Legal Proceedings in Lancaster County—Prisoners Remanded to Local Jurisdiction—President Fillmore’s Message—Attorney General Brent’s Report—Final Disposition of the Cases in the Lancaster County Court—“Sam” Williams Tried in Philadelphia and Acquitted.
There was, however, a very considerable political and legal aftermath to the proceedings at Philadelphia. The intimation of so eminent an authority as a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to the effect that some official duty devolved upon the Lancaster County authorities could not be ignored. Accordingly District Attorney John L. Thompson, who was in his day one of the leaders of the Lancaster County Bar, framed bills of indictment to the January Sessions 1852 against many of those who had been arraigned for treason in Philadelphia. On Wednesday, December 31, Marshal Roberts brought to the Lancaster County prison from Philadelphia the following persons: Alson Pernsley, Lewis Gales, Lewis Clarkson, Charles Hunter, Nelson Carter, Thomas Butler, Henry Green, Collister Wilson and George Williams,—all these were on the same evening discharged by the District Attorney, as he deemed the evidence insufficient to warrant their detention.
On the same evening George Williams was arrested as a fugitive slave and taken to Penningtonville, where he took advantage of the sleepiness of his captors and walked off, and “straight was seen no more,” to the great chagrin of Henry H. Kline, the officer who made the arrest, and of the owner of the slave, who was asleep on the floor.
Saturday, January 3, 1852, Marshal Roberts brought to[Pg 92] Lancaster as prisoners John Morgan, Jacob Moore, Ezekiel Thompson, Isaiah Clarkson, John Williams, John Jackson, Benjamin Johnson, George Read, Daniel Caulsberry, Benjamin Pendergrass, William Williams, John Holliday, William Brown, Elijah Clark, William Brown, Jr., and Henry Sims, as prisoners, and five colored persons as witnesses. The witnesses were discharged on their recognizance to appear at Court to testify.
Public and political interest in the Riot and the Trials was not allowed to flag from inattention to the issues they involved by those high in authority. From “the seats of the mighty” deliverances were heard against what was interpreted in some quarters as successful offensive resistance to law. In his early message to Congress in December, 1851, President Fillmore had these paragraphs, relating to the events at Christiana.
“It is deeply to be regretted that in several instances officers of the Government, in attempting to execute the law for the return of fugitives from labor, have been openly resisted and their efforts frustrated and defeated by lawless and violent mobs: that in one case such resistance resulted in the death of an estimable citizen, and in others serious injury ensued to those officers and to individuals who were using their endeavors to sustain the laws. Prosecutions have been instituted against the alleged offenders so far as they could be identified, and are still pending. I have regarded it as my duty in these cases to give all aid legally in my power to the enforcement of the laws, and I shall continue to do so wherever and whenever their execution may be resisted.”
“Some objections have been urged against the details of the act for the return of fugitives from labor, but it is worthy of remark that the main opposition is aimed against the Constitution itself, and proceeds from persons and classes of persons many of whom declare their wish to see that Constitution overturned. They avow their hostility to any law[Pg 93] which shall give full and practical effect to this requirement of the Constitution. Fortunately the number of these persons is comparatively small, and is believed to be daily diminishing; but the issue which they present is one which involves the supremacy and even the existence of the Constitution.”
At an anti-slavery meeting, in Philadelphia, held on December 18, 1851, Joshua R. Giddings and Lucretia Mott were speakers. The large audience grew tumultuously enthusiastic over the presentation on the platform of Castner Hanway and Elijah Lewis.
After the trial William H. Seward sent the following Christmas greeting to District Attorney Ashmead, whose son, Henry G. Ashmead, historian of Delaware County and resident of Chester, cherishes the manuscript; Mr. Seward was then in his first term as United States Senator, but had already distinguished himself as an anti-slavery leader:
Washington December 25, 1857
My Dear Sir,
I thank you for the kind remembrance manifested by you sending me a copy of your opening Argument on the late Trial for Treason. While I cannot but rejoice in the result of that trial as a new assurance of the security of Popular Liberty, I am not unable to appreciate the ability with which you have maintained the untenable position which the Government was made to assume. The argument is highly logical and eloquent, and I cannot better manifest my good wishes for you and for the Country than by expressing a hope that it may be the good fortune of the cause of truth and justice hereafter to enlist you on their side.
I am, my dear Sir,
Very respectfully & truly
Your friend,
William H. Seward.
John W. Ashmead Esq.,
District Attorney of the United States
Philadelphia.
In his message to the General Assembly of Maryland at the following January Session, Governor Lowe referred at length[Pg 94] to the Gorsuch tragedy. Despite the assurances of the Federal administration through Secretary of State Daniel Webster, that all the energies of the law would be exerted to bring the offenders to justice, Maryland had felt constrained to actively participate in the prosecution. “The blood of a Marylander,” he declared, “cried out from the earth; whilst the Genius of the union called aloud for a vindication of outraged laws.” Otherwise “the flame of excitement would spread from the hills of Maryland to the savannahs of the extreme South, until every Southern State would unite in one common feeling of horror and indignation.” Senator Cooper had been retained by him; and despite the high ability and signal service of both him and Maryland’s Attorney General, there had been a gross miscarriage of justice. With a fervor of rhetoric that was more common then in State papers than it is now, he declared: “Shall domestic feuds destroy our power, when the eyes of all nations are turned to the star of our empire, as the harbinger of their deliverance? Shall Kossuth blast Hungary with the breath of our discord? Shall O’Brien, in his lonely exile, see the hope of Ireland pass down the horizon, with the western sun? May so incalculable a calamity be spared to the nations of the earth. And yet, when American blood is made to flow upon American soil, as a grateful libation to American fanaticism; when whole communities stand listlessly by, and a prostituted press and venal politicians are found, in the open day, to glory in the human sacrifice; when the Law proclaims its own weakness from the Bench, and Treason stalks unpunished, through the halls of justice; the Nations can judge of the probable remoteness of that calamity.”
The official report of his Attorney General justified the Governor in becoming somewhat heated over the outcome at Philadelphia. Mr. Brent had suffered not only some personal irritation over his position there, but a keen professional disappointment in his failure to convict. The blame[Pg 95] for this he distributed very generally among the people of the North who sympathized with resistance to the Fugitive Slave Law; the partisan character of the jury panel; the partiality of the daily press reports; the sympathy of the spectators; the treachery of the prison officials; the bribery of Scott, the government’s witnesses; and egregious errors of law committed by Judge Grier. Even the amiable Marshal did not escape criticism, as evinced by this paragraph:
“I brought to the attention of the court, the fact stated in the ‘Pennsylvania Freeman,’ that the Marshal (Mr. Roberts) had actually dined with the prisoners, or some of them, during the trial, on Thanksgiving day, and when I was abo............