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TIME MACHINE
150 YEARS AGO
THE FUGITIVE
BY FREDERIC D. SCHWARZ
On February 15, in Boston, a black coffeehouse waiter named Shadrach Minkins was seized by federal marshals at the behest of John DeBree of Norfolk, Virginia, who claimed him as his property. The waiter, also known as Frederick Wilkins, had fled Virginia months earlier, and until recently Boston’s relaxed attitude toward fugitives had protected him against arrest. But the new Fugitive Slave Act, passed as part of the Compromise of 1850, had given slave owners a much more powerful legal weapon by placing enforcement in the hands of federal officials.
Richard Henry Dana, the author, sailor, and lawyer, and Robert Morris, the nation’s second black attorney, volunteered to represent Wilkins. They asked Lemuel Shaw, chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, to free the prisoner on the grounds that he had been seized without good cause. Despite a personal abhorrence of slavery, Shaw—who a year earlier had written the court’s decision permitting segregated schools—declined to interfere. As the hearing was about to end, however, some 50 black Bostonians stormed the courtroom (after Morris had opened the door for them, according to some witnesses), surrounded Wilkins, and carried him off. He was soon reported to be safe in Montreal.
President Millard Fillmore issued a proclamation calling for the arrest of “all persons, who shall have made themselves aiders and abettors in this flagitious offence.” Morris and several others were tried and found guilty, only to be freed on a technicality. In November, Morris was retried and acquitted. At this point the federal government despaired of finding an impartial jury. No one was ever convicted for assisting Wilkins.
While the Wilkins rescue encouraged black fugitives, and potential fugitives, by showing that they had sympathizers in the North, it also reinforced the belief of white Southerners that they had been swindled with an unenforceable law in the Compromise of 1850. By serving the cause of freedom, this and other fugitive-slave rescues took the nation one step farther down the road to eventual dissolution.
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25 YEARS AGO
March 20, 1976 Patricia Hearst, the daughter of the publishing magnate Randolph Hearst, is convicted of participating in a 1974 armed robbery after being kidnapped by terrorists.
March 29, 1976 By a vote of 6 to 3, the U.S. Supreme Court declines to prohibit states from making homosexual acts illegal.
50 YEARS AGO
February 26, 1951 The Twenty-second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is approved. It bars anyone from serving more than two complete terms as President.
March 14, 1951 United Nations forces recapture Seoul, Korea, from the communists.
March 29, 1951 Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are convicted of espionage for passing atomic secrets to the Soviets. They will be electrocuted in June 1953.
100 YEARS AGO
February 25, 1901 A number of smaller companies are merged to form U.S. Steel, America’s first billion-dollar corporation. The new company, controlled by J. P. Morgan, absorbs the steel holdings of Andrew Carnegie, who retires to devote himself to philanthropy.
March 23, 1901 Gen. Frederick Funston and his troops capture Emilio Aguinaldo, the leader of the Philippine independence movement, on the island of Luzon.
125 YEARS AGO
March 10, 1876 Alexander Graham Bell transmits to his assistant the world’s first message by telephone: “Mr. Watson—Come here—I want to see you.”
150 YEARS AGO
March 3, 1851 Congress authorizes the minting of perhaps the most useless American coin ever, the silver three-cent piece.
200 YEARS AGO
February 17, 1801 On the thirty-sixth ballot, the House of Representatives elects Thomas Jefferson as President. On March 4, he becomes the first President to be inaugurated in Washington, D.C.
225 YEARS AGO
March 4, 1776 Patriots seize Orchestra Heights, in Boston, from the redcoats. On March 17, British troops evacuate Boston, never to return. Meanwhile, the city of Charleston, South Carolina, establishes a provisional independent government until a new agreement with Britain can be negotiated.
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