Volume 6 — ATTEMPT TO KIDNAP A CITIZEN UNDER ORDER OF THE SENATE.

The Case of Frank B. Sanborn, of Concord, Massachusetts, with Speeches in the Senate, April 10, 13, and 16, 1860.

The case of Mr. Sanborn illustrates the reach of the Slave Power, and the extent to which the Senate did its bidding, at the instance of the author of the Fugitive Slave Bill. It is one of the skirmishes in the warfare with Slavery.

April 10, 1860, Mr. Sumner presented the memorial of Mr. Sanborn, which he explained as follows.

I have a memorial, Mr. President, from Frank B. Sanborn, of Concord, Massachusetts, setting forth a gross attempt to kidnap, by men pretending to act in the name of the Senate of the United States. The memorial is authenticated by his affidavit before a notary public. It sets forth, that, on the evening of the 3d of April, certain persons, who had been prowling about his neighborhood, under shelter of night, with fraudulent pretence drew him to his door, seized him, handcuffed him, and then by force undertook to convey him to a carriage. By the courageous interposition of a refined lady, his sister, neighbors were aroused; the village was next summoned by the ringing of bells, and at length that great friend of the oppressed in our country, the writ of Habeas Corpus, arrived on the ground. By intervention of that writ he was taken from the custody of the kidnappers. The next day a hearing was had before the Supreme Court of Massachusetts; and Chief Justice Shaw, for thirty years the honored Chief Justice of Massachusetts, whose opinions are respected in every part of the country, representing the full bench, without undertaking to pass upon the question of jurisdiction in the Senate, went on to declare that the power delegated to its Sergeant-at-Arms could not be delegated to another, and that therefore all these proceedings were void, and the prisoner was discharged.

Now, Mr. President, this act, it seems to me, is conspicuous, both from the person against whom it was directed and the place where it was attempted. It was directed against Mr. Sanborn, a quiet citizen engaged in the instruction of youth, a scholar of excellent attainments, of perfect purity, and much beloved by friends and neighbors. It was attempted at Concord, where another seizure was once attempted, which began that revolutionary contest that ended in Independence. I affirm, Mr. President, that a person like Mr. Sanborn, having suffered this outrage at the hands of persons claiming to act in the name of the Senate, has a right to redress in this body: and I assert, still further, that this body owes something to its own character; it ought to wash its hands of such an outrage. I offer his memorial, and ask its reference to the Committee on the Judiciary, and, that the Senate may better understand it, I think it ought to be printed. I move also its printing.

Mr. Mason, of Virginia, Chairman of the Harper’s Ferry Committee, made an explanation of the attempt to arrest Mr. Sanborn, in the course of which he said: “This man Sanborn was in correspondence either with the man who was not long since hung in Virginia for his conduct as a traitor and murderer at Harper’s Ferry, or with some of his associates, I do not recollect which.” At the call of Mr. Fessenden the memorial was read, when Mr. Sumner said, in reply to Mr. Mason:—

I merely wish to correct one error into which the Senator has fallen. He states that Mr. Sanborn was taken from the custody of those pretended officers by a mob. Now nothing is within my knowledge except what is authenticated by that memorial under oath, and there the statement is express that he was not taken from the custody of these pretended officers except by the intervention of the writ of Habeas Corpus, sustained by the posse comitatus of the neighborhood.

Mr. Mason having stated that he expected a return of the officer, at his suggestion the memorial was laid on the table to await that return. To this Mr. Sumner consented, as he declared, with great reluctance, and with the understanding that then it should be referred.

April 13, 1860, Mr. Sumner presented additional papers in the case. After reading these, he said:—

There, Sir, is the official response to the assertion of the Senator from Virginia. The Senator says that Mr. Sanborn was rescued by a mob. It is true there was a mob in Concord. It was a mob of kidnappers, who went there in the name of the Senate of the United States to seize a citizen of Massachusetts. I have here a letter which I have received from a prominent citizen of Concord, present at the time. This is his statement:—

“No rescue by the crowd was made or attempted, till the writ of Habeas Corpus was served; and this, even, Carleton and his fellows resisted, till the deputy sheriff was obliged to use force to take Mr. Sanborn from him.… The arrest was as brutal, cowardly, and outrageous a proceeding as I ever knew in seven years’ experience as sheriff of that county.”

Sir, it is not unnatural that an arrest made under such circumstances should have attracted attention in that town and throughout Massachusetts. It did so. It has excited a feeling of indignation against this attempt, increased, perhaps, when people put the question, “Why all this effort to seize Mr. Sanborn? Why this overthrow of law to accomplish such a purpose?”

It is notorious that there is a citizen of Virginia, formerly chief magistrate of that State, who has openly avowed that he knew much in regard to the very matters in inquiry before that committee, and that rubies could not bribe him to disclose it. He has thrown the challenge down to that committee and this Senate, before the whole country, refusing openly to testify; and yet that committee make no motion to bring Ex-Governor Wise before the Senate, and compel him to testify. Instead, the committee seeks a Northern man, Mr. Hyatt, now in jail, and another Northern man, Mr. Sanborn, who it is well understood know nothing of the matter; and it follows up Mr. Sanborn by an attempt which I characterize here as simply an act of kidnapping.

