county archives he found many of these papers issued down to 1856.52 Section 4 of the California law, which permitted masters to retain possession of negroes brought to the state before 1850, lapsed in 1856. After this date several attempts were made to reclaim negroes under the state and Federal fugitive-slave laws. A case in Los Angeles tried in 1856 involved the freedom of fourteen persons. A man named Smith had brought two negro women and their children to California, and four additional children had been born in the state. He wished to remove his whole "patriarchal family" to Texas where, since no free negroes were permitted, they would return to the status of slaves. But the California courts intervened, and placed the minors in the custody of the sheriff in order to prevent their being taken. from the state.53 THE LAST CALIFORNIA FUGITIVE-SLAVE CASE. The last, and in many respects the most interesting of the California fugitive-slave cases, was tried in 1858. For three months the whole state was stirred to an excited interest in the fate of Archy Lee, a young negro whose master wished to take him back to Mississippi. C. V. Stovall, the claimant, was one of three brothers who arrived in California by the overland route in the fall of 1857. Archy, who is described as "a tolerable specimen of a young negro whose blood is not debased by any admixture of Anglo-Saxon stock," drove the ox-team of his master and cooked for the party. The master bought a farm in the Carson Valley, and, on arriving in Sacramento, hired out his slave and opened a private school. Stovall's school did not prosper, and after six weeks Archy's employment was interrupted by sickness; so in January, 1858, young Stovall, who was in poor health, decided that he would return with Archy to Mississippi. But at the outset of the journey Archy, who no doubt had learned of his rights from the many free negroes 52 Ann. Report American Historical Society, 1906, p. 224. 53 Hayes Scrap Books, Los Angeles, I, No. 519. 54 Sacramento Daily Union, January 9, 12, 27; February 11, 12, 13; see also the San Francisco papers. in Sacramento, escaped and hid in a negro boarding house. The hiding place of the negro was soon discovered, and he was arrested and brought before the County Court. Judge Robinson decided that Archy was not a fugitive from labor within the definitions of the state or federal laws, and that Stovall, by the length of his stay and the fact that he had engaged in business, had forfeited his right to claim that he was a transient. He argued, "Comity can never extend to strangers anything beyond the rights and privileges which the State allows its own citizens. Now if a man may retain his citizenship in the State of Mississippi, and sojourn here two months and work his slave, why may he not stay twenty years and work twenty slaves? The principle is precisely the same. The law would not permit a citizen of this State to hold and work a slave against his consent, and what it does not allow its own citizens to do, it cannot be reasonably expected to sustain strangers in doing."55 The accommodating judge had made known an hour beforehand what his verdict would be, so that Stovall was able to obtain another warrant before the negro was released. Νο sooner was the verdict pronounced, than the bewildered negro was re-arrested and, followed by a great crowd of sympathetic whites and negroes, led back to his cell. The case was then brought before the state Supreme Court on a writ of habeas corpus. We have seen that P. H. Burnett, who was now on the Supreme Court bench, and who wrote the leading opinion in this case, had been uniformly opposed to the admission of negroes to the Pacific Coast states. Justice D. H. Terry, his associate in this case, was also a southern man. There can be no question but that, in this case, they allowed their prejudices rather than the law to dictate the decision. After carefully demonstrating that, by the length of his stay, and by entering into various business transactions, Stovall had forfeited the right to claim that he was a transient or traveler, and that Archy, who was voluntarily brought to the state, could not be removed under the 55 Sacramento Daily Union, January 27; see also January 9, 11, 12, and San Francisco Bulletin, January 28. fugitive slave laws, the court pronounced this astonishing decision: "From the views that we have expressed, it would seem clear that the petitioner cannot sustain either the character of traveler or visitor. But there are circumstances connected with this particular case that may exempt him from the operation of the rules we have laid down. This is the first case and under the circumstances we are not disposed to rigidly enforce the rules for the first time. But in reference to all future cases, it is our purpose to enforce the rules laid down strictly according to their true intent and spirit." As further reasons for this judicial suspension of the constitution and laws of the state, the judge pointed out that Archy's master was young and might not have known the law, and being in poor health had need of the services of his slave." 