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Against this tremendous intellectual gladiator was pitted one of the shrewdest lawyers and most brilliant and accomplished Orators that has ever practiced in our courts-Jonathan E. Arnokl- as unlike Ryan in all respects as an American Beauty rose is unlike a Canada thistle! His collegiate and legal training. had been quite as thorough as Ryan's had been: his reading outside of his profession had been quite as extensive, and his natural mental equipment of temper and temperament was superior to that of the irascible and violent Irishman. They had often met at the bar in important law cases, and it was Greek meeting Greek
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in a masterful intellectual struggle - the victor usually being the lawyer who had the best case, but not always. In the famous Radcliff murder trial, Ryan failed to have the murderer convicted. who was defended by Arnold, although the murderer had confessed his guilt to his attorney. Now they were to try a case new to both, and the like of which had never before occurred in Wiscon- sin, and only two or three other States ever had had occasion to impeach a judge, since the foundation of the government. Mr. Arnold was ably assisted in defending Hubbell by James H. Knowlton, an able lawyer, while Ryan had the advice and counsel of Horace T. Saunders and J. Allen Barber. of the committee appointed on the part of the Assembly, who were thoroughly con- vinced of the guilt of the accused. "Some of the notable trials." says the Hon. Joshua Stark. "in which Mr. Arnold was engaged and won surprising triumphs, while in the fullness of his strength as a lawyer. are remembered by those who witnessed them as marvelous exhibitions of legal and forensic genius and power!"
Ex-Governor Salomon said of Arnold: ""With the exception : of E. G. Ryan, no man ever practiced law in Wisconsin whose breadth of learning relating to matters outside of his profession equaled that of Jonathan E. Arnold. The two were equally matched in legal conflicts, when the marked contrasts in their characters were so sharply brought out. Mr. Ryan petulant, impatient of opposition. rolling his great eyes about in search seemingly of those terrible expressions of sarcasm and bitterness of which he knew himself master. Mr. Arnold stately, courtly, richly humor- ous or eloquent, never out of temper, pouring out at last such out- bursts of rich speech that the jury sat dumb under the spell. In all their encounters, though Judge Ryan may have been deeper in legal acumen, Mr. Arnold had the advantage of being greater than he who taketh a city!"
There were cleven charges with sixty-four specifications. Four of these charges related to bribery, tive to partiality, one charged .. him with embezzlement, and still another with tyrannical usurpation of authority. The sixty-four specifications went into details and gave the day and date of the alleged misdemeanors and malfeas- ances in office. What grievance induced Wilson to present the
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charge to the Assembly which set the impeachment proceedings in motion, is not known, but in one history of the case which is to be found in Reed's "Bench and Bar of Wisconsin." it is stated that Wilson was foreman of a jury in Hubbell's court in a murder trial, and on bringing in a verdict of not guilty, the judge made the rebuking remark to the jury: "Gentlemen, may the Lord have mercy on your consciences!" This made Wilson very angry. But the opinion was generally entertained at the time that Wilson represented others beside himself. This was broadly stated by Mr. Arnold in his closing speech in defense of Hubbell. He said: "The responsible party * * was one William K. Wilson, a man who : never had a very extensive acquaintance with the respondent, and never had been a suitor in his court. I say he was the responsible prosecutor, but no man thinks that Wilson, the single, almost unknown individual, could have been so inspired in behalf of the cause of public justice that he felt it to be his irresistible duty to attempt the impeachment of a judge! There must have been others who stood behind the curtain!"
