Chapter 5

_General Fowler_, of Georgetown, stated that he knew Dr. Crandall, and that he was introduced to him, soon after he came, by a person interested in botany, as a man well acquainted with that science. Witness was fond of hunting after wild flowers, and proposed to take excursions with Dr. Crandall. They went out botanizing, six, eight, or ten times together. Their conversation was confined to that subject, and witness had no reason to suppose that Dr. Crandall had any incendiary pamphlets, or was at all engaged in the circulation of them. His conduct, so far as he had seen him, was that of a gentleman. He never knew him to converse with any negro. He never had any pamphlets with him, to his knowledge. Dr. Crandall's knowledge of the science was far beyond that which witness professed to have.

_Ward B. Howard_ stated that he had known Crandall some years: at least for seven or eight years. Witness was then resident at Peekskill. His reputation was good, and he never heard that he was an abolitionist. Witness himself had no fancy for abolitionists. There was no society of them at Peekskill. Crandall resided in Peekskill seven or eight years, and had, as he understood, attended the medical lectures at Philadelphia, and received a diploma there. He had brought letters of introduction to witness when he came to Peekskill, with the view to settlement there. Dr. Crandall was actively engaged as an agent for the temperance society. Witness would not now know the handwriting of the traverser. He might know the signature, but not the general handwriting.

_Jackson O'Brown_ was living at Peekskill when Dr. Crandall first came there. He boarded with him nearly two years, and had an opportunity of seeing much of his character; a great part of the time he roomed with him. The witness never heard that he was engaged in the abolition societies, though he knew he was an active member of the temperance society.

_Henry Gaither_ said he was in Linthicum's shop at the time when Dr. Crandall was arrested. That an hour before he had heard that the officers were in pursuit of him. He saw the officers, Robertson and Jeffers, enter the office; and noticed a crowd gathering around it. He asked Jeffers, as soon as he came out, what he had discovered, and Jeffers, in reply, said he had found more than he expected, and had taken 150 or 160 pamphlets. There was much excitement then in the vicinity. Witness was then himself excited. When Crandall came out, witness was apprehensive that he would be wrested from the officers by the people. Oyster came in, and witness asked him if he had seen any pamphlets. He said yes, but not more than two or three. Witness remarked, that Jeffers said he had seen and taken 150 or 160. Oyster replied, Jeffers is a liar. Some conversation followed, in which it was suggested that attempts might be made to prejudice the public mind against Crandall. Witness had since met Jeffers, on the Avenue, and spoken with him on the subject. Witness remarked to Jeffers, the poor fellow has suffered enough by so long a confinement, and Jeffers assented to the remark, and added that he believed Crandall to be innocent.

_Jared Stone_ was acquainted with Crandall, who lived three years in witness's family, and eat at his table, in Peekskill. Crandall was a physician who obtained a good reputation in that part of the country, and it continued unblemished. He never was known to have any abolition papers, or to say any thing in its favor, but was, if any thing, opposed to it.

_Mr. Wilson_ was present at the time spoken of by Mr. Gaither, and said one of the officers came out and said he had discovered more than he expected, and remarked, my hopes are more than realized. He could not recollect exactly the number of papers the officer said he had found, but thought it was one hundred or a hundred and twenty. Some one in the crowd said "we ought to take the damned rascal and hang him up on one of the trees opposite." The witness then went away.

_Mr. Judson_, Representative in Congress from Connecticut, had known Crandall from his boyhood. Crandall studied with witness's family physician, and acquired a good reputation; nobody stood better in the neighborhood. After he had finished his education he removed to Peekskill, since which witness had been in the habit of seeing him frequently; and he had always known him as a peaceable citizen. The precise year when Crandall was admitted he could not recollect, but it was about 1827 or 1828. Witness had not seen him for two years till he saw him here in prison, and had never heard aught against him till now. Mr. Judson also testified, that the prisoner was a brother of Prudence Crandall, and that at the time of the difficulty with her and her school for blacks in Connecticut, he met Crandall on board the boat on his way home from New York; that he talked with him about that school, and the prisoner said he was going to break it up; that he did not know as he should be able to do it, for his sister Prudence was obstinate, but his other sister, who was with her, he knew he could get away. Crandall then continued home with the witness, and exerted himself with as much zeal as any one could to break up the school.