56 The early Californians could countenance the extraordinary judicial proceedings of the Vigilance Committees, and were certainly but slightly bound by precedents of any kind, but when the Supreme Court of the state delivered a convincing legal argument, followed by a decision diametrically opposed to its conclusions, every one, even the miners up at Rattlesnake Bar, was conscious of an outraged sense of justice. The papers of the state were immediately filled with protests which were couched in no uncertain terms.57 They declared that the decision which, as one paper remarked, "gave the law to the North and the nigger to the South," "was a disgrace to the judges, would bring odium upon the State, and render the Supreme Bench of California a laughing stock in the eyes of the world." The miners sent down a facetious "Syllabus of points decided," among which they included such rulings as, "The Constitution never operates for the first time." "The Constitution never operates against a young man traveling for his health." "Constitutional rules to be relaxed in behalf of the infirm and indigent." "Decisions of the Supreme Court not to be regarded as precedents for the first time." "A man may gain all the law in the case and lose himself," etc. 56 Ex parte Archy, 9 Cal. 147, 171. 57 Sacramento Daily Union, February 12, 1858; San Francisco Bulletin, February 13, 1858; Alta, February 14, 1858. In the meantime the case was causing much excitement in San Francisco. When it was reported that Stovall, who had taken his heavily manacled and carefully guarded slave from Sacramento to Stockton, was soon to come to San Francisco to take passage for Panama, the negroes of the city determined to effect a rescue. At the time when Archy and his master were expected to arrive, the water front was patrolled day and night by between fifty and a hundred negroes. A prominent negro citizen had sworn out a warrant charging Stovall with kidnaping, and had also secured another writ of habeas corpus authorizing the apprehension of Archy. An officer was kept in readiness to serve these papers. As it was feared that Stovall would board the ship after it had left the dock, it was arranged to have outgoing ocean vessels accompanied by officers until they were outside the Heads. It hardly seems probable that the negroes of the city could have accomplished all this without the assistance of influential white friends.58 As had been anticipated, Stovall, who feared the attempt to rescue Archy, undertook to board the outgoing vessel after it got under way. In the midst of a scene of great excitement, Stovall and Archy were arrested and taken back to the wharf where they were received by a wildly cheering crowd. E. D. Baker, one of the ablest lawyers and most eloquent orators of the early California bar, undertook to conduct the legal fight for Archy's freedom which now commenced in the San Francisco courts.59. The case came first before the San Francisco County Court, and was then transferred to the United States Commissioner. It will hardly be profitable for us to go into the details of the trial which was fully reported in the papers, and followed with much interest by the people of the Witnesses were brought from Sacramento, and the evidence for both sides fully presented. After listening to the eloquent discussion of the case by the able counselors, Commissioner Johnson gave Archy his freedom.60 58 Bulletin, March 5, 6, 7, 1858; Alta, March 6, 7, 1858. 59 Bulletin, March 17, 18, 20, 29, 30, 31; April 6, 7, 14, 1858. 60 Baker was elected United States Senator from Oregon two years later. The news of the decision quickly spread, and a great crowd rushed to jail to witness Archy's release. That night the free negroes of San Francisco, Archy in their midst, gathered to celebrate the great victory. The click of the coins so generously poured out to complete the payment of the expenses of Archy's defense was drowned in the great chorus,-five hundred strong, -that shouted the familiar hymns modified to fit the great occasion: "Sound the glad tidings o'er land and o'er sea, "Blow, ye trumpets blow! The gladly solemn sound, Let all the nations know To earth's remotest bound, The year of Archy Lee is come, Return ye ransomed Stovall home." 61 The colored citizens of the state were becoming quite discouraged, as, in addition to the Supreme Court decision in this case, a bill had been presented in the legislature to prohibit the immigration of free negroes and mulattoes. The San Francisco negroes held a meeting to protest against the passage of this measure. It was pointed out that such a statute was entirely unnecessary, as only twenty-four negroes had come to the state during the past year. They were still without political rights, and the legislature had promptly refused to consider the petition of the San Francisco negroes requesting that they be permitted to testify in the courts in cases to which white men were parties. This right was not granted until 1863. Such was the dissatisfaction that there was much talk of a plan to emigrate in a body, and Vancouver Island and Sonora were discussed as possible places of settlement."2 The reversal of the decision in the Archy case gave the many freedmen in the state a greater sense of security. They seem to have been right in their feeling that it marked a turning point in the history of the negroes in California, for there were no more fugitive-slave cases, and the more active campaign against them ceased. 61 Assembly Journal, 1857, pp. 811, 823, 824. 62 Bulletin, April 14, 1858. |