The Arrest of Gilbert Horton and the Rise of the Abolition Movement (Part 1)
His Narrow Escape from Bondage Sparks Call to Action
Introduction
Walking the docks on the banks of the Potomac River, Gilbert Horton was a free man, in fact, if not in practice. Whether he was a United States citizen, entitled to all the protections afforded citizens under the U.S. Constitution was an open question and a matter of spirited debate.
In the summer of 1826, Horton was a 26-year-old crewman on the ship, The Macedonian, then docked in Norfolk, Va. Horton knew the moment he disembarked his vessel in any slave-holding state, his freedom was as precarious as it was precious. Bitter experience had taught him that it could evaporate in an instant if he were unable to produce evidence sufficient to convince any authority that enquired about his free status.
As a colored man his word alone was woefully insufficient. Precisely what type of documentation would suffice to ensure his liberty was subjective at best, and potentially irrelevant, depending on who was asking and why. Arresting free blacks was not uncommon and could prove extremely lucrative, depending on the disposition of the case.
With his ship anchored in Virginia, Horton had made his way to the docks in the Georgetown section of in the District of Columbia. There, on July 22, he was arrested on suspicion of being a runaway slave. His groundless, unjust imprisonment sparked outrage amongst Northern abolitionists, especially in his home state of New York. Some of the most prominent people of his time, including President John Quincy Adams, rallied to his cause. His jailing also fueled heated debate in the U.S. Congress, raising fundamental questions about the legal standing of free blacks, and set the stage for broader calls to eradicate the stain of slavery in the United States.
But only serendipity and community connections saved Horton from a life of bondage.
A Scrap of Paper
Shortly after Horton’s arrest, John Owen, the owner of a paper mill in Croton Falls, NY, received a package. The parcel was wrapped in the August 1 edition of The National Intelligencer, a Washington, D.C. newspaper. Looking over the paper, Owen’s eyes fell on a notice. It read:
“Was committed to the jail of Washington County, District of Columbia, on the 22nd of July last, a runaway negro man by the name of Gilbert Horton. He is five feet high, stout made, large full eyes, and a scar on his left arm near the elbow; had on when committed a tarpaulin hat, linen shirt, blue cloth jacket and trousers; says that he was born free in the State of New York near Peekskill. The owner or owners of the above-described negro man, if any, are requested to come and take him away, or he will be sold for his jail fees and other expenses, as the law directs.”
Owen knew instantly that Horton was a free man who had worked in his neighborhood.
At the time of Horton’s arrest, the laws governing the nation’s capital were an amalgam of statutes incorporated from Maryland and Virginia—the two states that had ceded land to the federal government to create the District in 1790. The area east of the Potomac River, including Georgetown in Washington County, D.C., was regulated under the incorporated Maryland laws.
Early Map of the District of Columbia, showing Washington County and Georgetown
Library of Congress
The Maryland law cited in The National Intelligencer advertisement was passed by the Maryland General Assembly in the early 1700s. As noted in the ad, a free black, like Horton, accused and jailed as a runaway slave, could be sold to cover the costs of his own imprisonment.
Horton found himself in an untenable position, facing the possibility of being sold into lifelong slavery unless an owner, who did not exist, claimed him as his slave.
One of the laws passed by the Maryland General Assembly limiting the rights of blacks.
Laws like these were incorporated into District of Columbia statutes.
Alarmed by Horton’s arrest and outraged by the laws that allowed his imprisonment, John Owen enlisted the help of his neighbor William Jay, the son of Founding Father, John Jay. At the time of Horton’s arrest, the younger Jay was first judge of Westchester County, NY. Judge Jay advised that a letter should be written to the marshal of the District of Columbia along with proof of Horton’s status as a free man.
Other Westchester citizens rallied to Horton’s cause. On August 30, 1826 a citizens’ committee met and drafted a resolution noting the “unequivocal proof” of Horton’s freedom and urging New York Governor DeWitt Clinton to intervene of Horton’s behalf.