_Dr. Sewall_ testified that the traverser came to him some time in the spring to get a license to practice in the District, and showed him two letters of high recommendation. He had some conversation with Crandall upon subjects of science and upon his knowledge of medicine and surgery, and formed a high opinion of his talents and acquirements. He advised the defendant by no means to abandon the practice of his profession for entering upon botany or chemistry, but if he could do that without interfering with practice, it might do; he thought him too well qualified in the profession to give it up. Crandall also showed the witness a diploma, which was regularly signed, and he gave a verbal license to practice, and said at the meeting of the Board he would have a regular license made out. He had no reason to believe, from his conversation with the prisoner, that he had any object in view except the pursuit of his profession. All the stories that he had talked upon the subject of abolition with witness, and given him Anti-Slavery papers, were mere idle talk.

_Mr. Howard_ said he was sheriff of Winchester county, where Crandall lived, and identified the handwriting of signatures to a letter of recommendation which Crandall brought with him, and which was allowed in evidence. All the signers were respectable men. Witness thinks he should have known if any Anti-Slavery Society existed there--but he knew of none. He also remembered that Crandall delivered lectures on chemistry there, and he attended them.

_Mr. Ward_, Representative from the district where Crandall resided, knew that he had lived there seven or eight years, and that he had a high reputation as a respectable man, and a good physician.

_Mr. Austin_ was now a resident in Georgetown, but formerly lived in Peekskill, where he knew the prisoner, who lived in his family three years. He came then in consequence of having raised up Mrs. Austin from a dangerous sickness. Witness was a lawyer, and knew Crandall's reputation to be high as a physician and surgeon, far and near. Witness was President of a Temperance Society, and Crandall was Secretary; he did not know of any Anti-Slavery Society, and did not know or believe that the prisoner belonged to any, or had any thing to do with them. Crandall came on at his request to accompany Mrs. A., who, with her two children, were always severely sick in travelling; and returned home soon after, when he came back again to stop here to teach botany. He came to witness's house on his return, and was taken sick soon after and confined to his room. Witness was not a subscriber for the Emancipator, though he understood one of the numbers in court was addressed to him. He never saw any abolition papers in Crandall's possession. If he had, they would have attracted his attention. Witness did not know how the large box of books and papers came on, but supposed they came by water when Crandall came the second time. He could not say distinctly, but he thought a Mr. Dennison, an abolition agent, once left some abolition pamphlets at his house for himself, and some for Crandall. He could not identify them in court as the same, and he could not swear whether the endorsement on them was in Crandall's handwriting or not.

_Mrs. Austin_ said she had known the prisoner as long as Mr. Austin, and that his conduct in her family was irreproachable. She remembered Mr. Dennison's having left pamphlets for Crandall and her husband, but could not say those in court were the same, but they were similar. Crandall came at her husband's request, to accompany the family, because they were sick in travelling. He did not wish to come further than New York, and would not consent to come further than Philadelphia; but as Mr. Austin did not meet them there, he kindly came on to Washington. She was cleaning up the house, preparatory to leaving it, and gave Crandall the large box; and asked his permission to put into it his books and papers. These pamphlets were lying as waste paper in the garret, and she threw them with others into the box. Saw that some of them had writing on, but didn't know of any with writing on in the trunk. The box was sent round by water, but he brought the trunk when he came on the second time. He did not carry it to the house when he arrived at night, but it was sent over in the morning. Crandall was immediately taken sick, and witness frequently went to the trunk for various purposes, and saw a package nicely done up, which she supposed to be books. The package remained just as it was tied up at the bookstore, till six or eight days before the prisoner's arrest, when she had curiosity to know what it contained, and he consented that she might open it.

Some conversation was held between witness and prisoner, before and after opening, which the court refused to admit in evidence.

Mrs. Austin went on and testified, that she did not tie up the package again, but left it, and she saw it repeatedly in the same state up to the time of prisoner's arrest. She also saw several Emancipators in the house, and one or two tracts sent by mail, which she used or destroyed as waste paper.

_Bradley_ here offered to put in two letters and a deposition from the man who gave Crandall the package in New York.

_Key_ objected that it was not legal evidence.

