1858 (31 page)

Wightman and the jailer, John Smith, told the Rescuers that they would be made as comfortable as possible. Wightman let some of them live in his own apartment at the prison. They were allowed the use of all the administrative rooms and permitted to roam throughout the building at will; the cells where they slept were cleaned regularly.

Wightman and Smith suspended all the rules for visitation and told the Rescuers’ families that they could arrive whenever they desired; he let it be known that anyone could join them. They did. Throughout their incarceration, thousands of people came to visit and encourage the Rescuers. At first they came from blocks away in Cleveland, then by stagecoach from Lorain and by train from Oberlin and Wellington. Soon afterward, supporters began to arrive on horseback and in carriages from all over Ohio and later, by train from all over the United States. The first visitors were wives, children, and friends, but soon huge organizations arrived to lend their support.

The first large group to turn up consisted of dozens of women from the Cleveland Plymouth Church, a Congregational sect. Wightman let them stay for hours and the reception rooms at the jail became festive, as they would for the dozens of large groups of visitors who would follow. The atmosphere was so party-like that the
Cleveland Morning Leader
wrote that “President Buchanan hardly holds greater levees.” The
Herald
reporter noted that the jail “appeared more like a fashionable place of resort than a prison.”
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The size of the crowds of visitors grew quickly into the hundreds and then into the thousands. On the first Sunday of their imprisonment, more than seven hundred visitors jammed the prison yard and the perimeter of the jail, and hundreds more crammed into windows of the courthouse and other nearby buildings, to hear Professor Henry Peck read from scriptures and lead a choir in singing hymns. Peck told the crowd with great firmness that, as William Seward had often said, there was a higher law than the Constitution: the law of God. “Divine will is to be paramount law with us,” Peck told the assembly. “We must obey God always, and the human law, social and civil,
when we can
.”
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Later, a group of more than four hundred Sunday school students from Oberlin took a train to visit the Rescuers. More large groups followed, week by week, in a long procession.

The most intriguing visitor of all was John Brown, the abolitionist leader of the murderous wars in Kansas who was wanted by the federal government for his illegal raids in that state and neighboring Missouri. Brown arrived in Cleveland unseen. He not only managed to slip unnoticed into Cleveland but delivered a virulent antislavery lecture to a large crowd that was advertised in dozens of broadsides nailed to trees and buildings in downtown Cleveland. At a well-attended and publicized auction, Brown sold off horses and mules he had stolen. The audacious Brown even managed to walk past courthouse guards and for one day sat in the courtroom observing Simeon Bushnell’s trial. To elude detection, Brown simply tucked his famous long white beard into the top of his shirt and pulled a hat down over his forehead.

Encouraged by his courtroom deception, he then sneaked into the Cuyahoga County Jail and visited the Rescuers, even trying to recruit some of them for the raid he planned somewhere in Virginia (it would be the notorious Harper’s Ferry attack). One of them was William Lincoln. Brown told Lincoln that not only did he want him with his band of raiders, but would make him one of the leaders. Lincoln asked him how many men had been recruited and when Brown answered that he had twenty-two, Lincoln scoffed.

“Brother Brown, twenty-two are enough for death; I shall reserve myself for better and wiser plans,” Lincoln said.

Brown understood and departed. “God bless you, young man,” Brown said. “God bless you and good-bye.”
⁴⁰⁷

The huge crowds soon became routine as the abolitionist press and many mainstream newspapers not only embraced the cause of the Rescuers, but saw them as the descendants of the Christian martyrs of old, remaining in prison to defy the Romans and anyone else who opposed Christianity.
⁴⁰⁸

Congressman Joshua Giddings spoke for many when he said, “They are no longer for themselves in this business, but for justice, for liberty, for the cause of freedom. The eyes of the nation are upon them… Cleveland is the Boston of 1775.”
⁴⁰⁹

The Rescuers understood their newfound acclaim and realized they could use it to promote their cause. Republican Party officials did also, rallying to the Rescuers’ defense.
⁴¹⁰
“May the God of the poor use us, and these stirring events, to awaken a sleeping Church and a sleeping state to acknowledge the fact that the bolts of heaven are hanging over us, and the wrath of heaven is out against us because of our indifference to these miseries of his suffering poor,” said bookseller Jacob Fitch from jail.
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Charles Langston was tried next, but with a new jury. Langston, too, was found guilty, but the black defendant electrified the courtroom when he spoke before sentencing was imposed.

“I shall never be taken into slavery. And in that trying hour I would have others do to me, as I would call upon my friends to help me, as I could call upon you, your honor, to help me, as I would call upon you, Belden, to help me…and upon you [his lawyer]
so help me God
! I stand here to say that I will do all I can, for any man thus seized and held, though the inevitable penalty of six months’ imprisonment and one thousand dollars fine for each offense hangs over me! We have common humanity. You would do so; your manhood would require it; and no matter what the laws might be, you would honor yourself for doing it; your friends would honor you for doing it; your children to all generations would honor you for doing it; and every good and honest man would say, you had done
right
!”
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As he finished, the spectators in the jammed courtroom erupted in cheers that continued for several minutes despite the judge’s efforts to calm them down.
⁴¹³

The Rescuers’ lawyers decided to try to persuade the Ohio Supreme Court to free their clients from Belden’s detainment. Needing some legal leverage, they pressured Sheriff Herman Burr, of Lorain County, to arrest the slave hunters who abducted John Price on kidnapping charges. The Rescuers’ lawyers demanded, and received, a guarantee that each case would be heard by a separate jury. To add yet more pressure on the government, the attorneys told the press that by the time all of the trials were over, the proceeding would be the costliest in the history of the Ohio courts, more than $5 million.

