The Sttpreme Court of Wisconsin. rest of the alleged fugitive. The seizure of the poor black caused intense excite ment. The manner of the arrest, as related and believed at the time, added fuel to the flame of popular wrath. It was said that the dep uties who arrested him knocked him down with a bludgeon; that it took three men to put manacles on his wrists, and that he broke the manacles. The news soon spread abroad in Racine, and the little city was aflame with indignation. A monster mass-meeting was held, and resolutions were passed protesting against the outrage, demanding a fair and im partial trial, and declaring their purpose to aid the negro, and to attend on purpose to aid, by all honorable means, to secure his rescue. The heated populace also resolved that they, as citizens of Wisconsin, declared the fugitive-slave law " disgraceful and also repealed." Meanwhile, the mayor of Racine tele graphed to Sherman M. Booth, the editor of the " Free Democrat," a trenchant antislavery newspaper of Milwaukee, that the ne gro had been kidnapped, and asking if a war rant had been issued from the federal judge. Booth was not the man to be quiet in such an emergency. He soon learned that a war rant had gone out, and that the negro had been brought in that morning and lodged in jail, bloody, and bearing the marks of brutal treatment. He published an " extra," an nouncing the fact, and, mounting a horse, rode the streets shouting, " Freemen, to the rescue; slave-catchers are in our midst! " and calling on citizens to meet at the court-house square at two o'clock. The citizens assembled in great numbers and resolute determination. Before proceed ing to extremities, they appointed a com mittee to wait on Judge Miller and inquire whether a writ of habeas corpus issued by a State magistrate would be obeyed. He frankly told them it would not; that the Federal law must take its course, and that the negro would be brought before him on
the following Monday, for a hearing. The Judge's answer was made known to the as sembled multitude. A committee of vigi lance and protection was appointed to see that the fugitive had a fair trial. The excite ment grew, and at six o'clock a mob, headed by John Rycraft, surged toward the jail. Rycraft demanded the prisoner, and, on re fusal, the mob battered in the door with a heavy stick, and, taking out Glover, placed him in a wagon and ran him down the street. The negro lifted his manacled hands, shout ing, " Glory, hallelujah! " He was placed in charge of an " underground railroad " agency, run out to Waukesha, not without pursuit, and thence by night spirited to Racine and hurried aboard a vessel about to ship to Canada. The act met general approval throughout the State, such was the hostility to the law in that " era of slave-hunting." On the devoted heads of Booth and Rycraft was visited the wrath of the master foiled of his prey. Booth was arrested for his part in the rescue, and a civil action was brought against him, in which the owner recovered the value of the slave. He and others were indicted and tried, convicted and sentenced, in January, 1855, under the provisions of the fugitive-slave act, to fine and imprisonment. In this exercise of judicial power Judge Miller ran counter to a strong public senti ment. He was consequently severely de nounced. But he fully believed the act to be valid, and saw only his duty in enforcing it, and paid no heed to the angry clamor that resounded through the State. His de cisions in the case were subsequently af firmed by the Supreme Court of the United States. But, in the State, denunciation of the "slave-hunting court" was for a time unsparing and bitter. Processions of excited citizens groaned as they passed his house. Mass meetings de nounced him as "an old granny" and a "miserable doughface," and the press was unsparing in its bitter reflections; but not
