Chapter Nine

But the Conflict Will Be Terrible

The conflict between the principle of liberty and the fact of slavery is coming gradually to an issue. Slavery has now the power, and falls into convulsions at the approach of freedom. That the fall of slavery is predetermined in the counsels of Omnipotence I cannot doubt; it is a part of the great moral improvement in the condition of man, attested by all the records of history. But the conflict will be terrible.[1]

— John Quincy Adams, December 13, 1838

With what they hoped was the most difficult period of their lives now behind them, Isaac and Susannah Brown attempted to settle into a normal life of relative anonymity. But it was exceedingly difficult to do so. Their story had captured the imagination of people in both Canada and the United States and the media of the times was reluctant to leave their story behind. The Pennsylvania Freeman, which was the weekly publication of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, continued to express the optimism that the institution of slavery had been struck a mighty blow by the outcome of Isaac’s case. The newspaper gave a lengthy report of the proceedings of the annual meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society of Eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, which included a segment on the profound and widespread indignation at the vile and dishonest tactics taken by the Grand Jury and the governor of Maryland in their attempt to retrieve Brown. The participants of the annual meeting believed that the conspiracy spoke volumes about the “demoralizing effect of slavery” on even the most respected and prominent people when it came to this particular issue. They were also optimistic that northern officials would take heed of the admonitions that Pennsylvania authorities had been subjected to by a large number of citizens, who scolded them for not being firm enough in their stance against “the schemes of all men, who, under color of law are seeking to violate all law, human and devine.” Most importantly, they believed that the message would spread across the entire South, that there was a growing anti-slavery sentiment in the north and that it “will not long submit to be trifled with, nor easily be imposed upon.” Unable to resist a final word on the subject, and articulated in an almost un-Quaker-like manner, the committee expressed their great satisfaction at the discomfort of the “kidnappers” when they were thwarted in their attempt to take Brown and were forced to make a hasty retreat back to Maryland to escape going to prison themselves.[2]

The cities identified on this map show the extent of Isaac Brown’s travel during slavery and escape, including his ultimate flight to Canada.
Courtesy of Lori Gardner, Buxton National Historic Site & Museum.

Canadian newspapers were also drawn into publishing Brown’s once tragic, but now feel-good story. After giving the details, the Toronto Banner asked its readers to spread the story to prevent any attempt to find a uniformed British North American magistrate who might, out of ignorance of the true facts, turn the fugitive over to Maryland agents.[3] The Philadelphia Freeman, always eager to publish more on Isaac Brown, learned of the Toronto publication and carried the Banner’s article following its own editorial comment: “Should not the cheek of every American burn with shame at the disclosure of such facts as the following? A man seeking only his freedom, which no crime has forfeited, flies with the speed of terror from this ‘free republic’ this ‘refuge for the oppressed of all nations,’ and finds liberty and protection at the foot of the British throne! Well may the despots of the old world laugh to scorn our proud boasts of Freedom.”[4]

Following the death of their friend and champion, Reverend Samuel Young, Brown’s story was once again thrust under a more intense spotlight. The Toronto Banner, the Globe, the True Wesleyan, and The New York Tribune carried the melancholy news, adding that Isaac Brown and his family had joined the minister in Waterloo before he succumbed.[5] After learning about it in the Public Ledger, the Pennsylvania Freeman shared the news with its readers a week later in its October 7, 1847, edition. The Toronto Mirror, the Christian World, and the Galt Reporter also covered the story and Christian World, National Anti-Slavery Standard, and the American Missionary Association asked the public to contribute any amount, however small, to the bereaved and impoverished widow and her now fatherless children.[6]

Death of Rev. Mr. Young.— In our last we mentioned that a minister of the gospel of this name, from the city of New York, had kindly accompanied the colored man, Brown, who had emancipated himself from bondage in order to lay his case before Lord Elgin. We regret to say that Mr. Young has fallen a victim to disease, which, we believe was caught on his way to Montreal, where he mixed much with the emigrants. Little more than two weeks ago, he was in Toronto, apparently in good health. He went to Waterloo the settlement of the colored population, along with the refugee and his family, where he was seized with the fatal disease which soon ended his life, and all his labours in this world.

