THE HISTORY OF THE
ROGERS CASE
FROM JULY 22 TO SEPTEMBER 4,
WITH THE SPEECH OF REV. W. H.
SCOTT BEFORE THE GOVERNOR
OF MASSACHUSETTS AND THE
ATTORNEY-GENERAL AND REV. W.
H. SCOTT'S ADDRESS TO THE
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED
STATES ON FEBRUARY 2G, 1902.
THE ROGERS CASE.
The "Rogers Case" has pat Massachusetts in
a boiling cauldron, which has not transpired
since 1*50, when, oil the 18th of September, a law
was enacted known as the "fugitive slave law."
Not long after this law was passed Anthony
Burns and Thomas Sims came to Massachusetts
seeking liberty, but they were sent back into
bondage, Shadrach was rescued.
Ou the 23rd of July, when I was at dinner, my
wife read from the "Boston Globe" of the 23rd
that a young Negro boy of North Carolina was
held in custody awaiting the arrival of a deputy
from Durham, to take nim back to answer to a
charge of arson committed in that city. I said,
"That boy will be lynched! I will go and see
Gov. Crane and ask him not to let the Governor
of North Carolina have the boy until we can
have a hearing.
I arrived in Boston at 3.30 p. m., with my
heart in my mouth, as one would say, fearing
that Gov. Crane had already granted the requis¬
ition papers. When I reached the State House
I found out from William L. Heed, Esq., the
messenger of the Governor, that the Governor
was absent. Mr. Reed introduced me to the
Governor's secretary.
The first thing I asked was, "Have you re¬
ceived any papers from the Governor of North
Carolina asking for one Monroe Rogers?" "No"
was the reply. When I heard this I felt as
though a great load had rolled from me. I
said. "Do not honor those papers until you let
me know." He answered that he would not.
I next called to see my old friend, E. E.
Brown, Esq., but he was not in. By chance I
met Mr. Clement G. Morgan. I related the case
to him and he said, "If I can do anything, let me
know." I then and there engaged him as coun¬
sel in the case. I must say here that Mr.
Morgan never once spoke of money.
This whole case may seem to the casual
observer to be an accident, but it is not. It is
one of those things which God brings about and
which will go down in history. I inteuded to go
i
to Brockton to see the boy ; but as it was half
past four and it took so long to go there by
electrics, I was compelled to put it off till
Thursday.
I arose early on Thursday and left about half
past six on the electric cars, arriving in Brockton
about eleven. I went to the City Hall to see my
old friend and comrade, Mr. French, who is City
Messenger and found out that the Marshal was
named Mr. Leach.
I went and saw Mr. Leach and found him
like many good white people of the North, very
anxious to get Rogers back to North Carolina.
In fact, Mr. Leach was ignorant of his duties in
the case. All he had to do was to hold Rogers
subject to the Governor's orders ; but he went
so far beyond this that I was afraid he might
give Rogers up to the Durham official when he
came. So I told him "not to give Rogers up on
the peril of his life." He said in a kind way
" Oh! Of course not." It turned out as I thought.
He did not know his business, for when Con¬
stable Crabtree came up with a letter from Gov.
Aycock of North Carolina, this good Marshal
took Rogers from Brockton to Boston with
Crabtree, and placed Rogers in the station house
nntil the hearing was over. He probably
thought that Gov. Crane was going to sign the
papers right off and send Rogers back; but he
was mistaken. I truly believe that had I not
gone down to Brockton when I did, that he
would have sent Rogers back himself. Crabtree
had to go back to Durham for the proper papers.
So you see neither Crabtree nor Leach knew
their business.
Let me warn the Negroes of Massachusetts.
You must not vote for men who are ignorant of
their duty for a blunder like that means the
life of your sons, daughters, mothers, brothers
and wives. Let us suppose that Leach had let
Rogers go back with Crabtree. Do you think
we would have gotten Crabtree to right the
mistake ? No ! A thousand times no! He
would have thought it a smart trick. Leach
said he took Rogers to Boston "to give him
a little airing."