Each side threatened the other. The Rescuers’ attorneys warned that they were seeking lengthy prison terms for the Kentuckians; prosecutor Belden replied that he had decided not to keep any convicted Rescuers in the Cleveland jail, but to transport them to the notorious state prison in Columbus, where the worst murderers in the Midwest were incarcerated. In one effort to pressure all of the Rescuers to make bail and go home, charges were dropped against two defendants who had nothing to do with the actual freeing of Price. Prosecutor Belden then convinced three of the Wellington Rescuers that he would drop the charges against them if they would leave the jail and return to their community. They did. That left fourteen defendants, all from Oberlin. Belden said later that they were the real culprits, telling a reporter, “The Oberlinites are the ones the government wants to punish.”
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The defense team made a lengthy plea before the Ohio Supreme Court, arguing that the federal government could not make a state government enforce the Fugitive Slave Act and that made it null and void and their clients innocent. The Rescuers’ attorneys also argued that the right against detainment was not only protected by the U.S. Constitution, but by English law back to the Magna Carta of the thirteenth century.
⁴¹⁵

Their gallant appeals did no good; the Ohio Supreme Court refused to aid the Rescuers. The judges ruled that a state court could not intervene in federal judicial proceedings; it crushed the hopes of the Oberlin prisoners.

Throughout this time, the Rescuers in prison made the best of their circumstances. There were problems, such as the common criminals and lunatics incarcerated with them who sometimes assaulted them. The food was not good or plentiful and there was little sunlight. Their jailers permitted them extraordinary freedom within the walls of the prison, however. John Scott was allowed to manufacture saddles in a shed. The students from Oberlin were permitted to bring their books, study, and set up an ad hoc library. Henry Peck, who had become the leader of the group, preached at two prayer meetings a day and held two Sabbath services every Sunday. The men organized a letter-writing drive to keep friends, family, and local newspapers informed of their welfare. They wrote over two thousand letters and many were copied and sent to newspapers around the country. The men even produced their own newspaper, called
The Rescuer
. The pages of the newspaper, which was published every other week, were filled with sermons and antislavery columns, all written by the Rescuers.
⁴¹⁶

The defendants kept as busy as they could because the trials had been suspended while the Ohio Supreme Court heard a second, and more important, plea from the defense team to have the Fugitive Slave Act overturned in Ohio, making the Rescuers innocent. All sides waited for the Ohio Supreme Court to hand down its decision. The court may have refused to step into a federal judicial proceeding, but it could certainly authorize a way to free the men while they awaited their trials.

All dreaded the consequences. The apprehensive U.S. attorney general, Jeremiah Black, stated in Washington, DC, that no state court could overrule the federal government on any matter concerning the trial and that any such decision violated the U.S. Constitution. Black ordered Marshal Johnson to defy the court and to do whatever was necessary to keep the Rescuers in prison if the Ohio court ruled in their favor. “You will respectfully decline to produce the bodies of the prisoners before the state court or to let them be taken of your own custody,” Black declared.
⁴¹⁷

Throughout the country, rumors flew. One oft-repeated story was that Governor Salmon Chase had already called up the state militia and that if the court ruled in favor of the prisoners, the militia would assault the Cuyahoga County Jail and free the Rescuers. Another was that in order to prevent any state officials from releasing the men, President Buchanan had ordered federal troops stationed in Kentucky to attack the city of Cleveland by land while the USS
Michigan
shelled it from the waters of Lake Erie. One rumor not on the streets at the time, but confirmed later, was that John Brown’s raiders planned to lead a small group of armed men to storm the county jail and free the Rescuers.
⁴¹⁸

On May 24, 1859, on the same day that the State Supreme Court was expected to rule on the writ of habeas corpus that would free the Rescuers, a massive rally was held in the public square in front of the county jail. The rally, sponsored by the Ohio Antislavery Society, attracted several thousand angry Ohioans (two thousand was a figure offered by the Democratic
Plain Dealer
and ten thousand by the Republican
Leader
). They arrived individually and in groups. Entire trains were rented to bring them in. A thirteen-car train was needed to transport more than two thousand residents of Oberlin alone. A fifteen-car train from Columbus arrived filled to capacity, as well as jammed twelve-car trains from Cleveland and Toledo. There was even a car filled with Rescuer supporters from Pittsburgh. Some of the railroads, eager to support the cause, sold half-price tickets. Three groups arrived with brass bands and large banners with slogans such as: “Sons of Liberty, 1765,” and “Down with the Fugitive Slave Act.” The men and women from Oberlin marched from the train station to the county jail two abreast, their brass band playing the French national anthem, “Marseilles.” Dozens of large American flags were carried by other groups.
⁴¹⁹

At the rally, speaker after speaker denounced the county prosecutor, the judge, and the federal government. Finally, Joshua Giddings just about urged the crowd to take the matter into their owns hands and storm the jail. “Let all those who are ready and resolved to resist when all other means fail—when the yoke is fixed upon your necks—and when the heel of oppression crushes our very life out—all those who are thus ready to resist the enforcement of this infamous Fugitive Slave Act…speak out!”

Giddings’s oration was met with a thunderous roar from the crowd. Then suddenly, unannounced, the governor of Ohio, Salmon Chase, who had earlier sent word he would not attend the rally, appeared at the podium.
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All hoped the state’s slave-hating governor would be there to lead the attack. Over the last few years, Chase, a tall man whose regal carriage made him look even larger, who was interested in seeking the presidency in 1860, had become one of the loudest critics of slavery. Chase had denounced the caning of Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts by Senator Preston Brooks in the Senate in 1856, telling Sumner then, “All acts against antislavery showed the true character of the men that slavery makes more than 10,000 speeches.”
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