| Robert and Margaret Garner Sold Down the River Part of this story was lost after a meltdown, but we thought it important enough to let stand. The entire story is told at the Freedom Center in Cincinnati, just a river crossing from the Gains plantation in Kentucky. Come one and all! |
Passionate defense of slaves brought applause By Owen Findsen The Cincinnati Enquirer They were slaves, denied the right to trial by jury. So the fate of the seven fugitives hung on the decision of U.S. Commissioner John L. Pendery. Three of the slaves, Simon, wife Mary and their son, also called Simon, were claimed by James Marshall of Boone County. Young Simon's wife, Margaret, and her three surviving children were owned by Archibald Gaines, also of Boone County. The two hearings, one for each claimant, were presented concurrently in a Cincinnati court in February 1856. The defendants were "fugitives from labor and service," according to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. The owners' attorneys argued that there was no moral issue before the commissioner, only the letter of the law. "The Federal Constitution under which we live . . . recognizes the institution of slavery and it also requires laws to be passed to protect the slave property of the Southern States of this union," said Col. Francis T. Chambers, a Cincinnati attorney who opposed slavery but defended the law. Attorneys for the owners claimed they were trying to return Kentuckians (the slaves) to Kentucky under the laws of the Commonwealth. At the same time, they argued, Ohio law, which would try Margaret Garner for the murder of her 3-year-old daughter, was not applicable in a federal court. "I say we stand here not as citizens of Kentucky or Ohio but as citizens of the Union, and in the investigation of this case we are only bound by the laws passed by Congress on this subject," said Kentucky attorney John W. Finnell, who represented John Marshall. "What have we to do with the right or wrong of slavery? It is here in our midst and we cannot rid ourselves of the evil, if evil there be." Mr. Finnell challenged Irish-born attorney John Jolliffe's right to defend slaves, because has was a not a native-born American. "Continued and unceasing obstacles are thrown in my way," Mr. Finnell protested. "They are placed there by a foreigner by birth, who had far better return to his native land and remove the shackles from the feet of his brethren in Ireland before coming here to teach the laws of humanity concerning American slavery." Mr. Jolliffe, concluding the defense of Mr. Marshall's slaves, argued that the Fugitive Slave Law was immoral and that the Constitution's protection of slavery violated the Constitution's protection of religious liberty. He appealed to a higher law: the Bible. "Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion," he said. "What is the exercise of Christian religion? Its vital principal is that you shall love God with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself . . . every law that interferes with that right is unconstitutional and void." The slave Simon Jr. "has a wife who is now in jail, and against whom the charge of murder is preferred. Now Mr. Marshall asks you to tear him from his wife, who so much at the present time needs his aid. "What God has joined together let not man put asunder." The audience burst into applause. "Can you do this and obey God and his word? The religious freedom of the United States is on trial here: If you sustain it, you sustain it for us all; if you betray it, you betray us all. "Now pray, sir, if Congress cannot pass a law to compel you to worship God, can they compel you to sin against God? If they cannot compel you to bring sacrifices to the altar of God, can they compel you to to carry fuel to hell -- to plunge these persons into the seething hell of American slavery? "All rights are taken away from slaves. They cannot worship God; they cannot read the Bible; they cannot preach the Gospel to all nations; they cannot bring up their children as they might wish; they can do nothing without consent of their masters. Do you not perceive that the Bible is on one hand and the Fugitive Slave Law on the other?" Mr. Jolliffe spoke of the religious faith of the slave Mary Garner. "Sir, if you could see things aright you would see angels hovering around this room; nay, you could see Christ himself here, pleading for this woman. "Sir, if you send her back into slavery, you send Christ into slavery; if you send her back to the slave block you send Christ to the slave block; if you send her to be scourged you send Christ to be scourged. Your own immortal soul is at stake in this decision you shall make in this case, for has not Christ said "If you do it unto the least of these, you do it unto me'? "Sir, your decision in this case is of the utmost importance—on it rests the peace of this nation. Oh! I see the armies as they are arrayed against one another. I hear the groans of the dying and the clash of steel against steel. If you decide against these defendants, this Union cannot stand, the people would rise en masse and rend the Union asunder." Small victory for a Quaker friend Deputy marshals were recruited from Kentucky during the Garner trial "to prevent colored people and friends of the slaves from entering the court room," recalled Levi Coffin, a Quaker who was called the "president" of the Underground Railroad. Bearded and dressed in black, Mr. Coffin wore a flat, wide- brimmed hat. As he entered the court, he was confronted by one of the marshals. "I command you to take off