"However well disposed I might be to gradual abolition, or even to an entire emancipation of that description of people, (if the latter was in itself practicable,) at this moment it would neither be politic nor just to reward unfaithfulness with a premature preference, and thereby discontent beforehand the minds of all her fellow serv'ts, who, by their steady attachment, are far more deserving than herself of favor."[170]
Mr. Whipple answered, that any return would be impossible; public sentiment was too strong against it.
=§ 36. Kidnapping cases.=--The great number of cases of kidnapping throughout the period from 1793 to 1850 show what cruel and unjust deeds were possible under the existing system, and served as nothing else could to rouse people to the defence of negroes. Various were the methods by which, in spite of law, kidnappers were enabled to secure their prey. Perhaps the most common practice, in places where the courts were known to be friendly to slavery, was to arrest a man on some false pretence, and then, when he appeared in court without opportunity to secure papers or witnesses, to claim him as a fugitive slave. Most of these cases occurred in communities bordering upon or near the Southern States. The risk and trouble of transporting slaves across free States were so great, that up to 1850 we seldom hear of kidnapping cases, and rarely of the capture of a genuine fugitive in the New England States.
The natural consequence of such acts of outrageous violence was to rouse people to the forcible rescue of the captured negroes. In the earliest cases, colored people seem to take the leadership; later on, the whites joined, and became most active in the work.
=§ 37. Jones case.=--The following instance well exemplifies this form of oppression. George Jones, a respectable colored man, was arrested on Broadway, New York, in 1836, on the pretext that he had committed assault and battery. As he knew that no such charge could be sustained against him, he at first refused to go with his captors; but finally he yielded, on the assurance of his employer that everything possible should be done for him. He was then placed in Bridewell, and his friends were told that when they were wanted they "would be sent for"; but, soon after one o'clock that same day, he was taken before the Hon. Richard Riker, Recorder of New York, and to the satisfaction of that magistrate was proved to be a slave. Thus, in less than two hours after his arrest he was hurried away as the property of the kidnappers: their word had been accepted as sufficient evidence, and he had not been allowed to secure the presence of a single friendly witness.[171]