Virginia Hamilton (16 page)

“In addition to the record and proof of identity, I have deemed it proper to put in the testimony of Mr. Brent, and the admissions of Burns. As to the question of identity, there is the description
in the record. And although this has been objected to by the opposing counsel as being loose, I contend that it is sufficiently exact to warrant its exclusive application to the prisoner.

“And to show that Anthony Burns was here on the first of March,” said Thomas, “they have put into the case the testimony of one Jones, a colored man, and rely on that. But we believe that his story is manufactured for the case.

“The only one of the witnesses not of their case was Gould, and we called upon him to testify and he directly contradicts Jones. Jones undoubtedly did work at the Mattapan Works and there was, no doubt, another colored man there with him. But it was not Burns. No doubt Whittemore saw Jones there. No doubt he saw the other colored man also. But he never saw Burns there. He is mistaken in the man. That is all. The truth is, Jones went around and asked if some did not remember the man he had with him cleaning the windows; told them the man was Burns, impressed them with this fact. They came into court with this impression and made up their minds that he was. This is the only theory consistent with their honesty.

“Your Honor, this case is proved in three ways—by the record, by the testimony of Brent, and by the admissions of the defendant, either of which ways would alone be sufficient.

“They say these witnesses show that Brent is wrong in testifying that he saw Burns in Virginia on the twentieth. Suppose this to be so; what then? The date is not material. Even a crime of a high nature may be charged to have been done on the
twenty-fourth of March, and proved to have been done on the twenty-fourth of February. But our action here is a civil proceeding, not a criminal charge. We seek a remedy distinct from a criminal proceeding. There need be no formal complaint in the case. The complaint is merely the foundation for the warrant. The person escaping may be arrested without a warrant. Brent may possibly be mistaken in the date, but as to the identity of the person, he cannot be. He is as confident now as ever, and does not wish to change his testimony.

“It remains then,” Mr. Thomas said, “that I recapitulate the points already stated and leave this arduous and, in some respects, unpleasant case in your hands. I am not conscious of having said or done anything in the course of the examination that need have provoked personal hostility. If I have, it was not so intended. My connection with the case has been strictly professional. The extraordinary bitterness of opposing counsel has not changed my purpose or my direct course.

“The record is conclusive of two facts, that the person owed service and escaped. That record, with the testimony of Brent and the admissions, prove the identity. I take leave of the case, confident in the proofs presented, confident in the majesty of the law, and confident that the determination here will be just.”

The court was then adjourned until Friday morning, June second.

19
June 1, 1854

BY THURSDAY, MOST PEOPLE
hoped that Commissioner Loring would decide in Anthony
Burns's favor. Charles Suttle and William Brent, barricaded in the attic of the Revere House, had noticed a change in their own guards. Everyone, it seemed, had sympathy for the slave and not his owner.

“Believe me,” Suttle told Brent, “I will be mo' than happy to leave this No'th-of-nothin' place!”

The Reverend Theodore Parker, minister of Tremont Temple, had his doubts that Burns would go free. Driven by his concern, he sat down to compose a leaflet regarding the defense's proof that Burns was in Boston at the time the slave owner claimed he was in Virginia.

“Americans! Freemen!” he wrote.

It has now been established out of the mouths of many witnesses that the poor prisoner now in the Slave Pen, Court Square, is not the slave of the kidnapper, Suttle. Commissioner Loring will doubtless so decide. But will the victim be set free? Believe it not until you see
it. The Fugitive Slave Law was framed with a devilish cunning. It allows that if one commissioner refuses to deliver up a man, he may be taken before a second and a third, until someone is found base enough to do the deed.

The leaflet was printed on Thursday and delivered throughout the city and beyond.

Richard Dana had his doubts as well. Although his plea of argument had held the Commissioner's attention, Loring had made no notes as Dana spoke.

Not one note, Dana thought. Not on any of my points about the Virginia record or the escape. He wrote down not a word!

This fact upset him, worrying him throughout the day and well into the night.

