Crusade Against Slavery: Edward Coles, Pioneer of Freedom

9. The Complaint

131 9 The Complaint I n August 1824 the victory seemed complete. Horatio Newhall rejoiced after the election: the conventionists were so defeated as to be almost ashamed to show themselves in public.1 Newhall was all for casting out the proconvention office holders and electing good New Englanders like Sam Lockwood. In August 1824 it all seemed possible. Edward Coles considered the convention fight the high point of his career. He cherished the affirmation. And he pointed to the success of the venture time and again with pride.2 Though he considered 1824 his finest hour, Coles was deeply disturbed by the attacks upon his character and his principles. Years after the election, he complained of the unjust treatment that was returned for the honorable, consistent, and fully transparent positions he expressed publicly during his election as governor.3 Coles’s plea was simple: he had done just as he said he would. He could not understand why the conventionists had attacked him personally. The point of the dispute was slavery and the convention; personalities should never enter into such a difference. He could not understand the new politics where debate of ideas involved attacks on their sponsors. The two, idea and sponsor, were separate in his mind. His belief in the distinction made it impossible for him to understand the concept of party loyalty that developed in the next eight years. The Jacksonian lion cub was quickly maturing to become king of political beasts; soon it would rule the prairie and much else besides. Political parties were growing muscular, and political attacks were growing ever more personal. Coles was not of this era; he belonged to an era in which PART TWO 132 honor-bound public discourse was a common ethic (a Jeffersonian ethic). This personal attack for political gain took him into territory in which he was, proudly, a foreigner. After the referendum and election of 1824,the legalization of slavery was a dead issue in Illinois. Enthusiasts kept their views hidden. Almost everyone was exhausted by the very topic. Yet, slavery clung like a leech to Coles, draining from him much of the joy he had gained from his victory. Bond in Arrears The convention issue was laid to rest in August of 1824, but conventionists had started a court proceeding against Coles at the beginning of the year, and now they stirred the embers of that trouble. The Illinois’ 181 9 black code required that the owner of any slave brought into Illinois and freed in the state was obligated to post a $1,000 bond; failure to do so would incur a penalty of $200 for each person freed. The charge asserted that Edward Coles had brought twenty slaves into the state and had neglected to post the required bond for $20,000. The defendant, at the court’s March session in 1824, had pled the statute of limitations and brought various objections to the bench. The plea held, in essence, that as the alleged offense occurred on 4 July 1819, and as the charge against Coles was recorded on 7 January 1824, the commissioners were late by six months in keeping to the three-year statute of limitations. The commissioners, acting as complainants, filed a demurer to the plea; the court took the summer to ponder these matters. In September 1824, the Madison County Circuit Court was brought to order. County of Madison v. Edward Coles was heard in the court of John Reynolds, a proslavery candidate for Congress who had lost to another proslavery man, Jesse B. Thomas, eight months earlier. Reynolds sustained the plaintiff’s demurer to the statute of limitations plea. The defendant further pled nil debit (denying, that is, that he owed either the bond or the penalty). The case began in earnest. A jury was seated, and the combatants rolled up their sleeves for the heavy lifting. James Turney, a private attorney in this case (otherwise, the state’s attorney general), was brought in as prosecutor on behalf of the county commissioners. The arrangement with Turney was intended to inspire a great performance: no win—no fee.4 The potential fee was set generously at $500. Hail Mason, a Madison County Commissioner and one of the THE COMPLAINT 133 plaintiffs (and formerly the Madison County Justice of the Peace who, in 181 9, had recorded Coles’s certificates of freedom), insisted on taking a direct hand...