There is something very affecting in the mode in which this faithful man has been cut down, and certainly he could not have fallen in a more noble cause. He was only about thirty years of age and a long career of usefulness in the Church was apparently before him. It please the great disposer of events to order it otherwise, and, we trust, to remove the departed to a higher sphere of service. Mr. Young has left a wife and seven children to lament his loss.

[Toronto Globe.]

We were well acquainted with brother Young and regret his fall. Ed. T.W.

From the True Wesleyan October 16, 1847

Boston’s Liberator also carried the story on two different occasions and provided an additional heart-wrenching detail supplied by Hiram Wilson that had not appeared in other newspapers. When Wilson had returned to the Dawn Settlement following Reverend Young’s burial, he found a letter that had arrived in his absence. Dated July 27 — the day before Young and the Brown’s arrival at Dawn — the letter urged Young to return home to New York as quickly as possible as his wife was gravely ill and was not expected to recover. There was a very real fear that the couple’s eight children would soon become orphans, if they were not already.[7]

Governor Thomas Pratt had a great deal of trouble trying to let go of his very public defeat in having Brown returned. At the conclusion of his very lengthy annual message to the General Assembly of Maryland, delivered on December 28 as the eventful year of 1847 came to its end, Pratt opined, “I wish, gentlemen, that I could close this communication without adverting to a subject, which it gives me great pain to be obliged to bring to your attention.”[8] He proceeded to lament the several failed instances where Pennsylvania had refused to return runaway slaves to Maryland. He spoke with a special exasperation of the case of Isaac Brown, who Pratt felt was only held in the Philadelphia jail due to the threat of violence by the populace which would make it unsafe for Officer Zell to immediately attempt to return the fugitive to Maryland. The governor declared his frustration that Pennsylvania had defied the constitution of the United States with impunity.

Once on the subject, Pratt’s ire very obviously began to boil. He reminded his listeners that slavery had existed for generations going back to colonial days when Great Britain sanctioned the practice and citizens had as much right over their slaves as they would over any other piece of property. But now, “this fanatical spirit” of abolitionists has destroyed the harmony that once existed among all of the States. In a prophetic tone, he warned that the issue was “of momentous importance, involving in its possible consequences the dissolution of the Union.” Although Pratt appeared to have ignored his own counsel, he advised the Maryland House of Representatives and Senate that they should not approach the issue with anger, but rather appeal to the honour, the patriotism and the sense of justice of their counterparts in Pennsylvania to do the right thing which, to Pratt’s mind, was “self evident.”[9]

The Pennsylvania Freeman was quick to respond to the governor’s speech, warning that all citizens should be vigilant and ensure that no attempts were made to weaken the anti-kidnapping law. All were encouraged to continue to agitate and to circulate petitions to let the legislature know that even stronger laws were needed.[10] Thomas Scarf, who years later wrote the monumental History of Maryland, had a very different view. In a bitter segment that appeared under the headline Pennsylvania Nullifying the Constitution, he wrote in unequivocal terminology that the case of Isaac Brown and other slaves who were not returned to Maryland changed the course of his state’s history. The author argued that there was a public sentiment to gradually abolish slavery before those “outrages were committed.” Following these acts, the mood changed in reaction to the “violent denunciations and improper interference” by “fanatical” Northern abolitionists. To be certain that his message was clear, Scarf repeated that the blame rested squarely on the shoulders of those abolitionists for preventing the end of the institution of slavery.[11]

Lucretia Mott, the diminutive Quaker and human rights advocate whose place in history rivals that of any of the giants of her time, found no common ground with Thomas Scarf or Governor Pratt on that issue. She and her fellow anti-slavery companions remained firmly committed to their cause. They took great satisfaction in their recent success, but were extremely careful in committing details to paper that might incriminate themselves or reveal specifics of their Underground Railroad operations that might prevent using the same tactics to help fugitives in the future. However, Mott relished the thought that eventually those remarkably stories could be triumphantly shared: “Isaac Brown’s & others not a few, will tell well in history, some time hence, “in the days of freedom, oh”![12]