Blood and Daring (9 page)

The British government’s Anderson decision told Americans that abolitionist sentiment would be a considerable factor in Britain’s reaction to their growing sectional crisis. And for Canadians, Palmerston’s decision made it clear that Britain had no compunction about overriding Canada’s nascent sovereignty. The old lion had roared. Southern secessionists and Canadian nationalists took heed.

The
London Times
supported the decision and predicted criticism from the United States, but argued that morality and the law were on the side of the Cockburn court. It also noted that Canadians deserved to be shocked
by the decision. “It may excite surprise, when we consider the ample powers of self-government possessed by Canada … to find the Court of Queen’s Bench assuming to act directly on the rights of persons within her territories, just as if Toronto were situate on Windermere instead of Lake Ontario.”
⁷²
The
Liverpool Post
was also prescient in predicting the negative response of both Canadians and Americans: “While a quarrel between the United States and Great Britain is therefore possible a dispute between this country and Canada seems inevitable.”
⁷³
Canada’s governor general, Sir Edmund Head, had seen the whirlwind coming too. He had warned his British superiors against intervention, saying, “Self Government, which is only to operate when its acts agree with the opinions of others, is a contradiction in terms.”
⁷⁴

Canadian reaction was indeed hostile. Established enemies came together against a common threat: imperial overreach. The
Globe
called the writ an “arrogant claim” and demanded it be rescinded.
⁷⁵
The
Globe
‘s great rival, the conservative
Toronto Leader
, took the same stand. It wondered whether the infringement on the rights and powers of the Canadian judiciary might soon be followed by Britain’s overriding decisions of the Canadian executive and legislatures as well.
⁷⁶

Thomas Chandler Haliburton, who had enjoyed a career as a legislator and judge in Nova Scotia before moving to England and becoming a Tory member of the British House of Commons, denounced the Cockburn decision and Palmerston’s support for it. In Canada, he argued, the courts are as independent of Britain as the governor general, who is responsible to the government of Canada and not to the whims of Westminster.
⁷⁷

Macdonald kept his anger private. He wrote to the governor general, stating that what was at stake was the independence not just of the Canadian courts but of the Canadian people. Macdonald wrote: “In the case of Anderson the writ of
habeas corpus
was without doubt, sued out from praiseworthy motives, but it may hereafter be applied for … the withdrawal of Criminals from the control and jurisdiction of our Courts, and perhaps for the oppressive removal of individuals from their own
country to a distant one.”
⁷⁸
He urged the governor general to press the British government to pass a law in the next session of its Parliament rendering it illegal for British courts to issue writs in Canada. The language was tough, perhaps treasonous, and perhaps revolutionary. America was inspiring Macdonald to become a little less British and a little more Canadian. The man who took such tremendous pride in being British, and had until that point largely rejected notions of Canadian independence, was being pushed by the Anderson case to rethink his most fundamental political beliefs.

American reaction to the British attack on Canadian sovereignty, and Britain’s desire to save Anderson, betrayed a residue of the moral and ideological outrage from the American Revolution, as well as blatant self-interest. George Dallas, the American ambassador in London, had attended the Cockburn court and cabled his notes to Washington. He told President James Buchanan that the significant and widespread British opposition to slavery was at the heart of the case and was revealed by the positive public reaction to the decision to issue the writ.
⁷⁹

Britain’s actions brought the Anderson case again to the front pages of a number of American newspapers. The
New York Times
, for instance, recognized that the case was accumulating attention throughout the American south and that Canadians were, from the Southern view, insultingly claiming the moral high ground in their refusal to release the fugitive slave. The case, the paper stated, had become a
cause célébre
and an element of the struggle that was tearing the United States apart.
⁸⁰
The
New York Herald
was among many papers that reprinted Canadian stories and supported them with interpretations that were sometimes wildly off-base. The
Herald
, for instance, predicted a Canadian revolution and the likelihood that Canadians would soon ask to join the United States. The gain of Canada, it argued, would more than compensate for the possible loss of any Southern states.
⁸¹

More attention in American papers came when famed New York abolitionist Gerrit Smith spoke at Toronto’s St. Lawrence Hall. Before a crowd of hundreds, he attacked the Canadian courts for the decision to
return Anderson to certain death in Missouri and praised the British for their desire to save him. Many southern papers used their reports on the Smith speech to reassure their readers that Britain’s need for southern cotton was such that, if the time came, it would quickly support the South’s cause. Others saw things differently. The
New York Times
, for example, argued: “In this determination of Great Britain to protect the fugitive, and in the overwhelming popular sympathy that the fate of Anderson has excited, our Southern politicians may learn the monstrous absurdity of their hope that a Confederacy based upon Slavery will ever be recognized by the Government or the people of England.”
⁸²

While the case was catching fire in Britain, Canada, and the United States, few paused to consider Anderson himself. An exception was Canada West’s
Peterborough Examiner
, which in a front-page article mixed a little empathy with its anti-American sentiment: “The dread of a decision which will return him to the blood hounds of the South, will haunt his sleeping as well as his waking hours, and the fearful conviction that if given up, a cruel death, or a more cruel bondage awaits him, must weigh heavily upon his spirits.”
⁸³

Despite its growing notoriety, other events were overshadowing the Anderson case. In November 1860, Illinois Republican Abraham Lincoln had been elected president of the United States. His election was the final straw for Southerners. The campaign had seen Southern secessionists conflate Republicans with abolitionists, and warn that the election of any from that party was another nail in the coffin of slavery, states’ rights, and the Southern way of life. Those believing the propaganda ignored the fact that, while Lincoln indeed personally found slavery reprehensible, he had advocated not its immediate eradication, but just a restriction of its growth. Emotion ran roughshod over reason.

