FROM OUR SAN FRANCISCO CORRESPONDENT.

SAN FRANCISCO, June 25, 1856

FREDERICK DOUGLASS: SIR:—Another tragedy has been enacted in our midst, which from its peculiar nature and probable consequences has agitated and excited the public mind beyond the power of language to describe. David S. Terry, one of the Judges of the Supreme Bench, all aside his judicial robes, and came to this city to provoke hostilities between the People's Committee, and the authorities— Ballot-Box stuffers, assassins, and shoulder strikers. "" The truth of this maxim has been abundantly illustrated in the recent acts of Judge Terry. The violence of his passions dethroned his reason; he is now a miserable culprit, incarcerated in a cell of the Committee's prison. The circumstances are as follows;—The Committee, ascertaining that a vessel freighted with arms was on its way to San Francisco, dispatched another to capture them. This they succeeded in doing. After the vessel returned to the city, an officer, by the name of Hopkins, was sent to arrest Reuben Maloney, a "law and order man," who laid charge of the arms on board the captured vessel. Hopkins attempted to execute this order, but was resisted by Judge Terry, Dr. Aslie, and others.—The officer "was forced to retire; meanwhile the armory of the "—for protection. On their way there, there, they were met by Hopkins, who made a desperate attempt to arrest Terry, who was armed with a pistol, rifle, and bowie knife. A short scuffle ensued when Terry, finding he was being overcome, drew his knife, and buried it in Hopkins's neck, and then fled to the armory. The scene which followed the announcement of this assault beggars description. The bell of the Committee was tolled and in less than fifteen minutes, six thousand vigilants armed were in motion. The Blue's armory was soon surrounded and every approach guarded; a deputation of the Executive Committee then demanded the surrender of the entire party. This was acceded to, and they were escorted by a strong guard to the "Fort." In other parts of the city, different scenes took place every place, where it was known there were arms belonging to the law and order (?) party. Companies of were stationed with cannon. To

have resisted would have been madness and the arms with about one hundred and fifty law and order (?) ruffians, were secured and taken to the Fort. The excitement continued thro'out the day. Speculation ran high as to the probable fate of Terry, in the Event of Hopkins death. This all occurred on Saturday, the 21st inst. At this date, (25th,) Hopkins is still alive; but his recovery is almost impossible. Meanwhile, Terry's fiends are indefatigable. The papers are filled with affidavits, (manufactured, it is said,) tending to show the vile act of Terry's, at the most, , in the legal sense of the term. Those paper which have supported the Committee with unparalled unanimity, (with the exception of two) are beginning to show signs of weakness, owing to a large number of influential conservatives, or neutrals, exerting themselves on behalf of Terry, on account of his high official and social position. All this is supposed to have no influence with the all powerful , whose brilliant and success in ferreting out so much villainy has almost clothed them with infallibility; but it is evident from communications from members of the General Committee, that that diabolical hellhound, , has succeeded in driving , from the councils of the Executive. The General Committee are clamoring for the execution of Terry. They say his position should not shield him a particle; that he should be treated as were Oasey and Corn; that they have sworn to support each other in every emergency, regardless of consequences. On the other hand, it is urged that Terry, ex-officio, and by statute, is a conservation of the peace; and having sworn to support the constitution and laws, it was his duty to interfere and prevent, if possible, the execution of an unconstitutional arrest. This, in my opinion, is a good argument; but it must not be forgotten that the Committee repudiate law, the constitution, courts, &c.— not that they find fault with them, but with the misadministration. Law, forsooth! We have had too much of it. It is a wise saying, "." Moreover, the People are the source of all human law; and when such law is made the means of crushing out their dearest rights and liberties, making use of the to destroy what it was originally designed to protect it is then time for the People to trample it under foot. These men are now carrying out the theory of Wm. Lloyd GarrisonGarrison, William Lloyd