Mr. Mason, in reply, insisted, at some length, that Mr. Sumner could have no information on the action of the committee, which had not yet reported. To this Mr. Sumner rejoined:—

Mr. President, I profess to have no information except what is open to all the world; and there are two things open to all the world, through the public press: first, that the Ex-Governor of Virginia has more than once declared that he had important information in reference to the matter before the committee, and that rubies would not tempt him to disclose it; and, secondly, it is known that the Ex-Governor of Virginia has not been brought to Washington, as Mr. Hyatt has been, and as an attempt has been made to bring Mr. Sanborn. No kidnappers have been sent into Virginia, nor handcuffs put upon Ex-Governor Wise.

April 16, 1860, Mr. Mason presented to the Senate the warrant for the arrest of Mr. Sanborn, with the return of the Deputy Marshal of Massachusetts to whom it was addressed, and moved its reference to the Committee on the Judiciary, with instructions to inquire and report whether any, and what, further proceedings were necessary to vindicate the authority of the Senate and to effect the arrest of the witnesses. This motion was agreed to. Mr. Sumner then moved that the memorial of Mr. Sanborn, with the additional papers, be taken from the table and referred to the same committee. Here Mr. Mason promptly interposed the very unusual motion that the memorial be rejected. The Chair decided that the motion “to reject” could not take precedence, and therefore the motion to refer was first in order. Then it was that Mr. Sumner spoke as follows.

Mr. President, I think that I ought not to listen to such a proposition as has been made by the Senator from Virginia with reference to this memorial, without one word in reply. Here is a memorial from a gentleman of perfect respectability, charged with no crime, presumed to be innocent, complaining of gross outrage at the hands of certain persons pretending to act in the name of the Senate. The facts are duly set forth. They are authenticated also by documents now of record. The Senator moves—without any reference to a committee, without giving the petition the decency of a hearing, according to the ordinary forms of this body—that the memorial be “rejected”; and he makes this unaccustomed motion with a view to establish a precedent in such a case. I feel it my duty to establish a precedent also in this case, by entering an open, unequivocal protest against such attempt. Sir, an ancient poet said of a judge in hell, that he punished first and heard afterwards,—“castigatque auditque”; and, permit me to say, the Senator from Virginia, on this occasion, takes a precedent from that court.

To this protest Mr. Mason replied: “The Senator from Massachusetts, it seems to me, makes an opportunity to use language in the Senate Chamber which, so far as my intercourse with the world goes, is not usual out of the Senate Chamber. There is nothing in it that I have a right to take as personally offensive to myself. The Senate is the proper judge and arbiter of the decorum of its own proceedings.”

Then ensued a debate on the return, in which Mr. Bayard, of Delaware, and Mr. Trumbull, of Illinois, took part, when Mr. Sumner, at last obtaining the floor, remarked as follows.

Only one word. I presented a memorial to this body, setting forth an outrage. The Senator from Virginia moved its rejection, while he proposed that the case should be proceeded with. I characterized that motion as I thought I was authorized to do, referring to a precedent of antiquity, and that was all; and this is the occasion for a lecture from the Senator on the manner in which one should conduct on this floor. From the heights of his self-confidence he addresses me. Sir, I wish to say simply, in reply, that, when an outrage comes before this body, I shall denounce it in plain terms; and if a precedent from a very bad place seems to be in point, I shall not hesitate to quote it.

Mr. Mason rejoined: “I did not undertake to lecture the Senator, of all others, upon the subject of manners or propriety. I do not mean it offensively, but, for my own convenience, I should consider it time thrown away. All that I said was, that I was not accustomed, in my intercourse with the world outside of this Chamber, to hear language of that sort in the circles in which I move.”

April 17, 1860, the memorial of Mr. Sanborn was referred to the Judiciary Committee, according to the motion of Mr. Sumner.

June 7, Mr. Bayard, of Delaware, from the Committee on the Judiciary, to whom was referred the return of the Deputy-Marshal and the other papers, reported a “Bill concerning the Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senate and the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House of Representatives,” authorizing the appointment of deputies. This was intended to meet the decision of Chief Justice Shaw, of Massachusetts.[23]

June 15, Mr. Bayard moved to proceed with the consideration of his bill. The motion was not agreed to,—there being, on a division, ayes 22, noes 25. This was the end of that bill.

This incident was much noticed by the Northern press, especially in Massachusetts. The Boston Atlas and Bee expressed itself thus:—

“In our opinion the people of the Free States are never better satisfied with their representatives than when they see them repelling indignantly and manfully the arrogant insults of the slave-driving aristocracy. It will not diminish their attachment to Mr. Sumner, when they take notice that his rebuke of Mr. Mason was not in reply to any insult upon himself, but upon one of his outraged and abused constituents.”