Speaker 1: You are listening to History on Trial, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeart Podcasts. Listener discretion advised. In August eighteen thirty one,
Speaker 1: rebellion broke out in Southampton County, Virginia. Like the American
Speaker 1: Revolution only fifty years before, the revolt in Southampton was
Speaker 1: motivated by a desire for freedom, but the stakes here
Speaker 1: were much graver than taxation without representation. The rebels in
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty one were enslaved and free black people, led
Speaker 1: by a charismatic enslaved man named Nat Turner, and they
Speaker 1: were fighting for their freedom. Over the course of two
Speaker 1: nights in late August, Nat Turner and his followers rode
Speaker 1: from plantation to plantation, freeing enslaved people and killing their
Speaker 1: masters before they were stopped by white authorities on the
Speaker 1: morning of August twenty third. By that time, more than
Speaker 1: fifty white Virginians were dead. Nat Turner's rebellion sent shockwaves
Speaker 1: through the United States. Slave uprisings were not uncommon. The
Speaker 1: historian Herbert Aptecker identified at least two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: revolts and conspiracies throughout the history of American slavery, but
Speaker 1: the scale and violence of Turner's rebellion was unprecedented. The
Speaker 1: violent retribution against Southampton's black community in the wake of
Speaker 1: the rebellion was even deadlier than Turner's rebellion itself. Mobs
Speaker 1: and militiamen killed dozens of free and enslaved black people,
Speaker 1: many of whom had no affiliation with Turner. Still, all
Speaker 1: that slave owners could think about was that they might
Speaker 1: be next. One such worried slave owner was Francis Scott Key. Yes,
Speaker 1: that Francis Scott Key, author of Our National Anthem, which
Speaker 1: features lyrics extolling the Land of the Free. Though Key
Speaker 1: publicly criticized the cruelty of the slave trade, he owned
Speaker 1: slaves himself, most of whom worked on his Maryland estate
Speaker 1: and at his Washington, d c. Home. It was only
Speaker 1: a matter of time Key fretted before a rebellion like
Speaker 1: nat Turner's broke out in his neighborhood. Four years later,
Speaker 1: on August fourth, eighteen thirty five, Key's fears appeared to
Speaker 1: come true. In the middle of the night, Anna Thornton,
Speaker 1: a prominent Washington socialite whose late husband had designed the
Speaker 1: US capital, awoke to a terrifying sight, standing silhouetted in
Speaker 1: the door frame of her bedroom was a figure clutching
Speaker 1: an axe. She recognized the man. It was Arthur Bowen,
Speaker 1: an enslaved teenager who Thornton owned. Thornton also owned Bowen's mother, Maria,
Speaker 1: who was asleep in the same room that night. Terrified,
Speaker 1: Thornton raced out of the house and on to the street,
Speaker 1: screaming for help. In the meantime, Maria managed to get
Speaker 1: her son out of the house and Arthur Bowen disappeared
Speaker 1: into the darkness. Bowen had been drunk, Maria realized, so
Speaker 1: drunk that he might not have even known what he
Speaker 1: was doing. But to Anna Thornton's neighbors, Bowen's drunkenness was
Speaker 1: no excuse. He had appeared in a white woman's bedroom
Speaker 1: with an axe, and then he had fled with the
Speaker 1: axe still in his hand. This was not Turner all
Speaker 1: over again. It had to be. Newspapers leapt hungrily on
Speaker 1: the story, embellishing as they went. Bowen was a maniac,
Speaker 1: they said, driven to murder by the shocking language of
Speaker 1: abolitionist pamphlets that had recently begun popping up across Washington.
Speaker 1: When Bowen turned himself in at his mother's urging three
Speaker 1: days later, Washingtonians bade for his blood. Francis Scott Key,
Speaker 1: now the District Attorney for the District of Columbia, was
Speaker 1: responsible for seeing that justice was done. To Key's credit,
Speaker 1: he was an interested in mob justice. When an unruly
Speaker 1: crowd gathered outside the jail and called for Bowen to
Speaker 1: be lynched, he talked them down. But he also wasn't
Speaker 1: interested in granting clemency to Bowen, despite the protestations of
Speaker 1: Bowen's owner and alleged intended victim, Anna Thornton, who had
Speaker 1: now come to believe that Bowen had simply been drunk
Speaker 1: and never meant to hurt her. Key wasn't really that
Speaker 1: interested in Bowen at all. Truth be told, he cared
Speaker 1: more about what he believed had motivated Bowen, the abolitionist
Speaker 1: pamphlets that had inundated the city's mailboxes that summer. These
Speaker 1: pamphlets Key thought were more dangerous than one man with
Speaker 1: an axe would. Their graphic depictions of the horrors of
Speaker 1: slavery and their frank appeals for immediate emancipation, these pamphlets
Speaker 1: might very well inspire a whole army of men with axes.
Speaker 1: In Keys view, the pamphlets had to be shut down,
Speaker 1: and Key thought he knew the pamphlet's source, an unassuming
Speaker 1: recent transplant from the North named Reuben Crandall, whose neighbors
Speaker 1: claimed he kept abolitionist pamphlets in his office. Quickly, Key
Speaker 1: convened a grand jury, who granted him a warrant to
Speaker 1: search Crandall's home and office. This search would set off
Speaker 1: a chain of events more shocking and destructive than anything
Speaker 1: Arthur Bowen had ever done, and lead to a trial
Speaker 1: that questioned the very nature of the right to free speech.
Speaker 1: Welcome to history on trial. I'm your host, Mira Hayward.
Speaker 1: This week the United States the Ruben Crandall. By the
Speaker 1: time of Reuben Crandall's trial in eighteen thirty six, it
Speaker 1: had been more than two decades since the act. Francis
Speaker 1: Scott Key is best known for today writing the lyrics
Speaker 1: to the Star Spangled Banner. Key had written the lyrics
Speaker 1: originally a poem called Defense of Fort McHenry in eighteen fourteen,
Speaker 1: inspired by events he witnessed during the War of eighteen twelve.