_Bradley_ knew it was not, but the witnesses were beyond the reach of the court--they could not be forced to come and testify; and had distinctly declared that they were afraid to come into the District. He had last term requested the District Attorney to join him in taking their depositions, in consequence of the circumstances, but having been refused, he had gone on and taken them exparte, and he hoped they would be allowed to go to the jury.

_Key_ was willing to admit any thing reasonable, but this testimony was clearly inadmissible.

_The Court_ said, by the rules of evidence, it could not be given but by consent.

_Mr. Carlisle_ opened the summing up for the prosecution, and remarked that his was observed by the opposite counsel to be the only case of seditious libel ever brought before this court, and I will add, gentlemen, that the decision of it may determine whether or not it may be the last;--whether or not this traverser may return to his fellow laborers in iniquity, and inform them that _here_ he has found the gates wide open, and the way all clear for the propagation of their libels and their plans. It has been truly said that this topic is one of excitement all over the country. Under these circumstances this traverser may congratulate himself upon the opportunity of a fair and full trial, and that he has not been the victim of summary justice. But, gentlemen, let justice lose nothing of its proper efficiency by being administered with coolness and deliberation. The opposite counsel say that the charge is grave. Aye, gentlemen, it is so, but the proof is full. The offence charged is one of a fatal, devastating, and, beyond all power of palliation, most horrid character. These libels are not like common libels, which tend to bring individuals into discredit and disrepute. It is an offence of which the like is not contained in the annals of criminal jurisprudence, peculiar to the state of our society, and in enormity equal to all other crimes combined. An opulent and extensive society send out their emissaries and commission and enjoin them to scatter these infamous productions in the highways and by-ways; to proclaim them from the house tops, and whisper them in the chimney corners; to teach to all, high and low, that slaveholding is man-stealing; and yet they mean no such thing as breaking the peace, and abhor all violence and tumult. Does the preaching such language to slaves tend to pacification?

Mr. Carlisle was here commenting upon the nature of the agents employed for these unlawful purposes, to show that educated men, such as Dr. Crandall, were the kind naturally to be selected, and was further proceeding to examine the evidence as applicable to the laws, and, in his opinion, conclusively establishing the guilt of the traverser, when extreme physical debility and indisposition prevented him from proceeding.

_Mr. Bradley_ then commenced summing up for the defence. He said the nature of the charge was such that it was almost impossible to set aside the prejudices which had been cherished from youth up, and which were so natural to men of this section of the country; but he felt confident the jury would give him a patient hearing, and judge correctly after a careful consideration of the case. He then gave a statement of the points of the evidence, upon which there was no dispute; such as--That the prisoner allowed one pamphlet to be taken by Mr. King; that he was found here with a number of other papers; that some came round in a box by water; and that others were given him in New York, and brought on in his trunk. He wished to draw a distinction between the kinds of papers. It was proved that a bundle of papers were found, and they were here in court; but the contents were unknown; whether good or bad the jury had no right to infer. A large number of papers were found, some of which were brought away and the others were left. That was all the jury had to consider, except in regard to three numbers of the Anti-Slavery Reporter, five numbers of the Emancipator, and the late pictures which were cut from a work, and represented in contrast two modes of education--one where children were whipped, and the other where they were taught more mildly by means of books.

He would not stop now to consider the declarations said to have been made before the magistrate. Nothing could be more unsatisfactory and uncertain evidence than these examinations. The very fact that a man is accused throws him off his guard, and he may say what he does not intend, or which, if he did, in the midst of excitement the witnesses might not properly understand or correctly remember. It was said there were contradictions in his statements, but that supposition arose entirely from a mistake of one of the justices. The other understood it differently and saw no mistake at all. It respected the manner in which he brought on the books--one understood him to say that they were all given to him in New York, and that he brought them here, and they were all in the jail but about a dozen; and then, at another time, he said that he had some of them a long time. The other justice understood him to say that all that he brought into the District were there, and that they were all he brought from New York, except about a dozen, which he supposed he had left by the way. Neither of these suppositions were right. When he said they were all of them, he meant to say all he brought from New York; that he had distributed none, for even the one he loaned to Mr. King was taken by the prisoner from Linthicum's shop, and was then in Mr. Key's possession, though they supposed it was lost; and when he referred to about a dozen, he meant that he brought them all with him except about a dozen, which came in a box by water. It had been said that he admitted he had circulated a dozen; and yet the United States' witnesses prove that he denied having circulated any, and from the first disapproved of putting them in circulation. When the learned counsel asked why the persons were not brought, to whom he had given the dozen, to show that they were respectable men, he should have remembered that the testimony was all against such an idea; and that, if he had distributed any, the zeal and perseverance of the District Attorney and the officers would have discovered evidence of it.

