Meigs County telegraph. [volume] (Pomeroy [Ohio]) 1848-1859, 1859-05-03
The Shaver rialS at GhHrIeSeon
-NuHIffcntiOm nU1 Perjlry.

We are not greatly disappointed to find
that Notification is again in thAascendant
at Charleston. The charitable hopes we
lately expressed, as to the fidelity OF
Southern Jury to the law and their oaths,
regardless OF public sentmert in favor of
renewing the African Slave Trade, prove
to have been groundless. What jury on
the Western Reserve has done towards enI
forcing Justly odous law for the benefit
of slavery, Southern jury has refused to
do in the case of q violation of the laws
against what has been rightly termed ''the
sum of human villainies, T" &he African
Slave Trade Which section q The Union
is most loyal and most sincerely reverent
toward the Constitution, is plainly seen
from the two cases 1t is also equally
plain in which part of the country gen
uine regard to the law of conscience pre-
walls, and where VjciouS "higher law"
the essence Of which is lawlessness and per-
Jury, has its real home. In any point of
view, the Charleston urors have brought
deep disgrace upon themselves and upon
the public sentiment of the section which
they represent.
A perfectly clear case was made out IN
the Echo trials. The chief Witnesses were
Captain Maflet and Lieut.. Carpenter, the
former the commander and the latter the
surgeon of the Dolphin, at the time she
captured the Echo The character of that
vessel was fully shown, her ownership.
and the citizenship OF Captain Townsend, /,
her commander, who was on trial. Cap
Maffet testified as TO the slaves taken from
the Echo, which he sent TO Charleston.
The chart found on board had con-
tinuous line uaced on it, showing the
course of the vessel, from the coast Of
Africa to the point at which she was cap
tured One of the prisoners, named
Henry, told Lieut.. Carpenter that they
had been forty three or forty-iour days out,
that they made signals for landing the
negroes, on the very afternoon of the cap
ture, and that one of these negroes was his
own property.
On the part of the prisoners, no testi-
mony whatever was produced.
The sections of the law of 1920, under
which they were indicted, provide that
''any person being of the ships company
of any vessel, owned wholly or in part by
any citizen of the United States, who shall
receive on any foreign shore, any negro
or Inulnto not held % service by the laws
of either OF the States or Territories of the
United States, on board staeh vessel with
intent to make him a slave, or who shall
forcibly conline or detain, oraid and assist
in coulinng or deianing, any such negro
on board such vessel, shall be deemed II
pirate, and suffer death"
Clearly proved guilty as the prisoners
severally We're, with no shadow of rebut-
ting proof, we have as vet only two further
facts in the case--nameiy, that they were
defended by four lawyers, and declared
not guilty by the jury, in direct defiance
of the law, the testimony, aud their oath
Similar is the action taken by the grand
jury at Charleston, near the same time, in
the case of Capt. Corrie Of tie WanJerel ),
anOl her slave trader, caught in the very
act. and beyound all peradventure proved
guilty. In obedience to the "higher law
OF Neir O,On aOW, or of Southern public
sentiment, that body refused to find a true
bill for piracy declaring upon oath that
there was no ground of accusation against
him.
In all these cases, it is to be borne in
mind, that the several juries have been
specially instructed from the bench, Judge
Wayne of the United States Supreme
Court presiding, that the law is constitu-
tional, and that it was their duty to en-
force it, in accordance with the facts
shown. About the facts there was not the
least shadow of question. The law the
Jurors had solumny sworn to support.
IL is utterly useless for such men, or those
who sustain them, to talk any longer of
Southern honor, as pertaining to Mene-
selves-saying nothing of conscience or
loyalty Gin. Ga@eHe.