Speaker 1: Key composed the poem to fit the meter of a
Speaker 1: popular British song. After the poem was printed, it quickly
Speaker 1: caught on appearing in newspapers across the country with a
Speaker 1: note about the tune it could be sung to. The
Speaker 1: resulting song, which became known as the Star Spangled Banner,
Speaker 1: was a mainstay of patriotic performances throughout the nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: though it wouldn't become the official national anthem until nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty one. Key was well known in his day for
Speaker 1: his work on the poem and song. Key was only
Speaker 1: an amateur poet. His true profession was lawyering. He worked
Speaker 1: in private practice for more than three decades before a
Speaker 1: close political relationship with President Andrew Jackson led to his
Speaker 1: nomination as District Attorney for the District of Columbia in
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty three. In his early career, Key had been
Speaker 1: an idealist and had defended black people in court often
Speaker 1: enough to be known by some as the Black's lawyer.
Speaker 1: Jefferson Morley, in his book about the events surrounding the
Speaker 1: Crandall trial, titled Snowstorm in August, describes the young Key
Speaker 1: as a pious dreamer, a sensitive poet, a tranquil philanthropist.
Speaker 1: But after becoming close with President Jackson, Key changed. Morley
Speaker 1: calls this new Key a militant warrior of galvanized conviction,
Speaker 1: Key became a political operator determined to defend the status
Speaker 1: quo as defined by the president. Part of that status
Speaker 1: quo was slavery. As district attorney, Key controlled a group
Speaker 1: of constables ostensibly charged with enforcing the law. What his
Speaker 1: constables mainly did, however, was harassed people of color for
Speaker 1: fun and for profit. When an editor named Ben Lundy
Speaker 1: wrote in his newspaper that quote, there is neither mercy
Speaker 1: nor justice for colored people in this district, Key was
Speaker 1: furious and filed charges against Lundy. Despite Key's role in
Speaker 1: prosecuting runaway slaves and anti slavery activists, he still liked
Speaker 1: to think of himself as a humanitarian. Key was a
Speaker 1: founding member of the American Colonization Society, a group which
Speaker 1: advocated for the resettlement of freeborn black Americans and emancipated
Speaker 1: slaves in Africa. Colonization proponents argued that their cause was
Speaker 1: in the best interest of black Americas and that they
Speaker 1: only wanted to provide Black Americans with their own country.
Speaker 1: But the truth was that many of the Colonization Society's
Speaker 1: members were racist and believed that a racially integrated society
Speaker 1: was impossible. By the eighteen thirties, a portion of anti
Speaker 1: slavery advocates had begun to reject colonization and supported immediate
Speaker 1: emancipation instead. To ardent colonization believers like Key, immediate emancipation
Speaker 1: was a horrifying idea. As district attorney, he was determined
Speaker 1: to keep Washington, d c. Free of even a whiff
Speaker 1: of abolition, and in Key's mind, Ruben Crandall practically wreeked
Speaker 1: of the stuff. First of all, Reuben Crandell was from
Speaker 1: the North New York to be exact home to the
Speaker 1: American Anti Slavery Society, the abolition group founded in eighteen
Speaker 1: thirty three. Several of Crandall's friends from Yale, where he
Speaker 1: had earned a medical degree in eighteen twenty eight, were
Speaker 1: high ranking members of the American Anti Slavery Society, and
Speaker 1: Crandall had an even closer tie to advocates of racial integration.
Speaker 1: In eighteen thirty two, his school teacher, sister Prudence, had
Speaker 1: become notorious nationwide for welcoming a black woman into her classroom.
Speaker 1: When Prudence's white students quit her school in protest, Prudence
Speaker 1: decided to double down and make her school only for
Speaker 1: black women. An angry mob eventually forced Prudence to flee Connecticut,
Speaker 1: but she never abandoned her belief in the equal right
Speaker 1: to education. At first glance, Crandell himself didn't seem as
Speaker 1: politically active as his friends and family. He was known
Speaker 1: to be an outspoken advocate for temperance abstaining from alcohol,
Speaker 1: but besides that, his main passionate sae of his medical
Speaker 1: work was botany. Twenty nine years old, he had originally
Speaker 1: come to Washington, d c. As the live in physician
Speaker 1: for a family from Peakskill, New York. Liking what he
Speaker 1: saw of DC, Crandall had decided to stay. He secured
Speaker 1: a position as a science teacher at a school in
Speaker 1: nearby Alexandria, Virginia, and found a home and office space
Speaker 1: in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington. A month after Crandall's
Speaker 1: arrival in June eighteen thirty five, mysterious pamphlets began appearing
Speaker 1: all across Washington. Copies of abolitionist papers like The Anti
Speaker 1: Slavery Reporter and The Emancipator arrived by the bushel. These
Speaker 1: pamphlets spoke out strongly against slavery, discussing the cruelty of
Speaker 1: slave masters, the humanity of enslaved people, and the arguments
Speaker 1: for immediate emancipation. The pamphlets were addressed to influential political, intellectual,
Speaker 1: and religious leaders across the city. Government officials were baffled
Speaker 1: where had they come from. In truth, these mailings were
Speaker 1: the work of the American Anti Slavery Society. In May
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty five, at the Society's second annual meeting, members
Speaker 1: had approved a plan to send pamphlets to the entire country.