I went to see Rogers. They said in Brockton
he had confessed; but Rogers told me in the
presence of Leach he did not confess burning
the house for no house was burnt. I saw his
sister and brother-in-law and the two ministers.
2
On the sixth of August there was a public
hearing in the forenoon before the governor and
in the afternoon before the attorney-general.
Before the Governor, Butler "Wilson ana A. H.
Grinke spoke. Committee was E. E. Brown,
G. W. Fobes, Wm. M. Trotter, Dr. Lane and
other prominent citizens. In the afternoon the
following spoke before the attorney-general—:
C. G. Morgan, councillor, Butler Wilson, E. E.
Brown, Wm. M. Trotter, G. W. Fobes, Dr.
Lane, Mr. Gaines and A. H. Grinke. Mr.
Morgan's opening argument was fine; learned,
elegant diction, a Chesterfield in his manners.
The next public hearing before the Attorney-
General was on the 20th of August.
After a little legal sparring between the At¬
torney-General and Mr. Morgan, Rev. W. H.
Scott spoke on behalf of the citizens' committee.
He was followed by Col. N. P. Hallowell, who
was lieutenant-colonel of the 54th Mass. and
colonel of the 54th. He was a tower of strength
in our cause. A. H. Grinke, Dr. Blackwell
(white) Rev M. N. Shaw and E. Benjamin spoke.
There were a great many distinguished citizens
present. Anyone not knowing the Attorney-
General would have thought that he was
attorney-general for North Carolina, receiving
$10,000 a year.
On the 26th the clergy had a hearing before
the Governor at 2.30. The clergy invited lay¬
men to accompany them. There were about
200 distinguished citizens present, black and
white.
His Excellency was very nervous, in fact he
was sick. The Rev. W. H. Scott was the first
to speak on the condition of the South. He was
followed by G. W. Fobes, Col. Hallowell and
Rev. Shaw. The latter made an exceedingly
fine argument. His fine diction, rhetorical
language and eloquence were without a fault.
The last argument was made on the 27th by C.
G. Morgan, the . counsellor. In spite of all the
eloquence and protests of 32,000 Negroes and
their white friends. His Excellency saw fit to
sign the papers. The Negroes have taken an
appeal to tne courts whicn they will continue
until they reach the Supreme Court of the U. S.
Judge Hammond refused a writ of Habeas
Corpus in the equity session of the Supreme
Court. An appeal was taken from his decision.
This is the case on Sept. 4th, 1902.
3
THE CONDITION OF THE SOUTH.
The South is a land of anarchy. The
South has never obeyed any law only so
far as that law has been beneficial to their
selfish ends. In the Constitutional Con¬
vention, they bulldozed and coerced the
States which were against Negro slavery to
accept the Constitution with a provision
to become slave hounds, which Wesley says
"was the sum of all villainy." James G.
Blaine said,"If the African slave trade had not
been permitted to continue for twenty years ;
if it had not been conceded that three fifths
of the slaves should be counted in the ap¬
portionment of representatives in Congress ;
if it had not been agreed that the fugitives
from service should be returned to their
owner, the thirteen states would not have
been able in 1784 to form a more perfect
union." (Blaine's Twenty Years in Con¬
gress, Vol. 1, p. 1.).
The South was determined to make slav¬
ery profitable; to do that, it was necessary
to throw overboard all of the laws of God and
man; moral, ceremonial, physical, hygienic,
civil, legal, marriage and incest. They had to
deny the Bible practically. God could not
be the father of all men. They denied the
brotherhood of mankind. There could only
be a Heaven for the slave owner, and a hell
for the bad Negroes. In fact, they denied
the whole decalogue. (See " Cotton is
King " Christy, 18G0 : " Exiles of Florida,"
Joshua R. Giddings.)
They stated that slavery helped to makq
the Negro a Christian. They sold their
4
own children and begat by their daughter's
children. You see how impossible for this
class of people to do justice to the Negro.
