A very good copy of this important work, being an account of the trial of James Hamlet, the first man to be apprehended under the notorious 1850 Fugitive Slave Bill.
James Hamlet (c. 1818—?) was first man to be returned to slavery under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Hamlet left Baltimore for New York City in 1848, where he worked as a porter in the Tilton and Maloney general store. Before his capture and return to slavery, he lived in Brooklyn with his wife and two children. Hamlet was an active member of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Eight days after President Fillmore signed the Fugitive Slave Act, a Baltimore agent appeared at his workplace and had him arrested. He was the son of a freewoman, he said — never a slave at all. The Act barred him from saying so in court. For those who had simply fled bondage, there was nothing to say at all. Funds raised through the sale of this pamphlet and American Anti-Slavery Society efforts—$800—secured Hamlet’s freedom on 5 October 1850.
This pamphlet “provides the only printed record of Hamlet’s case. In most hearings before the fugitive slave commissioners there were no published accounts of opinions of the commissioners. Only through ephemeral materials, such as this pamphlet, can scholars find records of the cases of these summary proceedings. The great public interest in the fugitive slave issue is demonstrated, in part, by the fact that this pamphlet went through three editions in the year it was published … The main purpose of this pamphlet was to attack the newly enacted Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and expose its workings to the American people. It contains a four-page discussion of the arrest, trial, and rendition of Hamlet, followed by the text of the act of 1850, a ‘Synopsis of the Bill,’ and an analysist of the voting on the law …” (Finkelman, 86).
Hamlet’s arrest reverberated across the free states and was the key incident that prompted Harriet Beecher Stow to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin. This pamphlet is a vital record of the Fugitive Slave law and its enforcement.
Rare in the trade with three copies recorded at auction in 1996, 2000, and 2009.
Finkelman, P., Slavery in the Courtroom (New Jersey, 1998), p.86*; Not in the Blockson Collection; Afro-Americana, 269; Sabin, 26125.*
Bound with eight separately issued abolitionist tracts, most published between 1845 and 1851, and assembled in the immediate wake of the Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Act.
[SOUTH BEND FUGITIVE SLAVE CASE] The South Bend Fugitive Slave Case, involving the Right to a Writ of Habeas Corpus [wrapper title.] Lacking title wrappers. 24pp. 1851. An important and uncommon fugitive slave case pamphlet concerning a family who escaped from Boone County, Kentucky, were discovered in Cass County, Michigan, forcibly seized, and then halted at South Bend, Indiana, where legal attempts were made to secure their release by habeas corpus. The trial drew national attention and was reportedly attended by the governors of Kentucky and Indiana. A scarce Midwestern fugitive slave controversy reflecting the volatile enforcement of the 1850 Act beyond the traditional North–South boundary. Rare. Not in Coleman.
BROOKE (Samuel). The Slave-Holder’s Religion. 47pp. Cincinnati, Spaulding and Lytle, Printers, 1845. An early and forceful clerical critique of the theological defenses of slavery, published in the Ohio Valley, where religious and legal tensions over slavery were particularly acute.
PILLSBURY (Parker). The Church as It Is: or, The Forlorn Hope of Slavery. Second edition, revised and improved. 90pp. Boston, Bela Marsh, No. 25 Cornhill, 1847. A vigorous denunciation of ecclesiastical complicity in slavery, by one of the movement’s most radical voices. Pillsbury’s critique of institutional religion’s failure on slavery was widely circulated and controversial.
FOSTER (Daniel). An Address on Slavery. Delivered in Danvers, Mass. … 44pp. Boston, Bela Marsh, 1849. A Massachusetts clerical address situating slavery within moral theology and New England reform culture on the eve of the Compromise crisis. Not in the Blockson collection.
JAY (William) (1789–1858). Letter to Hon. William Nelson, M.C., on Mr. Webster’s Speech. 12pp. New York, William Harned, 61 John Street, 1850. A pointed response to Daniel Webster’s controversial 7 March 1850 speech endorsing compromise measures including stricter fugitive slave enforcement. Not in the Blockson collection.
BUSHNELL (Horace). The Fathers of New England: An Oration Delivered Before the New England Society of New-York, December 21, 1849. Published at their request. 44pp. plus ads. New York, Geo. P. Putnam, 155 Broadway, 1850. While not strictly an abolition tract, Bushnell’s address situates New England’s religious and civic identity in the very moment sectional tensions were cresting.
GRINNELL (John Bushnell). A Sermon on the Occasion of the Opening of the First Congregational Church in Washington City, D.C. 22pp. Washington, Buell & Blanchard, Printers, 1851. A capital-city sermon reflecting the moral and political undercurrents of early 1850s Washington.
[AN AMERICAN.] The American Churches, the Bulwarks of American Slavery. Third American edition, enlarged by an appendix. Newburyport, Published by Charles Whipple, 1842. A classic radical abolitionist indictment of denominational
complicity in slavery, widely attributed to an American reform writer and influential in antebellum polemical literature.
Provenance: Pencil signature on first tract of “G. W. Perkins,” likely George Walbridge Perkins (1862–1920), prominent American financier and public figure; presumably assembled by him.