Speaker 1: They wanted to shake white Americans out of their apathy
Speaker 1: about slavery. They wanted to start a conversation. They would
Speaker 1: certainly get their wish, but even the most radical of
Speaker 1: the Anti Slavery Society's members could not foresee what impact
Speaker 1: their pamphlet plan would have in Washington, d c. In
Speaker 1: the summer of eighteen thirty five, no one in Washington
Speaker 1: knew yet about the Anti Slavery Society's role in the
Speaker 1: pamphlet campaign. No one was quite sure where these pamphlets
Speaker 1: were coming from. But Reuben Crandall's neighbors had an idea.
Speaker 1: Crandell seemed like a mild mannered man, several Georgetown residents
Speaker 1: had uncovered a shocking secret when visiting his office. Alongside
Speaker 1: his boxes of plant specimens and medical instruments, visitors noticed
Speaker 1: that Crandell possessed many abolitionist pamphlets. Some of the pamphlets
Speaker 1: people observed even had a handwritten note at the top
Speaker 1: read and circulate. When news of what Crandall's neighbors had
Speaker 1: seen reached Francis Scott Key, he was sure that he
Speaker 1: had found the man responsible for sending out the pamphlets
Speaker 1: to prominent Washingtonians and in turn inspiring Arthur Bowen's alleged
Speaker 1: attempted murder of Anna Thornton. On August tenth, having obtained
Speaker 1: a warrant to search Crandall's office and home, Key sent
Speaker 1: two of his constables to detain the man. He believed
Speaker 1: that by arresting Crandall, he could cut off the source
Speaker 1: of agitation at its root, but in reality, Key's actions
Speaker 1: would spark something far far worse. Word quickly spread that
Speaker 1: a man was being arrested for, in Key's words, exhibiting
Speaker 1: and circulating dangerous and insurrectionary writings and thereby attempting to
Speaker 1: excite an insurrection. As two constables searched Crandall's residence. A
Speaker 1: crowd gathered outside, waiting to hear what the men found.
Speaker 1: They would not be disappointed. When one of the constables,
Speaker 1: Madison Jeffers, stepped out to fetch a torch, a voice
Speaker 1: in the crowd asked how many pamphlets he had found,
Speaker 1: More than I expected. Jeffers responded, we found one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty, maybe one hundred and sixty pamphlets. The crowd
Speaker 1: was outraged. We ought to take the damned rascal and
Speaker 1: hang him up on one of those trees. A man shouted,
Speaker 1: Seeing that the crowd might just do such a thing.
Speaker 1: Crandall and the constables agreed that jail was the safest
Speaker 1: place for him. As the group made its way by
Speaker 1: carriage to the jail behind City Hall, the constables started
Speaker 1: questioning Crandall. Why did he have so many pamphlets? They
Speaker 1: asked to get information from Crandall said. When they pushed
Speaker 1: him on why he had multiple copies of certain pamphlets,
Speaker 1: Crandall refused to explain, but also stood firm on his principles.
Speaker 1: I'm an anti slavery man, he said, don't you think
Speaker 1: it very dangerous? At the present time to set all
Speaker 1: the slaves free. Constable Henry Robertson asked Crandall did not.
Speaker 1: From Crandall's responses, it became clear to the Constables that
Speaker 1: Crandall believed that quote the slaves ought to be all
Speaker 1: free and had as much right to be free as
Speaker 1: we had. To the constables, Crandall's proclamations were as good
Speaker 1: as a confession. Yes, he had denied distributing the pamphlets
Speaker 1: when they asked him about it in the house, but
Speaker 1: he wasn't denying his abolitionist views. What else could an
Speaker 1: abolitionist want with so many pamphlets if not to distribute them.
Speaker 1: Don't say too much or speak too freely, Constable Robertson
Speaker 1: warrened Crandall, we might be witnesses against you. The rest
Speaker 1: of the carriage ride passed intent silence. Upon arriving at
Speaker 1: the jail, Crandall was escorted to a cell on the
Speaker 1: first floor and locked in. Back in Georgetown, the crowd
Speaker 1: gathered outside Crandall's house was growing increasingly angry. They had
Speaker 1: been denied the chance to lynch not one but two men,
Speaker 1: both Arthur Bowen and Reuben Crandall, sat safely, if uncomfortably,
Speaker 1: in jail cells. What kind of justice was this? Over
Speaker 1: the next two days, their discontent only grew. Many in
Speaker 1: the crowd were white men who felt they had been
Speaker 1: replaced in the labor market by d c's growing population
Speaker 1: of freed black men. Many in the crowd were also
Speaker 1: poor and felt that they had suffered disproportionately in the
Speaker 1: recent economic crisis caused by President Jackson's war with the banks.
Speaker 1: These men were sick of the freedoms granted to black
Speaker 1: people just when they felt their own voices were being suppressed.
Speaker 1: They were racist, and they were angry. Arthur Bowen and
Speaker 1: Reuben Crandell's alleged crimes were the final straw. On Wednesday,
Speaker 1: August twelfth, more than three thousand men gathered in Judiciary Square,
Speaker 1: where both City Hall and the jail stood, and demanded
Speaker 1: the authority's hand over the prisoners. Key, who had just
Speaker 1: finished conducting an interrogation of the terrified Crandall, managed to
Speaker 1: calm the crowd, telling them Crandall will be punished if
Speaker 1: you let the trial progress. Grudgingly, the crowd dispersed and
Speaker 1: slunk off home. But the crowd's anger wasn't quelled for long.
Speaker 1: The next morning, a mob swarmed the Epicurean Eating House,
Speaker 1: a restaurant run by a free black man named Beverly Snow.
Speaker 1: A rumor had spread that Snow, a well known larger
Speaker 1: than life character, had spoken inappropriately, either to or about
Speaker 1: a white woman. That was enough for the crowd to
Speaker 1: demand his life. Snow managed to slip out the back
Speaker 1: of his restaurant and run to safety, but the mob
Speaker 1: destroyed his business, and that was only the beginning of
Speaker 1: the violence. The mob split into small raiding parties and
Speaker 1: began destroying black owned businesses and cultural centers across the city.
