Don't be put off by the obvious whimsy of the title, Brandt - a
former editor at American Heritage and Publishers Weekly who wrote
about an obscure Civil War incident in The Man Who Tried to Burn
New York (1986) - has mined a jewel of local history, a forgotten
antebellum cause celebre "unequaled in political chicanery,
convoluted legal maneuvering, incredible audacity, and ironic
twists": the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue. The book recounts the
events preceding and following the September 1858 seizure of John
Price, a runaway Kentucky slave, in Oberlin, Ohio, a small town
that mirrored the liberal attitudes on race and female education of
its famous college. On hearing of the kidnapping, 25 Oberlin
citizens rushed to nearby Wellington, where, joined by 12
sympathizers from that community, they prevented Price's four
abductors from transporting him by rail back to his old master. The
runaway's deliverance led to a federal indictment of the rescuers,
and inflamed Northern and Southern passions about the odious
Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. To nail down convictions in the case,
the Buchanan Administration resorted to what Brandt justifiably
calls "a series of flagrantly biased tactics," such as selecting a
Democratic prosecutor, judge, and jury (the latter including a
party to Price's kidnapping). Meanwhile, the defense attempted to
rally public opinion in the heavily Republican region and,
ironically, adopted a time-honored slaveowner practice by
questioning federal jurisdiction in this local matter. Though he
lacks a central magnetic figure, Brandt compensates with an
excellent collective portrait of a small town that prompted
national soul-searching by breaking an unjust law. Here is a
well-researched local history, written with verve and filled with
contemporary implications about the fight of individual conscience
vs. the might of the state. (Kirkus Reviews)
No community in the antebellum North better reflected the growing
passion against slavery than Oberlin, Ohio. In many ways, this
small college town represented the most advanced of Northern
attitudes toward the issue of slavery and states' rights. Home to
more than 300 anti-slave societies and a major stop on the
Underground Railroad, it had long offered refuge and opportunity to
many free blacks, who found a measure of equality there that was
rare anywhere else in the United States. In his narrative, based on
thorough primary research, Nat Brandt shows how the
Oberlin-Wellington Rescue contributed directly to the tensions that
led to the Civil War.
General
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