Hinting at the committee’s broader stance on the issues of slavery, the resolution cited Article 4 of the U.S. Constitution: “The Citizens of each state shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.” The committee added that it was “the duty of the State of New York to protect its citizens in the enjoyment of these rights without regard to their complexion.”
The resolution decried the law under which Horton had been imprisoned and urged New York representatives in Congress to push for its repeal. The law, the New York committee members said, “is repugnant to our republican institutions, and revolting to justice and humanity.”
But the committee went further still, calling for “the immediate abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.”
When he received the committee’s correspondence and documents attesting to Horton’s freedom, Gov. Clinton immediately forwarded them to President John Quincy Adams who, in turn, sent them to Secretary of State Henry Clay. The chief clerk of the State Department notified Gov. Clinton that the D.C. marshal, aware of the efforts made on Horton’s behalf by so many prominent people, had already freed him.
The Law and Citizenship
With Horton freed, discussion quickly shifted to the law which permitted his imprisonment. Judge Jay had long been involved in the anti-slavery movement. He wrote the constitution of the American Anti-Slavery Society and was gradually, steadily radicalized on the issue.
About three months before Horton’s arrest, Rep. Charles Miner, a two-term Congressmen from Pennsylvania, had introduced a resolution aimed at gradually abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia. Miner couched his resolution in economic terms, arguing that free white men would hasten the District’s economic development. In a letter “from a gentleman in Washington City,” published in the Philadelphia Inquirer two days after Miner introduced his resolution, the anonymous writer argued that “the city can never wholesomely flourish until a free white population shall be substituted for that which exists. Slaves buy no land—build no houses, and tend nothing to the improvement of a place.”
The unnamed author—Miner himself—railed against the cruelties of the District’s slave trade. More than a third of the District’s population was black, including more than 6,000 enslaved people. “There are more slaves per mile square in this District, which ought to be the model of perfect freedom, than there are inhabitants of all descriptions per square mile in Pennsylvania or Virginia, and it is an alarming fact that the slave population increases faster than the white,” Miner wrote.
The city’s jails were overflowing with enslaved people—124 in 1824 alone, including those, like Horton, assumed to be slaves. The excess enslaved were held in “certain low taverns in town called Pens, where the slave dealers keep their purchases” until they have gathered a sufficient number to send south, Miner wrote.
Free blacks being auctioned to pay jail fees in the District of Columbia, 1836
Library of Congress
Although Miner’s resolution asked for little more than an inquiry into the possibility of eventually eliminating slavery in the District, it outraged Southern legislators and was soundly defeated.
In a letter to Miner, Judge Jay said the D.C. slavery issue had been “scarcely absent” from his mind since Horton’s arrest and, although the fight for abolition required “patient perseverance” it would ultimately succeed. He urged Miner to continue speaking out.
The District was not then--and is not now--a state. Though modern-day D.C. has limited control over local matters, in 1826 it operated wholly under Congressional authority. Abolitionists, including Jay and Miner, seized upon this fact, arguing that the Southern slave-holding states’ argument about “states’ rights” did not apply, given the District’s unique circumstances.
In 1827, citing the Horton case, New York Rep. Aaron Ward introduced a resolution asking that the committee with oversight of District affairs look into whether the District laws authorized “the imprisonment of any man of color and his sale as an unclaimed slave” to cover jail costs. Ward argued that “if there is any spot on earth where (the) rights (of freemen) are to be held sacred that place is the District of Columbia.”
Although Ward’s resolution, like Miner’s the year before, asked for little more than an inquiry into the existing law, it sparked a furor in Congress. Southern legislators ridiculed Ward’s impassioned pleas on behalf of free men of color. They questioned whether the law was even still in effect and argued that Horton could use the court system—the same system that allowed for his imprisonment—to settle any claims that he had been treated unfairly.