Speaker 1: They tore apart schoolhouses and boarding houses, brothels, and churches.
Speaker 1: It was a targeted campaign designed to terrorize DC's black residents.
Speaker 1: These events became known as the Snow Riot after the
Speaker 1: destruction of Beverly Snow's restaurant. Metropolitan newspaper reporting on the
Speaker 1: violence said, the property of every colored person who rendered
Speaker 1: themselves obnoxious to the mob was devoted to destruction for
Speaker 1: the crime of being obnoxious or, in other words, of thriving,
Speaker 1: or even of simply existing. Many black people lost everything
Speaker 1: they had spent a lifetime building up for twenty four hours,
Speaker 1: the mob held Washington hostage. By the morning of August fourteenth,
Speaker 1: their energy spent, the men began to disperse, though small
Speaker 1: groups continued to wreak havoc for the next few nights.
Speaker 1: Washingtonians would soon learn that they were not the only
Speaker 1: cities subject to such chaos. Throughout eighteen thirty five, mobs
Speaker 1: popped up all across the country, most of them stirred
Speaker 1: to anger by the same anti slavery pamphlet campaign that
Speaker 1: had led to Reuben Crandall's arrest. Many white Americans saw
Speaker 1: the American Anti Slavery Society's writings as a direct attack
Speaker 1: on their way of life, and they did not hesitate
Speaker 1: to fight back physically. The United States had been founded
Speaker 1: on a central contradiction, a land of liberty undergirded by
Speaker 1: the institution of slavery, and in the summer of eighteen
Speaker 1: thirty five, that contradiction seemed to reach ahead. The rule
Speaker 1: of law, writes Jefferson Morley, was buckling under the realities
Speaker 1: of a slave holding democracy. As District Attorney Francis Scott
Speaker 1: Key both derived his power from that rule of law
Speaker 1: and was also sworn to protect it, but his actions
Speaker 1: after the Snow riots showed that he was more interested
Speaker 1: in preserving the system of slavery than the rule of law. Yes,
Speaker 1: his office arrested and charged a dozen of the rioters,
Speaker 1: but when a jury recommended mercy in sentencing after the
Speaker 1: men's trial in March eighteen thirty six, he did not object.
Speaker 1: Though he did not condone rioting, he was more interested
Speaker 1: in teaching a lesson to the radical abolitionists, who, in
Speaker 1: his opinion, were most responsible for the damage done by
Speaker 1: the mob. He wanted to send the abolitionists a message
Speaker 1: they were not welcome in his city. That message would come,
Speaker 1: he hoped, from the conviction and punishment of Reuben Crandall.
Speaker 1: By the time his trial began on Friday, April fifteenth,
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty six, Ruben Crandall had spent more than eight
Speaker 1: months in jail. The city jail was a dismal place,
Speaker 1: and Crandall was feeling the effects of his imprisonment. Reporters
Speaker 1: in the courtroom noticed how pale he looked. Fortunately, Crandall
Speaker 1: had his lawyers to support him. His family had hired
Speaker 1: two respected Washington lawyers, Richard Cox and Joseph Bradley. After
Speaker 1: his arrest, and the men had been by Crandall's side
Speaker 1: every step of the way. They stood by him now
Speaker 1: as he pled not guilty to the indictment in which
Speaker 1: Key had accused Crandall of having quote most unlawfully, mischievously,
Speaker 1: and seditiously contrived to traduce, vilify, and bring into hatred
Speaker 1: and contempt among the good citizens the laws and the
Speaker 1: government of the United States. In other words, Crandall was
Speaker 1: accused of having committed seditious libel. If you aren't a
Speaker 1: time traveling early American lawyer, which you probably aren't, the
Speaker 1: charge of seditious libel is likely an unfamiliar one. Libel
Speaker 1: in modern legal practice is the publication of an untruth
Speaker 1: which will cause harm to its subject. Seditious libel is
Speaker 1: something different in two ways. First, the subject of seditious
Speaker 1: libel is always the government, and second, the statement need
Speaker 1: not be untruthful in order to be found libelous. Seditious
Speaker 1: libel entered the American legal practice via English law. British
Speaker 1: government lawyers used seditious libel laws to punish citizens who
Speaker 1: criticize the state. In the late eighteenth century, the American
Speaker 1: Federalist Party pushed for the passage of the Alien and
Speaker 1: Sedition Acts, which they used to prosecute journalists who criticize them.
Speaker 1: Americans were less sympathetic towards the government's use of seditious
Speaker 1: libel laws than their English forebears had been. The Alien
Speaker 1: and Sedition Acts were extremely unpopular with the wider public
Speaker 1: and expired in eighteen oh one. At the time of
Speaker 1: Reuben Crandall's trial in eighteen thirty six, there was no
Speaker 1: seditious libel law in the federal books. So what exactly
Speaker 1: had Francis Scott Key charged Grandell with. The Answer to
Speaker 1: this question requires a quick explainer of the District of
Speaker 1: Columbia's bizarre legal status. Unlike US states, which are allowed
Speaker 1: to make their own laws, the ultimate authority over DC,
Speaker 1: which is not a state but a federal district, is
Speaker 1: the United States Congress. The Constitution grants Congress oversight of
Speaker 1: DC's laws. The city government of wahe Washington was and
Speaker 1: is allowed to have some legal powers, but Congress retains
Speaker 1: the power to oversee and overturn any local DC legislation.
