Syracuse, Oct. 3d, 1851.

Dear Douglass:—I would before this have given you an account of our glorious State Convention if I could. You don't know what you lost by not attending it. It was respectable for numbers, but grand and glorious for incidents. The threat of Daniel Webster in his mad Speech he made here in the summer, to wit, "there shall be a slave arrested in Syracuse at the very next Anti-Slavery Convention, if there is occasion for it," had fallen back with things memory had laid aside. It was almost forgotten. But the recollection of it was gloriously revived in the midst of our Liberty Party State Convention.

A little after noon of Wednesday, after our nominations were made, and our resolutions reported and laying on the table for discussing, we were startled by the announcement that Mr. Webster's threat was actually being attempted, that a Slave was arrested and was then in the commissioner's office under the charge of the Marshal. You will of course conceive that the members of the Convention suspended the business of it until the case of the reputed fugitive was disposed of. You will infer of course that it was the intention of the government to disturb the

ordinary business of our Convention, that in that, at last, they did gloriously succeed, and that so far Mr. Webster gained his point.—But "the carrying out the fugitive slave law in Syracuse" is quite another thing. We went to the office of the Marshal to look upon the most revolting and cruel sight I ever beheld. We saw this poor colored man Jerry—a strong, bony, muscular fellow, in a few yards of the Judge or Commissioner, in check shirt and trowsers only, with his wrists crossed and clasped in heavy irons, and sitting on the extreme back side of the room, and at the greatest distance from the only entrance into it, confronted by James Lear, a brawny Kidnapper from Miissouri, who was said to be armed to the teeth, and the Marshal, Allen, who was said also to be thus armed, the Attorney for the Slaveholder, Mr. Lawrence, and a bevy of city constables.

The sight, which nearly blinded my eyes and deranged my senses, was, a man thus ironed and thus surrounded (for by this time the office was wedged full with human bodies as it could hold) without a pretense of crime, and for no other reason, or pretense of reason, than that he peaceably sought to deliver himself from Slavery. He seemed to be surrounded by frightful and ferocious hyenas, monsters of humanity, who delighted to insult God and torture his creatures. I will not say the commissioner deserved to be classed with such a group of monsters—but there he was, and needed but the heart of the beast that was pursuing Jerry to be the Key Stone in this arch of Judicial tyranny, that was to deprive an innocent man of his liberty or his life.

I have been conversant with courts all the adult years of my life, and familiar with the mode and practice of arranging and trying legal offenders in this country, and I venture

to assert, that in any case of crime, be it of the deepest atrocity, attended with ever so much public consciousness of guilt, (except in the single case of poor Jerry and the like), it would be esteemed the most villanous outrage upon law and justice to hold a man in chains while undergoing the forms of Judicial investigation. The hardy criminal is sometimes pinioned until he enters the temple of Justice, and then his chains fall, and he stands confessedly innocent until he is proved to be guilty. It is a most unhappy reflection upon the character of this country, and a damning disgrace to our Judges and our courts, that the forms of Justice are extended to the meanest fellow, but cruelly refused to an innocent and hunted Slave.

Leonard Gibbs, Esq., of Washington county, and Gerrit SmithSmith, Gerrit

Gerrit Smith (1797– 1874), a New York businessman and land speculator, became best known for his philanthropic work for such reform causes as temperance and abolition. Between 1828 and 1835, he donated large sums of money to the American Colonization Society, but abandoned that movement in 1835 when his sympathies shifted to the immediate abolitionists. In the 1840s, he gave approximately 140,000 acres of land in upstate New York to three thousand black settlers, thus qualifying them to vote. Smith was a founder and frequent candidate of the Liberty party, running for governor of New York on that ticket in 1840 and winning a seat in Congress in 1852. When the Free Soil merger with moderate antislavery Democrats and Whigs lured away many Liberty party supporters, Smith helped bankroll that organization until 1860. Smith befriended Douglass when the latter moved to Rochester, and Smith frequently helped finance Frederick Douglass’ Paper. Like Douglass, Smith supported John Brown, but psychological stress caused by the failure at Harpers Ferry brought on the first of a series of bipolar episodes that greatly reduced his subsequent reform activities. Ralph Volney Harlow, Gerrit Smith: Philanthropist and Reformer (1939; New York, 1972); Gerald Sorin, The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism (Westport, Conn., 1971), 269– 87; Lewis Perry, Radical Abolitionism: Anarchy and the Government of God in Antislavery Thought (Ithaca, N.Y., 1973), 170– 80; John R. McKivigan and Madeleine Leveille, “The ‘Black Dream’ of Gerrit Smith, New York Abolitionist,” Syracuse University Library Associates Courier, 20:61– 76 (Fall 1985); NCAB , 2:322– 23; DAB, 17:270– 71. took their seats by the side of this heart, stricken man. Mr. Gibbs, by a touching and irresistible argument, insisted that during the examination the irons should be taken from his limbs. The commissioner could not say the demand was illegal or unjust, but said he could not order the man liberated. He advised the marshal to liberate him, and said that was all he could do. I marked the grin of fiendish triumph that immediately came on the face of the Missouri slave-catcher when that decision was announced, and the brutal triumph of marshal Allen when he refused to take the fetters off the hands of his victim. And I marked also a sensation which pictured a different sentiment upon the face of the crowded audience as they turned sympathising eyes towards the victim of marble-hearted injustice; and I suppose from what thereafter followed that your Jerry marked this last expression which

told him where were his friends, and where he might [...].

