Trial of Reuben Crandall
Reuben Crandall | |
---|---|
Born | Carpenter's Mills, Rhode Island | January 6, 1806
Died | January 17, 1838 | (aged 32)
Alma mater | Yale College |
Occupation(s) | Physician and lecturer on botany |
Known for | Arrest, trial, and acquittal on sedition charges |
Relatives | Prudence Crandall, sister |
Reuben Crandall (January 6, 1806 – January 17, 1838), younger brother of educator Prudence Crandall, was a physician who was arrested in Washington, D.C., on August 10, 1835,[1] on charges of "seditious libel and inciting slaves and free blacks to revolt", the libels being abolitionist materials portraying American slavery as cruel and sinful.[2]: 124 He was nearly killed by a mob that wanted to hang him, and avoided that fate only because the mayor called out the militia. The Snow Riot ensued. Although a jury would find him innocent of all charges, his very high bail meant he remained in the Washington jail for almost eight months,[2]: 131 where he contracted tuberculosis. He died soon after his release.
This was the first trial for
The whole episode is very much the work of Key.[citation needed] It was he who got Crandall arrested, persuaded a judge to deny him bail, and prepared himself an indictment described as voluminous.[citation needed] The verdict of not guilty left Key publicly embarrassed[according to whom?], and ended his political career.[citation needed]
Biography
Crandall was born about 1805 to Pardon and Esther Carpenter Crandall, a
He boarded with a Peekskill family, to whom he was also physician. Because of their medical problems, they asked Crandall to accompany them on a trip to Washington, D.C. After seeing Washington he decided that he wanted to stay, collected his belongings from Peekskill, and opened an office in
Context
In 1835 the nation was in an uproar over slavery. Ever since
In July 1835, the American Anti-Slavery Society mailed over 175,000 pieces of abolitionist literature to every politician and community leader in the whole country whose name they could find.[2]: 125 On July 25, Amos Dresser was publicly whipped in Nashville, Tennessee, for possessing abolitionist publications. The next day, July 26, the Noyes Academy in Canaan, New Hampshire, was physically destroyed for admitting Black students.[10] On July 30, in a widely reported incident, there was a public burning of mailed abolitionist literature in Charleston, South Carolina, after it was seized by a mob that broke into the Post Office.[10] Both President Andrew Jackson and the Postmaster General supported the Southern postmasters who refused to deliver such mail.[11]: 170 By October Garrison had been burned in effigy, had a gallows erected in front of the office of his abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, and was saved from lynching only when the mayor of Boston locked him in the jail for his protection.[12] Congress, flooded with thousands of abolitionist petitions, enacted the first of a series of gag rules.
Arrest
Crandall was arrested on August 10, 1835, on a charge of "seditious libel and inciting slaves and free blacks to revolt".[2]: 124 The city was already in an uproar, in an ugly mood; the city officials dared not even take him out of the jail to a courtroom for his arraignment, so a magistrate came to the jail. Afterwards a mob would have broken into the jail and lynched Crandall,[14] but the mayor, William A. Bradley, called out the militia. (Another report says that the jail was protected by Marines from the Washington Navy Yard.[1]) They surrounded City Hall, where the jail was located, and thus saved Crandall,[11]: 175 but the rest of the city was left "virtually unprotected".[11]: 176
The mob, "denied a lynching", went looking for other victims. They assaulted the elegant restaurant owned by a free mulatto,[13]: 3 Beverly Snow, destroying the furniture and drinking all of the restaurant's liquor.[11]: 176 They then "vandalized several churches of free black congregations and burned a house of ill repute and some tenements inhabited by blacks.... Roving mobs continued to terrorize Washington's black neighborhoods through the rest of the week."[2]: 124 [14] The whole is known as the Snow Riot.[13]
Crandall was initially denied bail. In January, at a bail hearing his attorneys were able to obtain, his bail was set at $5,000 (equivalent to $138,727 in 2023). He was unable to pay it, and so remained in jail.[11]: 180–181
Trial
The trial, reported on in United States v. Crandall, 25 Fed. Cas. 1684 (1836),[15] began on April 15, 1836,[8] and lasted ten days.[4] "U.S. v. Reuben Crandall was the most sensational trial in Washington in years."[13] There had never before been a trial for sedition anywhere in the United States.[4]: 50–51 "The courtroom in City Hall was crowded. Several congressmen took front-row seats."[13] There were three newspaper reporters.
The much smaller and quicker trial of Amos Dresser, arrested two weeks before Crandall and then publicly whipped in Nashville for possession of abolitionist literature, was little known outside of Tennessee. Unfortunately for Crandall, his trial was in the nation's capital, and like other events in Washington, D.C., it received national publicity. It was believed that finally, for the first time, someone (Key) had caught an abolitionist who was telling slaves to revolt (as John Brown intended to in 1859). This was the first trial in the country for Crandall's crime of "publishing malicious and wicked libels, with the intent to excite sedition and insurrection among the slaves and free colored people" (emphasis added), as the indictment said in its first sentence.[11]: 172 Key wanted to blame the Snow Riot on Crandall and his "wicked libels", in which American slavery is portrayed as a nasty, cruel, and sinful system.