Speaker 1: The eighteen thirty three Code of Laws drafted for d
Speaker 1: C contained a provision that specifically covered Reuben Crandall's crime,
Speaker 1: people in d C were prohibited from quote knowingly publishing
Speaker 1: and circulating any writing or pamphlet among the free, black
Speaker 1: or slave population of this district tending to excite a
Speaker 1: discontent or insurrection. Congress did not approve this provision when
Speaker 1: it approved the Code of Laws, but according to historian
Speaker 1: Neil S. Kramer, quote, this code accurately represented legal practice
Speaker 1: in the District of Columbia at the time it was compiled.
Speaker 1: Though it lacked the authority of law, the code was
Speaker 1: used by the Circuit Court. It was this code that
Speaker 1: Key was relying on to convict Crandall. Another note here
Speaker 1: about to legal terminology. Most of us think the verb
Speaker 1: to publish as meaning to print a text and make
Speaker 1: it publicly available, but in this legal context, publishing simply
Speaker 1: means making something known to an audience that can be
Speaker 1: as small as one person. He was relying on this
Speaker 1: legal definition because, unfortunately for his case, he had only
Speaker 1: one concrete example of Reuben Crandall giving an anti slavery
Speaker 1: pamphlet to another person, and Key now called that person
Speaker 1: a man named Henry King, as his first witness. Henry
Speaker 1: King was a Washington physician whose office was just down
Speaker 1: the block from Crandall's. One day, King testified he had
Speaker 1: dropped by Crandall's office to say hello. Finding Crandall busy
Speaker 1: with his botanical work, King, like any good visitor, had
Speaker 1: started to snoop. He was startled to find an abolitionist
Speaker 1: pamphlet on a table. The latitude is too far south
Speaker 1: for these things, he told Crandall, meaning that Washington was
Speaker 1: too southern of a city for Crandall to safely possess
Speaker 1: such pamphlets. Despite this warning to Crandall, though, King was
Speaker 1: curious about the pamphlet's contents and asked if he could
Speaker 1: borrow it. Crandall reluctantly agreed. Crandall's lawyer Cox objected here
Speaker 1: that King's testimony was irrelevant. He was a white man,
Speaker 1: not an enslaved or free black man. The group that
Speaker 1: d c's quasi legal code prohibited distribution of pamphlets to
Speaker 1: Key responded that King's testimony was necessary to establish a
Speaker 1: chain of evidence, and the panel of judges judges Cramch, Morsel,
Speaker 1: and Threston, agreed to admit it. Key soon began to
Speaker 1: build the chain he had alluded to. His next witness
Speaker 1: William Robinson described seeing the pamphlet that Crandall had give
Speaker 1: King and added a crucial detail. At the top of
Speaker 1: the pamphlet, there was a handwritten note that said read
Speaker 1: and circulate. So Crandell hadn't simply given one person a pamphlet,
Speaker 1: he had given them a pamphlet that instructed the recipient
Speaker 1: to read the pamphlet and pass it on. It sounded damning.
Speaker 1: He next read from the pamphlets Crandall was in possession of,
Speaker 1: hoping that their abolitionist sentiments would alarm the jury and
Speaker 1: make Crandall's seditious intentions clear. In one anti colonization pamphlet,
Speaker 1: the author sarcastically claimed that given the immigrant heritage of
Speaker 1: most white Americans, they were just as deserving of deportation
Speaker 1: to Europe as black people were of being sent to
Speaker 1: Africa for a colonization advocate like Key, such language was shocking.
Speaker 1: Another pamphlet set bloody stakes for the conflict over slavery.
Speaker 1: So long as slavery is tolerated, no peace can exist,
Speaker 1: the pamphlet read, before exhorting slaveholding states to begin the
Speaker 1: work of emancipation lest they risk quote the fiery indignation
Speaker 1: of him, to whom vengeance belongeth. The threats contained in
Speaker 1: this pamphlet weren't just divine. The slave, the pamphlet continued,
Speaker 1: will become conscious sooner or later of his strength. His
Speaker 1: torch will be at the threshold, and his knife at
Speaker 1: the throat of the planter. As Key read these words aloud,
Speaker 1: and he was a skillful, passionate speaker, he knew what
Speaker 1: he was evoking. The specters of Southampton, the bloody legacy
Speaker 1: of Nat Turner, and more recently here in their own city,
Speaker 1: the outrages of Arthur Bowen. He made that connection more explicit,
Speaker 1: describing Arthur Bowen as being inspired by pamphlets like the
Speaker 1: very ones he had just read from. And he also
Speaker 1: raised the connection between Ruben Crandall and the pamphlet campaign
Speaker 1: that had flooded local mailboxes, but the judges were unsympathetic
Speaker 1: to this argument. In the months leading up to the trial,
Speaker 1: it had become clear that the American Anti Slavery Society
Speaker 1: was responsible for these mailings. Unless Key could prove that
Speaker 1: Reuben Crandall was a member of the society, he would
Speaker 1: have to drop this claim. So Key attempted to prove
Speaker 1: Crandall's membership. He had uncovered what he thought to be
Speaker 1: a trump card, a record in the Society's roles of
Speaker 1: a member named Phineas Crandall residing in Peaskill, New York,
Speaker 1: just where Ruben Crandall had lived before coming to Washington.
