
Name: of the District Court, under preposter
oas indictment for High Treason. The tria
continued more than ten days, after which thi
Jufy took less than ten minutes to pronounc,
them not guilty. There was next an attemp
10 indlct them for murder, but the Grand Jur,
urew out the bills. Little better success at
'ended the proceedings against the alleged res
c'feFs OF Jerry at Syracuse, and Shadrach a
DoS'on. No conviction was obtained of either
except OF one person in the former case, itrie
a. Aioany, and not in the neighborhood of tn
-'esed offence, who was found guilty Of resis
nag an officer, but died before sentence. o.
cue 0'ner hand, Governor Bigler, of Penusylvs
ma pardoned Albert, who had been sentence
% Ten years imprisonment for kidnapping
-iee negro child and Daniel Kaufman, trie