William Lloyd Garrison (1805-79) was the foremost white abolitionist of the nineteenth century and was credited with the discovery of Douglass as a speaker at an antislavery meeting in Nantucket in 1841. He began his career as an apprentice printer on the Newburyport (Mass.) Herald at the age of thirteen. Garrison became editor of the Newburyport Free Press in 1826, but the paper closed within a year. He was then associated with a series of periodicals in Boston that advocated reform before Benjamin Lundy offered the young journalist the opportunity to write for his antislavery newspaper. Garrison joined Lundy in editing the Genius of Universal Emancipation in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1829, during the last year of the paper's 1821-1830 run. In 1830 a libel suit against the editors forced the paper to close and landed Garrison in jail. After his release, he courted the wealthy merchants of New York and Boston in order to start the Liberator (1831-65), a weekly journal based in Boston in which he advocated an immediate end to slavery. Garrison's brand of abolition condemned any institution that would tolerate the existence of slavery, including churches, political parties. and even the United States itself and any scheme aimed at removing black people from the country. Instead, Garrison hoped to raise the public's awareness that slavery was morally wrong and thereby force its end in an almost millennial moment of emancipation. His approach appealed to both white and black antislavery advocates but earned him many enemies among those only moderately opposed to slavery and slaveholders alike. Seeing the need for greater action and organization beyond the pages of the Liberator; Garrison joined with other abolitionists to form the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1831. Two years later he helped found the larger American Anti-Slavery Society. In 1833 he established ties with English abolitionists after a trip to Great Britain, and he later brought the noted and notorious speaker George Thompson to the United States for a tour. Garrison also dedicated himself to women's rights, encouraging women to enter the public sphere by inviting them, via the Liberator, to form female antislavery societies. In addition to the thirty-three women's antislavery societies that flourished by 1838, Garrison's American Anti-Slavery Society welcomed women as well as blacks into its ranks. However, female delegates were excluded from the World's Anti-Slavery Convention of 1840 in London. The issue of women's participation in the antislavery movement and Garrison's absolute refusal to turn to politics to end slavery caused a division in the American Anti-Slavery Society. Brothers Lewis and Arthur Tappan, who opposed women's acting as speakers and who hoped to use politics toward abolition, broke with Garrison's American Anti-Slavery Society, forming the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, or the "New Organization" in 1841. Garrison's ideas were so closely associated with the "Old Organization" that the American Anti-Slavery Society became known simply as the "Garrisonians." With the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, Garrison believed that he had accomplished his life's work and that of the antislavery movement. He then resigned from the presidency of the American Anti-Slavery Society and closed the Liberator. Wendell Phillips Garrison and Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879: The Story of His Life Told by His Children, 4 vols. (New York, 188589); Henry Mayer, All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery (New York, 1998); James Brewer Stewart, William Lloyd Garrison and the Challenge of Emancipation (Arlington Heights, Ill., 1992); John L. Thomas, The Liberator: William Lloyd Garrison (Boston, 1963); Dictionary of American Biography, 20 vols. (New York, 1928-36), 7:168-72. without knowing it—and why? because they are fighting for their own liberties, instead of the black man's and yet there are [very?] few of them who would not tar and feather

him. "Consistency, thou art indeed a jewel." To return, Judge Shattuck, of the Superior Court, has published a letter, in which he takes the position that a state of war exists and that, consequently, Terry is a prisoner of war, and ought to be so treated. (Oh! the wisdom of our modern judges.) This is a most outrageous assumption unsupported by a particle of evidence. He, however, proceeds to reason out his conclusions, the first of which is, "that in the event Hopkins' death, Judge Terry is not guilty of murder for the blow was not stuck feloniously or with malice aforethought. 2nd. That we are in a state of war, and if death come, it is considered the fate of war, and not individual crime." His premises being false, his conclusions are necessarily so.—We are not in a state of war. The Vigilance Committee are the Government , and to resist one of its officers unto death is the same as resisting a marshal or police officer under ordinary circumstances. Moreover, Gov. Johnson would never have issued his proclamation but for Terry, who saw in this movement a mighty revolution in its infancy, destined, if not arrested, to drive from power and place all those whose elevation was owing to the bowie knife and Derringer ballot stuffer and shoulder striker.

The letter of Shattuck is being widely circulated by the friends of Terry, many of whom are supporters of the Committee; but Terry is a Southern man, a Texan slaveholder, weal
thy, and Judge of the Supreme Court, and must not be hung for murdering a poor man from Maine, a Yankee. This is the feeling that prompts the penning of Shattuck's letter. Punishment was not ordained for the chivalry; they cannot do wrong. To kill a that in Hayti they would not dare insult, is evidence of spirit and high breeding, whom the President honors with a commission in the army, as a testimony to his valor.

.— Hopkins is still alive and hopes are entertained of his recovery. The life of Terry depends upon that of his victim. It is thought by some that all this will end in secession from the Union. This is barely whispered. As to proclaim it openly would so shock the systems of the conservatives and Union savers, that fatal results might be apprehended; but as the constant dropping of a drop of water will wear away a stone, so I take it will be with

these Union . The constant agitation of this subject will gradually wear away those indignant feelings and dire apprehensions that this subject is wont to call up.

.—The arrived on
Tuesday, the 1st inst., and we are in possession of the sickening details of the assault upon Mr. Sumner. This outrage, or rather conspiracy, is one that no strength of language can express the feeling excited by this murderous act, in the breast of every person who is no dead to every impulse common to humanity.—The number and the character of the indignation meeting held, the unity and strength of sentiment that have characterized them, cannot atone for the blow struck, and they deadly thrust aimed at the head of Massachusetts. This is no time for language. Words have lost their wonted power. If the North does not now act in a murder that will prevent a repetition of this outrage, then she deserves the epithets heaped upon her by the "She should fight upon this theme, until her eyelids cease to war." I cannot write upon this outrage. I am literally choked with indignation. God has no attribute that can [illegible] with the sentiment that counsels moderation. But I must close this long letter.

Respectfully, yours,

WM. H. NEWBY.