Tired with my position and the disgusting exhibition, I returned to the City Hall.—Shortly after, Jerry, with a noble outrage and manliness, sprang through the circle of Marshals, and Police, and their bullies, upon the dense mass of men before him. To me the beautiful words of Curran, "the stormy wave of the multitude retired at his approach," and though no other human being could have made passage through the crowd, the sympathizing bodies packed painfully tighter either way to open a passage for him, and closed and followed after him. He soon made his way down stairs to the street, leaving the blood hounds to be the last to get there. I was in the City Hall, a quarter of a mile distant from the spot, with several ladies and gentlemen, when we heard the tempestuous roar of human voices passing by, some of them crying "stop the Kidnapper." I felt that it was the voice of "the million," and whether poor Jerry should be retaken or not, I was pretty sure he would not leave Syracuse a Slave. The rolling wave of humanity broke at the city Hall, one portion of it passing in one direction, and the other in another, and soon their noise died off in the distance. It was said that Jerry was safe. For a few moments we breathed easier, but they were very few, for soon we heard the roar of human voices approaching from the east, and soon saw Jerry returning, the upper part of his abused body dressed only with irons, being lugged along in a manner most insulting to decency and humanity, while hundreds of indignant citizens were circling around him and his insolent captors (two city constables who were marked by the citizens) whose courage and passions had not been wrought

to the point to knock the captors down and release Jerry, as they ought to have done, but nevertheless were annoying them all they could without personal violence.

The prisoner was returned to the Police Justice's office, Justice House very reluctantly consenting thereto. The examination re-commenced late in the afternoon. The city was full of people, the County Agricultural Fair as well as the Liberty Party Convention being held in it. Thousands began to gather about the Police office, and it was very evident their indignation was gathering to the point where it would burst forth. Speakers, S. R. Ward, C. C. Foot and others, addressed the amazing multitude from the broad steps of the office. Stones began to be thrown into it and it was forced to adjourn. Those stones were alike regardless of friend or foe, and the room was soon cleared of all persons but Marshal Fitch of Rochester, some of the Police officers, several bullies, and the agent of the claimant, who were all armed. Jerry was imprisoned in a small room behind the police office and the tigers who had the charge of him stood to their arms.

About half-past eight o'clock, there were twenty-five hundred or three thousand people in the front of the Police office. The fires of popular indignation broke into a flame.—Then commenced the sublimest scenes my eyes ever beheld. I stood at a convenient distance, but in full moonlight view of the whole transaction. I have been told that to a proper constructed mind, the sight of a slave leaping from a boat on to the shore of Canada, is the sublimest sight under Heaven; but I am sure it is nothing compared to the majesty of thousands of great hearts who, in the midst of a populous city, considerately

and bravely look a tyrant in the face and walk over his prostrate body, break down his dungeons, and tread under their feet or scatter by their power the tools that oppress him and lead into the air of freedom a man[a]cled Slave. The moon never gilded a grander scene. The God of day never witnessed but one event more grateful to humanity, more glorious and sublime. And that event, though for the time it wrapt the earth in darkness, liberated a world. I have stood at the foot of Niagara's cataract and witnessed its awful majesty, but neither Niagara's cataract, nor when God speaks in the tempest, or spreads across the heavens his majesty in the thunder cloud, and writes his wrath in lighting on its brow; does he give such evidence of his awful majesty, as now when he rode upon the whirlwind and directed the storm for the liberating of this one single slave. To lose the sight of such a scene, I should have considered an irreparable loss.