Judge Ryan made the most of the charges against Hubbell in his opening address to the Senate, and added many of his own. Here is an extract: "Mr. President, did I say well this morning. when I said that that was a serious array of charges? Did I say well when I said that that body of charges would outweigh any body of charges against any judicial officer in this country of whom you ever read, or of whom any one in this court did ever read or see? What have former impeachments in America been upon? Judge Chase was impeached for the mere arbitrary and oppressive exercise of judicial power: Judge Pickering the same to some extent, together with habitual intoxication and profanity extend- ing to the bench: Judge Addison for refusal to allow a side judge to charge the grand jury: Judge Peck for oppressively exercising power against a person in contempt: and all these things held to be solemn matter of investigation: and in two cases out of four were proven and conviction followed. I say, take Chase, Pickering. Peck, Cooper. Addison, the three judges of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania-take all the judges who have
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been impeached in this country, put all the charges against them =
into one scale and put these charges into the other, and these will weigh them down as lead weighs down feathers. What do these charges in the gross amount to? The judicial hands contami- nated with a bribe; the judge sitting upon the bench in his own causes; the feed attorney presiding in court, in solemn mockery of justice; the judge's palmi itching constantly for the money of suitors in court; the solemn provisions of the criminal law bent and broken to satisfy his personal and arbitrary will; the court a place solicited in favor and not approached for justice; worse than all, the judgments of the law doled out as the price of prostitution."
Similar passages of Ryan's terrible invective are found scat- tered through his closing argument, of which the following extract may serve as a sample: "A judge of easy virtue; approaching and approached; solicited and soliciting; lending a judicial ear to whispers that tamper with judicial virtue; approaching and retreating by turns, with a rare mockery of judicial virtue on his tongue; promising to set aside verdicts; hinting the vacating of judgments; suggesting settlements for his friends; dissolving injunctions before they are issued; chambering in private with jurors in the jury room; divorcing women and instructing then in the principles of divorcing. in sacred privacy: promising to bring on causes for trial, when the paper evidences on which they were founded were lost; tampering with the penal judgments of the law; when money was payable into court, offering to receive part into his own private pocket, instead of the whole into court. as required by law; refusing to hear argument in court in order to keep his promise made in private!"
The trial lasted twenty-six days, and many witnesses were examined. Some of the witnesses who had been summoned fied to other States. Judge Ryan's closing speech occupied the atten- tion of the Senate for over two days, and it occupies one hundred and fifty printed pages of the bound volume of the proceedings. Those books now are very scarce, but a stray copy can occasion- ally be found in some lawyer's private library. It is said that Judge Hubbell and his friends gathered them up and burned them when- ever and wherever they could find them.
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Horace T. Saunders, chairman of the special committee repre- senting the managers, made a lengthy and solid argument in favor of the prosecution, and James H. Knowlton spoke at great length, ably and convincingly, for the defendant. Mr. Arnold's closing plea for the respondent was a powerful and logical argument. such as no other man in the State could have made. He devoted lis time to an examination of the testimony in the case, and paid little attention to the torrent of denunciation which Mr. Ryan had poured forth against the defendant, but let it pass as the idle wind. At the conclusion, Judge Hubbell. who had been present through all the terrible trial, made a few feeling remarks that evidently had great weight with the Senate. Among other things, he said: "I wish to say to this court and to the world that I have not shunned this investigation. In my office I have acted as I thought was right at the time, and at all times. If the proof-if the evidence-if the truth condemns me I wish this court to say that I stand condemned. Upon the law and the testimony, as you, in your consciences and . understandings, believe them to exist. I wish my sentence to be pronounced!"
After the Senate had been polled upon all the charges and specifications, the President of the Senate announced the result of the trial in the following form:
"The resolution provides that the president of the Senate shall announce the decision of the court. I therefore announce that Levi Hubbell, Judge of the Second Judicial Circuit, is hereby declared by this court not guilty of the charges of corrupt conduct in office, nor of crimes and misdemeanors, as charged in the articles and specifications exhibited against him by the Assembly of the State of Wisconsin!"
The court then adjourned sine die, and thus ended the first im- peachment trial ever held in Wisconsin, and one that will interest law students as long as people investigate the lives and conduct of . past generations. Some extracts from the daily papers, of that date will give the reader an idea of the public judgment of this impor- tant case:
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(From the Janesville Gazette, July 16, 1853.
The result is the acquittal of Judge Hubbell-a verdict, so far as we have heard an expression in this vicinity, more in accordance · with the fears than the wishes or expectations of the people. For some cause long before an impeachment had been attempted, a very general feeling of distrust in the integrity of the accused had grown up and steadily strengthened, and when the charges upon which he was tried were announced. numerous and various in their nature as they were, after a lengthened examination by a commit- tee of high personal character, they so coincided with a previously formed estimate of the character of the man, that little doubt was entertained the trial would develop sufficient to remove hin from the position he had succeeded in obtaining. and was believed to have too often abused. These expectations, however, are dis- appointed; and now, whether the accused is to be as fortunate in removing a settled conviction from the minds of the people as in securing a verdiet of acquittal from the court is yet to be known.