Speaker 1: The first names might not match, but what were the
Speaker 1: odds of it not being the same Crandall? Well. Crandall's
Speaker 1: lawyers were prepared for this argument and quickly submitted to
Speaker 1: devastating depositions from secretaries of the Society, which revealed that
Speaker 1: the longs contained a typo. The Phineas Crandall in question
Speaker 1: was from Sandy Hill, not Peak Skill, and certified that
Speaker 1: Reuben Crandall had never been a member at all. Key's
Speaker 1: evidence seemed weak, but in the political climate of the day,
Speaker 1: it might still have been enough for a jury to
Speaker 1: convict Crandall. The defense team would have to present a
Speaker 1: compelling rebuttal in their case. Joseph Bradley delivered the opening
Speaker 1: for the defense, and he started strangely. As the jury
Speaker 1: listened intently, Bradley began to read a passage discussing the
Speaker 1: evils at the slave trade. It sounded a lot like
Speaker 1: the pamphlets Key had read during the prosecution's case. After
Speaker 1: some time, Judge Cranch interrupted Bradley to ask exactly what
Speaker 1: he was reading. I'm reading, Bradley said, from a speech
Speaker 1: made by the district attorney at a colonization meeting. Cranch
Speaker 1: was shocked. I thought you were reading from some of
Speaker 1: the libels given in evidence. He said, that, of course,
Speaker 1: was Bradley's point. How libelists could these pamphlets really be
Speaker 1: if the very district attorney prosecuting Crandell over them had
Speaker 1: himself spoken so similarly on the topic. He was furious
Speaker 1: and demanded a chance to respond, but the judges told
Speaker 1: him in essence to get over himself. The rest of
Speaker 1: Bradley's opening was much more standard and outlined the defense's case.
Speaker 1: They would prove Crandall's good character, Bradley said, prove that
Speaker 1: he had no intention of distributing any pamphlets, and proved
Speaker 1: that he had no involvement in the abolition movement. To
Speaker 1: testify to Crandall's character, his lawyers had recruited prominent citizens
Speaker 1: who had known Crandell in New York, including former Congressman
Speaker 1: At Judson, spoke highly of Crandell and even revealed that
Speaker 1: Crandell had opposed his sister's integrated school and begged her
Speaker 1: to shut it down. None of Crandall's New York friends
Speaker 1: or acquaintances had ever heard him speak about abolition. The
Speaker 1: defense lawyers also brought in Crandall's former employers, mister and
Speaker 1: Missus Austin, who offered an explanation for how Crandall had
Speaker 1: even gotten the boxes of pamphlets to begin with. When
Speaker 1: Crandall had lived with the family in New York, a
Speaker 1: visitor named mister Dennison had left behind some anti slavery
Speaker 1: pamphlets ahead of Crandall's move to d C. Missus Austin
Speaker 1: had helped him by packing up his library and scientific
Speaker 1: instruments she had, she testified, used the abolitionist pamphlets as
Speaker 1: packing material to wrap the instruments. In jail, the night
Speaker 1: after his arrest, Crandall had been questioned by Key and
Speaker 1: several magistrates about the origins of the pamphlets. His explanation
Speaker 1: had been garbled and occasionally contradictory, which Key pointed to
Speaker 1: as evidence of his duplicity, but the general outline of
Speaker 1: his story mashed what the Austins were saying, and Bradley
Speaker 1: pointed out that Crandall had been questioned under extreme duress,
Speaker 1: barricaded in a building as the crowds outside called for
Speaker 1: his head. More than making any point about Crandall's character
Speaker 1: or providing logistical explanations for the pamphlets, Cox and Bradley
Speaker 1: used their time to argue against the validity of Key's
Speaker 1: moral and legal case. Bradley wondered how Key could argue
Speaker 1: that these pamphlets were so dangerous that even the transmission
Speaker 1: to one person could lead to general rebellion, while also
Speaker 1: reading the pamphlets aloud in the courtroom, guaranteeing that their
Speaker 1: audience multiplied exponentially. Cox followed up on his colleague's point,
Speaker 1: discussing how the language of the pamphlets was no different
Speaker 1: than that used by thousands of Americans as they discussed slavery.
Speaker 1: There is not one sentiment or one expression bearing upon
Speaker 1: the subject of slavery, Cox said in his closing, which
Speaker 1: I shall not show you to have been uttered by slaveholders,
Speaker 1: by the statesmen and the legislators, the divines, the lawyers,
Speaker 1: and the philosophers of the South. He proceeded to do
Speaker 1: just that pulling passages from a variety of famous texts,
Speaker 1: including ones by Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and Francis Scott,
Speaker 1: key himself to show that there was nothing new or
Speaker 1: particularly libelous about the text of these pamphlets. What's more,
Speaker 1: Cox continued, was that possessing a pamphlet could not be
Speaker 1: considered a crime if quote, I shall be indictable without
Speaker 1: any overt act for sedition and subject as crandall has
Speaker 1: been to an incarceration for eight months preparatory to trial,
Speaker 1: and then denounced before the community in the unmeasured terms
Speaker 1: you have applied to him and be told that for
Speaker 1: such an offense as having in my private custody under
Speaker 1: my own lock and key publications such as he had,
Speaker 1: or for loaning one to an intelligent friend for his
Speaker 1: single perusal, I shall encounter such consequences. Then to escape
Speaker 1: such tyranny, would I fly to the remotest parts of
Speaker 1: this once free land. This trial, Cox implied, was an
Speaker 1: affront to the principles of free speech and democracy that
Speaker 1: the nation held so dear Key, in his closing, would
Speaker 1: not be subdued. He rejected Cox's comparison of the pamphlet's
Speaker 1: contents to his own speeches, saying that he had never
Speaker 1: called for emancipation, let alone insurrection. His speech had been
Speaker 1: critical of the slave trade, but not of the slave
Speaker 1: system or of the government, unlike the pamphlets, which, in
Speaker 1: his words, declared that every law which sanctioned slavery is
Speaker 1: null and void, that we have no more rights over
Speaker 1: our slaves than they have over us. Does this not
Speaker 1: bring the Constitution and the laws under which we live
Speaker 1: into contempt? Is it not a plain invitation to resist them?
Speaker 1: He asked, Summoning up his most fiery rhetoric, he argued
Speaker 1: that what was at stake was not freedom of speech,
Speaker 1: but the safety of the nation and the right of
Speaker 1: Southerners to their way of life. If the jury allowed
Speaker 1: men like Crandall to quote whisper their principles in chimney
Speaker 1: corners and in byways, to come to the South in
Speaker 1: a cold blooded manner and deluge the country with blood
Speaker 1: and give the dwellings to the flames, then there was
Speaker 1: an end to all protection for the lives and property
Speaker 1: of the people of the se Would the jurors men
Speaker 1: of the South themselves allow this? Francis Scott Key hoped
Speaker 1: they would not. With this, the jurors were dismissed to deliberate.