It is absolute folly to talk of giving him
justice. Their conscience was blunted.
(See Thos. Jefferson.) True justice is
blindfolded: she cannot see. Like the
Christian who walks by faith, she acts upon
the highest principles without sight. South¬
ern justice, however, removes the bandage
from her eyes when a Negro comes before
her. The census of 1890 says, " Mulattoes
about a million ; quadroons about 150,000;
octoroons about 80,000." Now it is safe to
say mixed blood at least three millions.
How came this mixing? Were the laws of
God carried out ? No 1 Their fathers were
of the so-called best people of the South.
The South has always put a premium on
bastardy. Listen to the language of one of
the " best men " of the South: " Inter¬
marriage in the South not only makes the
union void, but subjects the officiating clergy
to punishment in the chain-gang, the peni¬
tentiary or heavy money fine, in the discretion
of the judge!" This is the language of Ex-
Governor Northern of Georgia, who was
president of one of the largest ecclesiastical
bodies in this country : The Southern Baptist
Convention.
What can we expect of a country whose
best men talk this way ! He calls these
gentlemen who are pleading for Rogers
" incendiary northern Negroes."
The South violated the African slave
trade, which became a law in 1818. Deacons
and preachers purchased slaves annually
from the coast of Africa and put them on
5
their farms until 1860. In 1860, Gen.
Butler left the Democratic convention in
Charleston as the southern delegation wanted
to re-open the slave trade, led on by one
Goulding of Georgia. Gen. Butler said, " I
would no longer sit in a convention where
the re-opening of the African slave trade,
made piracy by every law of God and man,
was advocated and applauded."
This same oligarchy threatened the de¬
struction of the Union when the states of
Maine and Missouri were about to be
admitted. Thus we had the compromise of
1820. John C. Calhoun in 1832 nullified
the laws of Congress. In 1850 a law was
passed wThich was known as the Fugitive
Slave Law, which compelled every citizen
of the United States to become a slave
hound; for the South had a companion in
this bloody work; she has nurtured a whole
kennel of Cuban bloodhounds, trained, with
savage jaws and insatiable scent, for the
hunt of the flying Negro. It made the
American flag a sign of human degradation.
May 30, 1854, they repealed the Com¬
promise, and in March, 1857, they took
down every barrier against the slave power
in this decision of Judge Taney, which said,
" a Negro had no rights a white man was
bound to respect."
Therefore, the slavemaster could carry his
slave into every part of the country and the
nation became a nation of slave hunters.
May, 1850, southern brutality was shown in
the United States senate when the "stateliest
knight of them all." Charles Sumner, was
felled by the brutal Brooks of South Caro¬
lina. And because they could not call the
6
slave roll of the South at the foot of Bunker
Hill Monument, as Bob Toombs said, on
the 12th of April, 1861, they fired upon
the American flag. If any one has any
doubt as to the cruelty of the South, let
them remember Andersonville (Blaine's book
volume 2), Libby Prison and Fort Pillow.
Alexander Stephens, when he denied that
the Negro has any right to be free, in that
wonderful speech he delivered in Georgia,
said, " Our new government is founded upon
exactly the opposite idea; its foundations
are laid; its cornerstone rests upon the
great truth that the Negro is not equal to
the white man. That slavery—subordination
to the superior race—is his natural and
moral condition (Applause). This, our
new government, is the first in the history
of the world, based upon this great physical,
philosophical, and moral truth !"
Thus the idea of the Southern Confeder¬
acy was a violation of all of the higher laws
of Christianity. Now, is it possible to expect
from the descendants of a people like this
any justice to those whom they have been
taught to believe cursed by God and to be
slaves to them P One has said, " Bondage
is winter, darkness, despair and death."
Slavery cursed the master as much as the
slave.
