Letter from John Thomas.

Syracuse, Nov. 1, 1851.

Dear Sir,—For the first time in my life to my remembrance, have I appeared before a grand jury to complain of any person for any crime whatever. I have a special dislike for such a thing, however necssary it may be. In many cases, however, and I may say in nearly all cases, the government is more guilty than the criminal complained of. The necessity of criminal prosecution shows that the government and people together form a grand conspiracy in which some (the offenders,) are too just or too wicked to be held in a piratical bond. Were the Government just, there would be few criminals.

The attempt to arrest the colored man Jerry, and return him to slavery from our midst, according to law, was such a diabolical outrage against the forms and the heart of law, as to stir any man to resistance. We must be reduced to the form of manhood without the substance, if we can seize an innocent citizen, and return him to slavery. It was because I was thus stirred, that I appeared before our grand jury at the Common Pleas last week, to procure the indictment of those merciless and transcendently guilty men, who attempted to kidnap Jerry and send him away a slave.

We have spoken of the government as a malefactor, who manufactures its own criminals, and of the people (subject) as parties to a conspiracy to propagate crimes. With such a conspiracy, the slaves in this country alone have no connection and no guilt.—They are only victims.

The Grand Jury returned a true bill upon two of the kidnappers—LEAR, the agent from Missouri, who was commissioned to come here on purpose to arrest Jerry and take him into Slavery, and H. W. ALLEN the Deputy Marshal of this city, who arrested him. These two men were the most guilty in this nefarious business (Lear, I learn is a Methodist Minister,) nevertheless I do regret the Jury had not also indicted all who aided in that base ACT. Mr. Fillmore's Judges and Marshals had the guilty meanness to arrest all whose garments smell of freedom and bound them over to their court to be indicted. We wish that all engaged in the outrage had also been indicted. Slavedom makes its laws against freedom, and her courts enforce these laws against the interposition of the constitution and the Federal courts. Our free citizens are siezed and sold into Slavery, and shot, and hung, or whipped, tarred and feathered, and rode upon a rail, or otherwise outraged

and no presidential thunder threatens the penalties of treason or any other punishment.—I think therefore the Jury should have indicted all engaged in this black business.—Nevertheless a single indictment is sufficient to test the law in this regard, and let the thing be thoroughly done. The federal Judges are sunk in all the political and moral corruptions of the transcendently guilty scoundrels who put them on the bench. If liberties and rights are to be saved, it is to be done by our State Courts who take their appointments from the people.

There is one danger to be feared from our State Judges. We fear that political bribes may be held out to them to make them swerve from a regard to the rights of the people and the laws of the country. They are party men, and such has been the depravity of parties as a general truth, that they have put the worst of men into all the offices—onto the bench as elsewhere. We have only to fear the effect of political bribes upon our Judges. The Federal Judges are selected to be the pliant tools of the President. Our only fear is that the State Judges may be corrupted by an overshadowing power.—Should it be so—should our State Judges, any of them, by their decisions, leave the people a prey to the hell-black despotism that sits like a night-mare on the constitution and the liberties of the people, then let the finger of scorn, and the hisses of indignation chase them out of the country.

J. 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. .