Speaker 1: It did not take them long. After only an hour
Speaker 1: or so of discussion, the jury returned a verdict on
Speaker 1: the charges of seditious libel. Ruben Crandall had been found
Speaker 1: not guilty. Ruben Crandall was free, but he did not
Speaker 1: yet feel safe. The papers and public officials who had
Speaker 1: once condemned him were now commenting on the weakness of
Speaker 1: Key's case, but Crandall knew that many Washingtonians still saw
Speaker 1: him as a scourge. Terrified that a mob might seize him,
Speaker 1: Crandall asked to be taken back to jail until his
Speaker 1: safety was guaranteed. Later that night, Congressman William Jackson, a
Speaker 1: prominent anti slavery activist, arrived at the jail to personally
Speaker 1: escort Crandall home, but Crandall was too afraid to return
Speaker 1: to Georgetown. Jackson invited Crandall to come to his own
Speaker 1: boarding house, where Crandall stayed for several hours before fleeing
Speaker 1: to his parents' home in Connecticut. Writing to a friend,
Speaker 1: Jackson wrote of the toll the past nine months had
Speaker 1: taken on Crandall. Thus an amiable and respectable young man's
Speaker 1: prospects are all overturned, his property sacrificed, and his health
Speaker 1: greatly injured by long imprisonment, and after a full proof
Speaker 1: of his innocence, he is compelled to flee from the
Speaker 1: capital of his country for his life, like a felon
Speaker 1: in the dark. Jackson was not exaggerating about the ill
Speaker 1: effects imprisonment and had on Crandall. Sometime during his pre
Speaker 1: trial detainment, Crandall had contracted tuberculosis. His health both never
Speaker 1: fully recovered, and he died less than two years later,
Speaker 1: on January eighteenth, eighteen thirty eight, aged only thirty two.
Speaker 1: He may have been acquitted, but Key's persecution had ultimately
Speaker 1: meant a death sentence for Reuben Crandall. Crandall's actual role
Speaker 1: in the abolitionist movement is uncertain. Though Bradley and Cox
Speaker 1: had made a compelling case that Crandall had only accidentally
Speaker 1: obtained the pamphlets, there were hints that he was more
Speaker 1: involved in the abolitionist movement than the public knew. Remember
Speaker 1: how Crandall's former employer, mister Austen, testified to a man
Speaker 1: leaving anti slavery pamphlets at his home after visiting Crandall.
Speaker 1: That visitor was none other than Charles Denison, editor of
Speaker 1: the abolitionist newspaper The Emancipator and a leader of the
Speaker 1: American Anti Slavery Society. Key seems not to have realized
Speaker 1: who Denison was during Austin's testimony and did not dig
Speaker 1: into the relationship further, so it remained unexplored. Crandall's true
Speaker 1: connection to the abolitionist movement is still unknown. There are
Speaker 1: two more key players in the Riots and Trials of
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty five whose fates are worth mentioning. Beverly Snow,
Speaker 1: the black restaateeur whose business had been destroyed by the mob,
Speaker 1: tried to return to Washington in the summer of eighteen
Speaker 1: thirty six. He was immediately recognized and harassed by a
Speaker 1: group of white men, who chased him down and threatened
Speaker 1: to lynch him. Luckily, the mayor, a personal friend of Snow,
Speaker 1: intervened and convinced the mob to release Snow. After spending
Speaker 1: a night in jail for his own safety and undergoing
Speaker 1: a public interrogation, Snow and his wife left for Canada.
Speaker 1: He became a successful businessman in Toronto, opening several popular
Speaker 1: restaurants before dying in eighteen fifty six. The other man
Speaker 1: at the heart of Washington's tumultuous year was Arthur Bowen,
Speaker 1: the enslaved nineteen year old accused of attempting to murder
Speaker 1: his owner, Anna Thornton. Thornton had come to believe that
Speaker 1: Bowen never meant to harm her, and in the lead
Speaker 1: up to Bowen's trial, she had petitioned endlessly for his release.
Speaker 1: Key denied her at every turn. Arthur Bowen was convicted
Speaker 1: of attempted murder and sentenced to death on January twenty third,
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty six. Horrified, Thornton intensified her campaign to free him.
Speaker 1: After a series of stays of execution, President Andrew Jackson
Speaker 1: issued Bowen a pardon on June twenty fifth, eighteen thirty six.
Speaker 1: But a reprieve from prison did not mean freedom for
Speaker 1: Arthur Bowen. Anna Thornton believed that he would never be
Speaker 1: safe in Washington, d c. Given the notoriety of his
Speaker 1: alleged crime. She had always made it clear in her
Speaker 1: petitions to the authorities that she would see sell Bowen
Speaker 1: out of the city if he was freed. Upon his release,
Speaker 1: Thornton did just that. We know that Bowen was sold
Speaker 1: to a man in Florida. In June eighteen thirty seven,
Speaker 1: he wrote to his mother Maria that his new owner
Speaker 1: mistreated him. Thornton arranged for the new owner to sell
Speaker 1: Bowen to a man who worked in the pensacle And
Speaker 1: Navy Yard, and in eighteen thirty eight Bowen wrote to
Speaker 1: his mother that he was doing well and working on
Speaker 1: a steamboat. But after that he disappears from the historical record.
Speaker 1: We do not know the ultimate fate of the teenaged
Speaker 1: boy whose drunken actions on an August night sparked a
Speaker 1: riot in the nation's capital and led to his own
Speaker 1: exile from the only home he had ever known. Unlike
Speaker 1: Arthur Bowen, Francis Scott Key is firmly enshrined in history.