After the war, the Klu Klux Klan period
came which made Reverdy Johnson, who
was one of the counsels in this case, weep
when he saw the cruelty of the Klans
toward the Negro. If you remember he
was United States senator twice, and cabi¬
net officer twice, and the best lawyer of
his age. Read .the legislation respecting
7
freedom just after the war. It would make
a Turk weep.
Then came the Red Shirt Period. After
that the ballot-box stuffing period and the
Constitutional Convention. Then the Love
Feast Period when the North and South
were gathered around one large soup bowl,
feeding with one large spoon to the martial
strain of music, " I wish I was in Dixie."
The Negro has always suffered after this
Love Feast.
Foreigners have regarded our form of
government a paradox. It is crying freedom
for all the oppressed nations of the earth ;
yet the most loyal and true citizen is denied
an absolute existence. De Tocqueville says,
"Yes, he is free, but he can have neither
the rights nor pleasures, nor the labours, nor
the affection, nor the altar, nor the tomb of
him whose equal he has been declared to be.
He meets the white man upon fair terms
neither in life nor in death.
Truly, like Madame Roland, casting her
last earthly glance upon the Temple of
Liberty, passionately exclaimed, " O ! Liber¬
ty, what crimes are committed in thy name !"
Sir, I come to one of the darkest chapters
of the age, because it was without provoca¬
tion. When a deed is done in criminal law,
the first thing is asked, " What were the
motives ?" In North Carolina the entire
population is 1,893,810 ; the Negro 624,409.
The Negro is about one third of the entire
population. The idea of Negro domination
is absurd in the extreme; but the real truths
of the case are these: North Carolina has a
large poor white population who rebelled
against the old courthouse ring, which was
8
led by such men as the Ransoms, the
Hendersons, Simmonses, Kitchins, Carrs,
Waddells and the Crawfords. This class
found the Negro vote was about 124,815.
Therefore this ring said, "We must carry
this election if it cost 1000 dead niggers."
Two years ago Negro vote was 10,000.
Simmons was elected chairmen of the
Democratic committee to carry out the
bloody deed. He was promised a seat in
the United States Senate if he carried the
state. What were the lives of a thousand
" niggers " to a seat in the U. S. Senate?
But this chapter could not be completed un¬
less the monster Ben. R. Tillman took a
hand in the work. Hear Shakespeare:
" Come, come, you spirits that tend on
mortal thoughts, unsex me here; and fill me
from crown to the toe, top-full of direst
cruelty 1 make thick my blood, stop up the
access and passage of remorse." (Macbeth,
Act 1, Scene 5.)
Thus Simmons needed Tillman to harden
the little conscience he had left. " If that
nigger had written that article in South
Carolina, by this time he would have been
at the bottom of the Cape Fear River, and
the fish would be eating him." (Tillman.)
" The white people intend to carry this
election if we have to kill one thousand
niggers." (Simmons).
Thus this Saturnalian dance began. But
what followed? One Waddell, who had
been a colonel in the rebel army, a member
of Congress, had lost his grip; but knowing
him, they told him if he would rid Wilming¬
ton of the nigger government, they would
make him mayor. So a mob organized
9
itself into a committee of twenty-five.
Waddell was the leader. Each took a Win¬
chester of the most improved sort, and went
to the Manly Bros, printing office, and he
applied the torch and destroyed it, with
more than twenty-five other houses of help¬
less Negroes, besides killing and maiming
more then twenty.
But the worst is yet to come. They drove
more than a thousand defenceless men,
women and children into the swamps where
there was neither food nor shelter in those
cold nights of November. Mothers gave
birth to untimely babies, where there were
no doctors or nurses. Think of this in a
Christian land !—and this state of things
continued for more than a fortnight. A
perfect Reign of Terror.
There was a priest in Paris during the
Reign of Terror, wTho could never listen
again to the Marseillaise, the French
national hymn. So I saw a woman, beauti¬
ful and fair, who had made her escape from
the maddened mob. She could not bear to
hear the name of Wilmington mentioned
but that it carried her back to those days of
sorrow and anguish. In this terrible riot
ministers and deacons took part.