In his cell, Anthony Burns leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes. He was glad that the business in the court was finished. It had been long and tiring. The way Mr. Dana could talk on and on without reading from anything! he thought. Oh, to be able to speak like that. No, better that I preach like that someday. How I wish that was possible! But it seems not to be. No, it does not seem I will go free.

Anthony had noticed that the guard surrounding him had been doubled. Do they think someone will steal me? he wondered. Is there to be another storm against this Court House? When they decide that I shall have to go back, will the people fight against my rendition?

Asa Butman had grown fond of Anthony—Tony, as the fine Virginia Colonel called him.
Oh, yes, Asa decided, I'd take the Colonel over the radicals any day! Colonel and Mr. Brent and their lawyers would surely show Dana and his crew a thing or two. They'd find out that there were still citizens who wouldn't stand for letting black slaves walk about just as they pleased.

The slave Thomas Sims had been made to go back. Oh, there'd been a great row in 1851! Then Asa and his boys had held Sims in the same room where they were now holding Burns. Sims was a lad of seventeen. And he had begged, “Give me a knife, and when the Commissioner declares me a slave, I will stab myself in the heart before his eyes.”

Instead, Sims had stabbed Asa. The wound had bled all over, but it hadn't been terrible. Asa'd lived to tell all about it. But the Commissioner had sent Sims back, and rightly, too, Asa believed. He could still hear the hollering of the ab-o-litionists as three hundred policemen surrounding Sims walked him to the ship that would carry him back to bondage—“Sims!” one radical had cried, “preach liberty to the slaves!”

Liberty, indeed! Asa would like to pound every one of them kind to the ground. Let them cry all they want over this slave, too, he thought, looking at Anthony Burns.

Still, Burns was a bit of all right. “He ain't a bad one now, he's not turned sour,” Asa had said to the other guards. “An animal can be sniveling, a menace, or brave like a man. I'd say Tony's acting like a man most the time he's been with us. I'd say he's more like one of us than some of the blacks we got up here living free as you please. He can't get away, though, y'know. He can't escape the fate he's born to.”

Butman proposed they do
something special for Tony. “Here now, let's all give a few dollars, and he can be well turned out.”

Asa and his men collected forty dollars. They bought Anthony a new black suit. They presented it to him before he lay down to sleep Thursday night.

Anthony could not believe it. “Try it on, now, Tony,” Butman said. “It looks a good fit—try it.” Anthony tried it. It fit him well.

“Never in my life!” he murmured, letting his hand slide gingerly down the fine fabric. The suit made him feel almost as good as anyone.

The guards stood around him, smiling. Someone produced a banjo.

“Would you play a little something, Tony?” asked Deputy Riley. It did not occur to him or any of the others that Anthony might not know how to play an instrument.

“Right you are—sing us a tune, Tony,” said Butman. “You know, one of them spirituals, just like you do on the plantation.”

They think we all know how to sing and play, thought Anthony. There was an awkward silence as he hung his head. The guards waited, shifting their feet.

He hummed a tuneless sound for a few seconds. Then he shook his head.

“Aw, now, m'boy, you're tired out. You've forgotten a lot from down there in all this excitement,” Asa said. There were murmurs of agreement from his men. “Well, never you mind it.
We're going to see that your last time here is all pleasure.”

“Yass, yass!” the men hollered. A few even felt so kindly toward Anthony that they slapped him on the back.

I am to be a slave again, thought Anthony. They know before everyone. He heaved a great sigh. It was as if his mind shut down. No thought, no past, no present moved him to ponder. For with no future, he could not dream. He never uttered another word that night. None of the guards, drinking and reveling, seemed to notice.

Anthony slept fitfully Thursday night. Dark dreams awakened him with a start. For a few seconds he didn't know who he was or what he must do.

Outside, the streets of Boston appeared to be blanketed with winter snow. But this was June, not January. Covering the ground were leaflets from the abolitionist press. They lay abandoned, ragged as fallen flowers after a storm.

Toward the dawn, detachments of soldiers commenced to stir in their armories.