Crandall, at the trial, was described in a newspaper as "quite pale, which is probably owing to a long confinement of eight months in our close and noisome prison."[8]
Leading the prosecution was
The voluminous indictment, which Key drafted himself,[8][9] had five counts. The first four described writings allegedly published by Crandall. The fifth count dealt with his distribution of the "libels" of the prior counts.[2]: 131
Impanelling a jury was prolonged, because many potential jurors knew about the case and had already reached a decision on Crandall's innocence or guilt.[8][9]
The prosecution's case
The prosecutors alleged that Crandall not only possessed abolitionist publications, he had published (distributed) them with the intent of causing a rebellion among the slaves of the District of Columbia. The prosecution's part of the trial ended on April 22.[16]
Defense
The defense attorneys pointed out that Crandall had only lent one copy of one item to someone who had asked for it, and that a single copy did not constitute publication, nor was possession the same as publication,
The witnesses all noted that Crandall was a fine gentleman. According to a report in the Boston Courier, "his character stands clear and high above-board."[17]
Outcome
After three hours, the jury delivered a stinging rebuke to Key, and acquitted Crandall without hesitation.[18] The acquittal made headlines across the country.[13]: 222 The Boston Courier reporter stated that "I believe there is a feeling in this community of sympathy for him, and regret for his eight months imprisonment. There is much to answer for somewhere."[17] However, Crandall declined to sue for wrongful imprisonment, as his father had suggested.[19]
For his safety Crandall voluntarily remained briefly in jail, until his friends could smuggle him out of town.[13]: 221 He went to his parents' house in Connecticut, hoping to recover from the "consumption" (tuberculosis) that he had contracted in the jail. Late in 1836 he moved to Jamaica, hoping that the warm weather would aid his recovery. However, he died in Kingston, Jamaica, on January 17, 1838.[11]: 185 [20]
Key was no longer a presidential confidant. He "seemed to have lost his ambition".[13]: 252 [21]
Pamphlets
Three pamphlets about the trial were published shortly after. Links are given below to a copy of each in the Internet Archive. They have also been reprinted in a collection of American pamphlets relating to slavery.[22]
- A member of the bar [an attorney] (1836). The trial of Reuben Crandall, M.D. : charged with publishing and circulating seditious and incendiary papers, &c., in the District of Columbia, with the intent of exciting servile insurrection. Carefully reported, and compiled from the written statements of the courts and the council. Washington, D.C.
- The trial of Reuben Crandall, M.D. : charged with publishing seditious libels, by circulating the publications of the American Anti-Slavery Society, before the Circuit Court for the District of Columbia, held at Washington, in April, 1836, occupying the court the period of ten days. New York: H. R. Piercy. 1836.
- African Repository and Colonial Journal. 12: 339–351.)
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: date and year (link- Key, Francis Scott (1836). A part of a speech pronounced by Francis Scott Key, Esq. on the trial of Reuben Crandall, M.D. before the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia, at the March term thereof, 1836, on an indictment for publishing libels with intent to excite sedition and insurrection among the slaves and free coloured people of said district. Washington. Reproduces text from African Repository.
References
- ^ newspapers.com.
- ^ JSTOR 40067812.
- ^ a b A member of the bar [an attorney] (1836). The trial of Reuben Crandall, M.D. : charged with publishing and circulating seditious and incendiary papers, &c., in the District of Columbia, with the intent of exciting servile insurrection. Carefully reported, and compiled from the written statements of the courts and the council. 48 pages. Washington, D.C. Archived from the original on 2020-09-02. Retrieved 2020-03-16.
- ^ a b c d e f g The trial of Reuben Crandall, M.D. : charged with publishing seditious libels, by circulating the publications of the American Anti-Slavery Society, before the Circuit Court for the District of Columbia, held at Washington, in April, 1836, occupying the court the period of ten days. 62 pages. New York: H. R. Piercy. 1836. Archived from the original on 2020-09-02. Retrieved 2020-03-16.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: others (link) - ^ "Trial of Reuben Crandall". Vermont Telegraph (Brandon, Vermont). May 5, 1836. p. 4. Archived from the original on February 21, 2020. Retrieved March 16, 2020.
- ^ ISBN 9780819574701.
- ^ Magnificent whistle stop; the 100-year story of Mendota, Ill. Mendota, Illinois: Mendota Centennial Committee. 1953. pp. 394–395.
- ^ newspapers.com.
- ^ )
- ^ a b c d e "Appendix". Anti-Slavery Record. Vol. 1, no. 12. December 1835.
- ^ ISBN 9781137278289. Archivedfrom the original on 2020-09-02. Retrieved 2020-04-25.
- ^ New England Historical Society. "Boston Gentlemen Riot for Slavery". Archived from the original on December 29, 2019. Retrieved February 1, 2020.
- ^ ISBN 9780385533379.
- ^ newspapers.com.
- ISBN 0824067215.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - newspapers.com(clipping).
- ^ newspapers.com.
- newspapers.com.
- ISBN 9781490831190. Archivedfrom the original on 2021-07-07. Retrieved 2020-10-10.
- ^ Goodell, William (1852). Slavery and anti-slavery; a history of the great struggle in both henispheres; with a view of the slavery question in the United States. New York: William Harned. p. 437.
- Washington Post. p. W14. Archivedfrom the original on October 9, 2017. Retrieved March 16, 2020.
- ISBN 0824067215.