Let me give what a great preacher said in
a sermon. The Rev. Peyton II. Iloge, said
the next Sunday : " The gallant conduct in
redeeming the city for civilization, law,
order, decency and respectability " and he
congratulated them for their patience.
There is a deep laid plan in the South
that the Negro of the North shall be taught
a lesson.
The Jim Crow Car System. This isola-
10
tion of the negro race means death to the
race.
Let me quote a great southern writer at a
press convention; " Every race debarred by
natural, social or legal restrictions from the
opportunities of progressive and unlimited
tranfusion is doomed to inevitable subjuga¬
tion. What is true of a nation is equally
true of the subdivisions into families and
generations."—W. A. Ward of Winona,
Miss.—May 24, 1888.
A state that will violate openly the 14th
and 15th Amendments of the Constitution
of the U.S.; a state that will put a premium
upon white ignorance and will not allow
black men who can read and write and who
own property to vote ; a state that lets a
man lead a mob and then make him mayor
of one of the largest cities of the state; a
state that will elect a U. S. Senator because
he has carried the election over the dead
bodies of more than one hundred Negroes,
is not likely to give a Negro justice.
11
REV. W. H. SCOTT'S ADDRESS TO
PRES. ROOSEVELT.
MR. PRESIDENT: —
When a part of the people feel the iron
hand of prejudice and oppression holding
them in its clutches away from the goal
■which God and Nature have designed for
them, then, Sir, they look to the Head of
the nation to enforce the laws of the country.
We are a body of clergymen who have
been delegated in the name of those Negroes
who felled the trees of ourforests, tunnelled
the mountains, bridged the rivers, and who,
in the dark days of our country, fought,
bled and died. We have come to ask you
to give to our boys appointments, one each,
to Annapolis and West Point. These
schools are supported by this Great Govern¬
ment and outside of them, poor Negro boys
are not able to get such an education as
these schools offer. (It would cost a boy
to go through a school of the same grade,
several thousand dollars.)
Now, Sir, in view of what our ancestors
have done and suffered, we beseech you to
help us in this hour of great need.
You may say that the Negro boy may
take a competitive examination for Annapo¬
lis and West Point, but in the South where
the Negro is in greater numbers, he is denied
the chance to compete with his white brother,
" He dares not cross the dead line."
12
Attucks, a Negro, was the first to fall on
King Street in the Boston Massacre. We
-were with Warren at Bunker Hill. Henry
Hill, a brave black man, fought at Lexing¬
ton, and also with Washington at Brandy -
wine, Monmouth, Princeton and Yorktown.
Our fathers were with Paul Jones on board
the Bon Homme Richard; James Forten
was on the deck of the Royal Louis, with
Stephen Decatur when he fought yith Capt.
Carden on board of the United States, and
aided in the capture of the Macedonia. We
were with Porter and Bainbridge on the
Enterprise when they encountered the
Tripolian Corsair. We were with them when
Porter wrote, " God, our Country and Liber¬
ty, Tyrants offend them."
We fought upon the deck with Perry,
the hero of Lake Erie. We were with Law¬
rence on board the Chesapeake when he
fell desperately wounded and said, " Don't
give up the ship."
Johnson and Davis were with Capt.
Shaler on the deck of the Gen¬
eral Tompkins when he said of those brave
negroes, " The name of one of my poor
fellows who was killed, ought to be regis¬
tered in the Book of Fame and remembered
as long as bravery is considered a viitue.
He was a black man by the name of John
Johnson. A 24-pound shot struck him in
the hip and took away all the lower part of
his body. In this state, the poor, brave
fellow lay on the deck and several times ex¬
claimed to his shipmates, " Fire away, my
boys—No haul a color down !"
The other was also a black man, by the
name of John Davis. He was struck in
13
much the same \vay. He fell near me and
several times requested to be thrown over¬
board, saying he was only in tbe way of
others.
While America has such tars, she has
little to fear from the tyrants of Europe.
