Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 18.pdf/690

 THADDEUS STEVENS in the interior of the state, Stevens seldom appeared in the federal courts. It is not likely he was ever admitted to the Supreme Court of the United States; and, with all his large practice and professional activity for fort}' years, he cannot be said to have linked his name with any great case or legal principle, to have aided the develop ment of jurisprudence, or to have made material contribution to the literature of the law. In one branch of practice, happily now forever extinct, he attained unique distinc tion. It was altogether to have been expected that, in cases arising under the fugitive slave law, so conspicuous a politi cal advocate of the free-soil doctrine would find and even seek frequent and most gen erally unrequited employment in the de fense of the fugitive bondmen. It was not an uncommon thing for him, in habeas cor pus hearings, and before magistrates and commissioners asked to detain or release alleged slaves, to make most extended, brilliant, and effective speeches. These were eagerly awaited and listened to. When, too, as was frequently the case with the prominent Lancaster lawyers of his period, he and they visited the village taverns to try their lawsuits before arbitrators, he was greeted by troops of partisan ad mirers. These "halcyon and vociferous" occasions — be it noted in passing memory of the older and wiser Bar — were generally graced with the cheerful presence of that "old Madeira" for which Lancaster was famous (now, alas! lamentably scarce), and the price of several bottles was frequently added to the "docket costs." Physical encounters between opposing counsel were not unheard of, and Mr. Stevens' sometimes too looselyfitting wig, which covered an entirely hair less head, tradition has it, was at times displaced in the collision. He himself scarcely ever indulged in ardent spirits; but, though of deformed foot, he was an athlete and a lover of the chase

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In what is said to have been the first suit in Pennsylvania under the fugitive Slave Act, a Cumberland County man named Kauffman was indicted and suit was brought against him for the full value of a lot of slaves to whom his family had given food and shelter without his knowledge. The great public and political importance at tached to the principle involved made the case a celebrated one. It was tried in the Federal Court at Philadelphia, Stevens for the defense. A bitter and lengthy legal fight ensued, and, after long delay, the case went to the jury on the facts. It may be presumed the government had the better of it, but Stevens excelled in the valuable professional gift of selecting a jury with excellent judgment; and a prominent citi zen of his own county and a political sympa thizer was on the jury. He kept his fellows out for six weeks and the defendant was ac quitted. Of all the cases of this character, how ever, in which he was engaged as counsel, none was so sensational and dramatic as the trial for treason of some of the persons engaged in what has passed into history as "The Christiana Riot." On the nth of September, 1851, near the village of Chris tiana, in Lancaster County, on the border of Chester, and about ten miles above the • Maryland line, Edward Gorsuch, of Balti more County, Md., accompanied by deputies marshal and slave catchers, sought to arrest his escaped slave, who was hidden and pro tected in the house of a free colored man named William Parker. The cottage, which became the center of a fierce battle and wit nessed the first bloodshed in resistance to the fugitive slave law was located in a valley where nearly every house of its Quaker residents was a station on the fam ous "underground railroad." It was not an uncommon thing 'for the residents of the neighborhood to speed fugitives on the way which lead to the blazing North star of freedom; nor was it an unknown incident in that locality that, when the disappointed