But mostly they warned against talking about the issue. “Why…urge an inquiry on a subject of this peculiar character, which would lead only to irritating, painful, and useless discussion?” asked Georgia Rep. John Forsythe.
“The Home of the Oppressed,” detail from “Slave Market of America.”
American Anti-Slavery Society, Library of Congress
Kentucky Rep. Charles Wickliffe argued that the District laws were no different than many other states’ which allowed that “persons of color found loitering without employment, and supposed to be a runaway slave, might be apprehended and imprisoned.”
Horton, Wickliffe continued, “was found within the District without any evidence of his freedom, and he was taken up and imprisoned till such evidence could be obtained. It was obtained from the State of New York, and he was immediately set at liberty.” He contended that Ward’s resolution wasn’t really about the Horton case, but rather “was calculated to rouse feelings and produce an excitement which is would be difficult to repress.”
Ward’s allies in Congress countered that it was the Southern members themselves, not Ward, who were fanning the flames that could lead to a larger conflagration over the combustible issue of slavery.
“If the gentleman from New York approached a magazine with a lighted candle, it certainly became him to look to his steps, and to tread with caution; but if other gentleman, those who were nearest to the magazine, and who stood round it, to guard it, should themselves elicit sparks, whom had they to blame if an explosion should happen?” Ohio Rep. John Woods asked, in a thinly veiled reference to Southern defense of “the peculiar institution.”
To resolve the disagreement and move forward with a limited inquiry on the state of the law in the District, Rep. William Brent of Louisiana proposed an amendment, striking the words “being a citizen of any of the states” from Ward’s resolution. Brent said he would vote for the resolution if that “most objectionable part of it” was removed. Ward was willing to accept the amendment.
Aware of the simple resolution’s potentially consequential subtext on the rights of free blacks and the broader issues of slavery itself, South Carolina Rep. George McDuffie tried parsing the language further. While accepting that Horton should be considered a citizen of New York, entitled to his rights as a citizen of that individual state, he was not necessarily a citizen of the United States, McDuffie said.
Rep. Brent reiterated his concern that the inquiry into the laws related to Horton’s arrest might spill into broader issues that “would inevitably produce much excitement” in the House.
But Rep. Miner would have none of it, arguing the Congress was duty-bound to discuss the matter. “It is always painful to excite unpleasant feelings,” he said, but just as each state was obliged to address issues within its own borders, Congress had the responsibility to address issues within the District’s borders. Fear of the disruption any discussion of slavery might cause had led Congress to neglect that duty for decades, Miner said, resulting in a thoroughly corrupt and largely unregulated slave trade in the District. Hundreds of slaves, and those assumed to be slaves, were abused and sold south each year, Miner said. “It was, in truth, the case that, owing to the total neglect of this subject, by the only power having authority to remedy the evils, this has become the headquarters of the Domestic Slave Trade.”
Miner’s impassioned speech brought about another round of condemnations from the Southern representatives who complained that his words might suggest he was moving the House to interfere with the slave trade in the U.S. more broadly. “Such an idea was well calculated to produce excitement and alarm in the Slave-holding States,” said Maryland Rep. Clement Dorsey.
Speaking on behalf of his southern colleagues, Georgia Rep. John Forsyth rejected the notion that free blacks considered citizens in their home states should be considered citizens in other states. “The whole of the Southern delegation deny this claim,” Forsyth said. “We hold that we have the right to exclude Free people of color, to eject them, and to limit their privileges when we admit them to reside among us.”
With the language that acknowledging Gilbert Horton’s citizenship stripped from Ward’s resolution, it passed the House by a wide margin.
About six months later, the committee with jurisdiction over the District reported that the Maryland law under which Horton was arrested was, in fact, still on the District’ books. The committee recommended amending it so that the wrongly imprisoned would no longer be responsible for the jail fees they incurred. But even that worthy, incremental change was rejected when local businesses objected to using county funds to reimburse the jailer.
The law remained in effect, but the injustice it revealed heightened calls for Congress to abolish slavery in the District.