We have come as their descendants and
in the name of these ancestors and
in the name of 180,000 brave men who went
at the call of one of your predecessors—
Abraham Lincoln. We come to you, the
Head of this Great Nation, to see if it be
possible to interest you in these youths.
Forty years ago, President Lincoln was
bearing the heaviest burden upon his
shoulders that any man had borne.
In that awful condition he saw the Union
armies defeated in Virginia, while Gen. Mc
Clellan wTas the commander of one of the
finest armies that was ever marshalled upon
the American Continent. On his staff were
princes and millionaires. Mr. Lincoln saw
them driven back from under the very
shadow of Richmond, defeated and routed.
Pope defeated at the second battle of Bull
Run and Antietam a drawn battle, and to
crown all these terrible disasters came the
slaughter at Fredricksburg, December 1802,
under Gen. Bumside. This was the situa¬
tion of that memorable year.
Sir, in this hour of darkness and gloom,
the immortal Lincoln called for the Negro;
and though at the beginning we were
scorned with the words, " This is a white
man's war," we came rushing almost 200,000
strong upon the field of battle, belting the
north and south together wTith our strong eb¬
ony arms and fingers like hooks of steel. We
14
were at Wagner, Port Hudson, where Plan-
ciancois said, " Colonel, I will bring these
colors in honor or report to God the reason
why!" Milliken's Bend, Fort Pillow, New
Market Heights, Olustee, the bloody crater
of Petersburg on that hot day of the 30th
of July, about which Gen. Grant said, " If
the Negro troops had led this charge it
would have been a success." We were
with Porter at New Orleans, Farragut at
Mobile Bay, Schley at Santiago and Dewey
at Manila Bay. Our boys were with you on
those hot days in June at La Quasima and
San Juan Hill, when our forces under your
own splendid leadership snatched victory
from the jaws of defeat. Now in the name
of the descendants of these brave heroes, we
ask you who are above the prejudice of
race to do something for these boys.
Pardon us for a quotation from another
predecessor of yours, President Garfield:
"Another thing we will remember; we
will remember our allies who fought with
us. Soon after the great struggle began we
looked behind the army of white rebels and
saw 4,000,000 of black people condemned
to toil as slaves for our enemies and we
found that the hearts of this same
4,000,000 were God-inspired with the
spirit of liberty and that they were our
friends. We have seen white men betray
the flag and fight to kill the Union, but in
all that long dreary war we never saw a
traitor in a black skin. Our prisoners es¬
caping from the starvation of prison, fleeing
to our lines by the light of the North star
never feared to enter the black man's cabin
and ask for bread. In all that period of
15
suffering and danger no union soldier was
ever betrayed by a black man or woman.
And now that we have made them free,
so long as we live we will stand by these
black allies. We will stand by them until
the sun of liberty fixed in the firmament of
our Constitution shall shine with equal ray
upon every man black or white throughout
the Union. Now, fellow-citizens, fellow-
soldiers, in this there is all the beneficence
of eternal justice, and by this we will stand
forever."
Sir, the names of Washington, Lincoln;
and Grant form a mighty golden chain:
Washington, the founder of his country;
Lincoln, the saviour; Grant, the preserver.
It was left for the immortal Lincoln to
strike the chains from four millions of
human souls and then he went to God with
these broken chains and fetters and threw
them down at the feet of Justice.
Sir, it is now left for you to break, after
forty years, the chain and fetters of Ameri¬
can prejudice and let these boys enter the
Government Schools where custom has
made it hard for them to enter. You will
then be the Liberator of the 20th century
and you will always be regarded as one
whom the despised rat e will ever teach their
children's children to the latest generations,
to honor and revere this act of justice.
Wishing your administration a prosperous
one and, above all, peace with all nations
and peoples and kindreds and tongues, we
shall ever pray that the God of our Fathers,
who numbers the very hairs of our heads,
will watch over you and yours and the coun¬
try, we bid you adieu.
16