By Owen Findsen
The Cincinnati Enquirer

They were slaves, denied the right to trial by jury. So the fate of the seven fugitives hung on the decision of U.S. Commissioner John L. Pendery.

Three of the slaves, Simon, wife Mary and their son, also called Simon, were claimed by James Marshall of Boone County. Young Simon's wife, Margaret, and her three surviving children were owned by Archibald Gaines, also of Boone County.

The two hearings, one for each claimant, were presented concurrently in a Cincinnati court in February 1856. The defendants were "fugitives from labor and service," according to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.

The owners' attorneys argued that there was no moral issue before the commissioner, only the letter of the law. "The Federal Constitution under which we live . . . recognizes the institution of slavery and it also requires laws to be passed to protect the slave property of the Southern States of this union," said Col. Francis T. Chambers, a Cincinnati attorney who opposed slavery but defended the law.

Attorneys for the owners claimed they were trying to return Kentuckians (the slaves) to Kentucky under the laws of the Commonwealth. At the same time, they argued, Ohio law, which would try Margaret Garner for the murder of her 3-year-old daughter, was not applicable in a federal court.

"I say we stand here not as citizens of Kentucky or Ohio but as citizens of the Union, and in the investigation of this case we are only bound by the laws passed by Congress on this subject," said Kentucky attorney John W. Finnell, who represented John Marshall. "What have we to do with the right or wrong of slavery? It is here in our midst and we cannot rid ourselves of the evil, if evil there be."

Mr. Finnell challenged Irish-born attorney John Jolliffe's right to defend slaves, because has was a not a native-born American.

"Continued and unceasing obstacles are thrown in my way," Mr. Finnell protested. "They are placed there by a foreigner by birth, who had far better return to his native land and remove the shackles from the feet of his brethren in Ireland before coming here to teach the laws of humanity concerning American slavery."

Mr. Jolliffe, concluding the defense of Mr. Marshall's slaves, argued that the Fugitive Slave Law was immoral and that the Constitution's protection of slavery violated the Constitution's protection of religious liberty. He appealed to a higher law: the Bible.

"Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion," he said. "What is the exercise of Christian religion? Its vital principal is that you shall love God with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself . . . every law that interferes with that right is unconstitutional and void."

The slave Simon Jr. "has a wife who is now in jail, and against whom the charge of murder is preferred. Now Mr. Marshall asks you to tear him from his wife, who so much at the present time needs his aid.

"What God has joined together let not man put asunder."

The audience burst into applause.

"Can you do this and obey God and his word? The religious freedom of the United States is on trial here: If you sustain it, you sustain it for us all; if you betray it, you betray us all.

"Now pray, sir, if Congress cannot pass a law to compel you to worship God, can they compel you to sin against God? If they cannot compel you to bring sacrifices to the altar of God, can they compel you to to carry fuel to hell -- to plunge these persons into the seething hell of American slavery?

"All rights are taken away from slaves. They cannot worship God; they cannot read the Bible; they cannot preach the Gospel to all nations; they cannot bring up their children as they might wish; they can do nothing without consent of their masters. Do you not perceive that the Bible is on one hand and the Fugitive Slave Law on the other?"

Mr. Jolliffe spoke of the religious faith of the slave Mary Garner.

"Sir, if you could see things aright you would see angels hovering around this room; nay, you could see Christ himself here, pleading for this woman.

"Sir, if you send her back into slavery, you send Christ into slavery; if you send her back to the slave block you send Christ to the slave block; if you send her to be scourged you send Christ to be scourged. Your own immortal soul is at stake in this decision you shall make in this case, for has not Christ said "If you do it unto the least of these, you do it unto me'?

"Sir, your decision in this case is of the utmost importance—on it rests the peace of this nation. Oh! I see the armies as they are arrayed against one another. I hear the groans of the dying and the clash of steel against steel. If you decide against these defendants, this Union cannot stand, the people would rise en masse and rend the Union asunder."

Small victory for a Quaker friend

Deputy marshals were recruited from Kentucky during the Garner trial "to prevent colored people and friends of the slaves from entering the court room," recalled Levi Coffin, a Quaker who was called the "president" of the Underground Railroad.

Bearded and dressed in black, Mr. Coffin wore a flat, wide-brimmed hat. As he entered the court, he was confronted by one of the marshals.

"I command you to take off your hat," a marshal told him.

"I shall not pull off my hat to accommodate thee," Mr. Coffin replied. "I have served on juries in several states and have never been commanded to pull off my hat."

The order was repeated several times, each time louder than the last, and each time, Mr. Coffin gently declined to remove his hat.

The marshal snatched the hat off Mr. Coffin's head and tried to hand it to him. Mr. Coffin refused to accept it.

"I thought thou wanted my hat," he said.

The trial stopped, and everybody watched as the marshal put the hat on a table.

A Cincinnati police officer picked up the hat and put it back on Mr. Coffin's head.

"Leave the gentleman's hat alone," the officer told the marshal. "I have as much authority here as you have."

The story was printed in newspapers across the nation. For weeks people who met Mr. Coffin congratulated him on whipping the marshal.

"My general reply was, 'I didn't hurt a hair on his head,'" Mr. Coffin recalled in his Reminiscences.

The information in this story came from the Enquirer, editions of Jan. 29 and 30, 1856.