With the slavery issue splintering political parties, there were three presidential candidates sympathetic to Southern causes opposing Lincoln. Demonstrating the importance that Americans placed on their selection
of this president, 82.2 percent of eligible voters cast a ballot—the second highest of any election in American history. Lincoln won with only 39.9 percent of the popular vote. He had not taken a single Southern state. In many, he had not even been on the ballot. Lincoln said to newspapermen who came to his Springfield home the next day, “Well boys, your troubles are over now, mine have just begun.”
⁸⁴
He was right.

His victory was followed by secessionist rallies throughout the South. State legislatures began to debate not whether to secede, but how and when. The first to go, in December, was South Carolina. Within weeks, state after Southern state dropped the stars and stripes from flagpoles. President-elect Lincoln could do nothing for, according to the Constitution, he did not take office until March. No one could guess exactly what he would be president of by then.

Meanwhile, the British writ requiring that John Anderson be taken to London had been despatched, folded within a large envelope protected by a red wax seal. It had arrived in Canada on the first of February 1861. While it was on its way, John Macdonald had cabled Brantford and ordered that Anderson be brought to Toronto to appear before Chief Justice William Draper in the Court of Common Pleas. The court would consider the appeal that Justice Robinson had denied but which Freeman, tenaciously working through the system, had finally won the right to be heard. By the time Britain’s order to send Anderson to London arrived, the Canadian court was already in session and so the case had to be heard first.

A large crowd had again gathered in and around Toronto’s Osgoode Hall. American and British reporters joined their Canadian counterparts. The overcrowded room meant that Anderson had to sit in the box usually reserved for Queen’s counsel. Arguments were presented and the justices parlayed with questions for nearly eight and a half hours. The justices finally adjourned to deliberate, and Anderson was taken to his cell to wait.

Events in the United States had been advancing quickly. On February 8, delegates from South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama,
Georgia and Louisiana announced from Montgomery the founding of the Confederate States of America. Jefferson Davis, senator from Mississippi and long-time advocate of states’ rights and the legality of secession, was proclaimed its president. There were tremendous celebrations throughout the South.

Days later, on a bright and cold February 16, a crowd had gathered again in Toronto. Anderson’s time had come. Flanked by justices William Richards and John Hagarty, Chief Justice Draper began slowly and deliberately reading his decision to the packed but silent room. Richards and Hagarty followed. While each used different words, their points were the same. They ignored the international intrigue. They even ignored the Webster-Ashburton Treaty. All three stated that the initial warrant for Anderson’s arrest had been for killing, not murdering Digges, and that as a result, it was too vague to be enforceable. Anderson was a free man. He was free on a technicality, but free nonetheless.

Anderson rose unsteadily to his feet and beamed a huge smile. He raised his arms over his head in silent jubilation. Those in attendance noted that his months of incarceration had left him thin and wan, and that he appeared more distracted than in previous appearances.
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But months of wasting away in cold, damp cells with fear and boredom his only companions seemed to be forgotten for the moment. He said in a quiet voice, “Thank you, gentlemen—thank you, your lordships.”
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Draper’s gavel fell and there was a roar of shouting and applause from those in the courtroom and from the crowd shivering outside. Sheriff Jarvis removed Anderson’s handcuffs. The two shook hands and then Anderson shook the hands of his lawyers.

They led Anderson from the courtroom and to resounding cheers when he appeared at the grand building’s portico. Well-wishers, including white abolitionists, and fellow fugitive slaves and freemen, joined in rapturous applause. Anderson was surrounded by back-patting, hand-shaking men, women and children. He was taken triumphantly away on a horse-drawn sleigh through Toronto’s snow-packed streets, accompanied by John Scoble and Toronto alderman John Nasmith.

Canadian reaction was ecstatic for it was a three-way victory. Anderson was free. Canada had told the United States to forget its designs on Anderson and had warned Britain to respect the independence of the Canadian legal system. The
Peterborough Examiner
reflected a consensus among many papers as to which of the three aspects of the decision was most important: “We feel particular pleasure … for several reasons. Our chief one is that by the timely service of the Canadian writ of
habeas corpus
—the English one was superseded, and by the discharge of the prisoner it has become
nulla bona
.”
⁸⁷

Despite his halting style and limited vocabulary, Canadian and American abolitionists quickly had Anderson giving public speeches to educate and raise funds to support their efforts to help more fugitive slaves. By June, Anderson had undertaken an ocean journey and was in London delivering more speeches. He addressed his largest audience at Exeter Hall, where the newly formed John Anderson Society welcomed six thousand to see him.

While Anderson was touring and taking classes in England, the United States suffered through its secession winter with president-elect Lincoln waiting to take office in March while Southern states solidified their new Confederacy. At the same time, an election was underway in Canada. Among the campaign’s primary issues was how Canada should react to the growing storm south of the border, and Anderson’s name was bandied about. The
Globe
joined papers in swing ridings that attacked Macdonald and his Liberal-Conservatives for their apparent support of southern slave owners, as evidenced by their willingness to send Anderson back to a certain death in Missouri. Conservative papers, meanwhile, praised Macdonald for allowing the legal system to work and ultimately saving Anderson. The Conservative
Hamilton Spectator
released letters showing that Macdonald had arranged to cover Anderson’s legal fees. The election results showed that all attempts to smear Macdonald were ineffective. He took his Kingston riding in a hard-fought campaign and his Liberal-Conservative party won a majority government.

One of the first acts of the new government was to improve the Fugitive Offenders Act. Macdonald’s amendment made it more difficult for slave catchers to extradite fugitive slaves. Macdonald also led the fight to pass the Canadian Extradition Act, which gave power to decide such matters to the superior rather than lower Magistrates’ Courts. But it did not really matter anymore. Anderson was the last fugitive slave that Americans would fight to extradite from Canada.