For the Defense - Vol. 5, Issue 3 - 38

the event enraged the South. The Constitution
guaranteed the rights of slaveholders to seek
the return of their "property," a right that was
statutorily protected in various fugitive slave acts.
The Act of 1850, however, was different in that
it provided virtually no due process rights for
persons arrested and criminalized the harboring
of a fugitive but also made it a criminal offense
to decline to assist in an arrest.
That this resistance took place in a "no man's
land" in the southern tier of the border counties
of Pennsylvania where kidnappers fought
vigilante groups of freedman and fugitives, many
of whom were employed by Quaker abolitionist
farmers, confirmed southern convictions
that abolitionists would be the undoing of
their culture. Christiana was a waystation on
the Underground Railroad, although many
fugitives remained in the area notwithstanding
roving gangs of kidnappers eager to kidnap
any black person they could. A healthy black
person was worth up to $2,000 in the South.
In response, William Parker was the head of a
self-help vigilante group that also used violence
when "slave catchers" were in the county. The
result was chaos and bloodshed in a violent
battleground.
When Gorsuch procured the warrant for
the arrest of his "property," the Underground
Railroad system immediately alerted the black
community in Christiana. When Gorsuch and
the marshal approached the Parker house, the
fugitives refused to surrender. While the two
sides were quoting biblical scripture in support
of their positions, shots rang out-it was unclear
who shot first-killing Edward Gorsuch and
wounding his son. The fugitives entered the
Underground Railroad system and ultimately
found safety in Canada.
President Filmore summoned Attorney General
John Crittenden, Secretary of State Daniel
Webster and John Ashmead, the United States
Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania,
to the White House. The President and his cabinet
members insisted that the local abolitionists and
black men be charged with treason to placate
southern interests and to deter others who might
try to "nullify" the Fugitive Slave Act, even as
they acknowledged that a trial could only result
in an acquittal.

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For The Defense l Vol. 5, Issue 3

Indictments were returned and 38 abolitionists
and local black men were indicted for treason
in that, among other acts, they "did maliciously
and traitorously" publish books, statements
and letters encouraging fugitives and citizens
to "resist, oppose, and prevent, by violence and
intimidation, the execution of the law." The trial
took place in Independence Hall in Philadelphia.
One defendant, Castner Hanway, went to trial
before a jury jointly presided over by a Supreme
Court justice "riding circuit," and a circuit judge.
The Legal Intelligencer published daily summaries
and as did newspapers throughout the country,
including the New York Times. The prosecution
included not just the United States Attorney but,
in accordance with the practice of the time, the
victim's family's lawyer and the Attorney General
of Maryland. Thaddeus Stevens, a member of
Congress and a committed abolitionist, served
as one of the defense lawyers. The result was
just as President Filmore expected. Hanway was
acquitted and ultimately the charges against the
other defendants were dropped.
The southern press was furious, proclaiming for
example, that "negros may commit murder with
impunity in particular sections of Pennsylvania."
In contrast, Frederick Douglass wrote, "A better
defense was never made in behalf of human
liberty...than that put forth by William Parker at
Christiana."
The event continued to reverberate in the
ensuing years in unexpected ways. Tommy
Gorsuch, the youngest son of Edward Gorsuch,
had a close friend named John Wilkes Booth
of the famous theatrical family with whom he
attended boarding school in Maryland. Booth
was 13 years old when his friend's father was
killed, and his brother wounded at Christiana.
Booth was radicalized by the killing of his friend's
father. He made the event the centerpiece of
the peroration of a speech in favor of succession
that he gave in Philadelphia in late 1860 on the
heels of Lincoln's election. Booth's radicalization
hardened thereafter.
The local community continued to grapple
with the tension between compliance with an
unjust law and resistance to it, between the
lawlessness in the southern tier of the county
as kidnappers and vigilantes fought each other
and an occasional foray by a federal officer
with an arrest warrant in hand. In 1911, the
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