As early as six o'clock a few citizens gathered in Court Square with every intention of staying until Commissioner Loring made his decision. With every hour thereafter the crowd increased. At sunrise a detachment of the Fourth Regiment of U.S. Artillery marched up State Street, transporting with it a field piece, a cannon drawn by two matched horses. Glistening in the morning light, it was placed in the Court Square pointing toward Court Street. Next, the Artillery men were relieved by a detachment of U.S. Marines who stood guard over the cannon.

Before eight o'clock there were three hundred people in the Square. By eight
thirty the northern side of Court Street was thronged with people of every complexion, all awaiting the Commissioner's announcement of the decision. Several companies of soldiers, including the Lancers and the Light Dragoons, marched to the parade ground on Boston Common, where they formed into columns. All the troops were under the command of Major General Edmands.

At nine o'clock the bell on the Court House tolled for the opening of the Commissioner's Court. The crowd in Court Square, now a multitude, increased by the minute.

In the courtroom Marshal Freeman's guards were edgy. They could hear the crowd outside, and they held pistols and clubs as, one by one, the lawyers, reporters, privileged spectators, and friends of Anthony Burns took their seats.

Commissioner Loring was seated at the judge's bench. He did not look at anyone in the courtroom. His face was gray and pasty. If he felt all eyes upon him—the stony glare of Reverend Theodore Parker, the patient hopeful look of Reverend Grimes, the impudent stare of Ben Hallett, and the apparent faith in law and order in the expression of Richard Dana—he gave no inkling. Nor did Edward Loring take notice of the prisoner, Anthony Burns. Anthony wore his wonderful dark suit with somber dignity as he sat silently in the prisoner's box.

As he looked around the courtroom, Richard Dana became aware of something incredible. Charles Suttle, William Brent, Suttle's lawyers, and his Southern friends were not in the courtroom. In the intense quiet, Commissioner
Loring began reading his decision. It was long, but he read it firmly and clearly:

“The facts to be proved by the claimant, Charles Suttle, are three,” he said. “First, that Anthony Burns owed him service in Virginia. Second, that Anthony Burns escaped from that service. These two facts the claimant has proved, having made satisfactory proof to the Virginia court; whereupon that court caused a record to be made of the matters so proved. But these matters must be tried in the state from which the man escaped. I therefore have no jurisdiction over the facts of the Virginia court record.

“The third fact to be proved is the identity of the prisoner before me with the Anthony Burns mentioned in the record.

“This identity is the only question I have a right to consider. To this I am to apply the evidence. Between the testimony of the claimant, Suttle, and the respondent, Burns, there is a conflict, complete and insolvable: The testimony of the claimant has Anthony Burns of the record in Virginia on the twentieth of March last; the evidence of the respondent has him in Massachusetts on or about the first of March last.

“The question now is, whether there is other evidence in this case which will determine this conflict. In every case of disputed identity there is one person, always, whose knowledge is perfect and positive, and whose evidence is not within the reach of error; and that is the person whose identity is questioned, and such evidence this case affords. The evidence is of the conversation which took place between Burns and the claimant on the
night of the arrest.

“When the claimant entered the room where Burns was, Burns saluted him—‘How do you do, Master
Charles
?'

“Colonel Suttle said, ‘How came you here?' Burns said an accident had happened to him; that he was working on board a vessel, got tired and went to sleep, and was carried off in the vessel. ‘Anthony, did I ever whip you?' asked Colonel Suttle—‘No, sir.'—‘Have you ever asked me for money when I did not give it to you?' —‘No, sir.'

“Something was said about going back. Burns was asked if he was willing to go back, and he said, yes he was.

“To me,” the Commissioner said, “this evidence, when applied to the question of identity, confirms and establishes the testimony of Mr. Brent in its conflict with that offered on the part of the respondent; and then, on the whole testimony, my mind is satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt of the identity of the respondent with the Anthony Burns named in the record.

“On the law and facts of the case,” Loring said, “I consider the claimant entitled to the certificate from me which he claims.”