Speaker 1: The words he wrote in eighteen fourteen are sung daily
Speaker 1: in the school room, on the sports field, and in
Speaker 1: the halls of government. Though he was criticized for his
Speaker 1: actions in the Crandell case, Key continued on as District
Speaker 1: attorney for another two years. After eventually resigning from the
Speaker 1: post in eighteen forty, Key worked in private practice until
Speaker 1: his death on January eleventh, eighteen forty three, his legacy
Speaker 1: as a lawyer would be a checkered one. In his
Speaker 1: earliest years of practice, Key had defended people of color
Speaker 1: against abuses of power. But as district Attorney, Key had
Speaker 1: abused the power of his office against the most vulnerable
Speaker 1: members of society, all in the interest of maintaining the
Speaker 1: status quo. He is certainly not alone in this. Throughout
Speaker 1: American history, particularly in times of unrest, the law has
Speaker 1: been used to penalize the most outspoken among us. During
Speaker 1: Reuben Crandall's trial, one of the judges, Buckner Thruston, recognized
Speaker 1: the slippery slope that Key he was hurtling down with
Speaker 1: this case. Threston, a slave owner himself, was not sympathetic
Speaker 1: towards the abolitionist cause, but he was a passionate defender
Speaker 1: of Crandall's right to express his opinions. Every man has
Speaker 1: an unquestionable right to his own moral or religious sentiments.
Speaker 1: There is no crime in this, Threston said, as part
Speaker 1: of his descent on a certain evidentiary ruling. He further
Speaker 1: noted that quote bad as the tendency of these writings
Speaker 1: may be, I know not how much less danger would
Speaker 1: result if, led by our feeling, we bend the rules
Speaker 1: and principles of law from expediency or the supposed political
Speaker 1: necessity of convicting the accused. If we invade the panoply
Speaker 1: which the law has provided for the protection of the
Speaker 1: accused against arbitrary or vindictive judgments, we establish precedence, the
Speaker 1: evil consequences of which cannot be calculated. In other words,
Speaker 1: Francis Scott Key may have thought he was protecting the
Speaker 1: land of the Free and the home of the brave
Speaker 1: by trying Reuben Crandell, But had he succeeded in convicting
Speaker 1: the man, he would have created an even greater threat
Speaker 1: to our democracy. That's the story of the United States v.
Speaker 1: Reuben Crandall. After the break, one more look into Francis
Speaker 1: Scott Key's surprising influence on the US legal system. Francis
Speaker 1: Scott Key's most impactful legacy, besides the extremely difficult to
Speaker 1: sing national anthem that he wrote, might be the lobbying
Speaker 1: work that he performed on behalf of one of his
Speaker 1: best friends. Key first met Roger Taney in the late
Speaker 1: seventeen nineties when they were both practicing law in Fredericktown, Maryland.
Speaker 1: The two men immediately hit it off, and their relationship
Speaker 1: only grew closer when Taney married Key's sister Anne in
Speaker 1: eighteen oh six. Taney, an ambitious man who admitted to
Speaker 1: desiring quote high rank and social position, was drawn to
Speaker 1: politics before Key was. He became Attorney General from Maryland
Speaker 1: in eighteen twenty seven, and then United States Attorney General
Speaker 1: in eighteen thirty one. Francis Scott. Key was instrumental in
Speaker 1: securing the latter job for Taeney, negotiating the resignation of
Speaker 1: the previous Attorney General and clearing the way for his friend.
Speaker 1: While Attorney General, Taeney became extremely close to President Andrew Jackson,
Speaker 1: and when Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall died in
Speaker 1: July eighteen thirty five, the President nominated Taeney as Marshall's replacement. Again,
Speaker 1: Key acted as Teeney's chief support, lobbying senators to confirm
Speaker 1: the appointment. On March fifteenth, eighteen thirty six, the Senate
Speaker 1: approved Tainey, and two weeks later he was sworn in
Speaker 1: as the fifth Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: Twenty years later, Taeney would author the Court's decision in
Speaker 1: dread Scott v. Sandford. This was the notorious opinion that
Speaker 1: declared that people of African descent were quote beings of
Speaker 1: an inferior order and altogether unfit to associate with the
Speaker 1: white race, and not entitled to legal protections or the
Speaker 1: right of citizenship. Further, the dread Scott decision denied Congress's
Speaker 1: power to ban slavery in federal territories. The outcry over
Speaker 1: this decision is often regarded as one of the inciting
Speaker 1: incidents of the Civil War. Just how the dread Scott
Speaker 1: case would have been decided without Tane is impossible to know,
Speaker 1: but the inflammatory racist language he used in writing the
Speaker 1: opinion made him infamous and sparked outrage across the country,
Speaker 1: and it's likely that Teaney would not have risen as
Speaker 1: high as he did, allowing him to have as much
Speaker 1: impact as he had without the help of his best friend,
Speaker 1: Francis Scott Key. Thank you for listening to History on Trial.
Speaker 1: The main sources for this episode were the trial transcripts
Speaker 1: and Jefferson Morley's book Snowstorm in August, Washington City, Francis
Speaker 1: Scott Key, and the Forgotten Race Riot of eighteen thirty five.
Speaker 1: For a full bibliography, as well as a transcript of
Speaker 1: this episode with citations, please visit our website History on
Speaker 1: Trial podcast dot com. History on Trial is written and
Speaker 1: hosted by me Mira Hayward. The show is edited and
Speaker 1: produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer Trevor Young and
Speaker 1: executive producers Dana Schwartz, Alexander Williams, Matt Frederick, and Mira Hayward.
Speaker 1: Learn more about the show at History on Trial podcast
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