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1 From the United States Gazette. Important Slave Case 1839

handle is hein.trials/acpl0001 and id is 1 raw text is: 1rom te United states Gazette. :1cO~1T~SZL7TE CASE. The case which is stated in the following opinion of JUnE HOPKINBON, delivered on %he 8th March, is of a character that cannot fail to be interesting to the communiity. A request was made for a copy for publication, which was kindly and promptly complied with. The ca;e and labor manifested in collating and weighing the testimony, reflects much credit upon the Judge, and his example in preparing an opinion which so fully embraces the circumstances of the case, as well as the reasons upon which his decision is founded, is worthy of imitation. During 'this investigation the Court room was filled to overflowing, and, the result was received with shoutsof rejoicingand applause. Counsel for claimant, E. D; INoRAHAM, Esq. For the respondent, CHARLES GILPIN and DAvID PAUL BaowN, Esqrs., Counsellors of the Pennsylvania Society, for promoting the Abolition of Slavery, &c. OPINION DELIVERED, MARCH 8th, 1839, In the case of ,Isaac or William Stans- bury ;' claimed as afugltive from the ser- vice of Ruth Williams, of Prince George county, in the Stale of Maryland. OPINION OF JUDGE HOPKINSON. The hearing of this case commenced on the 31st day of January last, and has been attend- ed throughout the several sittings with an in- creasing excitement and interest. There are questions and circumstances involved in it calculated to give it more importance than or- dinarily belongs to examinations of this de- scription. On the one side we have a citizen of a sister state, coming here under the protection and authority of that state, claiming to have restor- ed to her certain property, of which she al- leges she has been unlawfully deprived ; and insisting upon her right to my order to have this property delivered to her by the injunc- tions of the Constitution of the United States, which I am bound to obey. Inthe other party, who denies and resists this claim, we have an individual who has lived among us, for more than twenty-three years-has a wife and fami- ly of children depending upon him, and a home, from all which he must be separated, if the claimant has made good her right. These are considerations that make it peculiarly in- cumbent on the Judge, who is to decide the question, and to decide it by the evidence that has been brought before him, to weigh that evidence carefully and scrupulously, with- out prejudice or influence from any other quarter. He is to yield nothing, on the one side to the power and patriotism of the state of Maryland, which have been strongly invok- ed for the cause of the claimant; nor, on the other, to any feeling for the consequence of his judgment to the respondent and his fami- ly-much less to any opinions of his own on the question of slavery. Nobody recognises more fully and firmly than myself the complete legal and constitu- tional right of the owner of a slave in and to his person and services-no one is more deep- ly impressed than I am by thesolemn guaran- ty, which those states of our Union, whose laws permit slavery to exist in them, have re- ceived and have a right to exact from every other state ; that this right shall be faithfully regarded, and that if a person held to labor or service in one state by the laws thereof shall escape into another, he shall be delivered up to the party to whom such service or labor shall be due. This right it is my duty and desire to respect and secure, not only as a Judge, sworn to respect and secure it, but as a citizen of the United States ; firmly beliey- ing the union of these states to be .our first and greatest blessing, and. to maintain it. our highest duty; and knowing that it cannot be maintained but by a faithful performance of all its obligations and provisions by all the parties to it. In my view, the happiness of black and white, of the freeman and the slave, is intimately, I may say in our present cir- cumstances, inseparably connected with the maintenance of that government, under which, and by which, we have attained an unexam- pled prosperity, and have secured to us every right which a national people can wish for or enjoy. I make these remarks, because the topics to which they allude found no incon- siderable place in the argument of this case. I take the occasion, too, to observe, that the experience of this case, as well as many others, has shown that this mode of trial, directed by the act of Congress, is better for both parties, especially for the person claimed as a slave, than a trial by Jury could be. This hearing began on the last day of January-the claimant of course came prepared with the ordinary prima fade proof,.suflicient, if uncontradicted, to entitle her to the possession of the respon. dent. He was taken suddenly in the street, without any notice or expectation of any such design or danger. He could not, therefore,

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