J[ames] W. Duffin to Frederick Douglass, March 3, 1856

THE CINCINNATI SLAVE CASE.

MY DEAR DOUGLASS:—The Fugitive Slave Case just decided in the "Queen City of the West," is so heart-rending in all of its circumstances and details, that it seems to me, if we should not speak, the very stones in our streets would cry out. It is true that we have been called upon to witness some trying scenes of this nature in the cities of New York and Boston; and we wondered, then, why such things were permitted, and we thought that the first case would be the last, and when the second came, we said that there never would be another—that the Fugitive Slave Bill was a dead letter, and so we have been drifting on from one tragical scene to another, until the case of that heroic woman, Margaret Garner, and her family breaks upon our ears, in all its enormity and heart-rending horrors. It seems to have been reserved to Commissioner Pendery, to out-Herod Herod himself, and place himself at the head of the list of atrocious Judges; but I have more to do with others than the Halletts, Ingrahams, Curtises, Kanes, and Penderys of our land. God will take care of them as he has done of their kind that has gone before them. It is true that we expected much from the Free Soil State of Ohio; we were not prepared to believe that with her Free Soil Anti-Slavery Governor, a fugitive slave could be taken from her midst, but we had still stronger and more abiding faith in her vanguard, the free people of color. Who would have believed that the colored men and women of Cincinnati would have suffered that poor woman into whose soul the iron heel of Slavery had entered so that she felt it to be worse than a thousand deaths, to be carried back again. O, shame where is thy blush! The Marshal, with his two hundred miserable Satellites, permitted to march through the streets of that city, containing thousands of free men and women of color, who ought, above all others, to have rescued her and her family, though they died in the struggle.

I would ask to what purpose are the free people of color living in this country? We spend much time and money in holding conventions, passing resolves, and, as Horace Greeley says, "jawing about our rights." Would to God that we had the courage when occasion required to fight for our rights, and thus clear ourselves of the charge of delivering up to the master the bondman that is escaped unto us. We hear much now a days about Sharp's rifles. Minister and Layman are extending their power in bringing Border Ruffians to recognize the rights of white men in Kansas, but where are the colored men that have signalized themselves, by their defence of the poor black man—nay, the poor black woman that flees from the prison house of Slavery and implores us for protection, from what is worse to her than a thousand deaths. I would have this Fugitive Slave Bill, (not Law,) set at defiance in practice, as well as theory, throughout the land, and more especially by the colored people; the fugitive should be rescued before a Commissioner sat in judgment upon them; their mandates should be no more obeyed than were the mandates of Herod when he commanded the Hebrew widows to murder their children. Let us make battle ground of every foot of free soil where an attempt is made to get a fugitive back. If liberty is dear to white men, let us feel that it is equally dear to black men; and if Sharp's rifles are to be used to defend the rights of free white men in Kansas, let us use them to defend free black men upon free soil.

Yours, for the right,

J. W. DUFFIN

GENEVA, March 3, 1856.