your hat," a marshal told him. "I shall not pull off my hat to accommodate thee," Mr. Coffin replied. "I have served on juries in several states and have never been commanded to pull off my hat." The order was repeated several times, each time louder than the last, and each time, Mr. Coffin gently declined to remove his hat. The marshal snatched the hat off Mr. Coffin's head and tried to hand it to him. Mr. Coffin refused to accept it. "I thought thou wanted my hat," he said. The trial stopped, and everybody watched as the marshal put the hat on a table. A Cincinnati police officer picked up the hat and put it back on Mr. Coffin's head. "Leave the gentleman's hat alone," the officer told the marshal. "I have as much authority here as you have." The story was printed in newspapers across the nation. For weeks people who met Mr. Coffin congratulated him on whipping the marshal. "My general reply was, 'I didn't hurt a hair on his head,'" Mr. Coffin recalled in his Reminiscences. The information in this story came from the Enquirer, editions of Jan. 29 and 30, 1856. |
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Boat heading South sank in collision By Owen Findsen The Cincinnati Enquirer At 4 a.m. on a clear, starlit morning, March 10, 1856, the steamer Henry Lewis was descending the Ohio River below Troy, Ky., hugging the Kentucky shore. The boat was loaded with cargo for New Orleans and had 40 passengers aboard, including Margaret Garner, her family, and a U.S. marshal, assigned to guard them. Mrs. Garner's case was lost. Although she had killed her daughter to prevent her from being taken back into slavery, she was too valuable as a slave to be executed for murder. Attorney John Jolliffe pleaded eloquently before U.S. Commissioner John L. Pendery, who said he would delay his ruling for a month, until March 18. It was hoped that the city would calm down and the roaming gangs of Southern toughs would leave town. Commissioner Pendery had ruled in favor of fugitives in the past, and he might do so again. But another U.S. Commissioner, Edward S. Leavitt, closed the case March 1. He ruled that "the question is not affected by the fact that the law of the United States...may be viewed as unjust or oppressive. Until repealed or adjudged void by unconstitutionality, it must be respected and obeyed as law." He returned Mrs. Garner, her three children, her husband, Simon, and his parents, Simon and Mary, to Boone County slave owner Archibald Gaines. The Garners were put on an omnibus to transport them to the Kentucky ferry. People lining the streets threw eggs at the marshals. One of the marshals was a young printer named A.O. Russell, who, years later, said the incident moved him to join the new Republican Party, vote for Lincoln and fight for the Union in the Civil War. Mr. Jolliffe tried to obtain a writ of habeas corpus to return the fugitives to Ohio, where Mrs. Garner would be tried for murder. It would probably cost Mrs. Garner her life, but a ruling against the Fugitive Slave Law could save others. Col. Gaines was ordered by Kentucky Gov. Charles Morehead to confine Mrs. Garner in the Covington jail, pending an order from Ohio Governor Salmon P. Chase to return them to Ohio for trial. Gov. Chase, a Cincinnati attorney, was famous for his defense of fugitive slave cases. On March 4, Gov. Chase demanded a return of the slaves. Col. Gaines had no intention of losing his slaves. He kept them in the Covington jail for one week. Then he came to Cincinnati to announce that he had "fulfilled his obligation in good faith, and even now would be glad to aid the proper authorities in carrying into effect any proceedings in regard to Margaret and her children that may be deemed right by the governments of the two states." Col. Gaines put the slaves on the Henry Lewis. He was sending them to the Gaines family plantation in Arkansas, too far for escape. As the Henry Lewis came around a bend in the river, the E. Howard, traveling the opposite direction, loomed into view. There was a collision. The Henry Lewis spun around and began to sink. Fire broke out, and the cabin deck split in two from the weight of cargo on the roof. People ran from their beds and raced for the hurricane deck, the highest on the boat. Many of them were bruised and cut from the falling cargo. The boat settled to the bottom in 20 feet of water, with only the hurricane deck above the water line. People fell into the river where they hung onto floating boxes. Boats from the E. Howard pulled them from the icy water. At least 15 people, many of them children, drowned. Mrs. Garner fell overboard with her baby. She was rescued, but the baby drowned. The Louisville Courier-Journal reported that "the mother exhibited no other feeling than joy at the loss of her child." She was put on board the steamer Hungarian and sent back to slavery. On June 1, 1857, a year after the Margaret Garner trial, attorney John Jolliffe was invited to dine with a friend in Covington. As he walked along the street, a man blocked his way and began shouting at him, calling him a "negro thief." The information in this story came from the Enquirer, editions of Jan. 29 and 30, 1856. |
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| The Riverboat Henry Lewis was much like this one that steams into the river ports of Cincinnati and Newport Kentucky. |
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| From the Enquirer archives Lawyers appealed to a higher law |
| From the Enquirer archives Slaves' case ended in tragedy |
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