* An acquittal by a jury is not always an acquittal before the public, and the rules of a law court are not always such as govern a public verdict.
-(From the Madison State Journal, July 12, 1853.)
Never has a longer array of charges and specifications been presented against any man-and never was man pursued with a more determined spirit of opposition, than has been Judge Hubbell. He has met those charges promptly and manfully-has courted a thorough investigation-has asked for no mercy or delay, beyond what an honest Senate could award to him-and has come out of the investigation in triumph! * * *
When the decision of the court was announced, popular en- thusiasm for the Judge-long held in check, could no longer be restrained. Immense crowds gathered in the streets after dark- bonfires were kindled-the bells rung-fireworks displayed, and cannon discharged; while enthusiastic cheers at intervals evinced the popular feeling. [ Here follows a short account of a speech he delivered to the crowd from his boarding house. ]
He has ever had a strong hold upon the masses, and now', that he has passed through a fiery ordeal and come out triumphant, that hold will be still stronger.
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(From the Madison Daily Argus and Democrat, August 18, 1853.)
He [ Hubbell] stands before [the] community to-day presenting the anomaly of a convicted criminal dispensing the forms of jus-
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tice to others, himself but escaped from the penalty of crime by legal construction. He was convicted. His satellites, sympathis- ers, and coadjutors may triumph in his escape, but it is the triumph . of guilt over the immunity of crime. The recorded judgment of twelve Senators to his guilt cannot be repealed or expunged from the written history of the State, and we believe the moral sense of [the] community will sustain that judgment.
(From the Milwaukee Sentinel, July 13, 1853.)
We discharge a very agreeable duty in announcing to our readers this morning the triumphant acquittal of Judge Hubbell by the High Court of Impeachment, before which he has been on trial for the past thirty days. * * It will be seen that upon a single specification only, out of seventy preferred, was the court equally divided. and in more than half of the whole number that decision was substantially unanimous. It would be difficult to con-
ceive of a more signal triumph or a more complete vindication.
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* The news of the result flew like wildfire through the city and excited everywhere the liveliest satisfaction. The popular feel- ing manifested itself by salutes of artillery and blazing bonfires in all parts of the city.
Judge Hubbell continued to occupy the bench in the Second Judicial Circuit until 1856. when he resigned and returned to the practice of law. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, he united with other war Democrats in the hearty support of Mr. Lincoln's administration in putting down the Rebellion. In ISto he was appointed United States District Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, at the request of Senator Carpenter, which office he retained until 1875, when he was suspended at the breaking out of the Whisky ring developments, and finally removed. Judge Hub- bell died in Milwaukee from the effects of a fall upon the sidewalk.
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CHAPTER IX.
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THE GLOVER RESCUE AND SHERMAN M. BOOTH.
The first year of Governor William A. Barstow's administration was marked by two of the most important political events that had occurred in the history of Wisconsin up to that time. These inci- dents have both been indelibly impressed upon our annals. The first was the Glover rescue case, which culminated in a clash be- tween the State and Federal Supreme Courts that attracted the attention of the nation, and the arrest and punishment of Sherman M. Booth for an alleged violation of the Fugitive Slave Act. The other incident was the organization of the Republican party by a great mass meeting held in Madison, July 13, 1854. It took over six years to dispose of Sherman M. Booth, from March 11, 1854. when Glover was taken out of the Milwaukee jail by a mob, until March 2, IS61, when President Buchanan remitted Booth's fines and costs-a beautiful example of the law's delay! The great political party that was organized that year, composed of all the different factions that were opposed to the further extension of slavery, is still doing business at the old stand!