It was also asked why the person who gave the bundle to him in New York was not brought to testify in his favor? as if the criminal wretch who had palmed off these incendiary papers upon an innocent man, without his knowledge, could be brought here to testify, when he was beyond the jurisdiction of the court, and had declared that he was afraid to come. He had requested the Attorney to have a deposition taken, but he refused; and when he was spoken to, he threatened a prosecution, and said he should like to see him; he wished he could get him. The Attorney now says he would be safe; perhaps so from him; but there are here, as elsewhere, hundreds of base cowardly scoundrels, who are willing in mobs to hunt down any one against whom they conceive a prejudice; men who dare not face a man alone, but who, backed by a mob, are willing to assail an individual without knowing any thing of his guilt or innocence.

Mr. B. then commented upon the character of the libel charged, and read the first count. The first paragraph, he argued, contained no incendiary language, unless it was to call slavery a crying abomination. He had not known before that those words were calculated to stir up insurrection. People were in the habit of hearing them daily from the pulpit, and he never knew that they became seditious on account of it. The whole of the matter was a controversy between the Anti-Slavery Society and the Colonization Society, in relation to the expediency of their different measures; and if any body could make any thing libellous, he must have intellectual spectacles stronger than those with which Newton looked at the stars. In the next paragraph slavery is called "unrighteous," which was the great offence charged there. If this was a libel, he should show that Arthur Tappan & Co. were not singular in the guilt of libelling; for that fathers of the church in a slave state had called slavery unrighteous too, and that some of the most eminent of our patriotic Southern politicians had used far stronger and more exciting language.

This was all a controversy whether it was proper that provision should be made that no slave should be emancipated unless provision was made for sending him out of the country; and the writer contends that to make sending a man out of this country, where he was born, a condition of releasing him from bondage, in which he was forcibly held was a moral absurdity; and to say so might be libellous, but he could not understand how it should be so. Some of the jury would recollect when a discussion of this topic took place in the Legislature of Maryland upon a proposed law to the same effect, and they would remember that similar arguments were used there.

The next passage was an extract showing the treatment of slaves in another country, different from ours, where they have no law to protect the persons of slaves; and could not apply to the condition of any portion of our people. It could not be libellous to have the book giving the original journal of the traveller, and, if it were not, he did not see how any evil or excitement could be produced by this extract.

He came next to the passage in the second count, which was an extract of a speech, in which the orator tried to say something grand; but it amounted to no more than had been said by slaveholders themselves; and though the Attorney said it with an amusing emphasis, yet he would show stronger language, to the same purport, in the writings of Mr. Jefferson and of Mr. Archer, of Virginia, which had been approved by all who heard or read them.

The whole argument used in the Anti-Slavery Reporter, he contended, was mild and temperate, more so than could be expected, when the different habits and modes of thought of the people from whence they came were considered--a people who, from infancy upward, had heard nothing but the accents of freedom, and had never lived in a country where they could actually know the practical effects of our system of slavery. The example was set them by the ablest writers here, and if we publish and send to them similar writings, is it to be considered wonderful that, in their discussions, they should adopt it. Their argument is, that slavery may increase to be an evil which, by and by, cannot be remedied without violence and bloodshed; and it is addressed to men who have the power and the influence to apply a remedy now. The same arguments were published here by the Colonization Society, which does honor to human nature, and were founded on extreme necessity.

He read numerous extracts of books to show that similar expressions to those in the libels charged, were not considered blameable if uttered or published at the South; and denied the right of the District Attorney to take particular words, here and there, and hold them up to fix the character of the paper, without regard to the connexion in which they were used; and he said that if Crandall was indictable for the language and meaning of the Anti-Slavery Reporter, then every member of the Colonization Society were liable to indictment.

[It may be proper to introduce one or two extracts, that the reader may know the character of the papers read. The following are taken from an address to the Colonization Society of Kentucky, by _R. J. Breckenridge_.]