There appeared no evidence of preparation or concert to take Jerry from his prison.—The first act of violence was the breaking through the windows, with stones, and axes, and clubs. The windows were broken in, wood work and all. The masses rushed in and extinguished the lights. Several pistol shots were passed, and when Marshal Fitch from Rochester was in the act of making a murderous fire some one saved him from the horrible crime by breaking his arm in pieces, and then in his fright he leaped through the window twenty feet to the heel of the canal and escaped. (I hope you will be merciful to your townsman. I understand he told Doctor Hoyt, who set his bones, that he had been a fool; that his wife, wiser than himself, advised him not to come here; that he would lose his life if he did; said he felt that he had been in dirty business, and would never

be so caught again; that the punishment he received was justly due him; and if he was ever again called to arrest a slave he should resign his office. If he is thus penitent we beg mercy for the poor fellow. We wish our Marshal, Allen, was reduced to the same state of penitence. He considerably left the scene and saved his bones.) Our brave citizens, having possession of the front room, proceeded to batter down the door and partition into the room where Jerry was confined, when his keepers thrust him upon the crowd and escaped. This poor man literally rode on the heads of the multitude down Genesee street; thousands bore him in triumph along. No sneaking man-thief, or filthy policeman, or crafty demagogue, dare show his head, in the vast concourse of humanity who sent up their joyous roar to the clouds in response to the joys of Heaven. It was decidedly the sublimest sight I ever saw or conceived of. Jerry was placed in a wagon and has disappeared. We suppose he is safe. The ladies who lined the streets clapped their hands with joy, and thanked God for the evwnt. It will not be forgotten at Syracuse.

I must close this, my article is getting too long. I wish I could give you the speeches as well as the Resolutions of the Liberty Party Convention on its reassembling Thursday morning, but I cannot. Gerrit Smith never appeared braver, greater, or more eloquent, and more deserving the Presidency than on that occasion, and through this whole matter. He has proved himself wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove, and fit to be at the helm in a trying crisis.

Now for the after-clap. I have no doubt orders have been sent here from FillmoreFillmore, Millard

Millard Fillmore (1800-74), thirteenth president of the United States, represented the Buffalo region in the New York state legislature (1828-32) and in the U.S. House of Representatives (1833-35, 1837-43), where he generally voted with the Henry Clay wing of the Whig party. Defeated in the 1844 New York governor's race, Fillmore secured the Whig vice-presidential nomination in 1848 and assumed the presidency upon Zachary Taylor's death in July 1850. Fillmore vigorously advocated passage of the Compromise of 1850 and signed each of its measures into law. Denied his party's nomination in 1852, Fillmore ran for president on the American party ticket in 1856 and supported John Bell and the Constitutional Union party in 1860. NCAB, 6:177-78; DAB, 6:380-82. and WebsterWebster, Daniel

Daniel Webster (1782–1852) was a lawyer and statesman known for his stirring oratory. As a lawyer, he successfully argued many cases before the Supreme Court, such as the 1816 Dartmouth College case and the 1819 McCulloch v. Maryland case, earning a reputation as a strong nationalist. During the War of 1812 Webster represented New Hampshire in Congress (1812–46). Then, in 1827, he was elected to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts, where he remained in service through most of his life. He continued to take strong nationalist positions in political debates, attacking Andrew Jackson’s 1832 veto of the Second Bank of the United States and opposing Nullification in 1832–33. Webster accepted appointment as secretary of state under William Henry Harrison and was the sole cabinet member from Harrison’s presidency to retain his office during John Tyler’s administration. In 1842 he negotiated the Webster-Ashburton Treaty with Great Britain, establishing the modern boundary between the United States and Canada, but resigned his post a year later and returned to the Senate in 1845. In 1848 Webster made an unsuccessful bid for the Whig presidential nomination, losing to war hero Zachary Taylor. In 1850 Webster once again left the Senate to act as secretary of state under Millard Fillmore, a move that placed him in a good position to bid for the presidency; but he lost the 1852 Whig nomination to Winfield Scott. Though not an abolitionist, he opposed the extension of slavery in the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the Mexican-American War, and the enforcement of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law. Robert V. Remini, Daniel Webster: The Man and His Time (New York, 1997), 15–21; ANB, 22:865–68; DAB, 11:585–92. to their understrappers to carry this law through at Syracuse and rivet the fugitive law upon it, or surrender their commissions to more competent hands. The Whigs will be charged to fulfil the compromise at Albany at all hazard and to all extent.—We may therefore expect a hail storm of warrants against slaves and [traitors]. Can't our political parties give us more proper men to rule us? Then may God prosper the Liberty Party, we say.

John ThomasThomas, John

John Thomas (1814–92), an abolitionist and newspaper editor from Syracuse, New York, merged his Liberty Party Paper with Douglass’s North Star in June 1851. Thomas’s paper, which he published in Syracuse from 1849 to 1851, was rapidly failing despite the financial backing of Gerrit Smith. The new paper created from the merger was Frederick Douglass’ Paper, the name indicating which editor would be in control of the venture. Thomas agreed to accept a subordinate position as assistant editor and remained in Syracuse to conduct those duties. Thomas later became widely known for his participation in the Jerry Rescue, the rescue of the fugitive slave William “Jerry” McHenry in Syracuse on 1 October 1851. NS, 12 June 1851; Detroit Plaindealer, 15 April 1892; Harlow, Gerrit Smith, 187–88, 380. .