It is seldom that a man in these latter days has been so unjustly prosecuted and persecuted as Sherman M. Booth was in the Glover rescue case. He did not counsel or advise the rescue of Glover by force. He was not one of the mob. He was for peaceable and legal methods. He constantly advised against violence in private and in public. Yet he was made the scapegoat of the whole transaction. He was held responsible for the sins of others. A much more appropriate subject for the slaveholder's wrath would have been Edward P. Allis, the founder of the great iron works in Mil- waukee, and a candidate for Governor of Wisconsin on the radical greenback ticket in 1877. Mr. Allis had hold of the piece of square timber which was used as a battering-ram when the door of the
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jail was smashed in and the slave taken out. Mr. Allis was guilty of the overt act, while Booth stood off at a safe distance with his hands stuffed into his trousers pockets, expressing his regrets to Byron Paine and Dr. E. B. Wolcott that the jail had been broken open. There were others who furnished the wagon and who drove the trembling fugitive away. Booth made a propitiation for the sins of all the Abolitionists in Wisconsin. It was a vicarious atone- ment! He was fined and imprisoned, his property sokl to pay costs and court expenses, his business broken up, and himself driven into bankruptcy. The case, briefly stated, was this: A run- away slave, named Joshua Glover, from Missouri, was pursued and overtaken by his master near Racine, knocked down with a club, cruelly beaten, hand-cuffed and carried to Milwaukee and lodged in jail. Booth got news of the affair, and at once resolved that the alleged slave should not be carried away without a fair trial. Meantime, about 100 indignant citizens from Racine went to Milwaukee on a boat, to take part in the subsequent proceedings, and prevent kidnapping on the soil of Wisconsin. They had Gar- land, the slave hunter, arrested for assault and battery, but he was released on bail by Judge A. G. Miller, of the United States Dis- trict Court. As to calling the public meeting, and his participa- tion in the affair, Mr. Booth gives the following account:
"In riding through the streets of Milwaukee to call a public meeting I did not cry, as was reported and sworn to, 'Freemien. to the rescue!' A forcible rescue was never my purpose. I aimed simply to secure for Glover a fair trial and competent counsel. And in calling the meeting I used but two forms of speech, viz: 'All freemen' or 'All free citizens who are opposed to being made slaves · or slavecatchers turn out to a meeting in the courthouse square at 2 o'clock,' the only variation being I sometimes used the word 'men' and sometimes the word 'citizens.' I counseled against vio- lence, publicly and privately. Yet in all the histories of this case -- in newspapers, pamphlets and books-I am represented as riding through the streets of Milwaukee shouting .Freemen; to the res- cue!' And only the other day The Chicago Legal News glorified me as riding on a white charger doing the rescue act. 1 respect- fully decline the honor of a deed which I never performed. The (0)
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only responsibility attaching to me for the rescue of Glover is that I helped create a strong public sentiment against the Fugitive Slave Act and called the meeting to protect the legal rights of Glover and give him a fair trial. If, when assembled for peaceable and lawful purposes, the course of the judge and his bailiffs ex- cited the people to take Glover out of jail against my advice I was guiltless of the rescue."
A man's own testimony as to his own actions in a g'ven case ought to be accepted as truth, especially when lie has no motive to misrepresent the facts, but it sometimes happens that. under the strain of intense excitement. the principal actor in a drama may be so wrought up that he is not as certain about what is transpiring as a disinterested and self-poised observer. The burden of proof seems to be against the statement of Mr. Booth, and some of this evidence he recites against himself in the above quotation. Mr. Peter Van Vechten, who was an eye-witness of the whole pro- ceeding, writes as follows, to refute Mr. Booth's statements:
"Booth can't get out of his riding a horse through the town and crying Freemen, to the rescue! There are too many men yet living who saw and- heard him-myself among the number. That was his cry. After repeating it twice, he then told them to meet at the courthouse square at 2 o'clock. He rode a dark brown horse, nearly a black, that had a white face and four white feet. or white stockings, as the white extended nearly to the animal's knees. Alonzo Boynton not only saddled the horse for Booth, but helped him on. He started from George Oakley's livery stable, that stood then where the Plankinton House dining room now stands. There are plenty of men now living who saw him. Booth made an awkward appearance on horseback, but he made him . go just the same. Dr. J. B. Dousman was so prejudiced against Booth that he swore in court that he saw him in the wagon that took the nigger away. But he was mistaken. Frank Ray- mond took Glover in his light express wagon, and George Brig- ham rode in behind. As they went off on a gallop, George said . to the crowd: If you want the darkey, why don't you come and get him?' John A. Messenger took him in his wagon when they crossed East Water street bridge, and Dexter carried him from
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abont Twenty-fifth street and National avenue to Waukesha. They changed wagons so that the marshal could not follow them."
Mr. Booth thinks this is another evidence of the longevity of · a falsehood. but it is just possible that he was in such a state of excitement that he did not know what he really did say. The ex- clamation, if made, was not discreditable to him, under the circum- stances, neither was it inappropriate to the occasion. Now that it has been going the rounds of the press for over forty years, and has been incorporated into the history of the case. Mr. Booth might as well give it up and confess that after all he might have been mis- taken, and that he did cry out-"Freemen, to the rescue!" Some- time in the future, when men's prejudices shall have died out, and a monument is erected to Mr. Booth's memory in the Milwaukee courthouse square, where those stirring scenes were enacted, in honor of the man who defied the authority of a bad and inhuman law, and who would rather obey the laws of God than the cruel statutes of man, two inscriptions might appropriately be written upon it. One-
"FREEMEN! TO THE RESCUE!".
And the other, relating to Booth's persecutors --
"And ever the right comes uppermost. And ever is justice done!"
The slave Glover made his way to Canada on a free pass over the underground railroad, and Sherman M. Booth and John Rycraft were indicted by the Grand Jury and tried in the United States District Court for aiding in the rescue of said Glover. They were found guilty of violating the Fugitive. Slave Law. Booth was fined one thousand dollars and costs, and sentenced to one month's imprisonment in the county jail. John Rycraft was fined two hundred dollars, and sentenced to .ten days' imprisonment. Garland afterwards got judgment against Booth for one thousand dollars, the alleged value of his lost slave.
Those who wish to investigate this thrilling incident in Wis- consin's history in more detail than is here given, will find it dis- cussed at considerable length in the following works: "Bench and Bar of Wisconsin." page 496; Wisconsin Reports (Vilas & Bryant's), page 517; History of the Republican Party, page 122;
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Thwaites' "Story of the State," page 20t : "History of Milwaukee," page 215: Booth's Press Association speech. March 11, 1807. and Tuttle's "History of Wisconsin." page 306. These accounts vary very little. The subject is worthy of a much more extende:1 notice than our limited space allows for its discussion.
On the first day of August. 1860. two resolute men entered the Milwaukee custom house, where Booth was imprisoned in the jury room, overpowered the guard. took Booth out, locked the sentinel in the room, and walked the prisoner down Wisconsin street to the St. Paul depot, in broad daylight. These courageous men were Prof. Edward Daniels, late State Geologist, and Col. LaGrange. Booth went to Waupun, and stayed a few days with the late Col. Hans C. Heg, who was then the State Prison Com- missioner. It has been stated that Heg secreted Booth in the prison and thwarted the deputy United States marshal. who was sent there to rearrest him; but that is not true. Booth went in and out of the prison for two days at will, and one evening he told the story of his rescue from the postoffice at a public hall in Wau- pun to a crowd of people who had assembled to hear him. One of the deputy marshals went to the prison and held an interview with Booth, the two being introduced by Heg. but did not attempt to arrest him. Booth flourished his pistol and told the marshal that if he laid a hand upon him he would kill him! The deputy's name was Greulich, and he went off without attempting the arrest. Booth was afterwards arrested and taken back to Milwaukee to his old cage in the postoffice, where he remained until his fine and costs were remitted by President Buchanan.
Perhaps no man who had anything to do with the Glover res- cue case was so universally misunderstood and misrepresented as Andrew G. Miller, then judge of the Federal court for the State of Wisconsin. It was his business to enforce the laws; that was what he was appointed to do, and that is what he did in the Glover case, no matter on which side his sympathies and personal preferences might have been. He was called all sorts of hard names by the Abolitionists, such as "Southern sympathizer." "Old Hunker," "the tool of the slaveholders," and other pet names which he did not deserve. Judge Miller's father held slaves in
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